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DEAREST OF ALL THE DAYS ON
CHRIST'S calendar in Fairshiels is the holy day of the Sacrament. Since
the time when our fathers held their conventicles in the wilderness, the
Communion tables have been spread in many a strange place. Even yet, when
the sun rises gloriously on a quiet Sabbath morning, one who has the
seer's vision can see many a picture of the past as the homely Scots men
and women come forward to pay their vows to the Lord.
There rises first the
vision of a day long gone by when John Blackader of Troqueer and John
Welsh of Irongray, two far-famed preachers of the Covenant, came to
dispense the sacrament to Christ's outed folk at East Nisbet in the border
country.
It is a heartsome, holy
scene. The Communion tables are spread in a green haugh by a burnside,
while all around the people are seated on a rising amphitheatre of
heathery braes to hear the Word of God. High up above them, on the
sky-line yonder, the sun glints on the arms of the guardsmen who have
convoyed the worshippers to their place of prayer. They stand now to watch
over them that they may worship God in peace.
Remembering the ark of
Israel which sojourned in the desert for years, Scots men and women have
ever been willing to worship in tabernacles not made with hands. These
were the days when the Kirk was rich in Christ, when the people heard the
Word from the lips of those very men who had lost all for Christ's sake,
and when the tables were served by gentlemen and peasants side by side on
the green pastures and by the still waters.
The communicants entered at
one end of the two long linen-clad boards and passed out at the other, to
make way for the constant stream of new-comers from the brae-face. A
hundred sat at each table, and there were sixteen tables in all. About
three thousand two hundred souls remembered Christ that day in the
sequestered haugh by the burnside when John Black-ader and John Welsh fed
the souls of God's own folk with the Bread of Life. Like a sough of summer
winds, the sound of the psalm rose and fell in the green cup among the
Border hills, and the sentries on the heights turned for a moment with
breasts that heaved with holy pride to look on that huddled flock of the
Covenant whose only crime was Christ, as one who has the true heart has so
fitly said. Then, when the great day was over, the horsemen drew together
into a body, and convoyed the worshippers back once more to their homes.
Again the vision changes,
and when the youngest of the folks at Nisbet have passed away, a little
wooden tent or preaching booth rises on a green field by the old draw-well
at Fairshiels. It is called the Tent Field to this very day. For there the
first Seceders came to hear the Word and to break bread in the name of
Christ who had called them out. From north and south and east and west
they came to the Tent Field on holy days, and once more the songs of Zion
were borne a-down the summer breeze.
Yet again the vision
changes, this time to Humbie Dean close by Fairshiels, where Christ's
disrupted folk were forced to worship of their own will and conscience in
the name of Him who had made them free. Up the bosky burnside to a green
hazel dell these later children of the Covenant came as their forefathers
had come before them, from the heathery Lammermoors and the farm places to
the preachings and the Sacraments. For, ever since the cruel Grassmarket
days, even until this present, God's own folk in Scotland have set
conscience first and the world second.
It is with a solemn sense
of all these things in his soul that the minister of Fairshiels stands up
in his black gown and white bands to give out the opening psalm at the
summer sacrament. He looks with pride on his flock as he sees them
standing up to sing. They are the children of the Lord's inheritance in
the grey Scots land—plain country men and women singing God's praise where
their forebears in Christ sang before them. The psalm is sung with slow,
solemn measure, unaided by instrument or organ. The snow-white cloth is
spread on the plain old table, which has upheld the symbols of Christ's
dying love for generations. The ancient pewter cups and flagons and the
little wicker baskets are covered with fine linen napkins. Thevery plates
on which the people's offerings to God are placed are hidden under snowy
cloths. Everywhere—in the pew, on the table, at the doors of the kirk—is
to be seen the fine white linen of the saints, which to Christ's Kirk in
Scotland, as to the Israelites of old, has ever been the symbol of a clean
heart and a right spirit.
In these present days of
costly churches and elaborate ceremonial, it is like a rest to the weary
spirit to enter Fairshiels Kirk on a Sacrament Sunday and hear the Word of
God declared in peace, in quietness, and with reverence—to look upon the
faces of the country folks who have travelled far to make their vows—and
to hear the Communion paraphrase sung to the well-kenned tune—
'Twas on that night, when
doom'd to know
The eager rage of ev'ry foe,
That night in which He was betray'd,
The Saviour of the world took bread.
How the heart wells up with
pure emotion as the singing rises and falls! How the old days and the old
folks live again, as the ancient custom of the song creates a whole world
of holy memories and affections and resolves! And as it draws to a close,
how full of fervent ecstasy is the soul of the minister as he sees the old
elders reverently uncovering the sacred symbols of the Saviour's dying
love, and hears his faithful flock singing these never-to-be-forgotten
words—
With love to man this cup is
fraught,
Let all partake the sacred draught;
Through latest ages let it pour,
In mem'ry of My dying hour.
In Fairshiels Kirk at
communion seasons there are no external aids to devotion. There—while the
low, even voice of the minister leads his people into something of the
meaning of the mystery of Christ's love— each man and woman's soul is
introduced to the very presence of the Eternal. And in the hush of silence
that follows, the Spirit of God steals into the heart and works the mystic
miracle of grace. In silence the bread is broken. In silence the wine is
passed. In silence the sins are confessed. In silence the new vows are
made. Here, surely, is the simplicity that is in Christ. Here, in this
holy sacrament of silence, far from the sounds of the world, far from the
crowded haunts of men, within the old plain kirk, and shut securely in the
soul's secret audience chamber with themselves and God, some have been
able to see God face to face, to hear as in a trance the accents of His
still small voice, and to get wondrous close to the heart of the Eternal
that lies beneath the wounded side of Christ. |
