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LOVE, REV. JOHN, D.D.—This
profound theologian and eloquent preacher, whose reputation, though confined
within a limited circle, has survived that of many distinguished characters
in the church whose high popularity seemed to insure a more lasting
remembrance, was born in Paisley, on June 4th, 1757. Even during his early
education in the grammar-school of his native town, he was distinguished not
only for his remarkable aptitude in learning, but the precocious gravity and
thoughtfulness of his disposition—circumstances which probably influenced
his parents in directing his training towards the clerical profession. When
only ten years of age, John Love became a student of the university of
Glasgow; and during the long career of study which he prosecuted at that
ancient seat of learning, he distinguished himself by his classical
attainments, and his proficiency in the several departments of mathematics.
These studies he continued to the end of his life; and there are several yet
living who can remember his happy facility in the quotation of Greek and
Roman authors upon any subject of conversational intercourse. With the
contents of Scripture, however, which formed his chief study, he was more
conversant still; and even before he was twelve years old, he had read the
Bible, according to his own statement, six times over. A favourite practice,
which he continued to the end of his life, was to write short daily
meditations, in a regular series, upon connected passages of Scripture.
These, as well as his sermons, were written in short- hand, and therefore
unintelligible, until the key to his alphabet was found; and from this
discovery several of his posthumous discourses were published, which
otherwise would never have seen the light.
Having finished the appointed
course of study at college, and undergone the usual trials of presbytery,
Mr. Love was licensed as a preacher in 1778, being then only in his
twenty-first year. Soon afterwards he was employed as assistant by the Rev.
Mr. Maxwell, minister of Rutherglen, near Glasgow; and in 1782 he was
transferred to Greenock, where he officiated in the same capacity to the
Rev. David Turner, minister of the West or Old parish; and, here he
continued till the death of Mr. Turner, in 1786. It will thus be seen, that
while Mr. Love had no church patron, or at least an efficient one, he had
not that kind of popular talent which secures the greatest number of votes
among town-counsellors or seat-holders His, indeed, was that superior
excellence which can only be appreciated by the judicious few, and after a
considerable term of acquaintanceship. After leaving Greenock, Mr. Love,
toward the close of 1786, was called to the ministerial charge of the
Scottish Presbyterian congregation in Artillery Street, Bishopsgate, London,
and here he continued to labour for nearly twelve years. It was, indeed, no
inviting field for one of his peculiar talents. His massive and profound
theology, his sententious style of preaching, in which every sentence was an
aphorism, and the very impressive, but slow and almost monotoned voice in
which his discourses were delivered, were not suited to the church-going
citizens of London, who required a livelier manner, and more buoyant style
of oratory. From these causes, added to the ignorance of the English about
Presbyterianism in general, and the tendency of the Scotch in London to
forsake the church of their fathers, Mr. Love’s place of meeting was but
slenderly attended, while his name, as a preacher, was little known beyond
its walls. One important work, however, was committed to the hands of Mr.
Love, from which, perhaps, more real usefulness redounded, than could have
been derived from mere pulpit popularity. He was one of those honoured men
who rolled away the reproach from Protestantism, as not being a missionary,
and, therefore, not a genuine church of Christ—a serious charge, that had
often been brought against it by the Papists—by his exertions and effective
aid in founding the London Missionary Society. This occurred during the
latter part of his residence in London. Often he afterwards reverted with
delight to the fact of his having written the first circular by which
the originators of this important society were called together, for the
purpose of forming themselves into a directory, and organizing their plan of
action; and when the society was embodied, he was very properly appointed
one of its secretaries. One important duty which he had to discharge in this
capacity was, to select the fittest agents for missionary enterprise over
the newly-opened field of the South Sea Islands. Not resting satisfied with
this onerous and somewhat critical duty, he endeavoured to qualify the
missionaries for their trying office, by planning such a series of
discourses upon the principal doctrines of revelation as he judged would be
best fitted to persuade a primitive, simple-minded people, and which would
serve as models, or at least as suggestions, for the use of the Christian
teachers who were to be sent among them. With this view, he wrote and
published a volume, under the title of "Addresses to the Inhabitants of
Otaheite." It was a series of short discourses upon the chief and simplest
points of Christian theology, and such as were thought best suited, by their
earnest, impassioned style, to be addressed to the poetical children of
nature, seated beneath the spreading shadow of their palm-tree, or around
the genial glow of their council-fire. And eloquent indeed were these
strange model discourses, and such as the Christian world—especially the
young, who devoured them with delight and wonder—have seldom seen within the
range of theological authorship. But little as yet were the South Sea
Islanders known, for whose behalf these sermons were written, and it was
soon enough discovered that they were more prone to eat a missionary than to
digest his doctrines. But that such ravening anthropophagi should be
changed into men, such besotted idolaters into Christians, and the
principles of humanity, civilization, and order be established among them,
and that, too, in the course of a single generation, was certainly the
greatest, as well as the most encouraging achievement which modern
missionary enterprise has yet accomplished. Mr. Love was permitted to
witness the dawn of this bright morning of promise, after so deep a midnight
of despondency; and he saw his poor Otaheiteans christianized, although the
process had differed from his plans and anticipations.
In 1798 Mr. Love’s official
connection with London and the Missionary Society terminated, and two years
afterwards he was called to the ministerial charge of a chapel of ease newly
formed in Anderston, one of the suburbs of Glasgow. He must have felt it a
happy change from the echoes of the lonely walls in Artillery Street, to a
populous city, in which his training for the ministry had commenced, and
where he could find a congenial people, by whom his worth would be fully
appreciated. In Glasgow, accordingly, he soon gathered a congregation, by
whom he was enthusiastically beloved, and who rejoiced under his pastoral
charge to the close of his valuable life. Here, also, he selected for his
friend and chief companion the Rev. Dr. Balfour, a congenial spirit in
learning, talent, piety, and apostolic zeal. Besides his labours in the
pulpit, to which he brought all his powers of study and close application,
as well as the resources of a singularly vigorous and richly endowed
intellect, Mr. Love held the office of secretary of the Glasgow Missionary
Society, and presided in its chief enterprise, the establishment of the
mission to Caffraria. Notwithstanding his habitual reserve, and dislike of
popularity, his reputation as a scholar and theologian was so fully
acknowledged, that in November, 1815, he was invited to be one of the
candidates for the professorship of divinity, at that time vacant in King’s
College, Aberdeen. Mr. Love complied; but notwithstanding his fitness for
the chair, which was tested by long trial and examination, the question was
one not so much of ability and learning, as of party feeling; and the
Moderates being still in the ascendant, were enabled to return a candidate
of their own election. Soon afterwards Mr. Love was honoured with the degree
of doctor in divinity. After this the quiet unostentatious course of the
good man went on in its wonted tenor, until the cares and toils of the
Caffre mission, already giving tokens of those dangers by which it was
afterwards all but overthrown, tasked the sensitive spirit of Dr. Love for
the last four years of his life, until December 17, 1825, when death
terminated his anxieties, in the sixty-ninth year of his age.
From his retiring spirit,
that shrunk from popular distinction, and from the general state of his
health, that agreed best with retirement and tranquillity, the authorship of
Dr. Love has been limited, compared with his well-known talents, and the
wishes of his many admirers. During his own lifetime, indeed, he published
nothing, as far as is known, except his "Addresses to the People of Otaheite,"
and a few sermons. After his death, however, a careful research among his
papers enabled his friends to give the following posthumous works to the
world—deprived, however, of that careful correctness which his own revising
pen would undoubtedly have bestowed on them:—
1. A reprint of sermons
preached by him on various public occasions; including also his Otaheitean
addresses. This volume was republished soon after Dr. Love’s death.
2. Two volumes of
sermons and lectures, from his unrevised manuscripts. These were published
in 1829.
3. In 1838 was published a
volume containing about three hundred of his letters.
4. In 1853, a volume
containing thirty-four sermons, which he preached in the West Church,
Greenock, during the years 1784-5. |
