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"I FEEL as if the
winding-up were coming soon," he wrote to Principal Shairp, with little
anticipation of how soon his words were to be realised.
As the spring wore on, the
sense of feebleness and discomfort continued to increase; but his family
physician, Professor Andrew Buchanan, after careful examination,
discovered, at that time, nothing organically wrong with his heart; and
believing that complete rest and freedom from anxiety would suffice to
remove his ailments, he ordered him to give up the India Mission, leave
his town-house and reside in the country, and, in short, confine his
duties within the narrowest possible circle. Dr. Macleod at once
acquiesced in these arrangements, and for a time found some enjoyment in
planning a cottage which he thought of building on the slope of Campsie
Fell, in a situation he had long admired, and he seemed almost happy at
the prospect of renewing his early love of country life. The other
direction of his physician made a greater demand on his feelings. He did
not hesitate as to relinquishing the India Mission, but he determined that
in doing so he would express, once for all, the conclusions he had reached
regarding the manner in which Christian work in India ought to be
conducted. For weeks he revolved the subject in his mind; for weeks it
possessed his thoughts night and day; and, whether from the nature of the
views he felt it his duty to propound, or more probably, from the
exaggerated colouring which weak health imparts to coming difficulties, he
somehow expected that his speech was to provoke a violent and painful
discussion. These anticipations, natural to an invalid, although utterly
groundless, had the effect of exciting his shattered nervous system, and
of producing an anxiety and agitation which told with fatal effect upon
him.
When he rose in the
Assembly to address a house crowded to suffocation, his rapid breathing
revealed the strain he was labouring under. He had written nothing
beforehand except a few jottings on the flyleaf of the Mission Report; and
such was the impassioned and rapid manner in which, under the pressure of
his convictions, he grappled with the points he wished most to impress,
that the reporters were unable to take down even the meaning of a great
part of the address—the most powerful and stirring he ever delivered. The
speech is practically lost. Passages can be recalled; the general scope
can be sketched; but there is no adequate record of the masterly handling
of principles, the touches of kindly humour, the skill with which he
conciliated his audience while urging views calculated to offend the
prejudices of many, the overpowering earnestness with which he defended
his own position and appealed to the Church for a generous and
self-forgetful policy towards India. Those who were present may retain an
impression of its power, but the speech itself has perished.
He had been labouring for
years, with little effect, to induce the clergy to adopt efficient methods
of raising funds, and had discovered how difficult it is in such matters
to combat sloth, prejudice, power of custom. He had tried also to make the
Church realise the nature and difficulty of the problems with which her
Mission had to deal, only to find, however, that many good people withheld
their sympathy, eyed with suspicion the education policy which formed an
essential part of the Mission system, and cared little for any results
except such as took the form of individual conversion. He deeply felt
that—
"There was a sort of
feeling of uneasiness and discontent throughout the Church in reference to
his conduct of the Mission, as if they said, 'The Mission is excellent;
God bless the Mission; let us support it; but—'and there was a groan or a
sigh, a something he could not get at. It needed no power but that of
thoughtlessness to destroy, but they must remember how difficult it is to
restore. Any man could set a great building on fire; and a single word, or
the shake of the head of a man in authority, might be very destructive to
the work of the Committee..... Did they realise," he asked, "what they
expected the Hindoos to do, what they blamed them for not doing, or
compared these expectations with what they were doing themselves at home 1
They were asking Hindoos, men of flesh and blood like themselves, and far
more sensitive than Scotchmen, of great intelligence and culture, to give
up hoary traditions, to cut down the tree of that religion under which
they and their fathers had sat for teeming centuries, and to accept the
religion of a people whose very touch was pollution ! They were asking
these men in many cases to give up father and mother, and brother and
sister, and were much astonished they did not make the sacrifice! But
suppose the Hindoos, who were observing and intelligent, were to turn on
themselves and say, 'You are sending us Christianity, to believe which
implies enormous sacrifices on our part, but what are your own clergy
doing? You are asking us to sacrifice all our traditions, but you won't
sacrifice the custom in your parishes that has been brought in by your
venerable predecessors ! What do you give for the salvation of souls? A
pound or a penny, or, as is the case in one hundred and seventy of your
churches, nothing at all? You call us deceivers; but we take you by
appearances, and ask you to let us see what Christianity is in yourselves
before you come to us.' ... . He had yet to learn that it was the work of
the Foreign Mission to make converts. He had always understood that the
conversion of souls was in the hand of God. He was not speaking lightly of
conversion—far from it; but their responsibility as a Church was to use
the best means of converting, and to implore God's grace on the means. But
he would ask those who judge the Mission by the number of converts, to
find out how many conversions had taken place in their own parishes during
the same time. Let them go down to the village, and entering a house, say
they will not leave it till they bring the men and women to Christ. Let
them go to the man of science, who had mastered many of the questions of
the day; let them not call him proud, or sneer at him as a 'natural man,'
for he may be most earnest, and may be sweating a more bloody sweat in
seeking to come to the truth than they had done ; let them go to that man
and satisfy his doubts, meet him fairly before God, and when they returned
from such a visitation as that, they would have more sympathy with
missionaries dealing with educated heathens."
The chief purpose of his
speech, however, took wider ground. He desired all Churches to consider
whether the forms in which they were presenting truth, and the
ecclesiastical differences they were exporting to India, were the best
means for Christianizing that country. Was it right that the divisions
which separated Churches in this country, and which were the growth of
their special histories, should not only he continued, hut he made as
great matters of principle in India as in England or Scotland?
"When these Hindoos heard
an Anglican bishop declare that he did not recognise as belonging to
Christ's Church congregations of faithful men holding a pure gospel and
observing the sacraments of the Lord; when they met others who said, 'You
must accept all these Calvinistic doctrines;' and when the Wesleyans came
next and said, 'God forbid! don't bring these things in;' and the Baptist
came with his idolatry of sacrament, saying, 'You must be a Baptist, you
must be dipped again;' and when the Roman Catholic came and said, ' You
are all wrong together;' is it any wonder that the Hindoo, pressed on
every side by different forms of Western Christianity, should say,
'Gentlemen, I thank you for the good you have done me, but as I am sore
perplexed by you all, take yourselves off, leave me alone with God, then I
will be fairly dealt with.' It was a positive shame—it was a disgrace—that
they should take with them to India the differences that separated them a
few yards from their brethren in this country. Is it not monstrous to make
the man they ordained on the banks of the Ganges sign the Westminster
Confession of the Church of Scotland or the Deed of Demission and Protest
of the Free Church? Was that the wisest, was it the Christian way of
dealing with Hindoos? .... And were they presenting the truth to the
native mind in the form best fitted for his requirements? The doctrines of
their Confessions might be true in themselves, but the Confession was a
document closely connected with the historical development and with the
metaphysical temperament of the people who had accepted it, and might not
be equally suitable for those who had not the same traditions and
tendencies. Was it necessary to give these minute and abstract statements
to Orientals whose habits of mind and spiritual affinities might lay
better hold on other aspects of divine truth, and who might mould a
theology for themselves, not less Christian, but which would be Indian,
and not English or Scotch? The block of ice, clear and cold, the beautiful
product of our northern climes will at the slightest touch freeze the warm
lips of the Hindoo. Why insist that he must take that or nothing? Would it
not be better to let the stream flow freely that the Eastern may quench
his thirst at will from God's own water of life? Would it not be possible
for the Evangelical Churches to drop their peculiarities, and in the
unselfishness of the common faith construct a Primer, or make the
Apostles' Creed their symbol, and say, 'This is not all you are going to
learn, but if you receive this truth and be strong in the faith, we will '
receive you so walking, but not to doubtful disputations; and, if in
anything ye be otherwise minded, God will reveal even this unto you?' And
they should make known the truth not only by books but by living men. Send
them the missionary. Let him be a man who embodies Christianity; and if he
was asked, ' What is a Christian!' he could answer, 'I am; I know and love
Christ, and wish you to know Him and love Him too.' That man in his
justice, generosity, love, self-sacrifice, would make the Hindoo feel that
he had a brother given him by a common Father. Let them prepare the
Hindoos to form a Church for themselves. Give them the gunpowder, and they
will make their own cannon."
While advocating these
catholic aims, he did not forget that spirit of ecclesiasticism, and those
prejudices and bigotries he was offending." He rose into indignant
remonstrance as he thought of how India might possibly he sacrificed to
the timidity of some of the clergy afraid to speak out their thoughts, or,
still worse, to the policy of others who, in the critical position of the
Church at home, were cautious not to verify the accusations of
latitudinarianism made against her by interested opponents.
"You must take care lest by
insisting on the minutiae of doctrine or government, you are not raising a
barrier to the advances of Christianity. You must take heed lest things
infinitesimally small as compared with the great world, may not be kept so
near the eye as to conceal the whole world from you. A man may so wrap a
miserable partisan newspaper round his head as to shut out the sun, moon,
and stars. You must take care that your Cairns do not stand so near as to
shut out Calcutta, and the Watch-'word make you so tremble for petty
consequences at home that all India is forgotten by you. I am not speaking
for myself alone," he added, "for I know how these difficulties press upon
many a missionary—and remember how more than one has taken my hand, and
said we dare not speak out on these things, lest our own names be blasted,
ourselves represented as unsafe, and all home-confidence be removed from
us. But why should they be afraid of such reproach? Why should I be afraid
of it? Am I to be silent lest I should be whispered about, or suspected,
or called 'dangerous,' 'broad' 'latitudinarian,' 'atheistic?' So long as I
have a good conscience towards God, and have His sun to shine on me, and
can hear the birds singing, I can walk across the earth with a joyful and
free heart. Let them call me 'broad.' I desire to be broad as the charity
of Almighty God, who maketh His sun to shine on the evil and the good; who
hateth no man, and who loveth the poorest Hindoo more than all their
committees or all their Churches. But while I long for that breadth of
charity, I desire to be narrow—narrow as God's righteousness, which as a
sharp sword can separate between eternal right and eternal wrong."
No one then present can
forget the thrilling power, the manly bearing, the intensity of suppressed
feeling, with which these words were uttered.
In a few following
sentences he explained how he was compelled to relinquish all public work
for the future, thanked his brethren for the kindness he had received from
them, and bidding farewell to the Church he had served with life-long
affection, he ended in accents broken with emotion, "If I forget thee, O
Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning—if I prefer not Jerusalem
above my chief joy."
It was a last and fatal
effort. The hearts of many present trembled for him as they watched the
unnatural flush upon his cheeks, and marked the expenditure of energy the
exertion cost him. To more than one of those whose eye wistfully followed
him, as he left the house, the sad foreboding came that it was their last
look of him.
"I was so glad," one
writes, "I heard that magnificent oration. When it was over, I bowed my
head in my hands, wishing to shut out everything but the solemn thoughts
such words had conjured up. I felt how much too great the exertion had
been for him. I took a long last look at him before I left—the conviction
being somehow strong upon me that with my mortal eyes I should never see
him again."
For the next few days he
complained of uneasiness and unaccountable depression of spirits, but was
able to preach in his own church on the afternoon of the following
Lord's-day. It was his last sermon, and on the strikingly appropriate
subject, "We have forsaken all, and followed Thee; what shall we have,
therefore?" A sheet of note-paper contains all he had written beforehand,
but it is enough to show that his last counsels to his people were
strangely in harmony with the situation. His theme was the way in which
Christ educated His disciples, and he urged upon his hearers the truth
that if they were willing to accept His guidance every day, they would at
last be prepared cheerfully to surrender life and all into His hands.
Next day, the 3rd of June,
he was to enter his sixty-first year, and he had such a strong desire to
have all his family with him on this birthday, that he brought his aged
mother from the country and asked leave for his son to come from
Liverpool. There was no foreboding in all this of immediate danger. He
said and did some things which afterwards seemed to indicate a feeling of
approaching death. When at Balmoral the previous week he spoke to more
than one of its being his last visit, and in some of his letters there
were expressions so solemn as to have startled the friends who received
them. But he did not really think that his end was so near. A great
sadness weighed on him, a weariness of the noise and disputings of men, of
"the burden and the mystery" of life; and out of this arose a more
childlike clinging to Christ and to the love and goodness of God. Deeply
affected by the disturbed condition of opinion in the world and the Church
he cherished only a fuller confidence in order finally coming out of
disorder; and feeling his own life-work was over, he entered the more
keenly into speculations as to the character of the life beyond the grave.
The future state, the society, occupations and joy of the blessed dead,
had been a favourite theme with him for many years, but during the last
few days of his life, it seemed to engross his thoughts. No friend could
be with him for many minutes without his reverting* to it. Under the
influence of the same feelings he spoke of his death. "My father often
took me at that time to drive with him," writes one of his daughters. "He
talked, or rather thought aloud, almost always about death and dying—the
dread every one has of the act of dying; and how merciful it was, that
though a man in health fears death, yet when he is weakened by disease, he
is indifferent to its terror; " above all, what a comfort it is to know
that the Man Christ Jesus died!" On Friday after he was taken ill, I was
sitting on his bed hearing how he was, and he said, " How dreadful it
would be if a God of hate ruled the world ; how he could torture us! For
instance, he could make us die more than once, and each death become a
dreadful experience. Let us thank God for His love. After all," he added
after a pause, "death is a wrong name for it—it is birth into the true
life."
The greater part of Monday,
3rd June, was spent by him alone in the outside study. He passed the day
chiefly in writing letters to valued friends and in quiet meditation. One
of his aunts found him reading the seventy-first psalm, and he at once
made it the groundwork of one of those out-pourings of his deepest, most
inward experiences which none who ever heard them can forget. In the
evening all his family were gathered round his table.
From his Journal:—
"June 2.—To-morrow, if I live, I am sixty. I enter on the last decade
allotted to man. I cannot take it in. In one sense I am young in heart. I
dream, as I have, alas! done for many a year, of what I may, or might do—
in literature, in practical work, in many a thing. While I dream life
passes, powers fail, and I feel as one who had done nothing, and know that
I have done little in comparison with what I could have done, had I only
been self-denying and diligent in college and in riper years. I confess
with shame my off-putting, my want of painstaking and earnestness in
mastering difficulties and details, my indolence, and selfishness, and
want of principle, in not attending each day, from youth upwards, in
doing, to the best of my ability, that one work, whether of mastering a
lesson or anything else, given me to do. It is no comfort to tell me what
I have done, for it is false comfort. I feel it truer to confess what I
have not done, what I ought to have done, what I could have done, and
which being left undone has been a felt, real, and shameful loss to me all
my life. Whatever a man's natural talent may be, whatever success he has
had in the world, whatever good he has accomplished, it yet remains true
that he would have been better, wiser, more influential, and glorified God
far more if he had been a careful, accurate, diligent scholar at school
and college, and acquired those habits of study, that foundation of
knowledge, without which talent is stunted, and genius itself is very far
from accomplishing that which it otherwise could do. God blesses the
self-sacrifice of study, and that I never had in my youth, and for that I
have suffered, and more especially as I have in later years become fully
alive to its importance. Morally and intellectually I am a dismasted
wreck, praising and blessing God if I get into the harbour, and
reverencing those who are good men, because they have been all their lives
dutiful.
"My life has been to me a
mystery of love. I know that God's education of each man is in perfect
righteousness. I know that the best on earth have been the greatest
sufferers, because they were the best, and, like gold, could stand the
fire and be purified by it. I know this, and a great deal more, and yet
the mercy of God to me is such a mystery, that I have been tempted to
think that I was utterly unworthy of suffering.
"God have mercy on my
thoughts! I may be unable to stand suffering. I do not know. But I lay
myself at Thy feet and say—not that I am prepared—but that Thou art good,
and wise, and wilt prepare me. I am a poor, selfish creature.
"God is all in all.
"God is love. Amen.
"The doctors tell me I am
in danger, and that unless I give up work I may not live. I have been ill
for the last sixteen years. The doctors tell me that I must get quit of
worry. I have, by their command, given up on Thursday last the
Convenership of the India Mission. I feel this. I spoke an hour and a half
on the subject, but the reports of my speech are fearful; empty of all I
said that is worth anything, full of horrors and absurdities I never
said."
To Principal Shairp:—
"3rd June, 1872.
"I am three-score years
to-day!
"John, dear, I cannot speak
about myself. I am dumb with thoughts that cannot be uttered.
"The doctors tell me that
unless by rest of body and mind I can conquer incipient disease, it will
kill me.
"So I am obeying to the
best of my ability.
"As I feel time so rapidly
passing, I take your hand, dear old friend, with a firmer grip!
"I have many friends; few
old ones!
"Oh that I loved my oldest
and truest, my Father and Saviour, better! But should I enter heaven as a
forlorn ship, dismasted, and a mere log—it is enough—for I will be
repaired.
"But I have been a poor
concern, and have no peace but in God's mercy to a miserable sinner.
"I spoke in the Assembly on
India Missions for an hour and a half. I will probably print it. It is my
programme for India. It knocked me up."
To Mrs. Macnab (Sister of
Dr. Macleod Campbell):—
"3rd June, 1872.
"You did not intend it to
be a birthday gift to the child you had in your arms sixty years ago! But
so it is, and it is doubly precious as a pledge of a love that has
remained ever bright for three-score years, and will be brighter still
when time shall be no more. God bless you and preserve you to us on earth!
I am dumb with a sense of awe, and full of thoughts that cannot be
uttered. My only rest in thinking of the past and anticipating the future
is in the one thought of 'God my Father.'
"I am so glad you would
like me to re-publish my sketch of dear John Campbell. What would you say
to putting in an appendix some extracts from his books, expressive of his
leading ' views?' This might help some souls in perplexity, and induce
them to read his books, They would be of use in India.
"As to his letters, &c, no
one felt more strongly than John Mackintosh regarding biographies. The
only thing which induced us to go against his expressed wishes was the
conviction, that now he would wish to do whatever seemed best to others,
whom he loved and trusted, for the glory of God. And surely the result
justified us. It seems to me that the responsibility of not permitting men
to speak when dead is as great as in enabling them to do so. How is it
likely they would judge now? is a question I cannot help putting."
To Rev. A. Clerk, whose
son, Duncan Clerk, was then dying:—
"June 3, 1872.
"It is very solemn and very
affecting, and I need not say how deeply we sympathize with you. Yet there
is but One who can do so perfectly, and give you and dear Jessie faith and
strength at this terrible crisis. I feel how impossible it is to convey in
words what one would like to say at such a time, if indeed silence does
not best express the sense of darkness and oppression. I enter to-day my
sixty-first year, and have my mother and all my family around me, and the
contrast presented between my house and yours makes your affliction only
more dark and solemn. We can only fall back on God to deliver me from a
slavish fear of coming sorrows, and you, my dear Archy, from a want of
faith in His constant and deep love to you and yours. What God may be
giving you in this form, I don't know. But I am sure He is giving. Those
He has taken, and seems to be taking, have been among His elect ones if
any such there be on earth. A finer boy than Duncan could not be. Every
one loved and respected him. He was a girl in purity, a child in humility,
modesty, and obedience! Fit for Heaven ! fit to join his sainted sister
and brothers. You have both sent precious treasures there to be your own
riches for ever, and I doubt not every soul in your house will get a
blessing. A holy family ! what an awful gift from God! I don't wish to
speak about myself, but I am not well. The doctors have discovered
symptoms so serious in me as to necessitate my getting rest for mind and
body, and so ward off what would very soon kill me. So I gave up the India
Mission, and am trying to sell my house in town, and get one in the
country. All my lameness, weariness, all are from the same cause. I am
utterly unable to stand fatigue, and I am still suffering from my long
(one hour and a half) speech and probably my last in the Assembly. I fear
to attempt to go to you, as I believe I would add to your trouble, I get
so prostrate. I am seriously alarmed for myself and see no escape at
present."
To the Marchioness of Ely
(then Lady in Waiting at Balmoral):—
"3rd June, 1872. " My Dear Lady Ely,
"Whether it is that my head
is empty or my heart full, or that both conditions are realised in my
experience, the fact, however, is that I cannot express myself as I feel,
in replying to your ladyship's kind—far too kind—note, which I received
when in the whirlwind, or miasma of Assembly business. Thanks deep and
true to you and to my Sovereign Lady for thinking of me. I spoke for
nearly two hours in the Assembly, which did no good to me, nor I fear to
any other ! I was able to preach yesterday. As I have got nice summer
quarters, I hope to recruit, so as to cast off this dull, hopeless sort of
feeling. I ought to be a happy, thankful man to-day. I am to-day sixty,
and round my table will meet my mother, my wife, and all my nine children,
six brothers and sisters, and two aunts—one eighty-nine, the other
seventy-six, and all these are a source of joy and thanksgiving. Why such
mercies to me, and such suffering as I often see sent to the best on
earth? God alone knows. I don't. But I am sure he always acts as a wise,
loving, and impartial Father to all His children. What we know-not now, we
shall know hereafter. God bless the Queen for all her unwearied goodness!
I admire her as a woman, love her as a friend, and reverence her as a
Queen; and you know that what I say, I feel. Her courage, patience, and
endurance are marvellous to me."
From his Journal:—
"June 3.—I am this day three-score years.
"The Lord is mysterious in
His ways! I bless and praise Him.
"I commit myself and my all
into His loving hands, feeling the high improbability of such a birthday
as this ever being repeated.
"But we shall be united
after the last birthday into heaven.
"Glory to God, for His
mercy towards us guilty sinners, through Jesus Christ, His Son, my Lord.
"I preached at Balmoral
('Thy Kingdom come'), on the 27th May. The Queen, as usual, very kind. As
she noticed my feebleness, she asked me to be seated during the private
interview. When last at Balmoral, I met Forster (the Cabinet Minister)
there. He and Helps and I had great arguments on all important theological
questions till very late. I never was more impressed by any man, as deep,
independent, thoroughly honest and sincere. I conceived a great love for
him. I never met a statesman whom, for high-minded honesty and justice, I
would sooner follow. He will be Premier some day.
"Dear Helps! man of men, or
rather brother of brothers.
"The last Assemby has been
the most reactionary I have ever seen ; all because Dr. Cairns and others
have attacked the Church for her latitudinarian-ism! The lectures of
Stanley have aroused the wrath of the Pharisees, and every trembler wishes
to prove that we are not latitudinarian, forsooth! If by this term is
meant any want of faith in the teaching of Christ and His apostles, any
want of faith in the Bible, or in the supernatural, or in Christ's person
or atonement (though not the Church theory), or in all the essentials of
the faith common to the Church catholic; then I am no latitudinarian. But
if by this is meant that man's conscience or reason (in Coleridge's sense)
is not the ultimate judge of a divine revelation, that I am bound to stick
to the letter of the Confession, and to believe, for example, that all
mankind are damned to 'excruciating torments in soul and body for all
eternity,' because of Adam's sin, and the original corruption springing
therefrom, and that God has sent a Saviour for a select few only, and that
death determines the eternal condition of all men ; then, thank God, I am
a latitudinarian, have preached it, confessed it, and can die for it!
Nothing-amazes or pains me more than the total absence of all pain, all
anxiety, all sense of burden or of difficulty among nine-tenths of the
clergy I meet, as to questions which keep other men sleepless. Give me
only a man who knows, who feels, who takes in, however feebly (like
myself), the life and death problems which agitate the best (yes, the
best) and most thoughtful among clergy and laity, who thinks and prays
about them, who feels the difficulties which exist, who has faith in God
that the right will come right, in God's way, if not in his, I am
strengthened, comforted, and feel deeply thankful to be taught. But what
good can self-satisfied, infallible Ultra-montanes do for a poor, weak,
perplexed soul? Nay, what good can puppies do who may accept congenial
conclusions without feeling the difficulties by which they are surrounded?
What have I suffered and endured in this my little back study, which I
must soon leave ! How often from my books have I gazed out of this window
before me, and found strength and peace in the little bit of the sky
revealed, with its big cumuli clouds, its far away cirri streaks, and,
farther still, its deep, unfathomable blue—its infinite depths I could not
pierce! yet seeing—in the great sunlight, in the glory of cloud-land, in
the peace of the sky—such a revelation of God as made me say, 'The Lord
reigneth, let the earth rejoice!'
"The older I get I find
more and more teaching from God's revelation in nature.
"The confusion that exists
at this moment, and which began soon after the war of '15, and is as
eventful as the Reformation, is most oppressive.
"'Everything is sundering,
And everyone is wondering,
As this huge globe goes thundering
On, for ever on.'"
"On the one hand, there is
a breaking up of the old forms of thought about everything, social,
political, scientific, philosophic, and theological. In spite of much
foolish conceit and sense of power on the part of those who guide the
battering-rams against the old walls, there is on the part of many more, a
great sense of the paramount importance of truth and duty which, if
piously considered, would but express faith in God, who is ever on the
side of truth, whether Huxley, Darwin, or any other express it, albeit
without sympathy for the speakers unless they be truthful. On the part of
the defenders there are all shades of feeling. Not a few from faith in God
and Christ, and in the verities of that moral and spiritual kingdom which,
having in themselves, they know cannot be moved, accept of these attacks,
not as from real enemies, but friends, because believing that Christianity
will ever be found far ahead of men, will soon 'prepare a place' for all
real truth, so that wherever Christ is, there it may be also. But others
are in terror, and either refuse to look at what professes to be truth in
the face, and only call its professors nick-names, or try the Romish
Syllabus dodge, and gather into clubs, like Jesuits, and in vain, by
assertion, try to stop the movement.
"So we are split up into
fragments, and while Rome remains whole,—-in its blindness swearing there
is no light because it does not see it, and cursing all eye-doctors and
spectacles.
"As for Scotland! The
Church of the future is not here! We ignore great world-questions. We
squabble like fishwomen over skate and turbot.
"Where is the germ of the
Church of the future? In what Church? In what creed? In what forms of
Government? It may come from India, as the first came from the East. But
all our old forms are effete, as old oaks, although young ones may grow
out of them. Neither Calvinism, nor Presbyterianism, nor Thirty-nine
Articles, nor High Churchism, nor Low Churchism, nor any existing
organization can be the Church of the future! May God give us patience to
wait! It may be a thousand, or three thousand years yet, ere it comes, but
come it will! I do not think any Broad Church can be the Church yet; it
wants definiteness to meet the common mind of rough humanity. But in a
Church it can modify and liberalise extremes, witness for individuality
against any extreme views of the body, and so help to an ultimate solution
of the problem between the individual and the Church. I shall see it from
the other side; but not from this.
"I resigned the
Convenership of the India Mission as I have said. I made a long speech not
reported. Dear Watson has been rejected as Convener. Herdman appointed.
This is of interest merely as showing the contest between the parties in
the Church. These are the Ultra-Evangelical and the Liberal."
Thus ends the journal he
kept so faithfully through his busy life.
On the same day his
birthday festival was held with a joy that was shadowed by haunting fears
of coming change. His worn and shattered aspect, and his sad, tender
bearing, suggested painful forebodings to those who loved him, and who
could scarcely refrain from showing their anxiety.
On the following Thursday
he took his mother and aunt for a drive in an open carriage. The day was
treacherous, and, before they returned, the bright sunshine, which had
tempted them to go out, departed, and a piercing east wind came on. In his
anxiety for his delicate aunt he wrapped his own plaid round her, and
exposed himself to a chill, which, in his broken condition of health,
proved fatal. When he came home he was seized with a shiver, followed by
an intense pain in the chest, and for the next few days experienced
extreme suffering, combined with overpowering attacks of sickness. He
spent some hours that evening with his mother, and aunts, and sister, who
resided a few doors from his own house. It was the day of a funeral of a
favourite nephew, Duncan Clerk, and partly to comfort his sorrowing niece,
who was present, as well as to give expression to thoughts of which his
mind was full, he talked with more than usual power—-almost with
excitement—regarding the glorified life of those who had departed in the
Lord. He recalled the names and characters of deceased relatives, and
described the joy of meeting and recognising them. He spoke of his father,
of James, of sisters and uncles who were dead, and of John Mackintosh; and
when one of the party chanced to allude to their departure as a loss, he
vehemently remonstrated against such a view. "Love is possession, love is
possession," he repeated with an emphasis, which those who listened to him
have since learned to apply to the separation they feared, but the
imminence of which they did not then anticipate. Before parting from his
mother that evening—the last they were to spend together on earth—he
poured out his soul in a prayer which melted every heart. It was a
triumphant thanksgiving to God, which recalled his own past history, and
the history of the family, revived the names of many dear ones who had
entered into rest, and concluded with a glorious profession of gratitude,
confidence, and joy.
His restlessness night and
day became dreadful, but as the symptoms seemed to arise from indigestion,
for a time no strong measures were taken. In order to alleviate this, and
to give him greater freedom, Mrs. Macleod removed his bed to the
drawing-room. The pain gradually lessened, but his strength went visibly
down, and his brother, Professor Macleod, who had been out of town, was,
on his return, so much struck by the change in his appearance, that,
though not anticipating any immediately fatal result, he suspected the
imminence of graver complications. In order to secure complete rest for
him, arrangements were made for his giving up every kind of work for six
months. This fact was communicated to him on Tuesday the 11th, and was
received with perfect composure; but when his brother left, Mrs. Macleod
found him in the drawing-room deadly pale and nearly fainting. The
proposal had shocked him more than he knew, as indicating the cessation of
his active life; but he revived after a little, and spoke of how
delightful it would be to take all his children to Cann-stadt, and how he
would enjoy six months' rest with his family and his books.
The rapid sinking of his
strength, the increasing tendency to faintness, the casual rambling of his
thoughts, showed, however, too plainly the severity of the attack, and his
medical attendants held a consultation on Thursday, in which Professor
Gairdner joined. Their examination showed that rapid effusion had taken
place into the pericardium.
That morning, when one of
his brothers saw him, he described a dream which seemed for the time to
fill him with happiness:—"I have had such a glorious dream! I thought the
whole Punjaub was suddenly Christianised, and such noble fellows, with
their native churches and clergy."
The next day he was very
weak, but on Saturday the doctors found him considerably better. The birth
of his brother Donald's eldest son, which occurred that morning, took a
strange hold of his mind, and when the father called for him he found him
filled with solemn thoughts suggested by the gift of this new life. He was
seated in a stooping position, his elbows resting on his knees, to relieve
the pain in his chest, and while he spoke his eyes overflowed with tears,
as with broken utterance he touched on what had always been a congenial
theme:—"Christ spoke of the joy of a man-child being born into the world.
He alone could measure all that is implied in the beginning of such an
existence. A man born ! One that may know God and be with Him forever. A
son of God like Jesus Christ—how grand—how awfully grand!" [The same
newspaper which announced the birth of this boy, Norman, contained the
news of his uncle's death.]
That evening he was so much
better as to enjoy music, and his daughters played and sang some of his
favourite pieces,—the "Marche Funèbre" of Beethoven, with a part of the
Sonata; Mozart's "Kyrie Eleison;" "Ach wie ist es moglich!" "Nearer, my
God, to Thee." He was greatly moved by Newman's well-known hymn, " Lead,
kindly light," which, strange to say, he had never heard sung before.
Every word seemed so appropriate that he made his daughter sit beside him
that he might hear her more distinctly, and he shook his head and bowed it
with emphatic acquiescence at different passages, especially at the
lines,—
"Keep Thou my feet: I do not
ask to see
The distant scene: one step enough for me."
On that night, as well as
on the previous one, his brother George sat up with him. On the Friday
night he had suffered extremely, but he was now slightly better. He had
snatches of sleep, often rose and walked through the room, sometimes
indulging in bits of fun, and shaking with laughter at sallies of wit
which were evidently intended to relieve his brother's anxiety. Sometimes
his mind slightly wandered. More than once he engaged in silent prayer,
and after one of these still moments he said, "I have been praying for
this little boy of Donald's —that he may live to be a good man, and by
God's grace be a minister in the Church of Christ—the grandest of all
callings!"
He described with great
delight the dreams he had been enjoying, or rather the visions which
seemed to be passing vividly before his eyes even while he was speaking.
"You cannot imagine what exquisite pictures I see. I never beheld more
glorious Highlands, majestic mountains and glens, brown heather tinted
with purple, and burns— clear, clear burns—and above, a sky of intense
blue—so blue, without a cloud!"
He spoke of an unusual
number of friends, and remembering that the Queen was then leaving
Balmoral for Windsor, he prayed aloud for her and her children.
Seeing that his brother was
anxious that he should sleep, he said, "Tell me about the Crimea, and what
you saw there. There is nothing I like so much as stories of battles. If
you tell me what you saw you will soothe me to sleep like a child. I never
could well make out the position of the Flagstaff battery. Now, just go on
!" Once, during the night, he asked his brother, with great tenderness, to
kiss him; and at another time, when awaking from sleep, he held up his
hands, as if pronouncing the benediction in church, and said with much
solemnity, "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the Communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen." So passed
his last night on earth, troubled, yet peaceful, and full of the
unselfishness and simplicity of his life.
On the morning of Sunday,
the sixteenth of June, he was so much better that his brother left him in
comparative comfort, and when Professor Andrew Buchanan saw him some hours
afterwards, he was surprised at the great improvement which had taken
place. He felt so refreshed after taking some food, about seven in the
morning, that he asked his wife to sit beside him while he told her the
deeper thoughts that were possessing his soul. "I believe I will get
better," he said, "but I wish you to record for my good and for our good
afterwards, that in this hurricane I have had deep thoughts of God. I feel
as if He said, 'We know one another, I love you, I forgive you; I put my
hands round you,' just as I would with my son Norman," and here he laid
his own hand tenderly on his wife's head. "I have had few religious
exercises for the last ten days. If my son were ill I would not be angry
with him for not sending me a letter. But I have had constant joy, and the
happy thought continually whispered, 'Thou art with me!' Not many would
understand me. They would put down much that I have felt to the delirium
of weakness, but I have had deep spiritual insight." When he was speaking
of God's dealings, the expression of his face and his accents were as if
he was addressing one actually present. Still more intimately, it seemed,
than ever, his fellowship was with the Father and the Son. He again
repeated that he believed he would get better, and that his latter days
would be more useful than any former ones. "I have neglected many things.
I have not felt as I ought how awfully good God is; how generous and
long-suffering; how He has 'put up' with all my rubbish. It is enough to
crush me when I think of all His mercies" (as he said this he was melted
in tears), "mercy, mercy, from beginning to end. You and I have passed
through many life-storms, but we can say with peace, it has been all
right." He added something she could not follow as to what he would wish
to do in his latter days, and as to how he "would teach his darling
children to know and realise God's presence." He told her once more to
write down all he had said, that it might do her good when her own day of
sorrow came. He frequently said that this visitation was quite unexpected.
Some hours afterwards two
of his daughters came to kiss him before going to church. "He took my
hands in both of his," one of them writes, "and told me I must come to see
him oftener. 'If I had strength,' he said, 'I could tell you things that
would do you good through all your life. I am an old man, and have passed
through many experiences, but now all is perfect peace and perfect calm. I
have glimpses of Heaven that no tongue, or pen, or words can describe.' I
kissed him on his dear forehead and went away, crying only because he was
so ill. When I next saw him he was indeed 'in perfect peace and perfect
calm.'"
The church bells had for
some time ceased to ring, and the quiet of the Lord's-day rested on the
city. His wife and one of his sons were with him in the drawing-room,
where he remained chiefly sitting on the sofa. About twelve o'clock Mrs.
Macleod went to the door to give some directions about food. The sudden
cry, "Mother, mother!" startled her, and when she hurried in she saw his
head had fallen back. There was a soft sigh, and, gently as one sinking
into sleep, his spirit entered the eternal rest. |
