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The ministerial charge of Arbirlot becoming
vacant by the sudden death of the incumbent, Mr Watson, the presentation was
given to Mr Guthrie by the Crown, through the influence of Lord Panmure, the
only heritor in the parish. The settlement took place in 1830, and, on the
whole, was as agreeable to the Congregation as to the presentee himself.
Once in harness, the Dr did not allow the grass to grow beneath his feet,
but began his life's work in good earnest.
Arbirlot is a small parish in the county and on
the sea coast of Forfarshire. It was a purely rural parish, and during his
ministry had this remarkable peculiarity, that there was only one person, a
kind of freethinker, who did not attend the parish church. The population at
the time of Dr Guthrie's settlement was exactly 1000, and altogether
agricultural. The whole parish is the property of Lord Panmure. The stipend
paid to the parish minister in Dr Guthrie's time was £184 4s. 5d., with the
addition of a manse, a garden, and a glebe of four acres. Some years after
his settlement a new parish church was built, having accommodation for 639
worshippers. There was no dissent in the parish, no opposition, no
controversy; and with no special requirements of any kind to stimulate the
young minister's efforts, he might have settled down into a quiet, easygoing
country parson, whose memory would have perished with himself, but for the
exciting and eventful times upon which he fell, and his noble determination
to consecrate his whole powers to the service of God and humanity.
The turning point of Dr Guthrie's career as a
preacher was reached during his ministry at Arbirlot. It happened in this
wise. He found that the agricultural class (of which his congregation was
almost entirely made up) was not easily awakened or impressed by the
ordinary pulpit ministrations. He had thundered in their ears the terrors of
Mount Sinai; he had sounded the Gospel trumpet with a blast loud enough to
rouse the dead; he had implored, threatened, and almost scolded them: but
nothing seemed permanently to arrest their attention—they went to sleep
under his most fervent and heart-stirring appeals. One Sabbath, however, he
happened to introduce an interesting anecdote; and he observed that its
effect was electric— even the most somnolent of his congregation woke up and
listened with attention while he proceeded to "point the moral." The service
over, he informed his wife that he had discovered the way to keep his
congregation awake; and from that time forward he missed no opportunity of
illustrating his discourse either with an appropriate story, or an equally
effective and apropos effort of the imagination. He had another way of
finding out what was most adapted to his audience. It was his habit to go
over his sermons with a class of young people; and from their answers he
easily gathered what parts of his sermons they understood and felt, and what
parts, on the other hand, they had little interest in. By all these lessons
he sagaciously profited in his after preparations.
His ministry roused the people of Arbirlot out
of the profound sleep in which they had been permitted to indulge, and was
accompanied by a measure of spiritual blessing. His fame began to spread,
and was considerably increased by a public lecture which he delivered at
Arbroath in opposition to Voluntaryism. The attention of the metropolis was
turned upon him; and the late Alexander M. Dunlop went to Arbirlot to hear
him preach, and carried hack to Edinburgh the report of his great powers in
the pulpit.
It is worthy of mention that during his ministry
at Arbirlot, Dr Guthrie was prostrated by a very serious attack of fever.
For many days his life hung in the balance; and night after night his
friends watched him with hardly a shadow of hope that he would see the
morning. Had he not had a frame of great vigour he could not have survived
the attack; but through God's mercy his life was preserved for the valuable
and important services which it was his great privilege to render both to
the church and to the world.
Besides the faithful discharge of his ordinary
parochial duties, Dr Guthrie, while at Arbirlot, gave himself, as occasion
offered, to the general work of the church. It was at this time that Dr
Chalmers set on foot his great scheme of Church Extension. In that
enterprise Dr Guthrie took a warm interest, and both by sympathy and
personal effort did much to promote its success. He looked upon Dr Chalmers'
idea of planting 200 new churches in the most destitute localities of the
land as a grand conception, and this, in all probability, was the first
application of that powerful magnetism which afterwards drew him so closely
to the first moderator of the Free Church.
White at Arbirlot, Dr Guthrie had scope and
verge enough for cultivating his love of angling, and from the waters of the
Elliott, which runs through the parish, and which had long been noted for
trouts of a peculiar relish, he landed many a fine basketful. Fault-finders
are a numerous class, and Dr Guthrie was not without his detractors. He was
charged with cruelty to animals, and the malignant accusation as founded on
his predilection for the sport which Isaac Walton has made classic. The
accusation was scarcely worth heeding, but after a lecture by Mr Gamgefl on
cruelty to animals, the Dr referred to it in the following terms :—
"In my view, the man or the woman who inflicts
cruelty either upon their children, or the brute creatures, sins against the
light of reason as well as against the law of God. Hogarth, the great
portrait painter, painted some pictures representing the progress of
cruelty. He began with a boy torturing cats, and ended by showing him at the
gallows for murder. I warn parents against allowing their children to kill
flies, or to inflict needless pain on any creature. It is quite consistent
with my profession that I should come forward to take a part in such a
meeting as this, but some of my friends, who remember a picture in the
Exhibition, in which I am represented as fishing in a boat, may be inclined
to ask whether I practise what I preach. Now, I believe I have derived
health both in body and mind from angling; but if I really thought I was
inflicting cruelty on fishes by so doing, I would not have engaged in that
amusement. But one day, when I was fishing along with my son, I caught a
trout of which I happened to make a post-mortem examination, and in its
belly I found a rusty hook and a piece of gut, which must have remained
there for weeks or months. It is quite clear that the fish could not have
felt any pain from that hook, otherwise it would not have seized so readily
on mine. In fact, the trout was evidently in the most comfortable
circumstances in the world. People think that when a fish is taken out of
the water, and when they see it walloping its tail about, that it is
suffering great pain: but the fact is, that after the fish is dead, the tail
wallops for a good while."
Very shortly after his settlement at Arbirlot,
Dr Guthrie married Ann Burns, daughter of the Rev. James Burns, minister of
Brechin. For this young lady he had long cherished a sincere attachment, and
only delayed the consummation of their union until he was settled in a
regular ministerial charge. Mrs Guthrie, belongs to a family that has lipped
both the Established and the Free Churches with some of their most eminent
ministers. She was a niece of Dr Burns of Corstorphine, who had several
brothers no less popular ministers than himself; and she was also related to
the late Professor Islay Burns, of the Glasgow Free Church College. This may
perhaps be the most fitting opportunity to put on record the fact that,
throughout his whole married life, Dr Guthrie enjoyed an exceptional degree
of conjugal felicity. All his plans and efforts were heartily supported by
his amiable wife, from whom also he received needed encouragement in times
of doubt, difficulty, and danger.
"She was but words are wanting to say what;
Say what a Christian should be—she was that." |
