Rev George William Cross (Part 4)

Photo found in the Pretoria Central Baptist Church's Diamond Jubilee (1897 - 1957) pamphlet.

With the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War many British residents in the Transvaal and Free State came to Grahamstown. A committee for the care of these refugees was formed and Cross, always ready to shoulder public burdens, consented to be its honorary secretary. The work was very exacting and consumed much of his time. Yet another honorary secretaryship he undertook when a memorial to the fallen was decided upon. With him in charge of the fund its success was certain, and he shared in the discussions which led to the erection of the beautiful memorial near the Cathedral. All through these years Cross was the honorary secretary of our Baptist Union and twice was elected to be its President. The wonder is, that he did not break down in health or lose his hold upon his congregation.

However, it was to a tired man, who confessed that the wheels of life were moving less freely that, in 1903, the call to Pretoria came. Ministers, apparently, had met with little success there and the prospect was enough to daunt a less valiant heart. With characteristic self-denial he decided to go. His decision roused the city and it expressed its appreciation of his honorary and unstinted citizen service by public farewells and generous gifts. For ten years he maintained a high-toned ministry that won for the church an honourable reputation.

During his Pretoria pastorate the invaluable Pension Fund scheme was unanimously adopted by the Assembly at Pietermaritzburg in 1910. It originated in a self-denying gift of Rev. E.P. Riemer, one of our German ministers, in 1938, who wished it to be the nucleus of a fund for invalided ministers such as he was. But, until Cross took the idea to heart, nothing more was done. Mr. T. Riemer, son of the originator, and the secretary-treasurer of the fun, writes: “Had it not been for Mr. Cross’ enthusiasm and perseverance I doubt whether a fun would ever have been established…The balance of the fund today after an existence of 18 years is £18, 337 1s 4d.

Baptist Church on Lambert Road

In 1913 he began a five years’ pastorate of our church in Lambert Road, Durban. His ministry here was wider than his people, for many visitors who knew him, or had heard of his fame as a preacher, attended his services. His people were unprepared for his resignation in 1918, and not only besought him to reconsider it, but offered him a six months’ holiday and release from all responsibility for the work. But he was sixty-seven years of age, and thought he ought to retire from the care of a church and preach as opportunities opened. So he adhered to his resignation.

“It is not in man to direct his steps.” He went by request to supply our church in Bloemfontein to two months. The deacons suggested a call. He refused to consider it. Then the church unanimously pressed him to be its pastor and, at length, he consented. Bloemfontein had always been a difficult sphere, and Cross found it to be the hardest field he had worked in. Encouragement came in an increasing congregation and spiritual fruits, and it was a joy to realise that he was not a spent force for Christ. An illness overtook him. From a sick bed he rose resolutely to conduct a deceased member’s funeral. A fatal attack of bronchitis followed, and he passed to the solemn troops and sweet societies of just men made perfect. “Thou hast made him most blessed forever, Thou has made him exceedingly glad with Thy countenance.”

Written by: Kevin Roy

Rev George William Cross (Part 3)

The historic 1843 Baptist church in Grahamstown

After a course of study in Spurgeon’s College he accepted in 1873 the call of one of our churches in the Irish city of Belfast. There was a short, happy pastorate, during which he endeared himself and left cherished memories of his public spirit, enthusiasm, and a style of preaching more poetical than was usual there.

Grahamstown received him as pastor in July, 1877. After his induction service at which were five of our ministers, it was decided to form a South African Baptist Union. It was a courageous act of faith and when later our churches increased apace, Cross was one of a trio of church extension leaders.

Late in 1877 the Galeka-Gaika War engaged the attention of the Cape Colony. Cross’ application for a chaplaincy was too late but, being determined to accompany the local volunteers, he was enrolled as a trooper, with permission to serve as an unpaid chaplain. He saw the campaign through and won the respect of his Company as a comrade and a chaplain.

When in 1878 the war ceased, Cross resumed his pastorate in Grahamstown. But in 1880 uncertainty as to an article in his church’s creed caused him to resign, and, to use his own expression, he went “into the wilderness.” Happily he had friends at Bowden, near Grahamstown and there he opened a school. Soon the school attracted public attention by its success in the Cape University Elementary Examinations. While he wrestled with his doubts he often conducted Sunday services in the undenominational church, preaching the truths he was sure of.

Light upon his problem came after five years and he accepted a second call to Grahamstown. A strenuous period of nearly eighteen years followed. He consented to be the commissioner of all the Cape University Examinations. He also became the honorary secretary of the Public School. To him fell the correspondence with the military authorities, who needed the school buildings at the Drostdy for an Imperial regiment, sent out by the British War Office in anticipation of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. The school committee sold the buildings for £6000 and Cross was kept ver busy until the present handsome High School for boys and the Victoria High School for girls were ready to receive the scholars.

In 1897 his church and townsfolk made it possible for him to take seven month’s holiday, and with Mrs. Cross to visit their relatives in Belfast and renew his energy.

Written by: Kevin Roy

Rev George William Cross (Part 2)

Once Cross and I attended a public entertainment of hypnotism in the Grahamstown Town Hall. About half-a-dozen young men, employed for the purpose, were hypnotised. To the amusement of the audience they drank with much gusto a vile mixture of paraffin, vinegar and something else, and went on to behave ridiculously in obedience to the entertainer’s whims. Cross was serious when we came out. “Poor fellow!” he remarked. What he felt was the degradation of their submission to the will of another to play the fool for wages. Probably one or two only shared his sentiment. Yet Cross was practical. For his friends in Bowden he erected a building. One of his deacons reported that he had seen him on his back under a railway engine trying to find out what was wrong. In his later years he made excellent furniture for one of his sons. For a score of years he prepared the handbook for our S.A. Baptist Union, a labour done with the efficiency of a born secretary and the good taste of an artist. One day he visited me at Port Alfred with the late J.T. Lloyd, a very brilliant preacher and lecturer on Dante. We agreed to go by boat up the beautiful Kowie River. When we landed for refreshments it was Cross who was the most practical of our party. In that same river, on another occasion, he successfully swam to rescue a young man from drowning. The news of this exploit, however, came from other lips.

As a preacher Cross saw sermons not only in trees, but also in clouds, the restless seas, the everlasting hills. In delivery he was deliberate, his sentences concise and clear as crystal, with words here and there that pleased ears attuned to their fitness to convey the sense. While a poet-preacher, he longed for conversions and was often cheered by decisions for Christ. His loveable personality held his congregation well together.

Hymns reveal, and Cross wrote hymns occasionally for his congregation to sing – I have four. I quote the first verse of one written in Pretoria. It is entitled Conquering Love and is set to the tune Prospect:

Jesus, Thy wondrous love to me-
To all men – is Divine.
The loves of men and angels are
But cold compared to Thine.

Love brought Thee down from heaven to share
Our mortal pain and woe:
Thy holiness, amid our sin,
Felt grief we cannot know.

Written by: Kevin Roy

Rev George William Cross (Part 1)

Photo found in the Pretoria Central Baptist Church's Diamond Jubilee (1897 - 1957) pamphlet.

Mr. George William Cross’ tall figure and joyous smile of greeting were familiar sights in the Grahamstown of the eighties and nineties of the last century. These were the years when my pastorates in Port Alfred and Kariega enabled us often to meet. I emphasise the smile, because it was a characteristic part of the charm of a magnetic personality. It illumined his face at times when preaching, or reading aloud to a congenial listener, the music or the sentiment of one of his favourite poets, or telling a story from “Brer Rabbit” or “Alice in Wonderland” to young people. That smile dissipated self-depreciation on occasions. Before meeting him one might be in the mood of Mark Rutherfords confession: For I was ever commonplace, of genius never had a trace – that smile restored one’s feeling of value.

Some men suggest a walled town with its gate locked, bolted and barred. In effect they say “No admission to our confidence. Our hearts are our own and we keep them to ourselves.” Not so was Cross. He might be cautious to be doubtful, but to others his heart was like his home, an open house. The welcome was always evident. His friendship was a steadfast loyalty. In any misunderstanding of his action he waited with a quiet confidence of one’s discovery of his fidelity.

There was an entire absence of an embarrassing self-consciousness in him. Some men live in the shadow of themselves, and so are shy or awkwardly self assertive. Cross was natural, unhampered by thought of himself in company or when addressing an audience. His modest self-possession made him a charming host, companion, or public speaker.

Qualities considered to be opposites were seen in him. The man of sentiment is seldom a man of affairs. By sentiment I understand sensitiveness of beauty, poetic fancy, visions of imagination, and to the respect due to man as man. Now Cross was a man of sentiment. Upon going ashore at Cape Town in 1883 one of our ministers took me for a walk over Signal Hill. In our conversation Cross, whom I had not seen, was referred to and coldly criticised for his ecstasy over a Cape flower. My companion was a very earnest preacher for the Gospel, but he was not a poet. Cross was both, and his ecstasy was akin to the poet Wordsworth’s upon his recollections of a host of golden daffodils: Then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils.

Written by: Kevin Roy