So we’re not giving up. Since though on the outside it looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by, without his unfolding grace. (2 Cor. 4:16, The Message)
It has been over 60 years since G. Campbell Morgan stood in the pulpit of Westminster Chapel, London, and preached the Word of God to thousands of listeners. Although we conducted an intensive search for a recording of our grandfather, none has ever been found. Yet that voice continues to be heard through his published works and the memories of a few people who heard him preach.
Advertisement
In the summer of 2005, three grandsons of G. Campbell Morgan made a pilgrimage to London and Wales in search of their religious heritage. Richard and John were retired clergy and active writers, and Howard, a retired banker, was chair of the Board of Trustees at Chicago Theological Seminary. Only Richard, the oldest brother, had memories of actually seeing Campbell Morgan in 1932 and at his last visit to America in 1937. Howard has established a G. Campbell Memorial Collection at Chicago Theological Seminary, which conferred Campbell Morgan’s only doctorate in 1902.
We journeyed to the villages where Morgan had been pastor and spent time at Westminster Chapel, where he had two long pastorates. Our pilgrimage took us to the very house on Cutwell Street, Tetbury, where he was born, and the room where he preached his first sermon at the Wesleyan Methodist Church, Monmouth, Wales, in 1876.
We had heard many stories in the family circle about our illustrious grandfather, named one of the Ten Greatest Preachers of the Twentieth Century by Preaching Magazine. In that article, Dr. Timothy Warren wrote of him, “G. Campbell Morgan helped influence the shape of evangelical preaching on both sides of the Atlantic.” We heard many times that our British grandfather had crossed the Atlantic Ocean 54 times and was one of the greatest expository preachers of his generation. Yet he remained a man on a pedestal or a distant grandfather across the sea.
It was during our journey that Campbell Morgan became more real to us. We began to see that while he was a famous preacher, he was also a human being who had the same struggles that others experienced. We found Campbell Morgan as a living, struggling human being, whose faith endured when he was in the midst of loss, rejection, sickness, and death.
While at Tintern Abbey in Wales, we came to see that no biography or published works centered on his life crises or the faith that sustained him. There was born the idea of a new book of Campbell Morgan’s writings, many drawn from unpublished sermons or letters. In revisiting the life and writing of our grandfather, we found his voice speaking again.
