F. B. Meyer: Baptist Ambassador for Keswick holiness spirituality: F. B. Meyer (1847-1929) was one of the most prominent English Baptist minister of his period.

He came from a wealthy and urbane background, which was unusual for Baptist leaders in England in the nineteenth century, and linked with this background was a broad outlook-that meant he took a great interest in new movements within the church. Among these were movements for social reform and for deeper spirituality. It is the second movement that is the focus of this article. From its beginnings in the 1870s, a British holiness movement steadily grew until by the end of the nineteenth century it was exercising a worldwide influence on the spirituality of evangelicalism. "Meyer became a leader and pioneer in this enterprise through his involvement with the annual Keswick Convention, held from 1875 up to the present time in the town of that name in the beautiful English Lake District. (1) Keswick incorporated a variety of ingredients with which Meyer identified, including the search for a deeper experience of God, the desire for pandenominational spirituality, the call to wide-ranging missionary endeavor, and a theology in tune with the Romantic ethos of the time. Meyer's contribution lay in his portrayal of the practical nature of the Keswick experience, his place as the main Nonconformist within the predominantly Anglican Keswick leadership, his prodigious travels as an advocate of the Keswick message, and his concept of an inclusive spirituality. The Keswick holiness movement provided Meyer with a vehicle through which he attempted to mold the spirituality of international evangelicalism.

The Influence of Holiness Spirituality

In 1874 and 1875, Meyer attended conferences on the subject of the spiritual life that were to prove decisive for British evangelical life. The first was a rather select gathering held at Broadlands, the estate of the future Lord and Lady MountTemple. About one hundred invited people--including, for instance, the author George MacDonald--met for six days in July 1874. (2)

The second event, from August 29 to September 6, was a conference at Oxford "for the promotion of Scriptural holiness," which attracted 1,500 people. (3) Two of the major speakers were an American couple with Quaker roots, Robert and Hannah Pearsall Smith. Because of her powerful messages, the latter was dubbed "The Angel of the Churches." (4)

The thrust of the message at Oxford was that sanctification, like justification, was a blessing obtainable by simple faith. This theme, which contrasted with the evangelical view that holiness was achieved by active effort, was eagerly received by evangelicals struggling with a sense of failure.

Meyer vividly recalled his response at Broadlands and in Oxford. (5) He was especially struck by Pearsall Smith's addresses. (6) Against this background, Meyer was enthusiastic to savor the Brighton Convention, held from May 29 to June 7, 1875. Here, the crowds, which filled the Dome, the Pavilion, and the Town Hall, were estimated at between 7,000 and 8,000. (7) Controversy was about to break out over whether or not sinless perfection was being taught by the holiness leaders, and Meyer was unable to accept some of the statements made at Brighton. His uncertainty probably made him reluctant to attend the initial Keswick Convention. He was not alone. The summer of 1875 saw only 300-400 gathering at Keswick, although by the early-twentieth century the numbers attending were over 5,000.

Following his attendance at the Brighton Convention, Meyer threw himself into busy pastoral ministry in his church in Leicester and, as he saw it in retrospect, "dissipated the inner life," living, he commented contemptuously, "to increase my influence, to make money, to draw audiences, and to do philanthropic work."

Such a statement is colored by the perspective of a wholehearted convert to holiness teaching and is almost entirely lacking in objectivity. The fact is that Meyer was a dedicated Baptist pastor and evangelist. It is likely that in the years following 1875, he deliberately chose to make evangelism, rather than inner spirituality, his priority. To a large extent this was due to the influence of the American evangelist, D. L. Moody, on Meyer's life.

Moody himself had undergone a deep spiritual experience, not unlike a "second conversion," in 1871. (8) He commended the Brighton Convention, but Moody feared division over the issue of holiness or diversion from evangelistic fervor. Meyer seems to have accepted this view. At the same time, Meyer regarded Moody's account (given privately to Meyer) of personal surrender to God as one of the two most significant impressions in his own life. (9)

Meyer's position was one of tension. The teaching on the deeper spiritual life had an instinctive appeal, but he could not integrate it into his commitment to evangelism and social action. It was only when Meyer reconciled these elements within himself that he could carry out his ministry as a holiness teacher.

The turning point came on November 26, 1884. C. T. Studd and Stanley Smith visited the rapidly-growing Baptist church of which Meyer was then rise pastor (Melbourne Hall, Leicester). Huge public interest had been aroused when Studd and Smith, who were nationally known sportsmen in England, together with five other Cambridge University students known as the "Cambridge Seven" volunteered to go as missionaries to China with the China Inland Mission.

Meyer no doubt saw the potential for a dramatic event and invited the two famous personalities to speak at Melbourne Hall just before they were due to leave Britain. What Meyer did not realize was the effect this decision would have on him. He observed in Studd and Smith a "constant source of rest and strength and joy" which he did not enjoy himself and which he was determined to possess. It was essential for Meyer to see spirituality at work if it was to be accepted as authentic, and this was exactly what he saw in the two missionary volunteers. Meyer went to Studd and Smith for advice, at 7:00 a.m. on the day after their Melbourne Hall meeting, and they urged him to surrender everything to Christ. Meyer then, "for the first time," or so he asserted, took the will of God as the aim of his whole life. (10) This statement about surrendering to God expressed a crucial element of the spirituality of the deeper life movement.

When Meyer's 1884 experience of surrender became public, the Keswick Convention organizers recognized him as equipped to take his place on the Kegwick platform. He was asked to be one of the speakers during the convention week of 1887. Meyer was suffering from nervous depression as a result of a long spell of overwork, and the excited atmosphere among the large crowds of convention-goers when he arrived at Keswick increased his nervousness. During a late-night prayer meeting in which people were seeking the power of the Holy Spirit, the tension in Meyer reached intolerable levels. He hurriedly left the convention tent and fled up the hill. This was to be the scene for what he saw as his reception of the fullness of the Spirit. He said to himself: "As I breathe in the air, so my spirit breathes in the fullness (to my capacity) of the Holy Spirit."

As he returned from this encounter, he heard a voice "from the darkness of sinister suggestion" saying, "You are a fool, you've got nothing." (11) Meyer admitted that he felt nothing, which puzzled his friends when he rejoined them, since they associated the "breath of God" with ecstasy. The particular way in which Meyer experienced God was to shape his subsequent holiness teaching. Although he was not opposed to crisis experiences, for him emotion was unimportant. Rather the decision to receive the Spirit could be calm, quiet, and deliberate to the extent of being clinical. Indeed, he saw Keswick as a "spiritual clinic." (12) So what was the medicine Meyer offered?

Sharing the Spiritual Experience

Meyer's holiness teaching, which over the next four decades he offered to audiences all over the world, followed the lines set out by Keswick's founders, who were mainly Anglicans, but Meyer made a distinctive contribution from a Baptist perspective. For the Christian who was surrendered to God, said the Keswick speakers, indwelling sin "perpetually counteracted." Meyer's concern was to spell this out less theologically but more practically than other major Keswick figures in order that everyone could put the concept into practice. This concern was consistent with Baptist commitment to the life of discipleship.

There were, for Meyer, three stages in the spiritual journey. Conversion was followed by "consecration," which was followed by the "anointing of the Spirit." It was quickly recognized in Keswick circles that Meyer had an unusual power to lead people attending conventions into the experience of surrender. He constantly returned to his basic theme: the steps to the "blessed life."

In 1889, Meyer told his Keswick listeners that people had tried to use the "formula" for "deliverance from the power of known sin" that had been given from the platform, but that in practice this had failed because consecration had to come before the filling of the Spirit. (13)

Meyer's views were also widely disseminated through his many writings. A central emphasis was that the reception of the Spirit was "governed by law" and that the Spirit's work was dependent on the obedient compliance of the Christian, who had to receive the Spirit's power. (14) The holiness experience, in Meyer's teaching, was received by faith and was accessible td all. This had resonance with Baptist thinking about the place and importance of each believer.

Critics, of Keswick spirituality alleged that through its emphasis on the inner life, it taught a quietism that discouraged practical expressions of Christian living and a mysticism that was foreign to evangelical theology. But Meyer's objective teaching about receiving the blessing actually ran counter to what might have been an unhealthy interior analysis. Although he acknowledged that he and others taught "the quietism of a heart stilled by God," Meyer denied that this meant a search for religious experience in and of itself. He stated in 1903 that he had to tell himself a hundred times a day that his experience of spiritual blessing was true, because he did not feel it and had "no joy of it."

While Meyer was undoubtedly exaggerating for effect, he evidently knew the tension felt by ordinary Christians who had "claimed" the fullness of the Spirit but lacked any "feeling" to confirm the reality of receiving. Here the experience of some of the Christian mystics was relevant. There were influential writers, notably John of the Cross, who spoke of the darkness in which God was not sensed to be present. Meyer spoke in 1922 of having trust "without feeling, baked trust.... Then you get as much feeling as is good for you." (15) In 1925, Meyer, in line with his attitude to mystical experience among evangelicals, defined Keswick teaching somewhat controversially, as he admitted, as "practical mysticism." (16) It was a formula that he constructed with the aim of connecting Keswick spirituality with an older tradition of religious life.

Meyer's approach to the spiritual life was also marked by its detailed application, by contrast with the devotional generalities that characterized much holiness teaching. In 1903, for example, Meyer urged his Tuesday evening Keswick listeners to attend to things that were wrong in their lives. If they needed to make financial restitution, they should immediately write a check, with interest. Likewise, he insisted any needed letters of apology should be written immediately. Following this, the "fire of God" would come.

On Wednesday evening Meyer reported that people had responded and had told him about what they had done. Marriage relationships, for example, had been put right. Meyer was concerned, however, that some showed complacency, and he urged that they examine their motives. By Thursday evening, Meyer revealed that engagements to be married "which ought never to have been made" had been broken off. (17)

Meyer was also unusual among Keswick leaders in connecting spirituality and wider issues of social justice. Many Anglican evangelicals involved in Keswick tended to withdraw from the world. Meyer took the opposite view, arguing in 1904--at a time when he and other Baptists leaders were particularly active in political affairs through their support for the Liberal Party's agenda of reform--that Christ should be exalted in civic life. (18) One telling example used by Meyer was of a wealthy man who went to Keswik or eighteen years but who had, in his business, a "grinding disposition." At his death, said Meyer, this man expressed sorrow that he had not applied what he had heard at Keswick to his business affairs. (19)

There is evidence that Meyer's practical message was relevant and effective. Between 1887 and 1928, he addressed twenty-six Keswick conventions and spoke at numerous mini-Keswicks in Britain and elsewhere in the world. Meyer monitored his impact at conventions, observing in 1895, that he liked to stand at the door after speaking, and have people come to him and say regarding their blessing: "No sir, I cannot say that I feel it, but I have received it." (20) Meyer introduced Keswick teaching into the Baptist denomination through a Prayer Union for ministers which became a substantial body in the Baptist Union and which, among other things, organized retreats for ministers. (21)

It was not always possible, however, for Meyer to reconcile the differing and sometimes opposing tendencies in Baptist and Anglican life. Tensions over his socio-political activities surfaced in 1906 when he apologized to his heavily Anglican Keswick audience for any way in which he had "most unintentionally" wounded any Anglican clergy by the strong things he had felt bound to say on "great political issues." This was a reference to some of his speeches opposing the Conservative Party during a recent general election campaign.

Meyer went on to state that he had to be true to his principles, but he wanted "to advocate them in a spirit of perfect love and tenderness." Keswick was reassured, and Meyer received an "Amen" from his audience. (22) Socio-political concerns seldom figured at Keswick, and Meyer made a crucial contribution by keeping the holiness movement in touch with practical Christian action.

A Spirituality that Bridged Divides

Through the connections that he made between different streams of religious life and thought, Meyer attempted to build bridges between groups that were often suspicious of one another. Through his Keswick ministry, he was keen to bridge something of the gulf between Anglicanism and Nonconformity.

For Keswick spirituality to be credible, it had to transcend denominational boundaries. Since Meyer was English Nonconformity's most outstanding representative on the Keswick platform--he was twice president of the National Council of the Evangelical Free Churches, was that body's honorary secretary for ten years, and was president of the Baptist Union, serving with distinction in 1906-07--he was ideally placed to urge that Free Church leaders should be open to the Keswick emphases.

The Keswick motto "All One in Christ Jesus" (chosen by a Quaker, Robert Wilson) was one Meyer enthusiastically upheld. His protoecumenical vision, which he derived partly from D. L. Moody, was of spiritual unity across denominational boundaries. Meyer took advantage of Keswick to address specific ecclesiastical groups. Clergymen, including High Churchmen, were urged by Meyer in 1910 to pray for their local Baptist and Salvation Army neighbors. (23) He saw the teaching of the inner life as naturally leading to "a wider view of the divine constitution of the Church of Christ." Meyer's view was that true spirituality was a uniting and reconciling part of ecclesiastical life.

Given this standpoint, Meyer was always open to new movements of spiritual renewal, even if they came from unexpected sources. He saw evidence of deeper spiritual reality and power in the Welsh Revival of 1904-05, a huge people-movement that had as its main leader a Welsh miner, Evan Roberts.

The revival had a number of links with Keswick. In 1903, some young Welsh ministers came to "a pitch near desperation" in their anxiety to receive personal revival. One of them, Owen Owen, wrote to Meyer on behalf of the rest asking for help. Meyer advised the group to attend a convention being organized by a Welsh holiness leader, Jessie PennLewis, to be held in August in Llandrindod Wells, Wales. Meyer's impact at that convention was considerable. When he gave opportunity for expression of surrender and dedication, it seemed as if everyone wanted to receive "the fullness of blessing" Meyer was initially cautious about Welsh emotionalism. (24) Something significant, however, was happening. Meyer kept in close touch with the younger leaders of the revival, some of whom had been deeply affected by his ministry, and in January 1905, he visited Wales to hear Evan Roberts. The power that he felt in the meetings led by Roberts made Meyer feel like "a little child in the school of the Holy Ghost," and he returned to London determined to spread the message of revival. In October 1905, he was able to report that his own large congregation, Christ Church, Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth, had "greatly participated" in the revival. (25)

Twenty years later, Meyer spoke of what he had experienced in Wales in 1905 as "days of Pentecostal overflowing." (26) It was from this revivalist background that a new twentieth-century movement of spirituality, Pentecostalism, took shape. Meyer made his own contribution to its emergence.

In April 1905, he spoke for eight days to large audiences in Los Angeles, stressing what he had experienced of Evan Roberts and the Welsh Revival. One of those present on April 8, 1905, was Frank Bartleman, who was to be a central figure in the Pentecostal explosion in Azusa Street, Los Angeles, in the following year. Bartleman was "stirred" as "F B. Myer (sic) ... described the great revival going on in Wales, which he had visited". (27)

Keswick itself was probably less influential than American holiness movements in the development of American Pentecostalism, although in Britain the Keswick movement played a part in the spiritual journey of a number of leading British Pentecostal figures. (28) There were fears at Keswick of Pentecostal excess. Meyer for his part, was closer than most Keswick teachers to the Pentecostal doctrine of the baptism of the Spirit, and by his pneumatology created links with the new spirituality. In 1930, one leading British Pentecostal magazine, as it reflected on the development of Pentecostalism, suggested that Meyer's pneumatological teaching had contributed significantly to the Pentecostal awakening. (29)

Another movement that had a considerable impact on evangelicals in the 1920s, especially in North America, was Fundamentalism. With his desire for an inclusive spirituality, Meyer found the stridency of Fundamentalism unattractive.

In the early 1920s, there was an attempt by a small group of Fundamentalists in Britain to pressurize Keswick to set more rigid doctrinal boundaries. One speaker who was targeted by this caucus was F. C. Spurr, who in 1914 had followed Meyer as minister of Regent's Park Chapel, London. Spurr appealed to Meyer and another Keswick leader, Stuart Holden, for a tribunal to investigate the way he had been vilified. They were sympathetic to Spurr's complaint that those "who pride themselves on the orthodoxy of their doctrine" seemed to forget "orthodoxy of courtesy and goodwill." (30) Nevertheless, Spurr felt that the controversy left him with no alternative but to withdraw as a Keswick speaker. Meyer and Holden commended Spurr. "You have refused," they said, "to act on the advice of some who counseled a suit for libel; you have kept silent under strong provocation." (31) Spurr received many letters of sympathy.

For Meyer, and for most Keswick leaders, the violent spirit of Fundamentalism was at odds with the gentleness that should mark the spiritual person. Meyer was in America in 1926 and when asked to comment on Fundamentalism replied that religion was "not a matter of argument, but a spiritual force." (32) He believed in a spirituality that bridged, rather than created, divides.

A Worldwide Spiritual Network

These bridges were international. In 1891, Meyer made his first trip to North America, invited by Moody to speak at the annual conference that Moody hosted at Northfield, Massachusetts. Before going to the United States, Meyer was cautioned that he should avoid the word "holiness," because of its associations with ideas of sinless perfection. Meyer was, however, determined to drive home Keswick's holiness spirituality. There were some protests at Northfield about Meyer's teaching, but he was judged a huge success. (33)

T. L. Cuyler reported in the New York Evangelist on the spiritually-hungry crowds who wanted three addresses each day from Meyer. Cuyler perceptively attributed Meyer's effectiveness to the fact that he was a profound mystic and thoroughly practical. (34)

Meyer was aware that his teaching about spirituality was being assessed, and he believed it could withstand scrutiny. He claimed that he was the first to offer to America the Keswick systematization of the "subjective side of Christian experience" in "successive steps," although he also found that his thinking was in line with that of the American Baptist, A. J. Gordon, and together they led meetings designed to enable the reception of the "infilling" of the Spirit.

Meyer's dream was probably of Northfield as an American Keswick. Its beautiful setting was, Meyer remarked, in "close harmony with the devotional character of the meetings." (35) With some disregard for American feelings, Meyer rejoiced in 1894 in the reception of "the inner life as taught in England," and when Meyer arrived in America in 1896, Northfeld was, in Moody's words, "waiting to be led into the promised land." (36) Meyer was moulding interdenominational, international spirituality.

From Northfield, Meyer, with Moody's backing, was able to penetrate further into the American evangelical constituency. (37) By 1897, he felt able to announce from Boston that he believed Keswick's "principal positions" had been accepted, and the same visit to Boston saw, according to Meyer's report, 400 ministers kneeling down to receive "an overwhelming baptism of the Holy Spirit." (38) Although he was a Baptist ambassador of Keswick spirituality, Meyer did not seek to make it a priority to connect with Baptists in the United States. Instead he seemed to have believed that he had a particular ability to commend Keswick teaching to American Christian leaders from a more conservative Reformed background. Large numbers of Presbyterian ministers came to Northfield. Presbyterian leaders throughout the U.S. were fascinated to hear Meyer, as a holiness teacher, denounce the "errors and extravagances" of perfectionism. Meyer was "closely questioned" during his visit in 1897 by many pastors. He welcomed this questioning as an opportunity to expose "exaggerated and unsound views." (39)

While Meyer was prepared to deal with Keswick's doctrinal position on controversial points, he was not primarily a controversialist. Rather his concern was for practical results. Thus, in Richmond, Virginia, in 1901, he was delighted that a whole assembly stood up to "claim the fulfilment of the promise of Pentecost." (40) Meyer was crucial to the forging of a holiness ethos that spanned the Atlantic.

During the 1890s, the message of Keswick became familiar to evangelicals not only in Britain and North America but in many parts of the world. Many missionaries went overseas as a result of Keswick influence. Meyer was proud of what he called the "resistless energy" which derived from Keswick spirituality and which produced what he saw as a remarkable missionary movement.

Meyer himself was recognized as possibly doing more than any other single individual to spread the Keswick message throughout the world. With his German ancestry, he was delighted to be the first English speaker, in 1897, at the Blankenburg Convention held in the pine-covered hills of South Germany.

Meyer's Keswick ministry took him on a 25,000-mile journey to the Middle and Far East in 1909. Wherever he went, Meyer attempted to be relevant to the context, relating to groups ranging from Armenians in the Gregorian Church in Constantinople to residents of Penang, China, who came to hear him in the town hall.

As Meyer encountered different cultures, his relatively undogmatic approach to theology enabled him to adapt his ministry to fit the situation. Keswick was not, in any case, culturally imperialistic. In India, for example, Meyer made use of the interest of Indian Hindus in the "subjective aspects" of faith. (41) Meyer's achievement was to adapt his message about deeper spiritual experience so that people in different cultures could understand it and make it their own.

Theology and Spirituality

Although Meyer placed strong emphasis on living the life of practical holiness, he was by no means indifferent to theology. He spoke of his debt to thinkers in the Reformed tradition, such as the American theologian, Jonathan Edwards. But Christianity, for Meyer, was ultimately (as he put it in 1894) "not a creed, but a life; not a theology or a ritual, but the possession of the spirit of man by the Eternal Spirit of the Living Christ." (42) He was concerned, he said in 1901, that 'Christianity had been "shamefully mistreated" by evangelicals and other classes of Christians who had thought that Christianity was wholly a matter of objective doctrine. He argued that it was "largely and equally" subjective. (43) As a spiritual guide, and also a practical evangelist and social activist, Meyer contended that the most urgent consideration for the church was not creedal orthodoxy but living faith.

Significantly, Meyer, in an address in 1901 to an Evangelical Alliance conference, acknowledged his indebtedness to "saintly mystics"; and those whom he seemed to have admired most were those, like Francis of Assisi, who combined spirituality with mission in the world. For Meyer, mysticism did not mean a life of contemplation without corresponding outward-directed action. God himself, as Meyer saw it, was a God of action. Meyer was drawn towards a theology that pictured God as "a pilgrim" with his people. (44) This theological approach enabled him to see the experience of God as an on-going one, in which the Christian never fully grasped the essence of God but was always being drawn more deeply into God's reality through the journey of following Christ.

This experience of God was to be found not only through study of the Bible and prayer, but also through the natural world. God revealed himself in a particularly vivid way, Meyer believed, through nature. William Wordsworth and all his followers were, for Meyer, students in the school of Jesus Christ.

It was no accident that Keswick as a place appealed so much to the evangelicals who attended the convention. The Lake Poets, such as Wordsworth, were greatly admired by many convention leaders. To its lovers, said Meyer, nature was able to "unveil her face." (45)

Linked with his love of the natural elements was Meyer's high view of the Lord's Supper, where the tangible substances of bread and wine became vehicles of the divine presence. The "Holy Supper," Meyer said in 1894, was "always a great means of grace and nourishment." (46) is not that Meyer believed external aids to devotion were essential. Indeed, he commended the Quakers, who rejected the sacraments, for their stress on God as Spirit. But Meyer's concern, for a proper theology of holy communion led him to argue in the Baptist Times in 1909 that to eat the bread of the "Sacrament" (this, rather than "ordinance," was the word he used) and to meditate on what Christ did was to "incorporate Him into our texture," just as to eat everyday bread was to absorb the influence of heaven and earth, rain, cloud and soil. (47)

Theology was linked with practice. Meyer gave the Lord's Supper a high profile, introducing weekly communion at some of the churches he led, for example at Melbourne Hall, Leicester, and at Regent's Park Chapel, London.

Meyer's reflections on theology in relation to spirituality continued to the end of his life and seemed to have deepened as he reflected on his long spiritual journey. Writing in 1928 on the subject of the Trinitarian nature of God, Meyer observed that in his early years the cross of Christ was presented as though God's anger needed to be propitiated before he could "open the sluice gates of his love." This created a view of God that did not encourage trust in his loving purposes. In fact, Meyer stated, the self-giving of Jesus in his death was an act of God, and without this Christological perspective the atonement was "obscured and blurred." (48)

For Meyer, the true knowledge of God could be discovered only in God revealed in Christ. This was a knowledge of forgiveness of sin but also of union with Christ.

In The Call and Challenge of the Unseen, also published in 1928, Meyer's emphasis was on the contemporary Christian experience of death with Christ, not only experience which flowed from the death of Christ in the past. Meyer used the example of the fourteenth-century German mystic, John Tauler, who was told by Nicolas of Basle: "Dr Tauler, you must die." As a result of putting into practice in his inner life this message, Tauler preached sermons which Meyer considered to be "high models of a devout ... ministry." (49) In a series of articles in The Christian in 1929, the year of his death, Meyer used groups like the twelfth-century Waldensians, with their radical ministry in Italy, to illustrate his ideal of true spirituality. He believed he had found a similarly authentic expression of faith, in a contemporary form, in the Keswick position.

Conclusion

Meyer saw the holiness movement, with its emphasis on the deeper spiritual life, as having permeated the religious experience of his age. He was deeply conscious, after his own holiness experience, of his place within the movement.

The Keswick message, as Meyer experienced and then shaped it, unified the mystical and the practical elements in his thinking. Keswick Convention audiences identified with Meyer's twin emphases on the steps into deep experience through the Holy Spirit and the outworking of this in the world.

Keswick saw its need of Meyer as a Baptist and Nonconformist who could bridge some of the denominational divides that limited its effectiveness as an agent for transdenominational spirituality. Meyer's broad sympathies enabled him to act as a focus of spiritual unity in wider evangelicalism. He attempted, for example, to channel the energy of the Welsh Revival towards Keswick, and continually looked for new expressions of spiritual power.

Meyer also had a unique ability to convey the Keswick message in different cultures. This played a crucial part in the worldwide impact of Keswick. Through the openings provided by D. L. Moody, Meyer injected Keswick's holiness teaching into American evangelicalism.

In all his active promotion of holiness, Meyer was also reflective, and tried to bring together a framework of theology and of spirituality. The vision he promoted through Keswick and tried to realize himself was one in which inner devotion, a commitment to active service, and the work of theological thought were brought together in a balanced and integrated spiritual life.

(1.) The most recent history of the convention is Charles Price and Ian Randall, Transforming Keswick (Carlisle: OM Publishing, 2000).

(2.) See Edna Jackson, The Life That Is Life Indeed (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1910).

(3.) For a full discussion of the background, see David W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), chapter 5.

(4.) J. B. Figgis, Keswick from Within (London: Marshall Brothers, 1914), 19.

(5.) The Christian (August 2, 1917): 8. This article by Meyer traces his early experiences of the holiness movement.

(6.) The Christian (January 1, 1925): 6.

(7.) For speakers, see Record of the Convention for the Promotion of Scriptural Holiness held at Brighton, May 29th to June 7th, 1875 (Brighton: n.p., 1875), 492-93.

(8.) James F. Findlay, Dwight L Moody: American Evangelist, 1837-1899 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 132.

(9.) The Life of Faith (April 18, 1917): 393.

(10.) The Life of Faith (October 5, 1892): 241.

(11.) The Keswick Week (1902): 180.

(12.) Steven Barabas, So Great Salvation: The History and Message of the Keswick Convention (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1952), 39.

(13.) The Life of Faith (August 1, 1899): 143.

(14.) See, for example, the following by Meyer: Elijah and the Secret of his Power (London: Morgan & Scott, 1888), 42; Key-Words of the Inner Life (London: Morgan & Scott, 1893), 78; The Call and Challenge of the Unseen (London: Morgan & Scott, 1928), 67.

(15.) Keswick Week (1922): 117.

(16.) The Christian (July 22, 1925): 9.

(17.) Keswick Week (1903): 66, 97-98, 146.

(18.) Life of Faith (July 20, 1904): 578.

(19.) Life of Faith (August 1, 1900): 495.

(20.) Life of Faith (August 7, 1895): 410.

(21.) Ian M. Randall, "Mere Denominationalism: F. B. Meyer and Baptist Life," Baptist Quarterly 35 (1993): 19-34.

(22.) Keswick Week (1906): 60.

(23.) Keswick Week (1910): 120.

(24.) Life of Faith (August 12, 1903): 572; (August 26, 1903): 595.

(25.) The Christian (January 12, 1905): 11; Baptist Times (October 13, 1905): v.

(26.) The Christian (March 26 1925): 5. For more on this, see Ian M. Randall, "`Days of Pentecostal Overflowing': Baptists and the Shaping of Pentecostalism" (forthcoming in a volume of essays from the first International Conference on Baptist Studies, 1997).

(27.) Frank Bartleman, How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles (Los Angeles: Azusa Street Mission, 1925), 11.

(28.) See Robert M. Anderson, Vision of the Disinherited: The Making of American Pentecostalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 43, 78; Donald W. Dayton, The Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1987); Ian M. Randall, Evangelical Experiences: A Study in the Spirituality of English Evangelicalism, 1918-1939 (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1999).

(29.) Elim Evangel (February 24, 1930): 50.

(30.) Life of Faith (July 6, 1921): 746.

(31.) Ibid.

(32.) Life of Faith (October 20, 1926): 1189; cf. David W. Bebbington, "Baptists and Fundamentalism in Inter-War Britain," K. Robbins, ed., Protestant Evangelicalism: Britain, Ireland, Germany and America, c. 1750-ca. 1950, Studies in Church History, Subsidia 7 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 297-326.

(33.) George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 249, footnote.

(34.) Quoted in The Christian (September 3, 1891): 13.

(35.) The Christian (August 25, 1892): 13; (September 1, 1892): 11; (September 8,) 1892, 14.

(36.) The Christian (August 30, 1894): 9; (September 3, 1896): 18.

(37.) See D. W Frank, Less than Conquerors: How Evangelicals Entered the Twentieth Century (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 154.

(38.) Life of Faith (March 3, 1897): 104; (March 10, 1897): 111.

(39.) The Christian (March 11, 1897): 10; (August 24 1899): 22.

(40.) Life of Faith (April 10, 1901): 220.

(41.) Many of Meyer's travels are covered in W. Y. Fullerton, F B Meyer: A Biography (London: Marshall & Co., 1929).

(42.) F. B. Meyer, From Calvary to Pentecost (London: Keswick Library, 1894), 46.

(43) F. B. Meyer, The Soul's Ascent (London: Morgan & Scott, 1901), 87.

(44.) F. B. Meyer, Moses: The Servant of God (London: Morgan & Scott, 1893), 141.

(45.) Keswick Week (1920): 168.

(46.) F. B. Meyer, The Future Tenses of the Blessed Life (London: Morgan & Scott, 1894), 66.

(47.) Baptist Times (November 12, 1909): 811.

(48.) The Christian (January 5, 1928): 5.

(49.) F. B. Meyer, The Call and Challenge of the Unseen, 32-33.

Ian M. Randall is director of Baptist and Anabaptist studies, International Baptist Theological Seminary, Prague, and lecturer in church history and spirituality, Spurgeon's College, London.