London Baptist
By that time there was also a Devon born missioner at Heath Street, William Rickard, who started the work in nearby Childs Hill. Constituted as a church in 1877, they had put up a building in 1870. Harvey laid the foundation stone on July 28, 1870.
At the end of 1865 Spurgeon and Brock formed the London Baptist Association. Unsurprisingly, Harvey was first treasurer, and continued until 1881. In 1870, he offered to help defray the debts of many chapels. If they paid one third by the end of 1871 he would give 10% of the remainder. He ended up parting with £500.
Another cause Harvey helped was Shoreditch Tabernacle, where William Cuff (1841-1926) ministered, developed in the 1880s. The meeting on December 1, 1876, held in Harvey's Hampstead drawing room, where it became clear that the new building could be financed was one of great joy to Cuff and his deacon.
Harvey felt a duty, as noted, to give an example but tried to conceal much of his giving. In 1867 his good friend Spurgeon wrote seeking a contribution to the recently begun Stockwell Orphanage. Harvey anonymously gave £600 for the second house, called The Merchant's House in his honour.
A letter of July 16, 1867, acknowledges the gift. “You find it more easy to perform noble actions than I do to thank you for them”. A similar sum was given for the girls' orphanage 13 years later.
Spurgeon wrote in a brief obituary in the Sword and Trowel for April 1883
He was for many years one of the most liberal helpers of the work which the Lord has entrusted to us: and we hear that he has left a legacy of £500 to the Orphanage. We may not mention many of the things which were done of him in secret; but we may say that he was the donor of the house on the boys’ side of the Orphanage, which is known as "the Merchant’s House". This he gave without a request or even a hint from us.
Another example of his kindness through Spurgeon came in the Summer of 1876 when he sent £100 to pass on anonymously to ministers in need of a summer holiday. Spurgeon wrote back, passing on letters thanking him and acknowledging where the thanks should go.
In 1882 a gift for the Baptist work in East India Dock also produced a very thankful letter.
Harvey was also a great supporter of the Baptist Missionary Society. In 1881 he called on supporters to make 1882 a year of Jubilee, urging each one to see himself as “the steward not the irresponsible owner of the manifold gifts of God”.
Nothing by halves
It was only a short way into 1893 that, on February 9, after two days' illness, Harvey rather suddenly died at home. He was 66.
With a favourite turn of phrase, Alfred wrote “Never was there a man more naturally modest and unpretentious than he. His unassuming geniality and consideration for others was the same in whatever company he was ....”.
He was a man of buoyant spirits. The Freeman (February 16, 1883) observed how he “had a rare confidence in his own powers ...” taking up various pursuits, “singing ... preaching to the poor ...” and apologetics, and mastering them. He was a “keen sportsman” and “a jocund traveller”; “I cannot conceive of Mr Harvey doing anything by halves”. He was paradoxically “devoid of personal ambition, and yet ... ambitious”. He sought “no satisfaction save success” and never rested on his laurels.
Glover writes of Harvey’s promptitude in discernment and resource, his kindness and “the influence of his Christian manhood.” “He was above all things devout, and rich in the reserves of conviction and experience ...” exhibiting “the kind of piety of a former generation; that name namely built on the Fear of God.”
Spurgeon commended Brock's words, in what he called an admirable sermon,
While in good health he was exemplary for punctuality at the service of God; and on very rare occasions was he absent from his place. ‘I am come,’ he said to me, the very Thursday evening before his fatal illness, when I expressed surprise at seeing him, ‘because I am able to go to business, and I do not think I ought to be absent from the church meeting.’
Spurgeon added
Our personal loss is very heavy, and, hence, we can the more tenderly sympathise with the esteemed mourners who have lost father and brother. We shall not soon look upon his like again. Are there not other merchants who love our Lord, and will be baptised for the dead, filling up the vacancies caused by these many deaths, and taking thought that the cause of Christ shall know no lack?
Lessons
This brief life of Harvey reminds us of the centrality of conversion. Doctrine in the head, accurate or inaccurate, cannot be enough. We are also reminded of the importance of generosity and the dread of wealth that marked him. There is also the importance of evangelism and seeking to win people on their own territory. Finally, there is the importance of a catholic spirit which is most commendable but that can, without care, lead us astray.
The article appeared in Reformation Today
