No biography of William Taylor appears ever to have been written and the various entries in Biographical Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias concerning him are all brief. In his published works there are a considerable number of personal references and it is to these, more than to anything else, that I am indebted for the details of his life and ministry which appear here. But one could have wished for a great deal more information, and in view of the eminence of our subject that lack is to be regretted. I trust, however, that what I have been able to gather together will serve to stimulate an interest in a man who as a Pastor, Preacher and Author was justly esteemed by his contemporaries and who deserves to be far more widely known than he is at present.

Home and Student Life: 1829-1852⤒🔗

William Mackergo Taylor was born on 23 October 1829 in the Scottish town of Kilmarnock. Nearby is the village of Fenwick — scene of the ministry of William Guthrie — and in its churchyard is a monument to one of Taylor's ancestors, Captain John Paton of the farm of Meadowhead near Fenwick. A Covenanting soldier, who fought valiantly at Drumclog and Bothwell, Paton was taken prisoner in 1684 and after being tried and condemned as a rebel, was executed in the Edinburgh Grassmarket.

William's grandfather, John Taylor, seems to have been in farming too, and an interesting story about him, which Taylor often heard from his father, is recounted in a sermon on the Good Samaritan:

It was more than a hundred years ago, when wheeled conveyances were rarely used in the rural districts of Scotland, and the custom was to convey grain to the mill in a sack laid over a horse's back. The good man was making such a journey once, over a rough bridle path and the horse stumbled so that the sack fell off. The weight of years was on his shoulders and he could not replace the load. As he was perplexed, and wondering what to do, he saw a man on horseback in the distance, and had just made up his mind to ask him for assistance, when he recognised in him the nobleman who lived in an adjoining castle; and then his heart sank again within him, for how could he request him to help him? But he did not need to ask him for he was noble by a higher patent than any monarch could confer; and when he came up, he dismounted of his own accord, saying, "Let me help you, John". So between them they put the load again upon the horse, and then John — who was a gentleman too, though he did wear "hodden gray" — taking off his broad Kilmarnock bonnet, made obeisance and said, "Please your lordship, how shall I ever thank you for your kindness?" "Very easily, John" was the reply; "Whenever you see another man as sorely needing assistance as you were just now, help him; and that will be thanking me".

William's father, Peter Taylor, was a shopkeeper and the boy 'grew up', we are told 'in a home where Scotch sagacity, piety and zest for theological discussion prevailed'. His father was a fine Christian for whom he had the deepest respect and affection and in a reminiscence in his volume The Scottish Pulpit Taylor gives us an insight into the character of the man:

I can remember how, in the home of my boyhood, it was my father's regular custom, on the morning of the first day of the week, to spend the time between family worship and the hour of public service in perusing a commentary on the passage which was to form the subject of exposition in the sanctuary, in order that he might be the better fitted to follow and appreciate the discourse which he expected from his pastor.

A word or two now about the Church and congregation to which the family belonged. Back in 1747 after fourteen years of harmony and growth the Scottish Secession church experienced a painful split. In the oath imposed on Burgesses in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth there was a religious clause in which the one taking the oath swore that 'the true religion presently professed within the realm, and authorised by the laws thereof' was the religion he himself professed. The controversy arose over what a profession of the 'True religion presently professed within the realm' actually meant. Did it mean a profession of the true religion itself as set forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith? Or was it tantamount, as Adam Gib maintained, to a profession of satisfaction with the present state of true religion within the Established Church? If the former, then the Seceder was perfectly free in conscience to take the Burgess Oath. If the latter, no conscientious Seceder, having separated from the Established Church on account of its corruptions could take such an oath. The contention between the parties was so sharp that in 1747 they separated, the one being known as the Burghers and the other as the Anti-burghers. They remained separate until the year 1820 at which time sections of the two Synods came together again to form the United Secession Church. And it was to one of the congregations of the United Secession Church — Princes Street in Kilmarnock — that the Taylor family belonged.

The origins of the congregation itself take us back to another controversy which at the time shook the whole denomination to which it belonged.

On 29 September 1840 the Rev. James Morison was ordained and inducted to the Clerk's Lane congregation in the town. Dating back to about 1772 Clerk's Lane had been an Anti-burgher congregation before the union of 1820. Right from the beginning of Morison's ministry there were problems over his doctrinal views. The controversy centred on his teaching of a Universal Atonement and at a meeting of Synod in 1841 he was deposed from the ministry of the United Secession Church. It was a case that had wide repercussions. It led for one thing to the formation in 1843 of the Evangelical Union, a group of churches more popularly known as the Morisonians. And it also marked the beginning of the Atonement Controversy within the United Secession Church, a controversy which was to last from 1841 to 1845, and which led to charges being brought against Morison's old professors, John Brown and Robert Balmer.

The Morison case also produced a split in the Clerk's Lane congregation. A majority of the congregation sided with Morison and succeeded in retaining the property, whilst a minority — numbering about a hundred — after meeting for a while in the George Inn took possession of a new church in Princes Street, Kilmarnock in 1842. It was to this new congregation that the Taylor family belonged and it may well be that they were amongst the minority who left Clerk's Lane to form it.

After attending Kilmarnock Academy, William Taylor became a student at Glasgow University. It was his first time away from home and in later years he recalled how his father had prayed with him before he left:

I recall with peculiar vividness at this moment the last evening at my father's fireside before I set out for college life. I had never been away from home for any length of time before; a great city like Glasgow was, to a boy brought up in a provincial town, full of perils; and so a strange commingling of joy and trepidation was in my heart. After family worship my father took me with him into his own place for secret prayer; and as we knelt together, he put his hand upon my shoulder, and poured out his heart for me before his God. I think I feel that hand upon my shoulder now; and looking back through the years of the past, I can remember many times when the memory of that prayer was a solace, a stimulus, a support. It has been better to me than would have been the legacy of a millionaire.

The Glasgow of Taylor's student days had in its pulpits some of the ablest men of their time and in his volume The Scottish Pulpit he gives us brief but vivid sketches of a number of them. The Congregationalist, Ralph Wardlaw, for example, had been in Glasgow since 1803 and though he was now in the last decade of his life, and much of the vigour of his earlier years had gone 'there was still', says Taylor, 'the calm dignity, the clear style, the logical cogency, the judicial candour, and the acute analytical power for which all through life he was remarkably. He had never much of the impassioned, and rarely became animated or intense, but his reading was exquisitely beautiful, and it was a delight to hear him preach'.

Another eminent preacher was Dr William Symington, minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church and author of the volume Messiah the Prince.

He was a man, says Taylor, of magnificent presence, fine culture, exquisite taste, great strength of mind and admirable common-sense. While faithfully attending to his pastoral work, he was a diligent student, and his sermons were all carefully prepared. Clear in his style, logical in his arrangement, elegant and impressive in his delivery, he drew around him men of intelligence and weight of character, and he had an influence far beyond the limits of the small denomination of which he was an ornament.

A third minister of note was Dr William Anderson of the Relief Church who was initially refused ordination by his Presbytery because he had quoted Shakespeare in the pulpit 'and above all, and worse than all, because he read his sermons'! Speaking of the two volumes of his sermons that had been published, Taylor says: 'There is not a discourse in either volume which is not in some way remarkable; but his ablest production I consider it, indeed, the greatest book on the subject in our language — is his treatise on Regeneration. It has been published in this country and is very dear to me because of the comfort and guidance which it brought me gat, a critical time in my own history. Possibly I am for that reason prone to exaggerate its merits, but I very earnestly commend it to your studious perusal'.

And that is in fact the only reference that I have been able to discover to the early work of God in his life.

The Glasgow preacher with whom Taylor was most familiar was John Eadie, author of the Greek Text Commentaries on Paul's Epistles. 'It was my privilege', says Taylor, 'to be a member of his congregation during my student life in Glasgow, to attend his classes in the theological seminary, and in later days to know him as a friend and counsellor'. One of Taylor's earliest works, The Miracles: Helps to Faith, not Hindrances, published whilst he was a minister in Liverpool, is dedicated to Dr Eadie 'as a tribute of affection, gratitude and admiration'. Speaking of Eadie's preaching he says:

 There was nothing of the showy or sensational about him. The first time you heard him you were struck with the clear, fresh, striking explanation which he gave of some passage which had heretofore been obscure to you, but you were not at all attracted by his elocution. You went again, however, and this time you saw less that was objectionable and heard more that was satisfying, and so it went on, week by week, until you could not persuade yourself to go elsewhere. I never heard him without having something added to my stock of knowledge, or some difficulty removed out of my mind, or some new interest given to some particular portion of the Word of God.

In 1847 the union took place of the United Secession Church and another seceding church called the Relief Church. The Relief Church had had its origin in 1752 when Thomas Gillespie, minister of Carnock, was deposed for refusing to obey the order of the General Assembly commanding him to take part in the settlement over the parish of Inverkeithing of a minister who was 'obnoxious to the people'. The united body — under the name of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland — now numbered over five hundred congregations.

In September 1848 William Taylor began to train for the ministry of the United Presbyterian Church at its Divinity Hall in Edinburgh. At the time — and the system continued until 1876 — there was an annual session of eight weeks. Divinity students attended five of these annual sessions while 'during the other ten months of these years' — and here I quote again from The Scottish Pulpit, 'they were under the care of their respective presbyteries, before which they had to perform specified exercises, undergo prescribed examinations, and preach a certain number of discourses. This plan was suited to the circumstances of the students ... and enabled them to support themselves by teaching or otherwise in the intervals between the sessions'.

Taylor himself spent some time teaching between the annual sessions and in his volume The Ministry of the Word tells us that he also spent a year in the editorial chair of a newspaper.

I question if any of my college classes was more valuable to me, so far as my after life-work has been concerned, than the experience of dealing with men which I then obtained. If anyone wants to know human nature all round, within and without, and through and through, let him be for a time the editor of a newspaper.

Reference has already been made to one of Taylor's Professors, Dr Eadie of Glasgow. Another, the Professor of Systematic and Pastoral Theology, was Dr James Harper of Leith, a man who is little known today but whose biography by Andrew Thomson is deeply interesting. The biography contains a tribute to him by Taylor, who is himself described by Dr Thomson as 'one of the ablest and most distinguished of those many hundred ministers' who enjoyed Dr Harper's instructions. Speaking of his criticisms of students' sermons Taylor writes:

He insisted, we remember, on naturalness and unity in method, on simplicity in style and freedom in manner. But most of all, he was emphatic on the necessity of the presence of positive evangelical truth. The severest things he ever said, were said to those whose sermons had no gospel in them. He was utterly impatient of mere essays, and he cared little for intellect, or illustration, or originality, if these were not made to give the gospel prominence. He seemed always to keep the Cross in sight, and he would not let his students wander from it. And today, when so many have been enticed away from the simplicity which is in Christ Jesus, we know that many of those who sat at his feet, thank God for this pre-eminence which he taught them to give to the Cross.

The best known of Taylor's Professors was Dr John Brown of Edinburgh whom he refers to in one of his sermons as 'my revered tutor'. An interesting sketch of him as a Preacher, Professor and Author is to be found in The Scottish Pulpit 'remembering my own obligations to him, it is with peculiar veneration and affectionate gratitude that I have dwelt ... upon his work'.

Before passing from this subject, reference must be made to one whom Taylor tells us was like an extra professor to him while he was a divinity student, Dr William Lindsay Alexander, a Congregational minister in Edinburgh. During the annual sessions Taylor was regularly to be found in his morning congregation and not infrequently the great majority of his fellow students were present as well. And little wonder. 'In the brilliant galaxy of preachers who made Edinburgh famous during the fifth and sixth decades of the nineteenth century, he had a place distinctively his own, and they who heard his discourses wondered no less at their excellence than at the number and ability of his published works'.

In the volume of lectures to divinity students entitled The Ministry of the Word, Taylor draws on some of his experiences as a student in the giving and enforcing of three specific counsels and we may fitly conclude this section with a brief reference to each.

First of all, and this takes us back to his days as a student in Glasgow, Taylor recommends to his students the study of the works of William Shakespeare. One of the prerequisites to success in the pulpit, he says, 'is a good knowledge of the human heart' and the works of Shakespeare are of singular usefulness in this respect.

I at least must acknowledge my obligation to them in the most emphatic manner. They came into my hands during my second session at the University of Glasgow, and opened up what was virtually a new world to me. For more than two years I devoted to them every minute of my leisure time. I read them not for the sake of the stories which they told, or the plots which they unravelled, but for the insight which they gave me into the workings of the human heart.

He admits, however, that it is not without a measure of trepidation that he mentions this and then goes on to explain why:

I have still vividly before my mind the consternation of my father, a worthy elder in the Presbyterian Church, when he discovered the nature of my studies at that time. Sitting up one evening until far past midnight at my favourite pursuits, I happened to burst into a long, loud laugh over a ludicrous passage which I was reading, and to make some noise by the movement of my chair. This disturbed my venerable parent in his slumbers, for my room was immediately over his, and in a few minutes I was confronted with the vision of a man in white, who, on finding out how I was engaged, very gravely said to me, "My man, if you are going to preach Christ's gospel, you had better be doing something else at this time in the morning than reading a play-actor's books".

Reassured, however, by the great admiration of Dr Guthrie and Dr Chalmers for Shakespeare, Taylor lets his counsel stand and urges his stu­dents 'to make a study of these noble productions'.

A second counsel to students training for the ministry is to work as hard as they can whilst at College: 'Let this be your gathering time. Lay everything in this institution under tribute. Get the most you possibly can out of every class. Master every subject that is brought before you'. The advice is then enforced with a very touching personal reference:

Continually do I find myself in my work drawing upon the savings, if I may so express it, which I accumulated in my student-life, and few regrets have been so bitter — alas! that they are so unavailing — as those which I feel, when I reflect, that if I had only been wiser in my generation then, I might have been much more useful and efficient now. Therefore, though I presume not to enter into the details of your studies, let me, from my own experience, impress upon you the importance of present devotion to your work here.

The third counsel concerns the supremely important work of studying the Bible itself. After giving various directions he says:

When I was a student of theology, a cursory remark dropped by one of my beloved tutors, to the effect that "we read far too much about the Bible, and far too little in the Bible", was for me a word in season. It set me to such study of the Scriptures as I am now enforcing upon you, and if God has given me any measure of usefulness in my ministry, not a little of it has been due to my determination to become "well instructed in the oracles of God". Other attainments were beyond my reach. I had not the means of pursuing studies in many depart­ments which were open to my more fortunate contemporaries; but this was at my hand, and so I gave myself to it, and for years I have been in the habit of gauging my mental growth by the clearer apprehension which I have gained of some portion of the than I had at the time when it was last under my consideration.

Ministry in Kilmaurs: 1853-1855←⤒🔗

In October 1852 Taylor finished his fifth and last session at the Divinity Hall and on the 22 February 1853 he received a call to the United Presby­terian congregation in Kilmaurs, a village two miles from his home town of Kilmarnock. This was not the only call that he received. The South congregation in Sanquhar also expressed the desire to have him as their minister but the call to Kilmaurs was the one that was accepted. In giving the preference to Kilmaurs Taylor assigned as a reason 'the want of a liberal spirit at Sanquhar — the stipend promised being only £110, to which were added a manse and garden, with glebe, and travelling as well as sacramental expenses'. He clearly felt the congregation could do better and it is interest­ing to notice that after the refusal of a call by another minister the stipend was raised to £130. Lest there should be misunderstanding, however, it is important to note that in accepting a call to Kilmaurs Taylor accepted a stipend smaller than he would have received in Sanquhar and that there were additional reasons for preferring that congregation, namely, the length of time it had been without a minister, and the fact that others before him had refused a call.

The Kilmaurs congregation dates back to 1739 when the bulk of parishioners seceded from the Established Church on account of the resolute determination of the General Assembly to place over them a minister whom they did not wish to have. The first minister of the Secession congregation, David Smyton, was ordained and inducted on 13 November 1740 and went on to exercise a ministry in Kilmaurs of over forty years. The congregation adhered to the Anti-burgher Synod after 1747.

A curious controversy called the 'Lifter Controversy' was begun by Mr. Smyton in the latter years of his life. One will find a brief account of it in one of Taylor's sermons in his volume 'Paul the Missionary'. The old practice of 'lifting' the communion elements before the prayer of thanksgiving had been abandoned by some of the Anti-burgher ministers; no less a figure than the doughty Adam Gib taking the lead. Mr. Smyton, however, on the basis of the fact that Jesus 'took bread' before he blessed it insisted that the 'lifting up' of the elements before the prayer was essential to the proper observance of the Supper and that the Synod ought to enforce it. This the Synod wisely refused to do, leaving it as a matter of liberty to the minister concerned, whereupon Mr. Smyton severed his connection with the denomination. The result was a division in the congregation itself, an expensive lawsuit about the property, the building of a new church by those who refused to follow Mr. Smyton, and the creation of a new denomination — the 'Lifter' denomination, which (as one might expect) remained very small.

William Taylor was ordained and inducted to the Kilmaurs congregation on 28 June 1853. He was twenty-three years old and was to remain there for just over two years.

From the beginning he sought to act on some very useful advice that was given to him shortly before by an old elder:

Keep yourself entirely for your pulpit work until that becomes manageable, then add something else, and when that has begun to sit lightly on you, a third enterprise may be taken in hand; and so you will go on increasing your influence; but if you begin all these things at once, you will inevitably break down and will have to throw some of them up, thereby giving an aspect of failure to your work from which it will never recover.

It was advice from which he received enormous benefit. Writing in 1876 he could say: 'I tried to follow that wise counsel, and to that, by the blessing of God upon me, I trace the fact that in a ministry of now nearly three and twenty years' duration, I have been incapacitated for public work by illness only for the half of one Sabbath'.

From the outset of his ministry Taylor wrote out his sermons in full. It was a practice about which he felt very strongly and in the fifth of his lectures to divinity students in the volume The Ministry of the Word he advocates it at length.

Taking as his starting point the need for precision of language if our sermons are to be effective he asks the question, how is that to be secured? And his answer is that in his judgment it is only to be secured by the careful writing of every discourse. 'We are to speak to men about the most momentous matters that can occupy their attention, and a word thoughtlessly uttered may carry in it consequences of which at the moment we little dreamed'. Every possible precaution should be taken then 'to secure that our public utterances shall be neither hasty, nor unadvised, nor of such a sort as shall bring reproach on the gospel whose ministers we are'. And what is the surest means of guarding against this danger? 'The use of the pen'.

Sermons should be written out with care for another reason. Recognising the danger that extempore preachers face 'of enriching the earlier parts of their sermon at the expense of the latter' — in other words of putting too much into the first part of a sermon and not leaving sufficient time for the latter part — Taylor finds a safeguard against this in the carefully written sermon. 'We are able to secure thereby', he says, 'that each portion of the discourse shall receive its due measure of attention'. 'It is therefore', he concludes, 'with the strongest conviction that I am giving you the best possible advice, that I say to you, write your sermons'.

His volume The Ministry of the Word contains one further reminiscence of his days in Kilmaurs. It concerns the work of visitation in the congregation.

I was first settled over a church of about one hundred and eighty members, many of whom resided in the village in which the place of worship was situated, but a considerable number of whom were farmers, scattered over an area of about six miles in length, by about two in breadth. I made my visits systematically week by week, taking the parish in manageable districts. At first I was accompanied on each occasion by an elder. It was expected that I should ask a few questions of the children, assemble the members of the household, give a formal address, and then conclude with prayer. The presence of the 'lay brother' was a great embarrassment. I supposed that because he was with me I should have a prayer in every instance perfectly distinct from any which I had formerly offered. I had not then heard of the shrewd advice by which a minister in one of the largest cities in Scotland had got rid of his encumbering companion. He endured the affliction patiently for one day, but on the following week, when it came to the time that prayer should be offered in the first house visited, he turned to his friend and said, "Mr.___, will you pray?" and when he had repeated that request in two or three households, Mr.___ discovered that he had an engagement in the city and disappeared. In those early days, however, I was too unsophisticated to think of doing anything like that, so I went on from house to house, making a new address in each, until, when it was towards evening, and I had walked perhaps five or six miles, and made ten or twelve addresses, I was more dead than alive. You cannot wonder, that in these circumstances, pastoral visitation became the bête noir of my life, and I positively hated it. Thus prosecuted, it was simply and only drudgery, and so far as I know, was not productive of any good result.

Ministry in Liverpool: 1855-1872←⤒🔗

Early in 1855 a United Presbyterian congregation was formed in Bootle, Liverpool and in the July of that year William Taylor preached there for the first time. The progress of events after that was rapid. On 9 August he received a call to Bootle and the call being accepted the pastoral tie between himself and the Kilmaurs congregation was severed on 4 September. The induction service itself took place on 23 October and since at the time there was no church building the service was held in the Baptist Chapel. And so, just two years and four months after his induction to Kilmaurs, and only a few days short of his twenty-sixth birthday Taylor began his second ministry; a ministry that was to last until the beginning of 1872.

The congregation belonged to the United Presbyterian Presbytery of Lancashire, which in those days extended far beyond the boundaries of that county. It had congregations as far north as Kendal, as far east as Bradford, and as far south as Birmingham, and for a time, Bristol. The new church in Bootle began with twenty-five members and had increased to forty by the time of Taylor's settlement over it. The majority had belonged to the Mount Pleasant congregation whose minister was William Graham, a close friend of Taylor to whom reference will be made later on. Mount Pleasant was a strong and flourishing congregation and Derby Road, Bootle, was one of several congregations to be formed from it.

The sixteen years of Taylor's Liverpool ministry were very fruitful years. One of the Biographical Dictionary entries notes that 'Bootle, situated at the mouth of the Mersey, was the loading place of ships, and Taylor's parishioners were chiefly from the families of those that the activities of a sea­port had called thither. For sixteen years he laboured among them, building up a substantial church, and gaining in Liverpool and beyond a reputation as a preacher and public speaker of unusual powers'.

The secret of this success, as he later told the Yale Divinity students, was very simple: it was the preaching of the Cross:

Just as I was entering on my ministry at Liverpool, I fell in with a copy of Spenser's Pastoral Sketches with an Introductory Essay on the Preaching of the Gospel, by the late Mr. (John Angell) James of Birmingham. I was in a mood to be impressed, and a severe domestic affliction through which I was then passing made me more susceptible than even the beginning of a new pastorate would of itself have rendered me. So I was profoundly moved by Mr. James' arguments and appeals. I have since read them, again and again, and have seen little remarkable about them; but, as perused then, they led me to set my whole ministry to the key of the Cross. I tried simply, faithfully, and affectionately to tell "the old, old story of Jesus and his love". Very soon inquirers came to talk with me. I was cheered and encouraged by receiving new converts at every communion. This kept me from ever yielding to the temptation to turn aside from the great central themes, and my success, such as it was, in that sphere, was owing, I am thoroughly persuaded, to the fact that I tried always to keep the Cross in sight, and sought always to hide myself behind my Lord.

During the course of his Liverpool ministry a number of significant changes were made in the area of preaching and visitation work.

To begin with the work of visiting the congregation, we saw that in his own judgment his visitation work in Kilmaurs had been a failure.

When I removed to Liverpool I began in a different way. I made no public announce­ment of my purpose to visit in any street or locality, but kept steadily before me a certain systematic plan, by which I was enabled to get round all the families under my care in a reasonable time. I gave up all formal addressing, and went into each home as a friend and brother in the Lord; and then when I had regained my liberty, my joy returned. I made it my business to find out the experiences through which the household had passed since I had been last in it. As opportunity offered, not obtrusively and professionally, but naturally and incidentally, I dropped a word for the Master, and at the close of the visit I attempted to gather up into a brief prayer those supplications which I judged to be most appropriate to the circumstances which our conversation had revealed.

Thus I went on for several years, when I discovered that although I was earnestly doing everything I could, I was yet, somehow, failing to satisfy either my own conscience or my people's expectations in the matter of visiting. I was continually asking myself whether I could not do more; and each person who did not see me in his house during the week, imagined that as I had not been to visit him, I had not been to see anybody else. So, on looking all round the situation, I determined, while preserving the informal character of the visitation, to make public announcement on the Sabbath of the day and the district which I meant to take.

The advantages of this plan were numerous. It kept me up to the mark, for having once made the engagement no light thing was permitted to interfere with its being carried out. Formerly, if a friend happened to call on me on the day and at the hour on which in my own mind I had fixed for visitation, I was tempted to say, "Well, the visiting can stand over"; and I remained with him, leaving arrears of work to accumulate often to a very serious extent. But now the programme was carried out, no matter who should come in at the moment, or what might be the state of the weather. Again, it enabled me to keep the specified day free from all other pastoral engagements. If a wedding came to be arranged for, the hour was fixed, so as not to interfere with the purpose already publicly made known; if a funeral was to be conducted, the time was appointed so as to leave this other work untouched. Thus the intimation of my intention to spend a certain day in visiting in a certain locality, cleared the way for its being carried out. It was an express train, for which all the minor accommodation trains had to give place; and so it happened that at the year's end it reached its destination, having lost no time on the road, and all the passengers were satisfied.

Moreover, the public announcement had this incidental advantage, of which at first I had not thought, namely, that it stopped at once all grumbling on the part of the unvisited. They saw that I was steadily work­ing week by week somewhere; it became a matter of interest to them to watch my progress, and they looked with a certain strange eagerness for the day when I should name the street in which they resided. I do not know that in the long run I actually did more pastoral work than I was doing before, but I accomplished it with more ease to myself, and with far more satisfaction to my people.

Significant changes were also made in the area of preaching. Shortly after his arrival in Liverpool, Thomas Guthrie's Gospel in Ezekiel was published and this was followed a few months later by Beecher's Life Thoughts. They proved to be very influential in his preaching. 'When I commenced my ministry', he said, 'it was a rare thing with me to use an illustration. My style then was particularly argumentative, and my aim was to convince and satisfy the understanding, and then to make an appeal warmly to the heart'. These two books, however, opened his eyes to see what was lying all around him.

Under the inspiration which they communicated to me, I began to look for spiritual analogies in everything. The books I read; the places I visited; the incidents that passed under my observation; the discoveries of science with which I became acquainted — all were scanned by me for the purpose of find­ing in them, if possible, something that might be used in pulpit illustration. And so it came that when I sat down to my desk, appropriate analogies would rise to my pen, and the difficulty was not how to get illustrations, but which to choose out of the many that offered themselves for my purpose.Ministry of the Word

It was his conviction, based on his experience, that there is no faculty which is more susceptible of development by culture than that of discovering analogies. And certainly on reading his works, there can be no question as to his skill and power as an illustrator. Let me give one superb example from the volume, David, King of Israel. Speaking of Solomon he says this:

The pre-eminence attained by Solomon in all the branches of education is, to my mind, an evidence of the advanced condition of the nation generally in this department; since, unless a good foundation of elementary knowledge had been imparted to the youth of the land as a whole, it is hardly possible to account for the appearance of such a man as Solomon in that age. No doubt he was endowed with preternatural wisdom. But this, as is usual in the economy of Providence, would be engrafted upon a high degree of ordinary culture; and the question forces itself upon the historical student, Who were his tutors, and who taught them? You do not find the loftiest mountains rising isolatedly from the centre of some great plain. The highest summits are never solitary peaks. They belong usually to some great chain, and are merely the loftiest elevations in a country, the general character of which is mountainous; and in the same way the greatest scholars appear, not among an ignorant people, but among those who have a high average of education, and in countries where a good substratum of instruction is enjoyed even by the common average of the community. The historian, Froude, has put this thought admirably when he says, "No great general ever arose out of a nation of cowards; no great statesman or philosopher out of a nation of fools; no great artist out of a nation of materialists; no great dramatist, except when the drama was the passion of the people. Greatness is never more than the highest degree of an excellence which prevails widely round it, and forms the environment in which it grows". Now, if these views be correct, the rise of Solomon, who was so conspicuous for his intellectual culture and scientific attainments, may be regarded as a proof that in the reign of David, and more particularly, perhaps, in the zenith of his administration, education was extensively diffused, and earnestly fostered by him among the tribes.

Another change made in his preaching during the Liverpool years was in the manner of his delivery. For the first ten years of his ministry it was his practice to write out his sermon in full, commit it to memory, and then deliver it as written. He found, however, that the more carefully he had prepared a sermon, the more difficult it was to commit it to memory; 'and as it was just then', he says, 'that I wished to give it with verbal accuracy, I was led to put the manuscript before me, and use it as occasion required. After I had done that a few times, I discovered that I had lost my facility for remembering, and so, ever since, having no aptitude whatever for extempore speech, I have endeavoured to train myself to use a manuscript with effect'.

It was his conviction that preaching from a manuscript is the method in which, if he choose to train himself in it, the man of average ability will make, on the whole, the best of his talents, and make the fewest failures. 'It will help you to rise; it will give energy to your movement; it will give calmness to your soul even in your most impassioned moments, and before you have gone on many minutes, your hearers will forget alike the manuscript and yourself in their solemn appreciation of the truth you speak'.

William Taylor was a keen writer: 'the pen has been almost constantly in my hand since I was thirteen years of age'. His first appearance in print was a review which was written when he was nineteen and published in the quarterly Journal of Sacred Literature, and from there he went on until his published works numbered over forty. Several of these date back to his Liverpool ministry. In 1862, for example, a volume of discourses on Christian doctrine and duty entitled Life Truths was published and was very well received. One reviewer wrote: 'These discourses are distinguished by qualities that would do credit to the head and heart, the literary culture and pastoral experience of any of our living divines'. Another, in the United Presbyterian Magazine, said: 'It is long since we read a volume of sermons of equal promise, by a minister of the same standing in any denomination'.

Another important work — the one inscribed to Dr Eadie — saw the light in 1865. Its title is The Miracles: Helps to Faith, not Hindrances. It is an apologetic work, 'written specially for the benefit of young men, whose minds are awaking to thought on the great theological subjects of the day' and it is in fact the first of three works on the Miracles which Taylor published.

Taylor's years in Liverpool were darkened by the death of two of his children who died within a few days of each other in 1866 or '67. It was an event which, as we might expect, had a profound influence upon his ministry. Preaching on 'The Interpreting Influence of Time', a sermon published in 1893, he could say:

There are few of us past middle age who cannot attest the truth of my declaration when I say that in the "afterward" of our trials we have had their interpretation. I think at this moment of a specially heavy affliction, through which now seven and twenty years ago God made me to pass, when in the short space of ten days he took two of my children from my arms; and as I look back upon it now, I am at no loss to understand it, for it put sympathy into my heart, and pathos into my speech, so that I might be the better able to succour and to sympathise with all who might be similarly afflicted. I knew not then, I dreamed not then, of the work that was in store for me here so far away from my native land; but often since has God given me to see that through that dark discipline of trial he was fitting me for this ministry and service.

Years before this sermon had been published he had said to the students at Yale: 'it is through manifold experience of sorrow and pain that Christ fits his ministers for their highest service. He writes their best sermons for them on their own hearts with the sharp "stylus" of trial, and they are then most eloquent and effective when they read these off to their hearers. Those whom he calls to his ministry, he takes with him into Gethsemane, and such as he would make the most eminent he takes farthest in'. It was an observation based on what he had discovered in the biographies of the most eminent preachers and doubtless too on what he had seen in the lives of ministers who were his contemporaries. But it was no less true of himself. God made him a minister of extensive influence and in sorrows such as this one, we find one of his principal means.

If the Liverpool years were darkened by the sorrow of bereavement they were also brightened by his friendship with William Graham and to that we must give some attention now as we draw our reflections on his ministry in Liverpool to a close.

A Scotsman from Paisley, William Graham had been ordained to the ministry of Mount Pleasant Church in Liverpool in March 1846. He and Taylor had met once or twice during Taylor's ministry in Kilmaurs but it was when Taylor first preached in Bootle, in July 1855, that the friendship between the two men blossomed:

I spent then two weeks in his immediate neighbourhood and we had long walks and talks together. Then we were only two — their previous meetings had always been in the company of others — 'and our fellowship was delightful. It was "close communion" in the best sense of that phrase. Our converse was of personal experience, of our work in the ministry, of our difficulties and of our joys. We spoke of texts and sermons, and hammered out together "plans" of discourses. We compared notes on our recent reading, on our favourite poets, our most helpful books, and our common friends.

In October of 1855 Taylor was settled, as we have seen, over the new congregation of Bootle, 'and from that time on', he says, 'till my departure for New York, we wrought side by side, sharing each other's deepest and most sacred experiences. No cloud ever dimmed the brightness of our friendship. We differed often, and on such occasions each argued stoutly for his own opinion, but we loved the same all through; and in the end, perhaps, though neither might acknowledge it at the time, the views of both were modified in some degree. I know not if I was ever of much service to him, for he al­ways seemed to me so richly furnished that, in conference, I could add nothing to him. But I do know that he was of immense service to me'.

For years Graham was a weekly visitor. Our usual course on such occasions was to have a quiet tête-á-tête in the study, which however our talk began, or through whatever course it might ramble, came at last to some reference to his malady' — Graham suffered a great deal from depression — 'whereupon I would start up and say, "Now that won't do! no more of that; come and let us take a stroll". Then we would sally forth for a long walk along the Bootle sands, in the teeth of the keen sea-breeze, and back again inland by the lanes in Litherland, or sometimes up through Orrell as far as Aintree, and round by Walton. All this while, as much to keep him from thinking of himself as for my own information, I was continually posing him with question after question, in response to which he poured forth his rich stores of information; or I would beguile him into an argument, in which his keen subtlety, sharp in its edge and swift in its stroke as a Damascus blade in the hand of Saladin, would come out; or I would set him on a description of the speech of some great orator whom he had recently been hearing, or on the criticism of some author whom we had both been reading. After a couple of hours of such physical and mental exercise we returned, with all the mists removed and in high spirits, to a joyous tea. Thence he rose and returned to Erskine Street, and after giving him a "Scotch convoy" up Stanley Road, I came back to my study, not mourning over lost time, but rejoicing in the stimulus which I had received, and which always made my work better than it would otherwise have been.

Graham was also a source of strength to him in his times of sorrow. 'You could not know Graham thoroughly', he says, 'until you were in trial, and he had knelt with you in prayer at the mercy seat. More than once or twice that privilege was mine, and his supplications then offered are among the holiest memories of my life. I cannot recall now any of the words he used, but I can never forget the feeling of strength and encouragement which, by the grace of God, was given to me through them at that time'.

Taylor regarded his fellowship with Graham during the sixteen years of his Liverpool ministry as 'one of the dearest privileges of my life'. And though when Taylor was called to New York they inevitably saw far less of each other they remained close friends until Graham's death in November 1887. Their final meeting was a very memorable one:

The last time I saw my friend was in the month of July 1887. I arrived in London on Saturday evening, the ninth of that month, intending to proceed early the next week to Hamburg. Before I had been ten minutes in the hotel, Graham was in my room. He stayed with me till nearly ten o'clock; and arranged to meet me early next day and accompany me to morning service in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, that we might hear Mr. Spurgeon — which we did. The sermon of the great preacher that day was peculiarly tender. His text was Jacob's blessing of the sons of Joseph; and as he hid himself been during the week in the Essex pulpit that used to be occupied by his venerable grandfather, his discourse was redolent of the experience through which there he had passed. It touched us both very deeply, and at the close we went in to shake hands with the preacher. After a brief but cordial greeting we went down with him to the communion service, at which Mr. Spurgeon seated us with the elders on the platform. He asked me to 'give thanks' over the bread, and Dr Graham to 'give thanks' over the cup. At the close of all he offered a brief prayer himself. We had a delightful season; and after it was over, Graham came with me to the hotel, dined, and spent an hour or two. Then I saw him take the omnibus to go to his friend Dr Edmond, for whom, in the absence of his colleague, he was to preach that evening, and I went to worship in the Westbourne Church with my friend Dr Morison. We hoped to see each other after my return from a three-week trip on the Continent, but our plans were frustrated, and so that was our farewell. We had spoken our last word to each other: "Ah! little thought we 'twas our last". But it is pleasant to think that the table of the Lord was almost the last place at which we were together on earth. May we meet at the table of celestial communion, to be for ever with the Lord.

Ministry in New York: 1872-1892←⤒🔗

In the Spring of 1871, Taylor made his first visit to the United States. He had been invited to preach in the Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn for the Pastor, Dr Richard Storrs and for ten Sundays — from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday in July — he did so with great acceptance. We are told in fact that 'so impressed with his preaching were some of his hearers that they proposed building a great tabernacle for him in New York, if he would consider settling there'. But the proposal was declined and Taylor returned to Liverpool 'with no expectation of ever visiting America again'.

In November of that year, however, Dr Joseph P. Thompson relinquished the pastorate of Broadway Tabernacle, New York, and Taylor was immediately invited to be his successor. It was not the first call that Taylor had received during his days in Liverpool. In 1863 he had been called to Regent Place in Glasgow and in 1869 to Westbourne Grove in London but both calls had been declined. On the 8th of January, 1872, however, the call to New York was accepted and on the first of March he landed on the shores of America to begin his third and final ministry, a ministry that was to last for twenty years.

The Broadway Tabernacle was a Congregational Church whose first pastor was the Rev. Charles G. Finney. The original building was largely designed by Finney and was capable of seating 2500 people. It was opened for public worship on 10 April 1836 and remained the spiritual home of the congregation until 1857 when a new church was built. Taylor's predecessor, Dr Joseph P. Thompson, was pastor of the congregation at the time of this transition, and in a sermon preached in the Tabernacle a few days after Thompson's death in 1879, Taylor gives us some interesting details:

Just about the time when I went to the Glasgow University, with as little idea of coming to America as I have now of going to the North Pole, Dr Thompson came to this city. For twelve years he wrought with diligence in that old Tabernacle, which was in those days the rallying place for all earnest spirits that sought to advance liberty of religion. Then in 1857, while I was engaged in building a church in Liverpool, he led you up to the site on which we are now assembled, and encouraged you to rear this house. Here too, for fourteen years he laboured, gathering to himself, through a peculiarly trying time, the respect and confidence of the community, until he came to be honoured as a leader, and beloved as a friend ... When I came hither I found that I owed it largely to him that such a building as this was in existence; that I was mainly indebted to him for the training of the people of whom I was to be the pastor; and especially that I was under obligation to him, for the fact that the minister of the Broadway Tabernacle was expected to be a man of broad intelligence, liberal sympathies, earnest thoughtfulness, and Christian public spirit. He made this pulpit a place of influence, and to all the advantages and responsibilities of that place I had become the heir.

It was not without many prayers, many tears, and many misgivings that he came to New York. Looking back after twenty years he could say:

I had left behind my native land, my nearest kindred, my life-long friends, and, more than all, the church of my fathers, to which I was attached by the tenderest ties, and on which I still look fondly back with affection and pride; and I was coming to greet a people, all of whom were to me "unknown by face". It was a greater ordeal than any of you can understand, involving in it risks, which happily for myself I had never foreseen, and nothing could have sustained me through it, save the unwavering conviction that I was fully following the command of God. It seemed to me then, it seems to me yet, that the Lord had told me to take the step which I was taking, as clearly as if he had spoken to me in an audible voice; and during these twenty years I have not seen a single incident, or met a single experience that has shaken that assurance.

In another sermon, on the text 'I being in the way, the Lord led me' (Genesis 24:27), he could say, 'I can never forget how often during those anxious days I spent, now just twenty-one years ago, upon the wintry Atlantic, after I had left my home, my country, and my church, and before I knew a single person in the congregation of which here I was to be the pastor, I threw myself upon the expression, "I being in the way, the Lord led me", and was comforted in the assurance, which has been fully verified, that he who guided Abraham's servant in the minutest matters, would conduct me rightly'.

Not long after his ministry commenced both Amherst College in Massachusetts and Yale College in Connecticut conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Yale College honoured him further by twice inviting him to give the Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching, first in 1876, and then ten years later in 1886. The first series of lectures — selections from which were also delivered to the members of Union, Princeton and Oberlin Theological Seminaries — were published under the title The Ministry of the Word and were warmly received. The Princeton Review, for example, had 'no hesitation in saying that no volume on homiletics or sacred rhetoric, conveys, within an equal space, and in a style so clear and forcible, so much profitable instruction on the matter and manner, preparation and delivery of sermons. It has the great advantage', it adds, 'of coming from one who has no superior, and few peers, among us as a preacher of the Gospel'.

In 1886 Taylor returned to Yale to deliver a second series of Lyman Beecher Lectures taking as his theme 'The Scottish Pulpit from the Reformation to the Present Day'. Their design, as he tells us in the Preface to the published volume 'is neither to give a full account of Scottish Ecclesiastical History nor to furnish complete biographies of the men who have been prominent in the Scottish pulpit since the Reformation. My aim has simply been to put the preachers in the environment of their times, to bring out the characteristics by which they were distinguished, and to give point to such lessons from their work as may be useful in our own age'. In this he succeeds brilliantly, and the book makes fascinating and instructive reading.

Between these two series of lectures another was given, on the L. P. Stone Foundation, at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1880. The title was 'The Gospel Miracles in their Relation to Christ and Christianity', and the seven lectures cover much the same ground as the volume on the Miracles published during his Liverpool ministry. In 1883 Princeton conferred on him the degree of LL.D.

Taylor's principal work, however, was preaching and to that we must now give some attention.

In his sermon 'At the End of Twenty Years', preached in 1892 he could say to his congregation: 'One of the most important duties of the pulpit is instruction, and on one part of each Lord's Day up till this present winter, when I have been prevented by circumstances of health, I have followed steadily out some course of exposition, so that in the years of my ministry here, I have expounded the larger portions of the historical books of the Old and New Testaments'. He then goes on to give us some of the details:

Genesis we took with Abraham, Jacob and Joseph; the other four books of the Pentateuch we studied when our theme was the life of Moses; Joshua we had when we followed the campaigns of that great captain. Many portions of the books of Samuel came into the life of David; and we had large sections of the books of Kings, when we took up the biographies of Elijah and Elisha. We were delighted and animated by the business career of Nehemiah; and we followed with eager interest the history of Esther. We spent some weeks on Jonah; and a winter on the miscalled Minor Prophets. In the Gospels we took the Miracles and Parables of our Saviour. The book of the Acts of the Apostles came almost entirely under our study in the lives of Peter and of Paul; while we have had discourses on the whole of the Lord's Prayer; on Peter's plan for character building; and other similar passages from the Epistles.

His commitment to consecutive expository preaching, or 'lecturing' as it was known in Scotland, was strong, and the whole of one of his lectures in The Ministry of the Word is devoted to the subject. It 'has been with me a matter of principle and not of convenience. If I had sought my own ease I would not have taken up any such courses, for the preparation of such "Lectures", as they are called in my native land, costs far more labour than that of other sorts of sermons. But my desire was to make my hearers familiar with the Word of God. I have not preached about it, but I have preached out of it, and I indulge the hope that they who followed me in these Bible studies, will often remember them in after days, and will say regarding me: "He gave us a new relish for the Bible, for he taught us to read it with intelligence and self-application"'.

On the other part of the Lord's Day his subjects were miscellaneous and in the three volumes of sermons, The Limitations of Life, Contrary Winds and The Boy Jesus we have some fine examples. Many of the ideas for these 'occasional' sermons came to him in the course of the reading he was doing for his expository series. So fruitful was his reading in this respect that he could say to the students at Yale 'for many years in my own ministry, I have never known a time when I had not in my mind a large number of subjects, each of which was, as it were, eager to receive my first attention, but which I was compelled to detain, that it might wait its turn; and so the question has been, not What can I get to preach on? but rather Which one of many topics has the most pressing claims and the most immediate interest?' Thus his constant habit of consecutive preaching on at least one part of the Lord's Day saved him from what he describes as 'that most horrible of all drudgeries, the "hunting for a text"', and provided him with another strong argument in favour of consecutive preaching.

Many of these expository series found their way into print and enjoyed a large readership. In 1875 a series on the life of David was published and in his Commenting and Commentaries Spurgeon describes it as 'a great work which should be in every library'. Volumes on the lives of Elijah (1876), Peter (1876), Daniel (1878), Moses (1879), Paul (1881), Joseph (1886), and Ruth and Esther (1891) followed. They each have the same characteristics: thorough exegesis, vivid re-telling of the narrative, appropriate illustration and searching application. The style, too, is eminently readable, and each one of them can be warmly recommended, especially, perhaps the volumes on David and Elijah. In addition to these Bible biographies, expositions of the Parables (1886) and the Miracles (1890) were published and are readily available on the second-hand market. The work on the Parables is out­standingly good and though in the area of application the work on the Miracles is rather weak at times, it is still a very valuable volume.

Under Taylor's preaching the congregation experienced significant growth and in his sermon 'At the End of Twenty Years' he gives us some interesting statistics:

Unless you have had your attention specially called to the subject, you will be surprised to find how variable a city congregation is. When I came here, twenty years ago, there were 578 members on the communion-roll. During my pastorate there have been admitted to membership on confession of faith 600; and by letters from other churches 982; making together 1582; and these added to the original number make 2160. But the present number on the roll is 1189 — which leaves 971 to be accounted for — and of these 248 have been removed by death and 723 have taken letters to other churches. Thus between letters and confessions a whole congregation of 1582 has come in during twenty years; and another of 971 has gone out. And so the change is constantly going on.

Central to this extensive influence was, of course, the preaching of the gospel. 'When I was crossing the Atlantic', he says, 'to take charge of my present congregation, not one of whom I had ever seen, I found the Life of Chalmers in the library of the ship, and amid the anxiety and suspense of my heart, as I felt that I had not "passed this way heretofore", I was greatly cheered and encouraged by the account of the effects produced by the preaching of that great man in his later life at Kilmany, and in his glorious ministry at Glasgow. This led me to resolve anew that in the ministry of the Broadway Tabernacle, I would, as in Liverpool, seek to preach so that my hearers "should see no man save Jesus only", and if I have had any measure of success, this is the secret of it all'.

These words were spoken in 1876. Sixteen years later, reflecting on how his appearance had changed over the course of his twenty years in New York he could say:

But in one particular I have not changed. I hold by the same gospel that I preached the first time that I stood in this pulpit. It was to me then, "the glorious gospel of the happy God, which was committed to my trust". It is so still; and it is my joy to declare and publish the love of God to mankind, flowing righteously through the atonement of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and resulting in the regeneration of believers by the power of the Holy Ghost. My conviction of the truth of these great doctrines has only grown deeper as the years have revolved, and today I feel like saying with more emphasis than ever before, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth". I looked yesterday, for the first time for some years, over my letter of acceptance of your call, and I found that in it I had expressed myself after this fashion: "I will come among you to preach Christ crucified, and I am sure that I shall find that the attraction of the Cross is as strong in New York as it is anywhere else. It will be my constant aim to hide myself behind my Master, and my hope is that you may in all my ministrations forget the messenger in the importance of his message, "hearing, indeed, the voice, but seeing no man". Brethren I know not whether I have succeeded, but I have steadily kept that purpose in view; and whatever success I have had in the winning of souls has been largely due to this determination.

Somewhere in his works he gives expression to the conviction that his life and ministry prior to 1872 were an extended preparation for his ministry in New York. If that is indeed so, it was preparation for an exceedingly fruitful and influential ministry; a ministry through which many came to know the Saviour, and one which, through the published works, continues to enrich to this very day.

Closing Years: 1892-1895←⤒🔗

The two decades over which he looked back in his sermon 'At the End of Twenty Years' were busy and full. In addition to the work of preaching, lecturing to students and writing, there was the work of pastoral visitation which he carried out much on the same plan as in Liverpool. When James Stalker visited America in 1891 to give his own series of lectures on Preaching, it was something with which he was forcibly struck:

The first Sunday I was in America, I worshipped in the churches of the Rev. Dr W. M. Taylor and the Rev. Dr John Hall, who are I suppose, the two most eminent ministers of New York; and I was astonished to hear both of them intimate that they would visit in certain streets during the week. There are no ministers anywhere more immersed than these in every kind of public duty; yet they find time for regular pastoral visitation.

Some insight into this 'public duty' in which he was immersed is given in one of the Biographical Dictionary entries: 'From October 1876 to June 1880 he was editor in chief of The Christian at Work. He took an active part in the missionary activities of the Congregational churches, being a corporate member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (1872-1895), and President of the American Missionary Association (1872-1895) and of the Congregational Church Building Society (1885-1895). He was also a trustee of the University of the city of New York and of Mount Holyoke College, and a manager of the Presbyterian Hospital, New York'.

In addition to these, we learn from his volume The Ministry of the Word that it was his duty to prepare notes to the 'International Lessons' for one of the religious papers, something that would have entailed no small amount of effort. He was evidently blessed, however, with a strong constitution, for in spite of all this labour he did not know what it was, until November 1891, to be ill for more than a single Sabbath in thirty-eight years of ministry. 'Much of this', he says, 'at least since coming to New York, has been due to my annual trips to Europe, whereby I have had a perfect rest and change, and I am grateful to you that you have never grudged them to me, but have always seemed glad to have me go'. It reminds me of the one piece of advice which Alexander Whyte gave times without number to George H. Morrison when he was Whyte's assistant, and that was to take good holidays!

Unknown to him at the time, Taylor's ministry in New York was to end the very same year he preached his Twentieth Anniversary sermon. The very same month in fact, March 1892, he had a stroke and on 27 October he resigned from the pastorate. He had been a minister of the gospel for thirty nine years.

Unable as he was to preach, he did continue to write and in October 1893 he published what was perhaps his final work, a volume of sermons entitled The Silence of Jesus and other Sermons. (For some reason it has also been published under the title The Boy Jesus and other Sermons). This is what he says in the preface:

In the Providence of God I have been laid aside from the ministry of the pulpit, but there is still left to me that of the press; and in my months of silence I have had great comfort under my affliction in the selection and preparation for publication of the discourses which form this volume. I hope also in this way to prolong my usefulness as a preacher of that gospel to the furtherance of which I gave my life at first, and would give it again, only with more intensity than ever, if I had opportunity.

Praying that, as in the preaching of them originally, so now in the printing of them, these sermons may, in the hands of God's Holy Spirit, be the means of blessing to many souls, I lay them upon his altar, as a thank-offering for countless mercies.

He died on 8 February 1895, in the sixty-sixth year of his life and forty-second of his ministry and was survived by his wife Jessie whom he had married on 4 October 1853, and by six of his nine children.

He was a typical Scotsman', says one writer, 'of rugged character, conservative theology, analytical mind, and keen discernment. As a preacher he took rank in public esteem along with his noted neighbours, Beecher, Storrs and John Hall. He was a powerful expositor of the Scriptures and their practical application, a strong advocate of the written sermon, which he himself could make picturesque and glowing'. It is a fitting tribute. More simply 'the pulpit was with him supreme. Every Lord's Day was to him a great occasion, and he always endeavoured to serve God with his best'. These were words that Taylor himself used in speaking of a fellow Secession minister, Dr David King of Glasgow. But they are just as applicable to himself. The pulpit was with him supreme. Every Lord's Day was to him a great occasion, and he always endeavoured to serve God with his best. And in that, we who are preachers have an example which we do well, with God's help, to endeavour to follow.