Good Algernon Wells died in 1851, and soon afterwards I was requested by a sub-committee to meet them in conference on an important matter. It was to propose my election as Mr. Wells’ successor. Now, secretaryships have always been my aversion—from an instinct, I suppose, such as guides inferior animals to shun what they were never made for. The secretaryship of the City Mission had been pressed upon me soon after my arrival in London, but I steadily refused it, from a conviction of utter incompetence; and, for the same reason, I declined to entertain the proposal just mentioned. He who proposed the office for me accepted it for himself, and we worked together pleasantly through several years. I was elected chairman of the Union in May 1856, amidst much excitement. There have been strains on its strength more than once, but this first was the greatest.
Dr. Campbell had been for some time a prominent member. Hard-headed and hard-handed, of a bold, open countenance, and with a habit of planting his foot pretty firmly on the ground,—the outer man well indicated the inner; kind-hearted and affectionate at home, but not the same on a platform, or with an editorial pen in hand. He then gave no quarter to anybody who opposed him. “You are a good fellow,” it was once said to him by a loving spirit; “but I don’t like that great club you carry.” That great club he swung about, much to the terror of many, and consequently he exercised a despotic sway, to which they were indisposed to submit. He held the doctrines of Calvinistic theology with a firm grasp, and looked with alarm upon certain opinions springing up amongst his brethren. He considered that there was looseness of sentiment, and a range of thought too free, existing amongst younger men, which imperilled the evangelical soundness of the Churches. He gave it the name of _Negative Theology_. The name took, and was bandied about to the annoyance of persons to whom it was applied, many of them holding positive truths as firmly as Dr. Campbell himself. It happened that in 1856 Mr. Lynch, a man of genius and sensibility, with a mind cast in a mould the opposite of Dr. Campbell’s, published a small volume of poetry entitled “The Rivulet.” Some of the hymns it contained excited admiration, and are now extensively used; but the book, as a whole, aroused Dr. Campbell’s wrath beyond measure. He wrote a criticism upon it, which awakened indignation in those who had read “The Rivulet” with approval. Fifteen brethren drew up and signed a protest against this style of review.