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The Disruption, and the struggle which led to
it, produced great men; it was the outcome and vindication of great
principles; it was accomplished at such a sacrifice for conscience sake that
history records few, if any, so great; it excited great interest, great
surprise, great admiration, great grief, and great joy; and it led to the
formation and execution of such schemes of Christian finance as have
inspired the church with hope, and made men of the world wonder. During the
early years of the Free Church no man was more laborious, earnest, and
self-sacrificing than Dr Guthrie in forwarding its interests and advocating
its schemes. But there was one scheme with which he specially identified
himself, and with which his name will ever be associated in the history of
Disruption times and achievements.
The interests of the country ministers had a
very large place in his heart. The Building and Sustentation Funds had done
much to equalise the position of town and country ministers, but
notwithstanding this it was lamentably apparent that in one respect, at all
events, the country ministers were in a much worse plight than their city
brethren. In many cases the want of suitable dwelling-houses entailed a
suffering which could not be thought of without distress. His tender and
sympathetic heart was touched by a knowledge of the hardships endured by
many of these brethren who, like himself, were suffering for conscience
sake. The immediate effect of the Disruption was the ejection from their
manses of the 474 ministers and professors who had signed the Deed of
Demission. Little or no time was given for preparation; and in several
instances, in remote Highland parishes, the protesting ministers suffered,
if maybe fatally, from the hardships and privations they were compelled to
undergo. Thinking how he could best and most readily help them, he was led
to devise one of those Herculean schemes which only men of large heart and
the most unflinching courage are able to entertain. In the first General
Assembly of the Free Church he proposed the scheme of a General Manse Fund;
eloquently urged the necessity of making immediate provision for meeting the
loss of the manses; and pleaded that, as dwelling-house accommodation was
the most pressing and paramount consideration, all other arrangements should
be subordinated to it.. He offered to go through the whole of Scotland and
plead for the scheme in every town, village, and parish where there was any
likelihood of contributions being obtained. The sum proposed to be raised
was one hundred thousand pounds. He fulfilled his promise. Besides visiting
frequently from house to house, where large subscriptions on behalf of the
manse fund were likely to be got, he travelled all over Scotland and part of
England, made such urgent and eloquent appeals, and so stirred the
sympathies of the people that, when his work was finished, there was a fund
of upwards of £116,000 collected for manse building purposes. Absent for
just a year, he travelled the country "from Cape Wrath to the border, and
from the. German to the Atlantic Ocean." "Having," he says, in the Assembly
of 1846, "in consequence of my mission, visited through Aberdeen, Dundee,
Edinburgh, and Glasgow, from house to house, and from family to family, I
stand in this great Assembly perhaps the most remarkable man in this
respect. I venture to say there is no man in this house who has such a
universal acquaintanceship as myself."
At what an amount of personal and domestic
sacrifice this was done cannot be estimated; but one little circumstance may
be mentioned. In the midst of his engagements for this fund, scarlet fever
assailed his large household, and for a time, at each of the hurried visits
which he was able to snatch from his work to visit his family, he found an
additional couple of his children prostrated by the disease. His family all
recovered; but to the noble-hearted advocate of the scheme himself the
consequences were very serious. The excessive labour was too much even for
his powerful frame; and as happens so commonly in the case of men whose
energies are over-taxed, the heart became affected (1848), and the
foundation was laid of the ailment which, after an interval of twenty-five
years, has now sent him to the grave, to the irreparable loss of his church
and his friends.
One of the most untoward results of the
Disruption was that the heritors connected with the Establishment, viewing
the seceders with hostility, refused to allow them sites for the erection of
churches. A good deal of personal feeling was aroused on this score; nor was
it until a select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to deal
with the subject, that the heritors could be induced to relent. That
Committee did not recommend legislation on so painful and delicate a
subject, but it expressed an opinion so strongly condemnatory of the pitiful
conduct of those who refused sites, that the Duke of Buccleuch and other
large landowners were constrained, by a feeling of shame, to change their
conduct, and grant to the Free Churches within their domains a local
habitation. Pitiful were the accounts given of the sufferings both of
congregations and ministers, compelled to worship all the year round on the
public highways, by the sea shore, and under the open canopy of heaven. The
sufferers needed sympathy and support, and no one was readier to give both
than Dr Guthrie. His tender heart could feel for their sufferings, and his
eloquent tongue could, as with trumpet sound, tell their wrongs. Canobie in
Dumfriesshire was one of the most noted places where a site had been refused
and where the worshippers suffered most. Dr Guthrie visited this scene of
petty ducal persecution, preached to the people, and has given the following
graphic account of the circumstances and services:—
"Well wrapped up, I drove out to Canobie, the
hills white with snow, the roads covered ankle-deep in many parts with
slush, wind high and cold, thick rain lashing on, and the Esk by our side
all the way roaring in the snow-flood between bank and brae. We passed
Johnnie Armstrong's tower, yet strong, even in its ruins, and after a drive
of four miles, a turn of the road brought us in view of a sight which was
overwhelming, and would have brought the salt tears into the eye of any man
of common humanity. There, under the naked boughs of some spreading
oak-trees, at a point where a country road joined the turnpike, stood a
tent, around, or rather in front of which, was gathered a large group of
muffled men and women, with some little children, a few sitting, most of
them standing, and some old venerable widows cowering under the scanty
shelter of umbrellas. On all sides each road was adding a stream of plaided
men and muffled women to the group, till the congregation increased to
between 500 and 600, gathering in the very road, and waiting for my coming
from a mean inn where I found shelter till the hour of worship. During the
psalm singing and the first prayer, I was in the tent; but finding that I
would be uncomfortably confined, I took up my position on a chair in front,
having my hat on my head, my Codrington close buttoned up to my throat, and
a pair of bands, which were wet enough with rain ere the service was over.
The rain lashed on heavily during the latter part of the sermon, but no one
budged, and when my hat was off during the last prayer, some one kindly
extended an umbrella over my head. I was so interested, so were the people,
that our forenoon service continued for four hours At the close I felt so
much for the people—it was such a sad sight to see old men and women, some
children, and one or two individuals pale and sickly, and apparently near
the grave, all wet and benumbed with the keen wind and cold rain—that I
proposed to have no afternoon service, but this was met with universal
dissent. One and all declared that, if I would hold on, they would stay in
the road till midnight; so we met again at three o'clock, and it poured on
almost without intermission during the whole sermon; and that over, shaken
cordially by many a man and woman's hand, I got into the gig, and drove on
here in time for an evening sermon, followed, through rain in the heavens
and the wet snow in the road, by numbers of the people.
"The people spoke respectfully of the Duke of
Buccleuch, and were anxious to give no offence. I preached subsequently on
the open hill, down in a sort of hollow, and the people were ranged on the
side of the mountain. It was a swampy place in which I preached, and I
wished to have some protection between my feet and the wet ground. I saw
some fine planks of wood lying close by, and wondered why the people did not
take them and use them. In place of that, they went into a house and brought
out an old door. After the sermon, I was naturally led to ask why they did
not bring the planks that were lying close by, and they said these were not
theirs, that they belonged to the Duke of Buccleuch, and that they would not
touch them in case any offence might lie taken at their doing so."
Before the Parliamentary Committee, to which
allusion has already been made, Dr Guthrie subsequently tendered evidence on
the Canobie affair. He said he felt that the refusal of a site was a
grievous and unwarrantable exercise of power; and that when he saw the
reputable, honest, and religious inhabitants of Canobie necessitated to
worship the God of their fathers on a turnpike road, he was so overwhelmed
by the sight that "he felt as if he could not preach." |
