F.S. Webster, M.A.

“All things to all men, and all for Christ.” This was the all-conquering motto of the Rev. F. S. Webster, M.A.

The Rev. F. S. Webster was born in 1860 in Twickenham, England. He had a brilliant career at Oxford, where he took a double-first in mathematics. He was also a member of the Church Army which was founded by the Rev. Wilson Carlile. It was part of the Church of England and was similar to the Salvation Army. The Church Army was formed to train an army of soldiers and officers from working men and women to make them evangelists to the outcasts, criminals and the slums. The ministry was taken out into the streets and places where the Gospel was so greatly needed.
Mr. Webster served as principal at the training institution for the Church Army evangelists while he was at Oxford. Later, he had a period of service in London, with Rev. E. W. Moore at Brunswick Chapel, followed by his appointment to St. Thomas’s, in Birmingham, where for ten years he did splendid work before coming to All Soul’s, Langham-place in 1900. His out-and-out convictions, and his fearless courage in the proclamation of the vital truths of the Gospel, secured for him widespread confidence and many open doors of service far beyond his own Church.
He worked in many centers of Evangelical service without reserve. He was one of the honorary secretaries of the Religious Tract Society, chairman of the Young Helpers’ League of Dr. Barnardo’s Homes, Chairman of the Candidates’ Committee of the Church Missionary Council, and member of the Keswick Convention Council, and the Advent Testimony Movement. He always worked with great enthusiasm and was held in high esteem by large numbers of Christians throughout the land.
He visited China as a deputation from Keswick, and was an accepable speaker at Conventions in England and on the Continent. His labors, indeed, were abundant, and his store of energy almost boundless. A man of brotherly sympathy, a lover of God’s Word and a diligent soul-winner, he filled a definite place in the ranks of Christian leadersip, and made his own distinctive contribution to the work of the Gospel in his day.