Robert STEEL

STEEL, ROBERT (b. Pontypool, Wales, 15 May 1827; d. Sydney, NSW, 9 Oct 1893). Presbyterian minister of St Stephen's, Sydney.

Born in Wales, Steel was educated in Scotland after his mother's early death. After studying under Thomas Chalmers at Edinburgh, Steel was licensed by the Free Church presbytery of Irvine in 1851. Leaving Irvine, where he had worked since 1848, Steel ministered in Blairgowrie, Millport, Salford in Manchester, and then Cheltenham. In 1862 he was called to what became known as St Stephen's in Macquarie Street, Sydney (after 1873 it was moved to Philip Street), where he served till his death. Steel's pastoral work was widely appreciated, and St Stephen's was for many years the largest and most influential congregation in the NSW church.

A man of intelligence and wide-ranging interests, Steel earned a PhD from Gottingen for his work on the prophet Samuel, in an era when many Presbyterian clergy were awarded doctorates from Scotland for much slighter achievements. He was the main co-editor of the Australian Witness, and Presbyterian Herald (1873-9). He was a strong temperance advocate, and also served for 25 years as agent for the Presbyterian missionaries in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). He visited the islands in 1874, and in 1880 published a comprehensive account of the Presbyterian work there.

Steel played a prominent part in bringing about the Presbyterian union of 1865 in NSW, and in 1867 was elected moderator of the fledgling Presbyterian Church of NSW. Steel urged the establishment of a Presbyterian college within the University of Sydney and served as a member of the Council of St Andrew's College when it was created (1873). He was president of the Theological Faculty, associated with the College, and the tutor in Church History and Pastoral Theology. An evangelical by persuasion, Steel was never swayed from his belief in the Bible as God's inerrant and sufficient Word, in the Calvinistic doctrine of election, and in hell as a literal place of everlasting punishment. Doubt was not to be conciliated by concession. However, Steel did shift his views on the age of the earth, and came to believe that the 'days' of Genesis 1 were indefinite periods of time. Steel's opinions on Darwinism oscillated, but in 1890 he committed himself to the view that evolution was compatible with authentic Christianity. Like B B Warfield in the USA, he saw little danger in Darwinism, mainly because he concentrated on teleology rather than revelation.

A man of great dignity with an eirenic temperament, Steel maintained cordial relations with all theological groupings within the Church. In 1864 he had referred ominously to 'the coming crisis' (Steel, 1864: 217), but after his death he gained the reputation for being 'liberal without being latitudinarian, and conservative without being narrow'. He was in fact far more conservative than liberal, but shrank from issuing clarion calls to battle. Steel was probably the last great popular evangelical leader in NSW Presbyterianism. As he lay dying in 1893, he fortified his soul with readings from a little volume of German hymns. His passing met with deep and widespread expressions of sorrow.

B J Bridges, Ministers, Licentiates and Catechists of the Presbyterian Churches in New South Wales, 1823-1865 (Melbourne, 1989); G W Hardy, Living Stones: The Story of St Stephen's, Sydney (Homebush West, 1985); Presbyterian, 14, 21 October 1893

SELECT WRITINGS: Samuel the Prophet (London, 1860); Burning and Shining Lights (London, 1864); The New Hebrides and Christian Missions (London, 1880); The Shorter Catechism, (London, 1885)

PETER BARNES