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An
Appreciation
During the later half of the nineteenth century Scotland
produced scarcely any man of finer intellect and nobler
character than John Caird. He was undoubtedly the most
eloquent preacher of his time and occupied no mean place
among the philosophical students and thinkers of the
period.
He was born in Greenock in 1820, and died in 1898. His
father was partner and manager in a well-known firm of
engineers, and young Caird, on leaving school, was taken
into the office, and for more than two years worked as
if engineering was to be his destiny. But a year or two
at the University of Glasgow inspired him with new
tastes and aspirations, and when the engineering firm
was dissolved on the death of his father, followed
shortly by the death of an uncle, he resolved to give up
business and study for the Church. The love of learning
which had been kindled during his brief period at
College, and religious impressions deepened by the death
of his father and unde combined to fix this decision,
and so when twenty years of age he resumed his studies
at the University of Glasgow. The period was one of
intense ecclesiastical controversy, for “The Ten Years’
Conflict” was rapidly approaching its sad climax in the
so-called Disruption of 1843.
But from temperament and conviction John Caird had
little caring for these fiery disputes. While loyal to
the Church of Scotland, he never was, then or
afterwards, a “party man,” and had no liking for Church
Courts, which he seldom or never entered during his
whole life. What did move him was the bitterness which
had been engendered, while the questions in debate
failed to enlist his sympathies or to stir his
enthusiasm. The spiritual and practical aspects of
Christianity attracted him, ecclesiastical warfare
utterly repelled him.
His first charge was Newton-on-Ayr, a parish which from
that day became for several years the happy starting
point of several of the most celebrated preachers of the
Church. John Caird was the first and by far the greatest
of these.
But his fame spread rapidly, and eighteen months
afterwards he was appointed minister of Lady Yester’s
parish in Edinburgh. The Church was a plain building in
an obscure neighbourhood, but soon after his arrival it
became the chief centre of religious interest in a city
at that time renowned for famous preachers and famous
men of letters and science. Yet here was a lad of about
twenty-six years of age whose extraordinary eloquence
and power were such that long before the hours of
service eager crowds hurried from all parts to gain
admission to the very unpretending edifice which had
suddenly become a focus of command* ing spiritual
influence. I can myself remember the sensation which his
preaching then created, and the extraordinary impression
it made upon myself, young as I was. His very appearance
fascinated me and the peculiarly rich voice and musical
accentuation thrilled the hearer. Nothing can be truer
than the picture given of his preaching at that time by
Dr. Mackmillan, quoted by the Master of Balliol in his
beautiful but too brief memorial of his brother.
“Profoundly impressed himself, his words rang out strong
and fervent, emphasized by the most appropriate
gestures. Standing back from the book-board, tossing his
long hair from his forehead, his eye kindling with a
dusky yet piercing light, “orb within orb," he poured
forth a succession of impassioned sentences which fairly
carried you away. There was no pretence, no studied
unnatural effect, but the fire and rapture of native
eloquence. . . . With a long and highly-wrought
peroration, in which he seemed to exhaust all his
oratorical powers, he brought his discourse to a
conclusion; and the loud sob of the audience indicated
how profoundly they had been thrilled and strained in
the course of its delivery.”
His preaching at that time was in certain aspects better
fitted for mere popular effect than in his after life.
It was more unrestrained, and while he never fell
beneath the requirements of his inborn fastidiousness as
to literary quality, yet his abandon to the deeply
stirred emotions he experienced was in continual
evidence and the consequent passion of his oratory
became frequently overpowering. The whirl of the
splendid periods and the self-forgetfulness which often
led to the piling up of his appeals until his voice
approached almost a scream in his desire to emphasize
the thought he was enforcing, lent a quality to his
early efforts which gradually vanished or became
moderated as his style became more chastened. Yet those
who heard him then will recall these early years of his
ministry as having displayed his gifts as an orator in a
form which for mere effect was unique in their
experience.
After three years of immense toil during which the
mental and nervous tension was more than flesh and blood
could stand, he sought retirement in a country parish,
where he might have quiet for study, and enjoy the
calming influences of the Scottish Manse with the
congenial interests of pastoral work among the rural
parishioners. He thus became minister of the parish of
Errol in the Carse of Gowrie, and soon displayed the
practical side of his nature by devising methods for the
benefit of the young, especially for the girls engaged
in weaving and field labour. For this end he built and
organised a school— of a character not so commonly found
then as now—which might be an attraction and a place
where the interests of the girls might find a healthy
stimulus through instruction in domestic economy,
dress-making, cooking, etc. The result was all he had
hoped for. The sordid and careless lives soon showed the
improvement which his wise project effected, and the
keen interest he experienced in guiding his venture, and
the hard work he undertook in raising the necessary
funds and in placing the school on the best working
basis revealed that practical aptitude which found
ampler scope when he became head of a great University.
It was when at Errol that, in 1855, he was invited to
preach at Crathie before the Queen and the Prince
Consort, and delivered his sermon on “The Religion of
Common Life,” which was afterwards published by command
of the Queen, and at once drew the attention of the
nation to the preacher. Although the teaching was of a
kind which has since become more common, yet it is proof
of its exceptional power that after more than fifty
years the sermon is still sold in thousands.
It was, however, impossible that such a man could be
allowed to remain in retirement. The quiet years at
Errol with their hours of hard study and systematic
reading could not have been regarded even by himself as
an end. The result of these days of reflection, the
enlargement and maturing of his views, and the stronger
grasp he gained of the principles which formed the basis
of all his work could not fail to command an outlet in a
more important field than a retired Perthshire parish,
and, accordingly, in 1857, he was forced to make a
choice between St. George’s Church, Edinburgh, and what
was then the unfinished Park Church, in the West of
Glasgow. After some deliberation he decided in favour of
Park Church, and on the last Sunday of 1857 he was
inducted. I well remember the wide interest which the
services of that day created. The forenoon service was
conducted by Norman Macleod and in the afternoon by John
Caird. At once the success of the new Church was more
than assured. Not only was every seat let but crowds
waited Sunday after Sunday for admission, and were glad
if they could obtain standing room. The four years he
remained in Park Church were years of hard work and
splendid achievement. In my opinion his power as a
preacher reached its zenith at that time. There was a
fulness of thought, a sustained brilliance of diction, a
masterly exposition and impassioned application of
practical principles which showed spiritual and mental
growth when compared with his earlier ministry. The very
fact that he was addressing people immersed in business,
the intelligent merchants and captains of industry, the
lawyers, and physicians of a great dity, gave a
practical turn to his teaching and a direction to his
earnestness that was often startling and not in such
evidence afterwards, when it was his duty to address an
audience of professors and students, and when questions
of another kind pressed upon his attention. For while
ever presenting the noblest ideals, yet sometimes in
scathing language he would set the vulgar pursuit of
wealth for its own sake in vivid contrast with the
nobler uses of riches and of life itself. His oratory as
a preacher also reached its highest point in Park
Church. If it lacked the unrestrained abandon of the
days when he was at Lady Yester*s, yet the perfection of
style, which seemed his birthright, was charged full of
a passion held in greater restraint, yet because of the
restraint more moving and convincing. At the forenoon
services he generally gave an exposition of Scripture
from such brief notes as left the impression of
extempore speaking, but so interesting were these simple
addresses that many preferred them to the finished and
glowing orations of the later service. We can
appreciate, as far as the difference admits between
printed discourses and those delivered with the fire of
burning earnestness, the high standard reached during
his first year in Park Church by referring to the volume
of sermons he published in 1858.
As on the conclusion of the intervening ministry of Dr.
Charteris I became minister of Park Church, I had
special opportunities for learning what Dr. Caird’s
pastoral work had been. No one could have been more
faithful in the visitation of the sick. “His visits when
I was ill,” a lady once said to me, “were like those of
a messenger of God. I can never forget the simplicity,
tenderness, and beauty of his words and prayers.” At the
request of Norman Madeod, he undertook a mission in a
poor and degraded district in the large Barony parish,
and laid down lines on which the work was conducted, and
inspired the energies of the workers so effectually,
that it was continued for years afterwards by the
congregation, and still remains in the fuller form of an
endowed parish. He had little caring for the calls which
“Society” made upon his time, for by taste he was a
scholar, and loved what he termed “his hermit’s life”
among his books. Yet when he did enter into social life
no one could be more charming. But it was among his
intimate friends that the richness of his genial nature
was unveiled and his native sense of humour manifested.
Some of his amusing stories were about himself. I
remember one he used to tell with immense delight. It
referred to the time when in Park Church his fame as a
preacher was highest, and when he went for a brief rest
to the Bridge of Allan. On the Sunday morning a message
came that the minister of the parish was so unwell that
he could not preach and Caird was pressed to take his
place. The church was crowded and the audience thrilled,
but as he was escaping home with that shy avoidance of
observation which was characteristic, he overheard one
old woman saying to another, “D’ye ken I wadna wonder
but that yon young man may get a parish!”
“The Essays for Sunday Reading” which are embraced in
this volume consist of gleanings from the sermons he
preached in Park Church, and were contributed to Good
Words in 1863, the year after he had entered on his
duties as Professor of Theology in the University. It is
necessary to remember that fact because, as might have
been expected, these sermons contain the substance of
teaching which naturally appears in other forms in later
publications. But the similarity of thought does not
indicate re-production but simply the continuity of his
convictions presented in the more mature form which
experience and requirements different from weekly
congregational teaching created. If there is any
similarity at all it is because his views were
fundamentally the same throughout, although he passed
into other fields and had to deal with other subjects
and interests. If there are also contrasts these are
only such as may be looked for when there is spiritual
and mental growth and a deeper understanding of the
relative problems which philosophy and science suggest.
One recollects with sadness how in those days of a
narrow and intolerant evangelicalism the suspicion was
whispered that John Caird was not “sound,” and that he
“did not preach Christ.”
If any man ever preached Christ he did, although not in
the dogmatic form or expressed in the Shibboleths which
were then deemed incumbent. Similar insinuations were
made against Norman Macleod, John Tulloch, and others
whose souls were on fire with the love of Christ. The
accusation was in each case as untrue as it was stupidly
ignorant. I can never forget while he was preaching in
Park Church late, I think, in the eighties, the burning
words with which in an unexpected outburst he made a
pathetic confession of his devotion to the Word of God
and to the Gospel of Christ as the source of all his
light and all his hope. It came as a surprise, not
because he so felt, but because of the intensity of the
emotion displayed, and the eloquence of the apparently
interjected passage.
Dr. Caird entered on the duties of Professor of Theology
under a deep sense of responsibility and with the firm
determination to dedicate all his powers to the task of
educating those who were afterwards to be ministers in
our Scottish and other Churches—for he attracted many
nonconformist students as well as those who were
preparing for the Church of Scotland. He became himself
a student and showed full sympathy with his class,
dealing with the questions on hand in the loving spirit
of one seeking to “commend the truth to every man’s
conscience in the sight of God.” The whole trend of his
nature was opposed to the enforcement of mere external
authority. He had such confidence in truth that he did
not fear to submit every subject to the test of the
closest reasoning, and endeavoured to lead the young
minds he was instructing to perceive the eternal fitness
of the views he was commending. He studied hard, sparing
himself no fatigue and so lectured that he ever kindled
a fine spiritual and intellectual enthusiasm. All felt
the influence of that noble soul and worked for him
“with a will.” He had a marvellous analytic power and,
as with the sharp knife of the dissector, he would lay
bare the weak points in not a few accepted theological
arguments, and again pour forth his positive beliefs
with a dearness and an earnestness which carried
conviction. His methods were certainly not those of the
“crammer,” but of the teacher who stimulates living
thought and makes men think out problems for themselves,
training them in prindples and methods. He was at once a
keen dialectician and an idealist, cutting deep
foundations and building high. His students were devoted
to him and carried from his dass the inspiration of the
high tone and exalted aspirations of a great and good
man who was at once their teacher and their friend.
On the death of Principal Barclay in 1893 a petition was
forwarded to the Government, signed by all the members
of the Senate, requesting the appointment of Dr. Caird
to be his successor. At that time the University had
been xvii recently removed from the small but
picturesque academic buildings in the High Street,
hemmed in by a population and surrounded by the social
and sanitary conditions of what may be termed “slums.”
The spacious buildings erected on Golmorehill at the
west of Glasgow are nobly situated and, as in contrast
to the ancient pile in the High Street, are surrounded
by a fine park. The change had a stimulating effect on
the life of the University, and it synchronized with a
series of legislative and other measures of reform which
greatly altered its constitution. The office of
Principal accordingly involved Dr. Caird in discussions
which required all the technical knowledge he had gained
during the years he was a member of Senate, and brought
into play the wisdom and tact and firmness combined with
a spirit of conciliation which were so important for the
safe guiding of the University at this period of
transformation. It will be heartily conceded by all who
bore an active part in moulding the future of the
College that his influence and counsel were of the
utmost value. He at once maintained the dignity of his
office and displayed the open mind and wise judgment of
a statesman.
The years when he was Principal afforded more
opportunity than he previously had possessed for
prosecuting those philosophical studies which had ever a
profound attraction for him. Delivered from the daily
exactions which his professorship xviii entailed, he
turned, like one athirst, to the works of the great
thinkers in philosophy ancient and modem and worked with
absorbing devotion. His brother, now the famous Master
of Balliol, became Professor of Philosophy in Glasgow
and was rapidly gaining the position, he now holds
without challenge, of being one of the prominent
philosophers of our time. The two brothers thus
like-minded were moving in orbits which, if not wholly
identical, were at all events similar, and each afforded
stimulus and the benefit of acute criticism to the
other. Almost daily might they have been seen taking
their long walks together and apparently engrossed in
most earnest talk.
The results of these studies were made manifest in the
rich literary productiveness of his later years. From
the time of his entrance on the duties of Professor of
Theology to the end of his career there was a visible
deepening of his intellectual life, and while retaining
the religious convictions which had formed the
groundwork of his character and teaching, yet every one
felt the change in the wider outlook of his views and
the firmness of his grasp of the multitude of questions
which modem research suggested. He was a man who grew
mentally and spiritually to the very end, and his later
works reveal a power which mark the greatness of the
advance. His oratory remained—for it was inborn—but it
was greatly chastened, and his style assumed the
character rather of the thoughtful scholar than of the
popular preacher. As specimens of literature these later
works undoubtedly excel the earlier, for as examples of
English pure and undefiled the University Sermons and
University Addresses, the “Introduction to the
Philosophy of Religion,” and his Gifford “Lectures on
the Fundamental Ideas of Christianity” can scarcely be
surpassed for clearness and beauty of expression, and
for an eloquence in which imagination brilliantly
illuminates argument without suggesting die slightest
desire of using it for mere effect.
Looking back on these prelections delivered annually in
the University one can scarcely think of any more useful
work on the part of an academic chief than the series of
Addresses which served to raise the minds of the
students from the mere grind and specialisation of class
studies, to the contemplation of far-reaching and
ennobling principles. Taken together they give us the
best insight into the richness of intellectual culture,
the breadth of sympathy, the warmth of human emotion,
and the sanctity of the spiritual mindedness which
characterised Principal Caird.
But only those who knew him personally can fully
appreciate what the man was. For myself, among the many
distinguished persons it has been my privilege to meet,
I have known no one, except perhaps the venerable Lord
Kelvin and another, who was at once so great and so
modest, simple, honest and sincere. He disliked display,
and absolutely shrank from ostentation and from the
deference which the staring crowd pays to its heroes.
Although the most famous preacher of his time, yet so
self-diffident and even nervous was he that I have seen
him all a-tremble when about to take part in some such
function as a marriage.
Pure as a child, and child-like in his reverence, gentle
and loving in heart, he consecrated his great gifts to
the highest ends and having faithfully “ served his
generation by the will of God, he fell asleep.”
DONALD MACLEOD.
6th July, 1906
1 Woodlands Terrace,
Glasgow. Download
his Essays for
Sunday Reading
Also his An Introduction to
the Philosophy of Religion
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