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[ transcription of Obituary Notice in the Year Book of the Congregational Union of England & Wales for 1863, page 256, from a copy in Dr Williams's Library, London ]
REYNOLDS, John, formerly of Halstead, who for more than a quarter of a century was the pastor of the Congregational church at Romsey, in Hampshire, was born at Hampstead, on the 11th of June, 1782. He was the third son of Dr. Henry Revell Reynolds, a distinguished physician in the court of George III., and who for many years filled the office of physician in ordinary to his Majesty. Mr Reynolds' eldest brother was, during a long series of years, the well-known chief commissioner of the Insolvent Debtors' Court; and another brother highly distinguished himself in the Indian wars, receiving honourable mention for extraordinary bravery in the siege of Seringapatam, shortly after which event he died.
The subject of the present memoir commenced his education at the Felsead Grammar School, from whence he was subsequently removed to Westminster School, at that time under the head mastership of the Rev. Dr. Vincent. Among his schoolfellows at that period were numbered the Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl Russell, and many others whose names have since become well known to fame; and then was laid the foundation of that classical taste and knowledge by which Mr Reynolds was marked throughout his life. In proof of this, his name may still be seen in gold letters, in the dormitory of Westminster School, as the head King's Scholar of his year. These classical achievements never forsook him, and in his latest years, when his faculties had become clouded, and his intellectual life seemed almost hidden, he would still quote long passages from Juvenal and Demosthenes with apparent relish.
In due time he was confirmed as a member of the church of England by Bishop Horsley; and more than one curious interview at that time took place between the young King's Scholar and the notorious divine. He was a vigorous and athletic youth, nobly formed, and graceful in every movement, renowned in the dance and foot-race, at cricket and at foot-ball. The only occasion on which, during his school-days at Westminster, he suffered corporal punishment, was when he persisted, contrary to the head master's orders, in carrying out arrangements for a cricket-match between the boys of Eton and Westminster Schools, which was to come off at Egham. Dr Vincent insisted that the culprits should draw lots for the rod, and the lot fell upon John Reynolds. The doctor, true to the traditions of merry England, administered the castigation -- it is true, somewhat mildly -- and having done so, threw down his cane with the exclamation, "I'm glad you beat them, though!". Mr Reynolds' education was completed at Oriel College, Oxford, under the private tutorship of Doctor Copleston, afterwards bishop of Llandaff. During his residence at Westminster and Oxford, without any deep religious conviction, he acquired some distaste to liturgical worship, chiefly arising from the perfunctory method in which he had so often to take part in its performance.
On leaving Oxford, Mr Reynolds accepted a Government appointment, and for a few years was occupied, both in the War Office and in the office of Secretary of State for the Home Department, and as private secretary to the Duke of Portland. In consequence of his father's relation to the Court, and his own position under the Government, combined with his great vivacity and fascinating address, he moved in the society of some of the most celebrated men of that day. At this time he was member of a Volunteer corps, in which he was first an ensign, and afterwards a captain. On receiving these appointments, and on many other occasions, he attended at Court, and could relate more than one curious conversation that had occurred between himself and the old King. At this period of life he was an entire stranger to genuine religion. High-spirited and affectionate, brave and gay, of strong determinations and great culture, he was the charm of every fashionable circle into which he entered, but possessed no commanding and high-toned principles of action. He had a strong abhorrence of formalism and hypocrisy, but no settled convictions or genuine godliness.
By a series of strange events in the providence of God, a new life, at length, wrought within him. He married, accompanied his friend Sir Francis Jackson to America, in connexion with the British embassy to Washington, resided for five years in the new world, and there, withdrawn from the fascinations of London life, he was brought under the influence of the Rev. Dr. Mason of New York, whose faithful and powerful preaching was made the means of conversion of both himself and Mrs Reynolds. The new life that thus streamed through his whole soul was associated in his mind with free prayer, with Presbyterian forms of church government, and with sound evangelical and Calvinistic theology, and it was therefore not unnatural that his mind should recoil from ceremonialism in every shape. He resolved to devote himself to the ministry of the Gospel, and for a considerable time attended Dr. Mason's theological lectures. In the year 1811, Mr Reynolds returned in ill-health to England, and for a few months remained in comparative privacy at Hitchen. While there, temptations of the strongest kind were presented to him to enter the Established Church, but he steadfastly withstood them, firmly determined to exercise his ministry among Congregational dissenters.
Early in the year 1812, Mr Reynolds consented to take the principalship of the Protestant Dissenters' Grammar-School at Leaf Square, near Manchester. His classical acquirements fitted him to discharge his duties there with great ability, as some of his pupils, who have since become distinguished men, have been at all times ready to testify. While principal of the Leaf Square Academy he was invited to take the pastoral oversight of the Congregational church at New Windsor, and on the 29th of July, 1812, he was ordained to the pastorate among that people. A brief extract from the statement which he publicly made on that occasion will show the earnestness of spirit with which he entered on his work. "My motive", he said, "for wishing to enter the Christian ministry is my simple-minded desire of promoting the salvation of immortal souls, and if, in the remainder of my days -- how few or how many soever they may be -- I shall be the unworthy, but honoured instrument of turning one single sinner from the error of his ways, I am willing to spend and be spent for that one."
His eloquence and success as a preacher soon led to his removal to a wider sphere of labour, and after a pastorate of little more than one year he went to Chester, where, in October 1813, he settled over the church assembling in Queen-street Chapel. His ministry in this city excited great interest. It was truly evangelical, practical, and energetic, and the prayer which he had uttered with his ordination vow was graciously heard and answered in the conversion of many immortal souls. During his residence in Chester, Mr Reynolds interested himself warmly in the success of the missionary work, and in the year 1814 he formed the first auxiliary to the London Missionary Society in that city. Dr. Bogue, Dr. Waugh, and Mr Townsend were all present on this occasion, and the interest and excitement consequent upon their addresses were at that time almost unparalleled. It was the golden age of missionary meetings, and the memory of them lingers in some minds unto this day.
Mrs Reynolds died in Chester, and this great trial was a shock to his constitution, from which his sensitive spirit was long in rallying. This event so unhinged and unsettled him that he felt disposed to seek a change of residence, and in the year 1818 he accepted an invitation to become the pastor of the Congregational church assembling in the Abbey Chapel, Romsey. He settlement there was strongly urged, and gladly hailed, by Doctors Winter and Bogue, and a large number of influential ministers assembled at his recognition services, which were held on the 19th of November of that year. The discourses delivered on the occasion were published. On the 1st of July, 1819, he married the only sister of the late Dr. Fletcher, of Stepney, subsequently the sharer of his every thought and sorrow, his helpmeet in the church, the mother of all his children, and the object to the last of his tenderest affection.
His preaching at Romsey was addressed to those who had been well-trained by Dr Bennett. There was light, force, energy, nay vehemence in his style; there was intense veneration for Holy Scripture, and a perpetual endeavour to promote among his hearers a careful and intelligent perusal of the oracles of God. He was not a deep theologian, nor an acute dialectitian; still his favourite authors were Owen, Manton, and Edwards, his editions of whose works bear the marks throughout of his patient pencil. His knowledge of general literature was very extensive, and abundantly used in the illustration of truth. His power was that of the great loving heart, rather than of the lofty intellect; of large acquirements, rather than acute or original thinking; of fastidious taste rather than genius. His oratory was characterized by glorious earnestness, magnificent voice, and a fervent natural delivery of noble truths which he believed with all his might, and it was accompanied by a power that proved to be "the power of God to salvation", to many immortal souls.
The few sermons that he committed to the press were highly finished and noble utterances of his fervent faith and refined taste. Among these may be instanced the sermon he preached before the Home Missionary Society, in May 1823, and a funeral sermon for His Majesty George the Third. Any printed discourse, however, can give but a faint idea of the thrilling power of his practical appeals, and the deep spirituality and fervour of his ordinary ministry. He shrank from publicity and from the platform, although few who have heard him will forget the way in which, on some occasions, he has electrified large audiences, when called on almost unawares to address them on some stirring theme. These characteristics of the man and the pastor, coupled with his extraordinarily fine person and manners, intense sensitiveness and tenderness, and uncompromising adherence to the principles for which he had suffered the loss of so much, gave him great influence among surrounding churches, and gained for him universal respect and admiration.
One whom he was the means of bringing to Christ, and who followed all his ministry with sympathy and prayer, thus writes: -- "My recollection of my dear pastor's preaching is so bound up with every thought I ever had of the way to heaven, that it was like eating of the bread and drinking of the water of life -- strengthening and cheering me on that way. No other preacher, I ever heard, placed the truth in such a variety of aspects, or so clearly explained that only by the true light it could be seen. Many can testify that he made them love the Bible; and although his superior intellect, sanctified learning and talents of the highest order were always exercised to the utmost in expounding the sacred oracles, he constantly manifested his entire dependence on the wisdom and guidance promised by the Holy Spirit, comparing most comprehensively and satisfactorily "spiritual things with spiritual", and leading his audience, by means of marginal reference Bibles, to follow him in the process, often delighting them with the obvious result. He certainly had the rare faculty of probing the inmost soul and leading it to perceive that, although it is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked", yet it can -- by the cleansing efficacy of the precious blood of Christ -- become a dwelling place for "the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity".
During Mr Reynolds' ministry at Romsey he occasionally took long tours for either the Bible or Missionary Society, and was frequently called upon to advocate their claims in neighbouring towns; and in the year 1843 he was elected chairman of the Congregational Union, over whose meetings that year in London and in Leeds he presided with great ability.
Mr Reynolds' relation to the people of his charge was patriarchal and almost unique. The semi-jubilee of his pastorate was kept with great rejoicing, and a memorial of the services was committed to the press. Still, a time came when these ties were painfully sundered in a furnace of affliction; and Mr Reynolds went to reside at Halstead, in Essex, near his eldest son, to whom he rendered much valuable aid in his ministerial work, and whom he eventually succeeded in the pastorate. His useful ministry at Halstead was continued for seven years, and proved the bright glad evening of a strangely chequered day. The affection of his people was warmly manifested, and when, in the spring of 1856, advancing age and infirmities warned him to withdraw from the stated ministry, a public meeting was held in the Town Hall, at which all classes assembled to testify the respect and affection in which he was held.
The remaining years of his life Mr Reynolds spent in the midst of his children, and so long as physical and mental powers were continued to him he still delighted to testify "the Gospel of the grace of God". During the closing months of his pilgrimage, his strength of body and mind gradually declined, and at length on the 15th of February, 1862, "in a good old age", he breathed his last at the house of his second son, Dr Reynolds, of Grosvenor-street, London.
It will be obvious from this slight sketch that we have had to do with a life of strange vicissitudes and singular interest; with the life of one who came face to face with some of the most remarkable men and events of his time, but, for many years, face to face with God. He was at home in the English Court, and familiar with the American Camp Meeting; he once assisted to quell a riot in London streets at the head of a brigade of Volunteers; but put forth all the strength of his best years as the village evangelist and dissenting pastor. His tastes and education would have fitted him to edit the Classics, but the only publication of any magnitude that issued from his pen was an edition of the Songs of Zion. At various epochs of his life, and even in his latter days, he was honoured with the acquaintance if not the friendship of some of the nobles of the land; but he counted all these things "but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus" his Lord. One of his earliest recollections was that of the imposing figure of Edmund Burke, amid the pomp of Westminster Hall, opening his articles of impeachment against Warren Hastings. He was behind the scenes, both in the Old and New World, during some of the most thrilling moments of their history, and has been closeted with Mr Pitt and Lord Grenville on affairs of state; but, far above any or all of these recollections or associations, he prized in later life the friendship and affection of those fathers and brethren in the ministry, so many of whom have preceded him to the upper chambers of the Father's house.
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(The Rejoice & Sing Enchiridion:edited by David Goodall; last amended 20/12/03)