M’CRIE, THOMAS, D.D.—This
most able and eloquent writer, whose generous selection of the chief subject
of his authorship, as well as the felicitous manner in which he discharged
the task, will connect his memory with the illustrious name of John Knox,
was born in the town of Dunse. He was the eldest of a family of four sons
and three daughters, and was born in November, 1772. His father was a
manufacturer and merchant of the above-mentioned town, and lived to witness
the literary celebrity of his son, as his death did not occur till 1828. The
subject of this memoir was peculiarly fortunate in his parentage, especially
in having a mother whose deep-toned, devoted, feminine piety seems, at a
very early period, to have directed the feelings and moulded the religious
character of her eldest son. As his parents belonged to that class of the
Secession called Antiburghers, Thomas M’Crie was born and nursed in that
communion, at a time, too, when it still retained much of the primitive
earnestness and simplicity of the old days of the covenant. "What is the
best book in the world?" was the first question usually put to his young
compeers; to which the answer was prompt, "The Bible." "What is the next
best book?" was the question that followed; and to this the answer was
equally prompt, "The Confession of Faith." Could the covenanting banner lack
a future champion from children so educated? On being sent to the parish
school, young M’Crie soon became not only an apt scholar, but distinguished
for those habits of laborious application by which he was trained to his
future work of historical and antiquarian research. This progress, however,
was somewhat alarming to his cautious father, who saw no reason for
impoverishing a whole family to make his first-born a finished scholar; and
had his paternal purposes been carried out, perhaps the future biographer of
Knox and Melville would have become nothing better than a thriving
Berwickshire store-keeper, or, it may be, a prosperous mercantile adventurer
in London. But kind relatives interposed, and the boy was allowed to follow
his original bent. This he did so effectually, that before he had reached
the age of fifteen, he was himself able to become a teacher in two country
schools successively, and thus to proceed in his studies without occasioning
the apprehended incumbrance.
It was soon settled that
aptitudes so decided, and acquirements which had already brought him into
notice, should be devoted to the work of the ministry; and accordingly, at
the age of sixteen, Thomas M’Crie left home to be enrolled as a student in
the university of Edinburgh. His pious, affectionate mother, accompanied him
part of the way; and when the painful moment of farewell had arrived, she
took him aside into a field upon Coldingham Moor, and there, kneeling down
with him behind a rock, she solemnly commended him and his future career to
that God who gave him, and to whose service she now willingly resigned him.
In a year after she died; but the memory of that prayer abode with him,
while its answer was attested in his future life and labours. His favourite
studies at the university, as might be surmised, were those allied with
ethics, philology, and history—all that is closely connected with the
development of human character, and the most effectual modes of delineating
its manifold and minute phases. It is no wonder, therefore, if, among the
professors who at this time were the ornaments of the college, Dugald
Stewart was his favourite instructor. In this way his course went on from
year to year, his studies being frequently alternated with the laborious
work of the schoolmaster, but his mind exhibiting on every occasion a happy
combination of student-like diligence, with healthful elastic vigour. In
September, 1795, he was licensed to be a preacher by the Associate
Presbytery of Kelso; and in this capacity his first public attempts were so
acceptable, that in little more than a month after being licensed, he
received a call from the Associate congregation in the Potter Row,
Edinburgh, to become their second minister. Thus early was he settled in the
precise sphere, where not only his talents as a minister could be turned to
best account, but the proper facilities afforded for that important literary
career in which he was destined to become so eminent.
A short time after he had
entered the work of the ministry, he married Miss Janet Dickson, daughter of
a respectable farmer in Swinton, to whom he had long been attached, and
found in her a suitable domestic friend and comforter, until death dissolved
their union.
At the outset of his
ministry, Mr. M’Crie’s sermons were distinguished by a careful attention to
those requirements of eloquence and rules of oratory, in which he was so
well fitted to excel. Indeed, the more aged of his brethren seem to have
been of opinion that he carried these to such an undue length, as to be in
danger of recommending himself more highly than the great subject of which
he was but the herald and messenger. He soon appears to have been of the
same opinion himself, more especially after a missionary tour through the
Orkney Islands, hitherto in a state of grievous spiritual destitution, but
now eager to hear the word of life, in whatever form it was proclaimed; and
there he saw, in the demeanour of his primitive audiences, the vast
importance of the great doctrines of salvation, as compared with those mere
human appliances by which it is adorned and recommended. This wholesome
conviction brought him back, not, however, with a recoil into the opposite
extreme, but into that happy medium where the true grandeur of the subject
is allowed its fall predominance, and where its expression is only valued by
how much the speaker himself is absorbed and lost sight of in his
all-important theme. This, indeed, is the secret of true pulpit eloquence;
and to this eloquence Mr. M’Crie attained after his return from the Orkneys.
The consequence was, that his acceptability as a preacher increased, his
auditory became greatly more numerous, and a deeper spirit of earnestness
was manifested in the general bearing and character of his congregation.
Such were the fruits of that act of self-denial, which talented aspiring
young clergymen find so difficult to perform. The same spirit of
disinterested devotedness to his work was also evinced by Mr. M’Crie in
trials which some may reckon equally hard to be withstood. Though his flock
was numerous, it was chiefly from the humbler classes, so that his income
was a small one; and in 1798, the price of provisions rose so high that
families of limited means were reduced to unwonted privations. In this state
of things, the congregation of Potter Row adopted the generous resolution of
increasing the salary of their minister; but no sooner did he hear of it,
than he wrote to them a letter, earnestly dissuading them from the measure.
"The allowance which you promised me," he said, "when I first came among you
as your minister, and which has been always punctually paid, though not so
liberal as what may be given to others of the same station in this place,
has hitherto been sufficient. From any general knowledge I have of the state
of your funds, it is as much as you can be supposed to give, especially
considering the burdens under which you labour. The expense of living has
indeed been increasing for some time past, but the incomes of trades-people
have not increased in proportion; and as the most of you are of that
description, I don’t consider myself entitled to make any increasing demand
upon you." This kind negation was gratefully received, and inserted in the
minute-book of the congregation. Here, however, the disinterestedness of
their pastor did not terminate. That period of famine, so universal
throughout Britain, and still well remembered in Scotland under the title of
"The Dearth," had reached its height in 1800, so that the middle were now
transformed into the lower classes, while the lower were little better than
paupers. At this crisis the minister stepped forward with a generous
proposal; it was that, in consequence of the prevalent poverty, the amount
of his stipend should be reduced. The people, however, who were able to
appreciate his motives, refused to consent, and thus ended a contest that
was equally honourable to both.
After this the life of Mr.
M’Crie was fated for some time to be imbittered by ecclesiastical
controversy. It is well known to our readers, that the great subject of
religious debate in Scotland has been, since the Reformation, not so much
about Christian doctrine as about Christian polity. What is the duty of the
state in aiding, upholding, and fortifying the spiritual government of the
church? And what is the nature and amount of that deference which the church
should render to the state in return, compatible with her spiritual
independence--or rather, her allegiance to her great Head and Sovereign? The
relationship between these powers was fully established in Scotland by the
first and second Books of Discipline, and finally ratified by the Confession
of Faith at Westminister. But toward the close of the last century, the
principles of the French revolution, so active in other countries, had also
found their entrance into Scotland; and there they menaced not only the
civil but also the ecclesiastical authority of the state. This was
especially the case in that body called the Secession, to a part of which
Mr. M’Crie belonged. The Seceders had caught that Gallican spirit so hostile
to kings and rulers, and they now found out that all connection between
church and state should cease. Each was to shift for itself as it best
could, without the aid or co-operation of the other; while kings and
magistrates, instead of being bound by their office to be nursing fathers of
the church, were engaged to nothing more, and could claim nothing higher,
than what they might effect as mere members and private individuals. In this
way the Voluntary principle was recognized as the only earthly stay of the
church’s dependence, and the party who adopted it thenceforth became, not
seceders from the Establishment, but Dissenters. It was thus that they
closed and bolted the door against any future reunion with the parent
church, let the latter become as reformed and as pure as it might. In this
painful controversy Mr. M’Crie was deeply involved; and, superior to that
restless spirit of modern innovation by which it was animated, he took the
unpopular side of the question, and held fast by those original standards of
the Secession which the majority were so eager to abandon. The result was
that numbers and votes prevailed, so that he, and three conscientious
brethren of the church who held the same principles with himself, were
formally deposed in 1806. The dissentients, under the new name of the
Constitutional Associate Presbytery, were thus dispossessed of their
churches, but not of their congregations, who still adhered to them; and in
the new places of worship to which they repaired, they continued to exercise
their ministry as before. In this way they formed a separate and distinct,
though small and unnoticed body, until 1827, when they united themselves
with another portion of protesters from the same synod, under the common
title of Original Seceders.
During the progress of these
events, which extended over a course of years, and with which Mr. M’Crie was
so vitally connected, their whole bearing had a most momentous influence
upon his future literary labours. They threw his mind back upon the original
principles of the Scottish Reformation, and made them the chief subjects of
his inquiry; they brought him into close contact with those illustrious
characters by whom the Reformation was commenced; and they animated and
strengthened that love of religious consistency, and hostility to
ecclesiastical tyranny and oppression, that accorded so materially with his
original character. In the following sentence from one of his letters in
1802, we can well recognize the man who set at nought the demolition of such
things as cathedrals and monasteries, when they hindered the erection of a
true church, and who was well fitted to become the biographer of him whose
stern principle was, "Pull down the nests and the rooks will flee." "There
is something," he thus writes, "in the modern study of the fine arts,
belles-lettres, and mere antiquities, that gives the mind a
littleness which totally unfits it for being suitably affected with
things truly great in characters eminent for love of religion, liberty, and
true learning. To demolish a Gothic arch, break a pane of painted glass, or
deface a picture, are with them acts of ferocious sacrilege, not to be
atoned for, the perpetrators of which must be ipso facto
excommunicated from all civil society, and reckoned henceforth among
savages; while to preserve these magnificent trifles, for which they
entertain a veneration little less idolatrous than their Popish or Pagan
predecessors, they would consign whole nations to ignorance or perdition."
Sentiments thus inspired, and researches so conducted, were not allowed to
lie idle; and accordingly, from 1802 to 1806, he was a contributor to the
"Christian Magazine," the pages of which he enriched with several valuable
historical and biographical sketches. The titles of these sufficiently
indicated the nature of his present studies, while their excellence gave
promise of what might yet be accomplished. The chief of them were an
"Account of the concluding part of the Life and the Death of that
illustrious man, John Knox, the most faithful Restorer of the Church of
Scotland," being a translation from the work of Principal Smeton; a "Memoir
of Mr. John Murray," minister of Leith and Dunfermline, in the beginning of
the 17th century; a "Sketch of the Progress of the Reformation in Spain,
with an account of the Spanish Protestant Martyrs;" "The Suppression of the
Reformation in Spain;" the "Life of Dr. Andrew Rivet," the French Protestant
minister; the "Life of Patrick Hamilton;" the "Life of Francis Lambert, of
Avignon;" and the "Life of Alexander Henderson." The journal in which they
appeared was of but limited circulation, and its literary merits were little
appreciated, so that these admirable articles were scarcely known beyond the
small circle of subscribers to the "Christian Magazine," most of whom were
Seceders. But it was better, perhaps, that it should be so. These were only
prelusive efforts, and preparations for great achievements, that are
generally best conducted in silence, and which the gaze of the public will
only interrupt or impede.
In this way the mind of the
author had been imbued with the subject of the Reformation at large; and he
had been thus led to study its developments, not only in Scotland, but in
Spain, France, and Italy. But in which of these important departments was
his first great attempt in historical authorship to be made? Happily, his
mind was not out at sea upon this conclusive question, for by the close of
1803 his choice had been decided. It was that of a leal-hearted Scotsman and
zealous Covenanter, and on the proposal that had been made to him of writing
a separate work instead of unconnected articles, he thus replies: "As you
have suggested this, I shall use the freedom of mentioning to you a floating
idea which has sometimes passed through my mind, without ever assuming the
formality of a resolution or design; namely, a selection of lives of
Scottish reformers, in some such order as to embrace the most important
periods of the history of the Church of Scotland; in which a number of facts
which are reckoned too minute and trivial for general history might be
brought to bear upon, and occasionally illustrate it. The order, for
instance, might be (I write merely from the recollection of the moment),
Patrick Hamilton, George Wishart, John Knox, John Craig, Andrew Melvine,
Patrick Simpson, Robert Bruce, &c" It is easy to see how this variety,
comprising the chief personages of the first and second great movements of
the Scottish Reformation, would finally resolve themselves into Knox and
Melville, to whom the others were merely subsidiary. With Knox, therefore,
he commenced; and the task was not an easy one. Obscure authors had to be
discovered, and long-forgotten books resuscitated; contending facts had to
be weighed, and contradictory statements reconciled; while a mass of
manuscripts, such as might have daunted the most zealous antiquary at a
period when Scottish antiquarianism was still in infancy, had to be pored
over and deciphered, in quest of facts that were already fading away with
the ink in which they were embodied, but whose final extinction his
patriotic zeal sufficed to prevent. And all this was to be accomplished, not
by the sung Fellow of a college, reposing in learned leisure in the deep
shadow of Gothic halls which the sound of the world could not reach, with
half-a-mile of library before and behind him; or a church dignitary, whose
whole time could be devoted to the defence of that church in which he was a
high-titled and richly-guerdoned stipendiary; but by one who had the weekly
and daily toil of a Scottish Secession minister to interrupt him, as well as
its very scanty emoluments to impede his efforts and limit his literary
resources. And all this for what?—not to write the life of one whose memory
was universally cherished, and whose record all would be eager to read. The
whole literary world was now united against John Knox, whose very name was
the signal for ridicule or execration. The man whose heart was so hard and
pitiless, that the tears of Mary fell on it as upon cold iron—who demolished
stately architectures and fair churches from sheer hatred of whatever was
grand or beautiful—who shared in, or at least who countenanced the foulest
assassinations of the period—and who had finally imposed upon the land a
sour, shrivelled, and soul-stunting creed, under the name of a reformation,
which, thanks to Moderatism! the country was now getting rid of—this
was he whom M’Crie, under every disadvantage, and at every hazard, was
resolved to chronicle and to vindicate. Of all the thousands and myriads
whom his "Life of Knox" has delighted, how few are able to take into account
the difficulties under which the author laboured, and the high heroic
devotedness in which the task was pursued to the close!
The materials for this
important work, as may readily be surmised, had been long in accumulating:
as for the Life itself, it appears to have been fairly commenced in 1807,
and it was published in 1811. On its appearance, the public for a while was
silent: many were doubtless astonished that such a subject should have been
chosen at all, while not a few must have wondered that it could be handled
so well. A complete change was to be wrought upon public feeling, and the
obloquy of two centuries to be recanted; but by what literary organ was such
a palinode to be commenced? At length "the song began from Jove,"—for the
first key-note was sounded, and the chorus led by no less a journal than the
"Edinburgh Review," now the great oracle of the world of criticism, while
the article itself was written by no less a personage than Jeffrey, the
hierophant and Pontifex Maximus of critics. After commencing his critique
with an allusion to those distinguished benefactors whose merits the world
has been tardy in acknowledging, the reviewer thus continues: "Among the
many who have suffered by this partiality of fortune, we scarcely know any
one to whom harder measure has been dealt, than the eminent person who is
the subject of the work before us. In the reformed island of Great Britain
no honours now wait on the memory of the greatest of the British reformers;
and even among us zealous Presbyterians of the north, the name of Knox, to
whom our Presbyterian Church is indebted, not merely for its establishment,
but its existence, is oftener remembered for reproach than for veneration;
and his apostolical zeal and sanctity, his heroic courage, his learning,
talents, and accomplishments, are all coldly forgotten; while a thousand
tongues are still ready to pour out their censure or derision of his
fierceness, his ambition, and his bigotry. Some part of this injustice we
must probably be content to ascribe to the fatality to which we have already
made reference; but some part, at least, seems to admit of a better
explanation." After having stated these palliating circumstances, in which a
portion of the general prejudice originated, the critic adds: "From these,
or from other causes, however, it seems to be undeniable that the prevailing
opinion about John Knox, even in this country, has come to be, that he was a
fierce and gloomy bigot, equally a foe to polite learning and innocent
enjoyment; and that, not satisfied with exposing the abuses of the Romish
superstitions, he laboured to substitute for the rational religion and
regulated worship of enlightened men, the ardent and unrectified spirit of
vulgar enthusiasm, dashed with dreams of spiritual and political
independence, and all the impracticabilities of the earthly kingdom of the
saints. How unfair, and how marvellously incorrect these representations
are, may be learned from the perusal of the book before us—a work which has
afforded us more amusement and more instruction than any thing we ever read
upon the subject; and which, independent of its theological merits, we do
not hesitate to pronounce by far the best piece of history which has
appeared since the commencement of our critical career. It is extremely
accurate, learned, and concise, and, at the same time, very full of spirit
and animation, exhibiting, as it appears to us, a rare union of the patient
research and sober judgment which characterize the more laborious class of
historians, with the boldness of thinking and force of imagination which is
sometimes substituted in their place. It affords us very great pleasure to
bear this public testimony to the merits of a writer who has been hitherto
unknown, we believe, to the literary world either of this or the
neighbouring country; of whom, or of whose existence at least, though
residing in the same city with ourselves, it never was our fortune to have
heard till his volume was put into our hands; and who, in his first
emergence from the humble obscurity in which he has pursued the studies and
performed the duties of his profession, has presented the world with a work
which may put so many of his contemporaries to the blush, for the big
promises they have broken, and the vast opportunities they have neglected."
This was much, coming as it
did from the "Edinburgh Review," a work that hitherto had been by no means
distinguished for its advocacy of Christian principles, or love of
evangelical piety; and nothing, therefore, was better fitted to arrest the
attention of the world in behalf of the volume that had lately appeared. The
subject thus discussed in the great northern journal for July 1812, was
taken up by its powerful southern rival, and in the "Quarterly Review" of
July, 1813, appeared a critique, in which the reviewers, in their admiration
of John Knox, seem to have allowed their well-known devotedness to
Episcopacy and Toryism for the time to go to sleep. After expressing their
admiration that the Scottish reformer should have found a better biographer
than had yet fallen to the lot of even Calvin and Luther, they thus
characterize the literary merits of the work:—"Compact and vigorous, often
coarse, but never affected, without tumour and without verbosity, we can
scarcely forbear to wonder by what effort of taste or discrimination the
style of Dr. M’Crie has been preserved so nearly unpolluted by the
disgusting and circumlocutory nonsense of his contemporaries. Here is no
puling about the ‘interesting sufferer,’ ‘the patient saint,’ ‘the angelic
preacher.’ Knox is plain Knox, in acting and in suffering always an hero;
and his story is told as an hero would wish that it should be told—with
simplicity, precision, and force." Still, however, the reviewers could not
well get over the demolished monasteries, or the tears of Queen Mary, and in
their wrath they administered the following rebuke to the biographer, which,
however, he accepted as no small compliment:—"But of the literal subversion
of many noble buildings, which, perhaps unavoidably, took place in the
course of this great revolution, Dr. M’Crie permits himself to speak with a
savage and sarcastic triumph, which evinces how zealous and practical an
helper he would himself have proved in the work of destruction, had he been
born in the 16th century. Less, we are persuaded, would then have been heard
of Row or Willock, as auxiliaries of Knox, than of M’Crie." "Like Knox
himself, he has neither a tear nor a sigh for Mary; and we doubt not that,
like him, he would have voted to bring the royal adulteress and murderer,
for such they both esteem her, to the block." "Is not that great praise?"
says M’Crie, with good humour, while quoting to a friend this portion of the
criticism. The other journals followed the lead of their two Titans; and
encouraged by the reception of the work, and the high importance it quickly
attained, the author commenced a second edition, in which he judiciously
availed himself not only of the advice, but in many cases of the harsh
censures of his numerous reviewers. The result was that in 1813, he
published a second edition of the "Life of John Knox," so greatly amplified
and improved, as to be almost a new work; and this, in course of time, was
translated and published in French, Dutch, and German. Previous to the
appearance of the second edition, the author had been honoured with the
degree of doctor in divinity by the university of Edinburgh, the first
instance in which it had ever conferred the title upon a Dissenting
minister. 0 si sic omnes! This distinction, however, Dr.
M’Crie had neither sought nor expected; it was frankly given upon the
application of Mr. Blackwood, his publisher, and the chief difficulty lay in
persuading the author to allow the initials to be appended to his name in
the second edition of the work. His opinion was, that such distinctions were
incompatible with the strictness of Presbyterian parity. A compromise,
however, was effected. He could not prevent the world from terming him
Doctor, or become deaf when he was thus hailed; but when he went to the
church courts he there sought equality with his brethren, and nothing more,
and would allow himself to be designated as nothing higher than the Rev.
Mr. M’Crie. It would, indeed, have been passing strange if our northern
seats of learning had failed to confer their highest honours upon him who
had achieved a literary feat so difficult, and achieved it so well. For by
one great effort he had rolled back the tide of obloquy under which the most
honoured of our national names had been buried so long, and restored it to
its proper eminence and lustre. He had enabled Scotsmen to avoid the shame
which they and their fathers had felt when that name was mentioned in their
hearing, and inspired them with an honest pride in the character of their
reformer. He had even carried this success into England, and made John Knox
as popular there as he was at first, when he was the friend and assistant of
Cranmer, the chaplain of Edward VI., and the solicited but recusant object
of an English mitre. But wider and wider still the circle of intelligence
upon the character of the Scottish reformer had been expanded, until the
pious and reflective of Europe at large were enabled to perceive, and
obliged to confess, that the ruthless demolisher of goodly architecture,
which every other country had spared, was neither an illiterate Goth nor a
ferocious Vandal, but one of those illustrious few of whom history is so
justly proud. All this was much, but it was not yet the utmost which Dr.
M’Crie had effected. Knox had, as it were, been recalled to life, and sent
once more upon his momentous mission. His presence was seen and his voice
heard in every district in Scotland. A heedless generation, by whom he was
despised or neglected, had been compelled yet again to hear the instructions
which he had formerly uttered, and to bethink themselves how wofully these
instructions had been forgot. In short, their attention had been
irresistibly called to the subject of the Scottish Reformation, and the
principles upon which their church had been founded, and to the inquiry as
to whether these principles were still in operation, or hastening to become
a mere dead letter. And this inquiry was neither unnecessary nor in vain. A
death-blow was struck at that Erastianism which had lately become so
predominant in the Church of Scotland; and such was the spirit of research
among the mouldering records of its long-neglected library, and the ardour
with which they were published and diffused, that the former ignorance and
indifference could be tolerated no longer. These effects went on from year
to year, and their result we know. Scotland is now awake, and the creed
which was almost filched from her relaxing hand, is held with as tight a
grasp as ever.
The next literary undertaking
in which we find Dr. M’Crie employed, was a conflict with an antagonist
every way worthy of his prowess. The "Great Unknown" was now in the
ascendant, and as he wrote to amuse, he was sure of the sympathies of at
least three-fourths of the community. Such he must have felt when he gave to
the world the tale of "Old Mortality," in which the Covenanters were held up
to derision, while their sufferings were described as justly merited. All
this was enough for the novel-reading public, that was too ignorant to know,
and too idle to inquire, and accordingly the statements of Sir Walter Scott,
embodied as they were in so attractive a form, were received as veritable
history. Nothing was now more common in England, and it may be added in
Scotland also, than to hear the martyr-spirit of the days of the covenant
laughed at, and its choicest adherents represented as madmen, fanatics, and
cut-throats. It was needful that the "Author of Waverley" should be met by a
fitting antagonist, and this he soon found in the author of the life of John
Knox. No two such other men could have been culled from the crowded ranks of
British literature—the one so completely the type of ancient feudalism and
Episcopacy ingrafted on modern Toryism, and the other of the sturdy
independence of the good old Whiggamores, and the Presbyterian devotedness
of Drumelog and the Grassmarket. Dr. M’Crie had also the greater right to
step forward on this occasion, as the prince of novelists had intruded into
a field too sacred for a mere holiday tale. An elaborate review of "Old
Mortality" was therefore written, and published in the first three numbers
of the "Christian Instructor" for the year 1817. It could scarcely have been
expected from one so competent to the task as Dr. M’Crie, that it would have
been otherwise than a complete historical refutation of the misstatements of
the novel, and a successful vindication of the villified Covenanters. But it
was also something more than this in the eyes of Scott and his admirers; for
it attacked him with a strength of wit and power of sarcasm that threatened
to turn the laugh against himself, and foil him at his own chosen weapon. So
at least he felt, and his complaints upon the subject, as well as his
attempted defence in the "Quarterly Review," bespoke a mind ill at ease
about the issue of such a controversy. The result was that the novelist was
generally condemned, and that his tale, notwithstanding the popularity which
at first attended it, sank in popular estimation, and became one of the
least valued of all his admired productions.
The success with which the
Life of Knox was attended, would have been sufficient to make most authors
repeat the attempt; but, besides this, the task of Dr. M’Crie had
already been chosen, of which his first great effort had only been the
commencement. The distinguished lights of the Scottish Reformation had long
stood arrayed before his view as successively demanding their due
commemoration; and after having completed the first and best in the series,
the choice of the next was not a matter of difficulty. "If the love of pure
religion, rational liberty, and polite letters," he writes, "forms the basis
of national virtue and happiness, I know no individual, after her reformer,
from whom Scotland has received greater benefits, and to whom she owes a
deeper debt of gratitude and respect, than Andrew Melville." Upon this,
therefore, he had been employed for years, and towards the close of 1819 the
"Life of Andrew Melville" was published. Such was the toil which this work
occasioned him, that he was wont to say it had cost him "a hundred times
more labour than the life of Knox." This will be apparent when we consider
not only the immense quantity of facts which such a narrative involved, but
the difficulty of finding them, as they were no longer the broad, distinct,
and widely-published statements which so largely enter into the history of
our first reformers. And yet, though the life of Melville is to the full as
well written as that of Knox, and exhibits still greater learning and
research, it never attained the same popularity. The cause of this is to be
found in the subject itself. After the national hero has crossed the scene,
all who follow in his path, be their deeds and merits what they may, must
possess an inferior interest. Besides this, Melville was not a reformer from
Popery, the common enemy of the Protestant Church, but from Episcopacy; and
therefore, while the interest of the event was mainly confined to
presbyterian Scotland, it excited dislike in England, while it awoke
scarcely any sympathy in the continental reformed churches. But will the
work continue to be thus rated beneath its value?—we scarcely think so. The
great question of centuries, the question of the rights of the church in
reference to its connection with the state, promises to become more
generally felt and more keenly agitated than ever; and in this important
controversy, the opinions and example of Andrew Melville are likely to
assume their due weight. And where, in this case, will posterity be likely
to find a record better written than that of Dr. M’Crie? It may be, that
before the present century has closed, his "Life of Andrew Melville" will be
more widely perused and deeply considered than the author himself could have
anticipated.
Calamities and afflictions of
various kinds were now at hand to try the temper and purify the patience of
the hitherto successful author. The perils by which the principle of church
establishment was beset, and the prospect of further division among
Christian communities, clouded his spirit with anxious forebodings—for his
was not a temper to rest satisfied that all should be well in his own day.
Domestic sorrow was soon added to his public anxieties; for his amiable
partner in life, who for the last six years had been an invalid, was removed
from him by death in June, 1821. Soon afterwards his own health began to
fail, in consequence of his intense application to study; and even his
eyesight was so impaired with the poring of years over dim and difficult
manuscripts, as to threaten total blindness. Cessation from labour and the
recreation of travel were judged necessary for his recovery; and
accordingly, in the summer of 1822, he made a short tour of two months to
the continent, during which his studies were only changed, not suspended,
and he returned home considerably invigorated in health and spirits. On his
return, a new and soul-inspiring subject quickly brought him into action; it
was the cause of Greece, that land so trampled under foot and crushed into
the dust by centuries of oppression, but now rising from the dead; the first
to attempt the great historical problem, as to whether a whole nation may be
capable of a resurrection and a new life, after ages of death and burial.
But something more than mere historic curiosity was aroused by the event.
Sympathy was also kindled throughout our whole island for the sufferings of
the Greeks in their new war of independence, so that British swords and
British money were freely tendered in their behalf. And not the least or the
latest in this good cause was the city of Edinburgh, now rejoicing in the
title of "Modern Athens," and prompt, by its brotherly sympathy, to make
that title good. Public meetings were called for the purpose of raising
money for the relief of the inhabitants of Scio, and for the promotion of
education in Greece, and on both occasions Dr. M’Crie was enlisted as the
advocate of suffering Hellas. He was now to appear before the public in a
new phase. Hitherto he had carefully avoided addressing such meetings, while
his pulpit oratory was the stern, unadorned, didactic theology of the old
school. But eloquent as was the historian of Knox in the closet, and amidst
historic details, was he also capable of eloquence in the crowded popular
assembly, with a subject so delicate as Greece for his theme? The answer was
given in addresses so imbued with the spirit of ancient heroism and
Marathonian liberty, so pervaded by the classical tone of Athenian poetry,
and so wide in their range, from playful, refined, subtle wit, to the most
vehement and subduing appeals of outraged indignant humanity, that the
audiences were astonished and electrified. Under what strange bushel had Dr.
M’Crie hid such eloquence so long? It was now evident that, had he so
pleased, he might have been among the first of our orators. But hitherto he
had been content to be known as a theologian and historian, while he
magnanimously left it to others to shine upon the platform; and having now
performed his allotted task, he retired, amidst the deep wonderment of his
hearers, to the modest seclusion of his study, and the silent labours that
awaited him there.
And these labours were not
pursued remissly. Besides his studies for the pulpit, which he prosecuted
with all the diligence of his early days, he continued his researches into
the history of the period of the Reformation; and in 1825 he published his
edited "Memoirs of Mr. William Veitch and George Bryson, written by
themselves," narratives which he considered of high importance, as
illustrative of the covenanting days of Scotland, and to which he appended
biographical sketches and illustrative notes. In 1827 appeared his "History
of the Progress and Suppression of the Reformation in Italy," a work that
had formed the subject of his earlier studies, but for many years had been
laid aside. It was a most complex and laborious task, as he was obliged to
trace the origin, progress, and decline of the Reformation through
twenty-five of the Italian states, among which the great movement was
divided. Such was the interest of this work, that it was translated into
French, German, and Dutch, and inserted by the ecclesiastical tribunal of
Rome in the Index Expurgatorius. In 1829 he published "The Progress
and Suppression of the Reformation in Spain in the Sixteenth Century," a
sequel to "The History of the Reformation in Italy" during the same period.
As a proof of his indefatigable diligence and zeal in the study of history,
it may be mentioned here, that in order to make himself fully acquainted
with the two last subjects, he had mastered, in the decline of his days, the
Spanish and Italian languages, that he might study the proper authorities
from their original sources. While Dr. M’Crie was thus occupied, the bill
introduced in 1829 for the emancipation of Roman Catholics from political
restrictions, and their admission into places of authority and trust, was
passed. It is perhaps unnecessary to add, that one who had studied and
written as he had done, was entirely opposed to the measure. He not only
thought it unsafe to concede such privileges, in a Protestant country, to
men doing homage to a foreign ecclesiastical power and a hostile creed, but
he was also of opinion that by such concessions our country abandoned the
solemn covenants to which it had pledged itself since the Reformation, and
forfeited the privileges which it enjoyed as the head of European
Protestantism. In the old covenanting spirit, he carried the subject to the
pulpit, where it had but too much right to enter, and in his lectures on the
book of Ezra, where it could be appropriately introduced, he uttered his
prophetic warnings. "We have been told from a high quarter," he said, "to
avoid such subjects, unless we wish to rekindle the flames of Smithfield,
now long forgotten. Long forgotten! where forgotten? In heaven? No. In
Britain? God forbid! They may be forgotten at St. Stephen’s or Westminster
Abbey, but they are not forgotten in Britain. And if ever such a day
arrives, the hours of Britain’s prosperity have been numbered." He drew up a
petition against the measure, which was signed by 13,150 names, but this,
like other petitions of the same kind, was ineffectual. The bill was passed,
and silly, duped, disappointed Britain is now ready, like the Roman voter in
favour of Coriolanus, to exclaim, "An’ it were to do again—but no matter!"
The career of Dr. M’Crie was
now drawing to a termination. His literary labours, especially in the lives
of Knox and Melville, combined with his extreme care that every idea which
he gave forth to the public, and every sentence in which it was embodied,
should be worthy of those important subjects in which he dealt—all this,
connected with the daily and almost hourly avocations of his ministerial
office, and the numerous calls that were made upon him, in consequence of
his interference with the great public movements of the day, had reduced him
to the debility and bodily ailments of "threescore and ten," while as yet he
was ten years short of the mark. But his was a mind that had never rested,
and that knew not how to rest. In 1827 he had enjoyed the satisfaction,
after much labour and anxiety, of seeing a union effected between the church
party to which he belonged, and the body who had seceded from the Burgher
and Antiburgher Synods in 1820, under the name of Protesters; and in 1830
his anxieties were excited, and his pen employed, in endeavours to promote a
union between his own party, now greatly increased, and the Associate Synod
of Original Burghers. Many may smile at these divisions as unnecessary and
unmeaning, and many may wonder that such a mind as that of Dr. M’Crie should
have been so intent in reconciling them. But religious dissension is no
triviality, and the bond of Christian unity is worth any sacrifice short of
religious principle; and upon this subject, therefore, the conscientious
spirit of Dr. M’Crie was as anxious as ever was statesman to combine jarring
parties into one, for the accomplishment of some great national and common
benefit. While thus employed, a heavy public bereavement visited him with
all the weight of a personal affliction; this was the death of the Rev. Dr.
Andrew Thomson, who, in the full strength and vigour of his days, suddenly
fell down and expired upon the threshold of his home, which he was just
about to enter.
By this event, which occurred
on the 9th of February, 1831, Dr. M’Crie was bereaved of a close
affectionate intercourse which he had for years enjoyed with a most
congenial heart and intellect, and saw himself fated to hold onward in his
course, and continue the "good fight," uncheered by the voice that had so
often revived his courage. After he had rallied from the unexpected blow,
Dr. M’Crie was employed in what was called the "Marrow Controversy," which,
notwithstanding the uncouth title it bore, had for its object the
vindication of the important doctrine of justification by faith from the
perversions of Arminianism. This was followed by the Anti-patronage
controversy in 1833, a subject which the Kirk of Scotland had never lost
sight of since the time when patronage was first imposed upon it, and which
was now fast ripening into such important results as neither friend nor
enemy could anticipate. As might be expected, Dr. M’Crie was no mere
onlooker. He belonged to a body whose conscientious hope was a return to the
church of their fathers, when it was loosed from its bonds and purified from
its errors; but who saw no prospect of the realization of that hope until
the right of pastoral election was conceded to the people. Upon this
question Dr. M’Crie published what proved to be the last work he was to
produce as an author, in the form of an anonymous pamphlet, entitled "What
ought the General Assembly to do at the Present Crisis?" His answer to the
question was express and brief: "Without delay, petition the legislature for
the abolition of patronage." The outcry in Scotland against patronage became
so loud—so deafening—that statesmen saw they must be up and doing, and a
committee of the House of Commons was appointed to hold an inquest upon the
alleged grievance. It was natural that the most distinguished of Scotland’s
ecclesiastical historians should be heard upon the subject, more especially
as his testimony was likely to be unbiassed either by party feeling or
self-interest; and accordingly, besides the many eminent ministers of the
Established Church who were summoned before the committee, Dr. M’Crie was
called to give his statement upon the effects of ecclesiastical patronage.
He repaired to London at this authoritative summons, although with
reluctance, and underwent two long examinations before the committee, the
one on the 2d, the other on the 7th of May, 1834. It was not thus, however,
that the question was to be settled; and he returned from London, wondering
what would be the result, but comforting himself with the conviction that an
overruling wisdom predominated over earthly counsels, and that all would be
controlled for the best.
Amidst these public cares,
and a debility that was daily increasing, Dr. M’Crie now addressed himself
in earnest to accomplish what, in all likelihood, would have proved the most
laborious of his literary undertakings. It was nothing less than a Life of
Calvin, to which his attention had been directed during his studies upon the
progress of the Reformation on the continent, and for which he had collected
a considerable amount of materials. This, however, was not enough, for he
felt that to accomplish such a work in a satisfactory manner, it would be
necessary to consult the ancient records of Geneva, a step which his
ministerial duties prevented. His friends, aware of his wishes on the
subject, had offered to send, at their own expense, a qualified person to
Geneva to transcribe the required documents; but this kind offer, which was
made in 1831, he declined. In 1833, however, his son John, a young man of
high talent, who was studying for the church, had repaired with two pupils
on a travelling excursion to Geneva, and to him the task was committed of
making the necessary extracts upon the subject. The commission could not
have been better bestowed. "John has been so laborious in his researches,"
said the affectionate father, "and sent me home so many materials, that I
found myself shut up to make an attempt, if it were for no other reason than
to show that I was not altogether insensible to his exertions." He felt more
and more the growing lassitude that was stealing upon him, and thus wrote,
eight months afterwards, about the materials that were pouring in upon him
from Geneva: "I have neither time nor leisure to avail myself of them; and
instead of rejoicing, as I used to do, at the sight of such treasures, I
rather feel inclined to weep. Yet if I can make nothing of them, some other
may." Thus he went on till the middle of the following year, his attention
to Calvin being in the meantime divided by the great ecclesiastical events
that were hastening onward to the disruption of the Church of Scotland. Of
the Life of the great Reformer, however, he had already written out, and
prepared for the press three ample chapters, in which Calvin’s career was
traced through the studies of his youth, onward to his adoption of the
reformed doctrines, his preface to the "Institution of the Christian
Religion," and his residence in Geneva. But here the historian’s task was to
terminate, and terminate most unexpectedly and abruptly. On the 4th of
August, 1835, he was suddenly taken unwell; a stupor succeeded, from which
it was impossible to rouse him; and on the following day he breathed his
last, without a groan or struggle, but insensible to the presence of his
grieving friends who were assembled round his death-bed. Thus died, in the
sixty-third year of his age, and fortieth of his ministry, the Rev. Dr.
M’Crie, whose whole life had been a preparation for death, and whom death,
therefore, could not take at unawares. His remains were buried in the
churchyard of Greyfriars, and over the grave a simple monument was erected
by his congregation, with an inscription commemorative of his worth and
their regret. At his death he left a widow, for he was twice married, upon
whom government, to show their sense of his worth, settled a liberal
pension. His children, who were all by his first marriage, consisted of four
sons, of whom John, the third, his faithful assistant among the archives of
Geneva, died only two years after his father. Besides these, he had one
daughter, married to Archibald Meikle, Esq., Flemington. It is pleasing to
add, that of the family of such a man, there is one who inherits not only
his name and sacred office, but also his tastes and studies, and not a small
portion of his talent.
Besides those works to which
we have already adverted, Dr. M’Crie was author of the following
publications:
"The Duty of Christian
Societies towards each other, in relation to the Measures for Propagating
the Gospel, which at present engage the attention of the Religious World; a
Sermon, preached in the meeting-house, Potter Row, on occasion of a
Collection for promoting a Mission to Kentucky." 1797.
"Statement of the Difference
between the Profession of the Reformed Church of Scotland as adopted by
Seceders, and the Profession contained in the New Testimony and other Acts
lately adopted by the General Associate Synod; particularly on the Power of
Civil Magistrates respecting Religion, National Reformation, National
Churches, and National Covenants." Edinburgh, 1807.
"Letters on the late Catholic
Bill, and the Discussions to which it has given rise. Addressed to British
Protestants, and chiefly Presbyterians in Scotland. By a Scots
Presbyterian." Edinburgh, 1807.
"Free Thoughts on the late
Religious Celebration of the Funeral of her Royal Highness the Princess
Charlotte of Wales; and on the Discussion to which it has given rise in
Edinburgh. By Scoto Britannus." 1817.
"Two Discourses on the Unity
of the Church, her Divisions, and their Removal." Edinburgh, 1821.
"Sermons" (posthumous
volume). Edinburgh, 1836.
"Lectures on the Book of
Esther" (posthumous), Edinburrh. 1838. |