Geraldine Hooper Meetings (1862)
In the summer of 1862, Mr Haslam was absent for six weeks, and she took all the visiting, classes, and meetings in Avon Street, on herself, writing constantly to keep him informed how things were going on. When he or any other minister was there, however, she would do nothing more than raise the singing; and even before Mrs Haslam, she would never speak to the people. Others consequently had no idea of the gifts lying latent in her, they regarded her as an active, devoted, and most efficient helper, but had no anticipation that she would ever be more. But he "that is faithful in little" shall have much committed to his stewardship, and he that occupies to the utmost a small sphere is often called to fill a large one.
Like her Master, Geraldine Hooper was "moved with compassion," as she beheld in frequent walks up Holloway the miserable results of sin. Burning with desire to make known to its poor unhappy victims the Saviour who alone can deliver from it and them, she obtained the loan of a small kitchen, in which she assembled a few of the inmates of the court in which it was situated, and essayed a Gospel meeting. Her friend Mrs Haslam was with her when, for the first time, she gave an address in this little kitchen, and was absolutely startled at the discovery of her powers. This meeting she con?tinued till the numbers anxious to be present far exceeded the available space. She applied for permission to use a large schoolroom attached to St. Mark's Church, which, however, was her meetings to the Temperance Hall, whither her Holloway congregation followed her, and were reinforced by large accessions from Beechen Cliff and Widcombe. By degrees, persons from all parts of the city began to frequent these meetings; large numbers were converted, and a band of Christian helpers soon gathered around her the fruit of her labour in the Lord.refused. She therefore transferred
The novelty of a lady preaching, of course attracted many at first. Had Miss Hooper laboured only a short time in each place, the popularity of her ministry might naturally have been in large measure attributed to this source. But she laboured for more than ten years, almost without intermission, in Bath. She was as well known a preacher as any minister in the city, and so far from numbers falling off when curiosity was satisfied, they increased continually to the day when she preached her last sermon. Curiosity had nothing to do with bringing hundreds year after year to drink in the words of life from her lips. The excitement of novelty had long died away; the attractive power lay in something deeper, something which failed not; and so her influence never waned, but steadily increased to the close.
From the Temperance Hall the meetings were removed to a larger room, under the Meeting House of the Society of Friends in York Street. Her interest in her work at this time is shown by the following letter written during a temporary absence from Bath