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John Cennick, Hymn?W Riter and E Vangelist by the REV

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John Cennick, Hymn?W Riter and E Vangelist by the REV J UNE 30, 1955) THE METHODIST RECORDER 9 John Cennick, Hymn?W riter and E vangelist By The REV. DR. FRANK BAKER A THIN young man, his pinched face flushed with fever, has been prayers. For the student from Trindty assisted from his spent horse in Fetter College, Oxford, who had issued the Lane, London, by the hands of fellow invitation, rejoined with a sneer, Moravians. His own hands a,re scarred "There is just such a stupid, religious through participation in the erection fellow at Oxford-one Kinchin, whose of a score and more of chapels in brother is of our college, and was as foolish as he, but is much otherwise northern Ireland and southern Eng­ no-w.'' land, chapels made necessary by the urgency of his devout, winsome Immedia tely Cennick set out for preaching. Oxford. His search for Charles Kin­ chin, Fellow of Corpus Christi, led him He has just come from opening the to the "Holy Cluib." He was intro­ Moravian Chapel in Booter Lane, Dub­ duc~d. not only to Whitefield, but to lin. Worn out as he is with maruual the Wesleys. la bour, with admin i-stra•tion and travel. ling, heart-broken as he is because of George Whitefield's indifference to his * * " a ttempt to re-unite Moravians and JTwas White~eld,* ho,wever, who cap-- Methodists, he ha.s nevertheless in­ tured Cenmck's heart. Whitefield sisted on threading his way over ~as g?od homespun, without the don" treacherous roads into Wales, to ms-~ air that s,tilJ clung {o John Wesley. strengthen the hands of Howell Harris. Besides, George Whitefield was a good A t last his horse's head is turned deal nearer lo him both in social status towar d London, and rest. and in age. Whitefield haunted him A longer rest, apparently, than he It was Whitefield who, a year later: had really expected, even though he a~ked Wesley to appoin1 Cennick as was carrying in his pocket a poem his first master at the K.in,gswood entitled Nunc Dimittis, and commen­ School. Wesley had taken over from cing:- Whitefield the task of erecting a school for the collliers' children, just as he had Now, Lord, in Peace with Thee and all acc~pted the challenge of continuing below. Whitefield's open-air preachir..g to the Let me depart, and to Thy Kingdom 110 ! colliers. He arrived at the old Moravian In each of these two spheres Cennick meetin,g place (preserved in the heart entered into the labours of both his of modem Newspaiperland until its leaders. For over a ye.:r Kingswood dissolution in the London " blitz") on School remained his sole responsibility Saturd,ay, June 28, 1755. In spite of though in August, 1740, he was able devoted nursin,g, he died at seven p.m. to recommend to Weslev an assistant on July 4. He was laid to rest in the who, like himself, could "write and ,.., Moravian burying ground just off cast account well, and wou~d t:e con­ King's Road, Ohelsea. tent with Food and Raymerut." At intervals of twenity years, two Like Wesley, when pondering others who belonged alike to Metho­ Whitefield's alarming call to open-air dism and Moravianism were to join preaching in Bristol, Cennick drew lots h im in the married men's plot there­ before he could be urged to brave P eter Bohler in 177 5, and James criticism as a preaching layman. The Hutton in 1795. Simple and unosten­ lot was: " To respond." That first tatious like the whole surroundings o[ ,..f'HE Albert Rall lo Peter Street, Manchester• .,here the Conference .,-m meet from July 4-15, as seen by Geoffrey S. Fletcher. The sermon under the sycamore tree in building is of Belgian reoaiss:ince SI) le carried oul in terra colta. and stan ds almost opposite the F ree T rade Hall, ne" l)•restored, and "Mor avian Close," which has been Kingswood, on June 14, 1739, wa-s the described as "the peacefudl~t spot in for more th.an forty years has maintained and continued the "Ork done in that building by the Rev. Samuel F. Col.lier " ho. for 1.. e nty• first of very many. Even after his early one years, pre,u:bed to what ,-as claimed 115 the laraest regular con&regation in the country. l o cootinuioc tlult tradition, of coun.e, the London," the flat gravestone over dea,th his s~rmons continued to com1ict Albert Hall ministers ba•e embarL.ed on their o"n characteristic ad ~entures in e,ani:elism and the Latest of these included last "inter·• Cennick's remains reads: - and convert. aeries of meetini:s, "Saturday l',i&hl •I the Al~rt." Jbis )tar extenshe "ork of renewal and redecoration has b«n carried out at the H~II. " JOHN CENNICK As Cennick matured it became more Departed July 4th 1755 obvious that in theology as well as in Aged 36 Years." temperament he belonged to Whitefield " Aged 36 Years"! At the untimely rather than to Wesley. After unhap(l)y Michael Faraday, Scientist and Christian close of his m in istry John Cen-n-ick was moruths of tension and controversy, in only a year older than John Wesley a,t February, 1741, he and his fellow­ more than twenty times his salarr at the commencement o[ his own evan­ rebels at Kingswood were expelled By Professor C. A. COULSON, the Royal Institution-and all to t-nable gelical ministry in Aldersgate Street, from Wesley's "United Society." This him to do his research! And what re­ just half a mile distant. Yet wha,t a did not curb his evangelfam. In spite M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S. searches! Before he had finished, his weal,th of Christian witness had been o,! bitter persecwlion from clergy and notebooks described the re.,,ults ol experi­ crowded into those years! B IOGRAPIDES of famous scientists are lenses of telescopes and similar instru­ mob, he orga11~sed a grouip of Wiltshire " all the rage" nowadays. And there menl5, to devise stainless steel, to under­ ment number 16,041. societies, ha,ving as his headquarters have been previous biographies of stand what happens in a battery when a iHerein lies the secret of his rncce.ss­ Kingswood, and later Tytherton, where Michael Faraday. But this one is a not current flows. Yet above all these stands a brilliant, restless inquisiti, eness that C ENNICK was* born* at* Reading on in 1742 he bought a house and land. unwelcome arrival, !or lt -,.peaks of its out his work on electricity. He made the counts anything other than its search for December 12, 1718, into a family He could not be confined to one area, hero as a man, and with as little techni­ first electric motor and, almost single­ truth as, by comparison. worthless. He of Quakers turned Anglican. 'Dhrough­ however, but spent much time in cal jar,gon as possible. Anyone who can handed, did for the nineteenth century was religious, but even that had to be out a stormy adolescence he could not London, where he was associated both read should be able to take up this little something that was to revolutionise in­ carefully regulated. For when he went escape the demands of a somewhat with Whitefield, with William Cud­ book by Professor Kendall of Edinburgh dustry and atfect even the pattern of into his laboratory he forgot his faith, severe Old Testament Jehovah. worth, and with the Moravian leaders (Michael Faraday, Faber and Faber, 12s. home life: it was he who made possible and when he entered his oratory he left H is wor k as carpenter, or land­ Zinzendorf, Bohler, Spangenberg, and 6d.) ; if he does not already know much the unbelievable experiments of our behind his science. This will not do for surveyor, shop...assistant, never reailly Hutton. Gradually the Moravians about Faraday it wili not be Jong before twentieth century. us to-day, who cannot rest satisfied with occu,pied his mind. His real labour was claimed more and more of his sym­ he begins to understand why, if the pro­ less than a whole view o( life. But at Yet that was· not his aim. He wanted any rate we can salute a great man, and the puTSuit of spiritual peace. He pathy, until in 1745 he handed over his fessional scientists of Britain were asked to know nature's ways and to enjoy them. wandered in lonely meditation on Wiltshire societies to their care. He to name the two greatest in their tradi­ be glad tor the breezy in formal account So Professor Kendall shows him jumping which this book provides. Salisbury plain. For a time he thoug'ht himself became an official member and tion, they would all place Newton top o( Cor sheer joy when an experiment goes of entering a monastery. He impover­ minister of their communion during or the list, and a very large number would nicely-thrilled to bits when someone ished himseli with almsgiving. He after a visit to Germany in the spring ,place Faraday next. el5e beats him to a result and writing starved his body, restrictin,g himself to of 1746. Indeed, he was a remarkable man. He in his daily record about one of his ex­ dry bread and potatoes, even to acorns It was therefore as a Moravian was either the first or among the first to periments, "capital." When he built his Briefly.
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