A Hundred and Fifty Years Ago

          There is an hour when I must part
          With all I hold most dear
         And life with its best hopes will then
          As nothingness appear.


         For the hymnist, Congregationalist Andrew Reed, that hour came one hundred and fifty years ago, and when he died the church lost not only a fine hymn writer but also a writer of repute and the city of London an exemplary worker amongst the poor.
         He was born in London in November 1787.  The fact that his mother had been an orphan had a lifelong effect on him.  His father was a watchmaker and a Congregational lay preacher.  Andrew grew up to work alongside his father and used his wages to buy classical and theological books, studying first in his home, and then in that of the Rev Matthew Wilks.  In 1811, Reed was ordained and became the first pastor of the New Road Chapel in the Stepney, London, where he labored for twenty years.  In 1831, he became the minister of the Wycliffe Church, Commercial Road, London, which had been built through his untiring efforts to replace the New Road Chapel, whose congregation had grown from one hundred to over two thousand by his death.
         Reed wrote a number of hymns, although there are only two in our main hymnbook, the other being another which we regularly sing;


         Spirit divine, attend our prayers,
         And make our hearts Thy home;
         Descend with all Thy gracious powers,
         O come, great Spirit come!


         Dr Reed was best known however, for his work amongst the less fortunate, underprivileged and sick members of society.  During his lifetime he established five national benevolent institutions – the London Orphan Asylum, the Asylum for Fatherless Children, the Asylum for Idiots, the Infant Orphan Asylum and the Hospital for Incurables.  All this philanthropic work was inspired by his experience of life through his mother who gave shelter to orphans, remembering how it had been for her.
         He died in 1862, leaving the epitaph: “I was born yesterday, I shall die tomorrow, and I must not spend today telling what I have done, but in doing what I may for Him who has done all for me.  I sprang from the people, I have lived for the people, the most for the most unhappy.”