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IF the Scottish pulpit,
in the wide fields of its influence upon the national character and
upon the world's civilization, it is difficult to speak here with
that fullness which the intrinsic importance of the theme demands.
Of the manifold agencies which had their share in working out the
historic destiny of Scotland, forming the character of her people
and giving them a strong hold upon the attention of other nations,
far from being the least potential was her Christian pulpit. In
truth, it is not going too far to say that in all these respects the
bold, fearless, educated and evangelical ministry of Scotland,
faithful to truth, to duty and to God, can be regarded as holding no
second place. The history of Scotland and her influence upon the
march of civilization could not have been what they were without
such a ministry. No man can read or faithfully write that history
without recognizing on every page the powerful guiding hand of the
pulpit.
For more than three
hundred years it has been a throne of power in the land. It has
attained an excellence and it has gained an influence over the whole
home-population, and at the same time commanded a respect abroad,
not often equaled, and certainly never excelled, in other Christian
countries. It has moulded the national character of Scotland and
controlled public opinion among an intelligent reading people whom
it largely, more than any other single agency, helped to educate. It
has for generations made its voice heard as an authority in the
exposition of God's word, in every family of the land, and in the
daily lives of the people. It has also made that voice heard through
all the ramifications of private business, through the halls of
literature, science and philosophy, as well as in all the
departments of the public service. It has been, and it still is, one
of the essential factors in all the practical problems of popular
education. Its influence has been felt for good not alone within the
narrow boundaries of her eastern and western shores, but in all
lands where the Anglo-Saxon tongue has been. Scotland could not
exist without her pulpit: she would no more be Scotland.
From John Knox down
to Alexander Duff, not to speak of the living, it is a long and
illustrious succession which in all the greatest elements of
evangelical preaching will compare favorably with the ablest
min'-try of any age or of any nation. It has been a ministry
distinguished for self-sacrificing zeal, conscientious loyalty to
truth, strong common sense, energy and decision of character,
unshrinking devotion to principle in the discharge of duty, and not
unfrequently in the case of its leaders possessed of learning,
culture, philosophy and eloquence fully equal to any in the world.
It has been eminently wise and conservative, and at the same time
eminently practical and aggressive. It has through all the ages felt
itself in possession of the true word of God and entrusted by divine
appointment with a true mission to man; nor has it ever shrunk,
through fear or favor, from declaring to men what it conceived to be
the whole counsel of God, whether men would hear or forbear to hear.
John Knox, with his majestic intellect, his heart of energy, his
will of adamant, his tongue of fire, may be regarded as the very
founder and model of its peculiar style. He was himself, both in
character and in action, the most fitting representative of its
earlier period. He was the man for the times, and no man less highly
endowed in all the attributes of intellectual and spiritual manhood
could have stood in his place and accomplished his work. No man ever
more thoroughly impressed his own character upon a people and upon a
ministry than did Knox upon the pulpit and the people of Scotland.
The Presbyterian Church of to-day in every part of Christendom is
proud to acknowledge Knox as a leader and a champion of the truth
who performed for Scotland a work not inferior to that accomplished
by the great Reformers on the Continent.
As a body, the
Scottish clergy throughout the succession have been characterized
not so much for the graces of a finished oratory as for the greater
gifts of profound thought, massive learning, sound doctrine,
evangelical zeal and impassioned energy. As a class, they have been
marked by what was called "ingenium perfervadum Scotorum." They have
been earnest, thoughtful, conscientious men—men who felt that they
had a mission from God, a work to do, and they were "straitened till
it was accomplished." They have aimed to make their mark upon the
men of their times, nor have they failed to do so. The grand
distinction of the Scottish pulpit through every epoch has been
"truth before beauty" - what to say rather than how to say it. Solid
matter has been everything; method, a thing of minor consequence.
The preaching has therefore been at all times instructive,
practical, scriptural, experimental, discriminating, theological,
and not unfrequently logical, philosophical and learned. This
all-important attribute of strength and power shone forth in all the
great preachers of the early period, who seemed to catch their
inspiration from the heroic example of Knox. It was exemplified in
the preaching of the learned and noble John Erskine of Dun; in James
and Andrew Melville, the heroic compeers of Knox; in the eloquent
Alexander Henderson, the gifted young George Gillespie, the saintly
Samuel Rutherford—the three commissioners of the Scottish Church at
the famous Westminster Assembly of 1643. It was illustrated in the
preaching of the earnest John Welch and Robert Bruce, in David
Dickson of Irvine and John Livingstone of Shotts, a single sermon of
the latter being instrumental in converting five hundred souls. The
same lofty style of spiritual power was manifested in the pulpits of
the noble martyrs James Guthrie and James Renwick.
It would be tedious
to recount the shining list of their successors of a later day—to
tell of Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, of John McLaurin and Robert
Walker, of Thomas McCree and Andrew Thompson, the accomplished John
Logan, the elegant Hugh Blair, of James Hamilton of London and John
Witherspoon of our own Revolutionary period. Each of these memorable
names was a tower of strength in its day. The pulpit of Hamilton in
London and the presidency of Witherspoon in America may be taken as
types of a large class of distinguished men, who, after winning a
just renown in the land that gave them birth, were enabled to carry
the influence of that land abroad and to accomplish a still grander
mission in the countries of their adoption. And how shall we
describe the learning, the scholarly culture, the Christian
philosophy, the statesmanship and sagacity, the burning eloquence
and zeal, of Candlish and Cunningham, Buchanan and l3onar, Guthrie
and Chalmers, the leaders of that memorable disruption of 1843 that
gave to Scotland a free Church for ever delivered from State
intrusion, and to the world one of the most impressive examples of
moral heroism in all history—that of five hundred ministers of the
gospel in a body, representing the Christian people of half the
realm, choosing to renounce all the honors and the incomes of a
Church Establishment rather than swerve a hair's breadth from the
clear line of conscience. The olden days of allegiance to "Christ's
crown and covenant" had witnessed nothing sublimer than this modern
spectacle of the Assembly of 1843 at Edinburgh.
Who was Thomas
Chalmers, the leader of this great movement, but another and nobler
Knox brought to the front by the stern exigences of those recent
times, only melted by love, refined by wider culture, expanded by
the larger liberty, the broader science, the warmer sympathies, the
more catholic spirit and the higher civilization of the nineteenth
century? We venerate the name and the work of Knox and all the
worthies of his day, but in the lofty grandeur of his character, in
the world-wide sweep of his charity and in the soul-earnestness of
his beseeching eloquence no pulpit of any age or of any country
since apostolic times has probably produced a greater name and a
higher type of preacher than Thomas Chalmers.
Where in the annals
of modern missions can be found higher examples of heroic devotion
to the cause of Christ and of philanthropic self-surrender to the
good of men than those which shine forth in the lives of the
Scottish missionaries of the last fifty years, Robert Moffat and
David Livingstone in Africa, John Wilson and Alexander Duff in
India, fitting representatives of the noble band? If their names do
not appear on the bright roll of the pulpit in the home-field, it is
only because with apostolic zeal they had chosen to carry the gospel
to the perishing and to spend their lives on foreign shores. But in
influence and in power it was the Scottish pulpit still, only
transplanted to distant climes. Their glorious record is on high:
they have rested from their labors, and their works do follow them.
They have impressed their characters on the people for whom they
toiled nevermore to be effaced. Their names are precious as
household memories among the tribes of the Dark Continent and among
the converts of Calcutta and Bombay. All the world knows how well
they toiled and how nobly they died for the people of those distant
regions. They were pioneers, and they laid foundations that shall be
the basis of civilizations yet to follow. In learning, culture,
philosophy and burning eloquence some of them—as Alexander Duff
—would have graced any pulpit or any university chair in the
mother-country. Indeed, the General Assembly of the Free Church in
Edinburgh never honored itself more than when, in 185!, on one of
his visits to his native land, the venerable Alexander Duff, with
all the scars of veteran service upon him, though still enthusiastic
and eloquent as ever, was elected by acclamation to the
moderatorship of that august body. The next year he visited the
United States and electrified our churches by the splendor of his
eloquence.
At the opening of the
present century Claudius Buchanan, a native of Glasgow, was already
in Bengal, where he spent a long and active life exploring the
country, translating the Scriptures into the language of Hindostan
and laying the foundations of Christian missions. It was in 1829
that Dr. Duff was sent to Calcutta by the Church of Scotland, being
the first Protestant missionary ever appointed by any national
Established Church. His advent in that great capital formed a new
departure in the missionary work. He lived to see the great college
for the education through the English tongue of the higher classes
of Hindoo youth which lie established there attended by thousands of
pupils and forming a landmark in the conduct of missions to the more
civilized heathen. Perhaps no Scotsman of this century has done a
grander work in any land than this great man did at Calcutta. And
almost equal commendation may be accorded to the similar career at
Bombay of John Wilson—a man of kindred spirit and attainments, who
was also made moderator of the Free Church General Assembly on one
of his return-visits to Scotland.
Thus has the Scottish
pulpit through its great missionaries been sending its influence
around the globe. In the vast populations of paganism it has kindled
the lights of education, of high culture, of free thought, of
science and liberty—in a word, of Christian civilization, the
noblest civilization known to mankind. These lights can no more be
extinguished than can the onward progress of the race be arrested.
What has been done in Asia has also been done in Australia, in, New
Zealand and in Africa. The name of David Livingstone has been
written across the centre of the Dark Continent as was that of his
predecessor and father-in-law, Robert Moffat, over South Africa.
Livingstone must henceforth stand among the greatest discoverers of
the century, as he is one of its most daring and heroic
missionaries. In philanthropy and in all that constitutes the true
missionary spirit he will hold equal rank with Vanderkemp and Moffat
in Africa, with Henry Martyn in Persia, and Judson in Burmah, with
Gutzlaff and Morrison in China. And he has written his name also
amid the stars of modern geographical service. Scotland has given
many names to science; his is one which belongs alike to
philanthropy. His long and toilsome career in Central Africa,
surrounded by savages and the dangers of the most pestilential
climates, shut out so long from all the sweets of home and native
land, is one of the great significant facts of the age. It shows
what men will dare for truth and love. It shows, too, how heroically
such men can die. |
