Ф.Б. Мейер: Өмір және қызметінің шолуы

Frederick Brotherton Meyer (8 April 1847 – 28 March 1929), a contemporary and friend of D. L. Moody and A. C. Dixon, was a Baptist pastor and evangelist in England involved in ministry and inner city mission work on both sides of the Atlantic. Author of numerous religious books and articles, many of which remain in print today, he was described in an obituary as The Archbishop of the Free Churches.

Frederick Meyer was born in London. He attended Brighton College and graduated from the University of London in 1869. He studied theology at Regent's Park College. Meyer was part of the Higher Life movement and preached often at the Keswick Convention. He was known as a crusader against immorality. He preached against drunkenness and prostitution. He is said to have brought about the closing of hundreds of saloons and brothels. While in York in the early 1870s F. B. Meyer met the American evangelist Dwight L. Moody, whom he introduced to other chapels, churches, and ministers in England, and by exchange was invited to make several trips to minister in America. The two preachers became lifelong friends. Meyer played an important part in the beginnings of the Welsh revival, holding Keswick meetings in Wales in 1903 at which Evan Roberts, among others, pledged to spend at least one day a month praying for revival. In 1908, Meyer and his wife made a tour of South Africa, where they met Mohandas Gandhi spending several days with him in May. Meyer expressed a cautious sympathy with Gandhi's movement of passive resistance. In June 1916, together with Hubert Peet, a Quaker, he visited British conscientious objectors in France, to report upon their position in the light of news that 42 resisting men had been forcibly transported there. The visit took place shortly before 35 of the men were court martialled and formally sentenced to death, but immediately reprieved. F. B. Meyer wrote over 75 books, including Christian biographies and devotional commentaries on the Bible. In 1918, Meyer, along with seven other clergymen, was also a signatory to the London Manifesto asserting that the Second Coming was imminent. An illustrated biography of his life was published in 1929, with a new edition a few years later. 2007 saw the release of a new biography of Meyer, F. B. Meyer: If I had a hundred lives, written by Professor Bob Holman and published by Christian Focus Publications.

Frederick Meyer spent the last few years of his life working as a pastor in England's churches, but still made trips to North America, including one he made at age 80 (his earlier evangelistic tours had included South Africa and Asia, as well as the United States and Canada). A few days before his death, Meyer wrote the following words to a friend:
I have just heard, to my great surprise, that I have but a few days to live. It may be that before this reaches you, I shall have entered the palace. Don't trouble to write. We shall meet in the morning. Following F. B. Meyer's death in 1929, an English newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, described him as The Archbishop of the Free Churches. Across the Atlantic, he had earlier been described in The New York Observer as a man of international fame whose services are constantly sought by churches over the wide and increasing empire of Christendom. In 2007 Stephen Timms wrote of him as a man with enduring popularity, dubbed virtually a Christian socialist.