CAMPBELL, REV. JOHN.—This
active missionary and enterprising traveller, whose many labours
procured for him a high estimation in the Christian world, was born at
Edinburgh in 1766. He was the youngest of three sons, and had the
misfortune to lose his father when only two years old, and his mother
four years afterwards. Being placed under the guardianship of Mr.
Bowers, his uncle, a pious elder or deacon of the Relief Church, John
was educated at the High School of Edinburgh, then under the rectorship
of Dr. Adams; but although his proficiency as a scholar was such as
enabled him to escape unnoticed, he never in after life manifested any
particular acquaintanceship with Latin and Greek. His restless
temperament and enterprising spirit were more inclined to action than
study, and might have led him headlong into evil, had they not been kept
in check by the wholesome restraints and religious education established
in his uncle’s household. On finishing his education at the High School,
he was apprenticed to a goldsmith and jeweller in Edinburgh. Although,
at this early period, he was deprived of the religious instructions he
had hitherto enjoyed, in consequence of the death of his uncle, the loss
was in some measure supplied by diligent reading and anxious reflection,
combined with the intercourse of pious acquaintances, whose benevolence
was awakened by his orphan condition. One of these he thus
describes:—"Perhaps you will be surprised to hear that he was a gauger
(or excise officer), an employment as much despised in those days, in
the north, as that of the publicans or tax-gatherers by the Jews in the
days of our Lord. When his piety became generally known in the town
where he lived, he had the honour of being distinguished by the
appellation of ‘the praying gauger.’ In reference to his being a man of
prayer, perhaps you will be startled at a remark I heard made by one of
his most intimate and oldest acquaintances—‘that he believed Duncan
Clark (for that was his name) had not for the last forty years slept two
hours without engaging in prayer.’ The conduct of this remarkable man
towards the young inquirer, was in keeping with his character. He was
the first person," Campbell adds, "to whom I opened my case, when I was
greatly alarmed about the state of my soul before God. I wrote to him a
very simple letter, which he first showed to some of his intimates, for
their opinion, and then wrote a cautious brief answer, which he did not
send off by post, but actually brought himself, and delivered into my
hands in Edinburgh. He explained his doing so by telling me that he had
been at Dunfermline sacrament, to which place he carried it; and while
there, he thought that, being within fifteen miles of Edinburgh, he
would just walk to it, and have a little conversation, as well as
deliver the letter. He had walked more than twenty miles to the
sacrament. He walked thus to save his money for the poor." It was no
wonder that, under the conversation of such men, the subject of religion
to the mind of Campbell appeared of paramount importance. It was equally
to be expected, from his natural disposition, that having attained such
views, he should be impatient to realize them by action. He became a
visitor of the sick and dying poor, to whom he imparted the consolations
of religion, as well as of the ignorant and the dissolute, whom he was
anxious to enlighten and convert. In this way he became a city
missionary among the murky lanes and closes of Edinburgh, at a time when
such an office was most needed, and, as yet, little thought of.
Mr. Campbell had now
commenced that evangelistic public life which was to know neither rest
nor interval; and while engaged in the shop of a hardware merchant, an
occupation to which he had betaken himself, he was to become a
correspondent of the principal characters of the religious world, and be
connected with those great public enterprises in which they were the
chief movers. But to a life of such varied action, notwithstanding its
heroic disinterestedness and important results, we can only devote a
very brief enumeration.
One of the earliest of
these labours was the establishment of Sabbath-schools. At a time when
domestic religious instruction was prevalent in Scotland, their
introduction, instead of being a benefit, would have been a mischievous
intrusion. But now that this patriarchal style of life was fast passing
into a new state, and that the present was a transition period, which is
generally a period fraught with danger, the old system of religious
tuition was wofully in abeyance, while nothing as yet had been brought
forward to supplement the deficiency. Sabbath-schools, indeed, had even
already been introduced into the country; but they were not only
insignificant in point of number, but regarded as a dangerous
novelty—nay, even regarded as a libel upon our covenanting and
well-educated Scotland, whose religious character now stood so high
among the nations of Christendom. And yet, all the while, there were
thousands, nay, myriads of children for whom no one cared, and who were
growing up in ignorance and profligacy, while every year was increasing
the evil. Scotland, as too often the case, was contentedly reposing upon
her past character and achievements, and therefore blind to the present
emergency. To this educational plan, therefore, so ungracious, and yet
so needful, John Campbell directed his efforts. He opened a large
Sabbath-school in the old Archers’ Hall; and finding it succeed, he
opened another in the hall of the Edinburgh Dispensary. Encouraged by
the benefits that attended this bold experiment upon the capital, and by
the Countess of Leven, and several of our Scottish aristocracy, whose
religious patriotism was awake to the true interests of their country,
he now turned his attention to the rural districts, and opened a school
at the village of Loanhead, a few miles distant from Edinburgh. Here he
took his station exclusively as teacher, and so effectually, that he
soon had 200 pupils. His zealous missionary labours in these and similar
undertakings, introduced him to the Haldanes, men of congenial spirit,
who were eager to second his efforts; and accordingly, in company with
Captain James Haldane, the younger brother, he set off on a tour through
the west of Scotland, partly for the distribution of tracts, but mainly
for the establishment of Sabbath-schools. With this view they visited
Glasgow, Paisley, and Greenock; and although the trip occupied only a
single week, the formation of sixty schools was the result within three
months afterwards. A system of religious education was thus prosperously
commenced that was soon to overspread the country, and which, we trust,
will continue, until society, still better christianized than it is at
present, will revert to the good old plan of having the Sunday-school at
home, with the head of the house as its zealous affectionate teacher.
From Sabbath-school
teaching to preachIng was but a step, upon which Mr. Campbell next
ventured; it was a change from growing to grown children, where the
latter were to the full as unintelligent as the former, but with still
greater need of the coercions of religion, while the kind of instruction
which had been found so available with the one might be equally so with
the other. He commenced in the first instance with Gilmerton, a village
in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, chiefly inhabited by colliers, the
despised Pariahs of British society; and having opened a preaching
station for Sabbath evening service, he was aided in his labours by
students of divinity and lay-preachers; and especially by Rate, Aikman,
and the Haldanes, the fathers of Scottish Independency. Encouraged by
the success of this trial upon Gilmerton, Messrs. Campbell, Rate, and
James Haldane resolved to attempt an itinerancy of lay-preaching over
the whole of Scotland north of Edinburgh. It was a novel experiment,
for, except the brief visits of Whitefield to Scotland, the practice of
preaching in the open air had been discontinued there since the happy
accession of William and Mary to the throne. In every town and village
to which they came, they announced their purpose and the place of
muster, and there the crowds who assembled were roused anew with
proclamations of those evangelical doctrines to which very few pulpits
of the day were wont to give utterance. This, indeed, was a sufficiently
humble mode of preaching; but it was apostolic withal, and suited to the
wants of the times; and one of the best fruits of this lay and
out-of-door preaching was, that in the present day it is needed no
longer. After he had toiled in the work until he broke down from sheer
exhaustion, and resumed it as soon as his health had recovered, Campbell
saw with satisfaction this field successfully occupied by the Haldanes,
and those whom they had trained to an itinerant ministry.
Hitherto it had been the
reproach of Protestantism, that it was not a missionary church. The
Reformed communities, instead of preaching the gospel to all nations,
had selfishly confined it to themselves; and while Papists were alert in
traversing every land, and braving every danger to make converts, they
were wont to allege, and with a show of justice, that the opposite
church could not be a genuine Christian one, as it had so shamefully
neglected this most important commission with which it had been
intrusted by our blessed Lord at his departure. Now, however, the
reproach was to be rolled away; and one of the first fruits of this
awakened sense of duty was the formation of the London Missionary
Society, composed of Christians of all denominations, for a great united
aggression upon the heathenism of the world. It was the raising of a
banner, and sounding of a trumpet-blast, under which every Christian
community in Britain was electrified. Similar institutions in connection
with the parent branch began rapidly to be established in various
cities; and among these, one of the first was in Edinburgh, of which Mr.
Campbell was a director. In this way, while, to use the language of one
of his biographers, "soldiers and sailors wrote to him for advice; the
needy and greedy for money; the reclaimed outcasts for prayer and
counsel; dark villages for itinerants; and chapel-builders for help;"
and all this while undergoing the weekly cares and toils of a tradesman
in the Bow, and those of a village lay-preacher at Gilmerton on the
Sabbath, he had the complicated concerns of a new missionary society
super-added to his manifold occupations. Zeal, activity, sagacity,
business-habits, prudence, persuasiveness, were all in requisition for
the discharge of so many duties: and all these qualities he brought so
fully to the task, as to show that he was now in his congenial element.
The condition of Africa employed his attention with reference to the
establishment of a mission at Sierra Leone; but the unhealthiness of the
climate along the coast, and the "terrible unknown" of the interior,
equally seemed to bid defiance to the enterprise. In this trying
dilemma, an expedient suggested itself to his mind as sufficient to
obviate every difficulty; it was, to obtain from the British settlement
there a number of native children of both sexes, and after educating
them in Britain, to send them back as missionaries to their kindred and
countrymen. The next step was to procure funds for such a costly but
hopeful undertaking, and these were volunteered to be supplied by Mr.
Robert Haldane, who saw at once the soundness of the scheme. Twenty-four
children were accordingly brought from Africa to London, and nothing
remained but to forward them to Edinburgh, to be trained under the
superintendence of those who had originated the plan. But here
difficulties arose at the outset with which Mr. Campbell had nothing to
do, and the children were educated in London. Still he had taught the
way by which Africa was to be opened up, and its hitherto inaccessible
regions evangelized; and every succeeding year has justified the
sagacity with which the expedient was devised, by the happy results that
have already crowned it. It is upon native missions, perhaps, that we
must ultimately rely for the Christianization both of India and Africa.
At an early period of
life, Mr. Campbell’s wishes had been directed to the ministry, but as
circumstances had been such as to prevent their realization, he had
hitherto acted in his private capacity, and as a lay-preacher. Having
been so successful in the latter vocation, he now thought it his duty to
devote himself wholly to the ministerial work. He could now also
accomplish this with greater facility, as the Theological Hall which the
Independents had lately established, required a shorter course of study
than that prescribed by the regular colleges. This step also
corresponded more fully with his views of church government, which
accorded with Independency. He therefore repaired to Glasgow, and
prosecuted his studies for the purpose under the Rev. Greville Ewing,
who was at the head of the seminary. Here, also, he occasionally joined
Mr. Haldane in his itinerary preaching tours; and on one occasion, in
1802, he carried his labours through a considerable part of England, and
officiated during part of the summer, at Kingsland Chapel, London. For
two years after, Mr. Campbell itinerated through various parts of
Scotland, and the northern counties of England, when, in 1804, he
received a regular call from the congregation of Kingsland Chapel, by
whom his former labours had been greatly esteemed, to become their
minister. He complied, and entered immediately with full ardour upon the
sacred duties of his new office. Although now minister of a London
chapel, the situation was by no means one either of distinction or
emolument. On the contrary, the congregation were so poor, and his
salary therefore so scanty, that he was obliged to open a day school in
Kingsland, in addition to his clerical duties. He was also editor of the
"Youth’s Magazine," a small religious periodical, which he commenced and
superintended through the first ten volumes.
The remarkable activity
of Mr. Campbell, and the energy with which he entered into the
operations of the various religious societies with which he was engaged,
besides discharging the offices of minister, schoolmaster, editor, and
itinerant preacher, soon brought him into notice in London, and
suggested to the London Missionary Society the idea of employing him in
an enterprise of the utmost importance. This was, a tour of exploration
through Caffraria, for the purpose of examining the state of the
Hottentot and Caffre missions, now left helpless by the death of the
lamented Dr. Vanderkemp. It was a commission fraught not only with
difficulty but peril, but Campbell cheerfully undertook it. He was
solemnly set apart for this purpose in Miles’ Lane Chapel, the venerable
Dr. Waugh presiding on that occasion. And who that has but once seen and
heard that Scot of Scots, can either forget his noble, stately, stalwart
form and bearing, or his Doric but thrilling and persuasive eloquence?
At the close of his address he thus bade farewell to Mr.
Campbell:—"Could I place the prophet Isaiah at the base of one of the
lofty mountains in Africa, which you, my brother, are about to visit;
and if, whilst gazing on its varied scenery, an eathquake were to rock
it upon its deep foundations, until, like the Numidian lion shaking the
dew-drops of the land of Ham from his mane in the morning, it threw off
from its hoary and heaving sides the forests, and flocks, and hamlets of
huts, and cliffs crowned with lichens and lign-aloes; and were a
whirlwind to rush in at that moment, scattering the broken and falling
masses in mid-air, as if playing with the sand-clouds and columns of the
desert; still the voice of the prophet, could it be heard amidst the
convulsive war of elements, would exclaim, ‘Though the everlasting
mountains bow, and the perpetual hills be scattered, yet will I rejoice
in the Lord, and joy in the God of my salvation!’ Go, my brother, and do
thou the same, whatever dangers you may meet in Africa. As God was with
Vanderkemp, so will he be with thee, Campbell."
Charged with this
important commission, the minister of Kingsland Chapel left London on
the 24th of June, 1812. Already he had confronted the fierce waves that
girdle the Orkneys, and traversed its little islands to proclaim the
gospel; but now he was to "brave the stormy spirit of the Cape," and
explore its vast interior, upon a similar errand. His progress in South
Africa fully justified the choice that had been made of him, for while
no minister or missionary could have been more zealous, active, and
efficient in the special duties of his calling among the Christian
stations which he visited, he added to these the qualifications of an
intrepid, diligent, and enterprising traveller, alive to the interests
of general knowledge and science, and sharply observant of every object
in his way. Three thousand miles were traversed by him in a country as
yet but little known to the British public, and after an absence of
nearly two years, he returned to England in May, 1814. He was not yet
done, however, with South Africa, for in little more than four years,
his services as a traveller, which already had been so useful, were
again in requisition. A second journey over the same country was the
consequence, which occupied two years and a-half, and he returned to
London in 1821, just in time for the missionary May meetings, which he
gratified by the rich fund of intelligence which he brought from the
land of his adventurous pilgrimage. Altogether, his published account of
these two journeys not only threw much light upon the interior of South
Africa, but brought into full view whole towns and tribes whose
existence had as yet been unknown in Europe. It was indeed a valuable
addition to that portion of the map which had hitherto been little more
than a blank, or a few conjectural lines. In consequence of these
services, the London Missionary Society were anxious that he should
resume his pilgrim’s staff, and make a similar exploration of the
stations they had established in the Polynesian Islands. But this
application he respectfully declined. After his second return from
Africa, in consequence of the death of his aunt, and marriage of his
niece, who had hitherto been his housekeepers, he took to himself a
partner of his home, and resumed his ministerial duties at Kingsland
Chapel.
The rest of the life of
Mr. Campbell, which was chiefly spent in London, was marked by the same
earnest diligence and usefulness which had hitherto characterized it.
Decidedly a man of action, his hours, his very minutes, were all turned
to good account, while his cheerful lively humour continued to animate
him to the last. His piety, his vigorous sound sense, his fluency as a
speaker, and his jokes, always made him a favourite upon a London
religious platform; and as soon as his little compact figure, dark
complexion, and cheerful look, were presented to address them, the whole
meeting brightened up with expectation, and hailed him with applauding
welcome. Thus he continued unbent and unbroken until he had passed the
boundary of threescore and ten, when he was attacked at the commencement
of 1840 by his last illness. His end was one full of peace and hope, and
the only disquietude he seemed to experience was from the thought, that
in spite of all he had done, he had not done enough—he had not done what
he could. A few hours before he died, the missionary spirit that had so
essentially predominated during life was strongest within him, and in
broken accents of prayer he exclaimed unconsciously, "Let it fly! let
the gospel fly!" His death occurred on the 4th of April, 1840.
An article about him from Tait's Edinburgh
Magazine c1840 (pdf) |