The Life of Andrew Murray of South Africa Chapter XXI. Andrew Murray as an Author
A noble man with the
gift of utterance, one who is true to the soul of things and in
inspired accord with it, and armed with its holy sympathies, and
filled with its resistless persuasions, can put himself into the
mind of a thousand.—Phillips Brooks.
IN previous chapters of this biography occasional reference has been
made to the beginnings of Andrew Murray’s activities as a writer.
His earliest literary work was no mere parergon, inspired by the
desire to influence a wider audience. It stood in close and vital
connexion with his pastoral labours, and aimed at rendering
practical daily aid to members of his congregation, most of whom,
spending their days on lonely farms fifty or a hundred miles away
from Bloemfontein, were able to attend the ministrations of grace at
rare intervals only. His first published books dealt with the urgent
question of the training of children. Nothing can have impressed the
young minister on his journeys among the voortrekkers as deeply as
the large numbers of infants presented for baptism. The Boers are a
healthy and prolific race. Families of a dozen or more are common,
and mothers are occasionally met with who have borne twenty or
twenty-four children. The task of Christian mothers, upon whom
devolves the duty of inculcating the first principles of morality
and teaching the simplest truths of religion, is assuredly no easy
one. Mr. Murray’s first book was designed to assist the mothers of
his flock in the performance of this duty by providing a Life of
Christ in language adapted to the comprehension of the child. It
appeared in 1858 as an illustrated quarto volume under the title
Jezus de Kindervriend. Many months must have elapsed, in those days
of imperfect communication, between the despatch of the manuscript
to Europe and the arrival of the printed book. “I am disappointed,”
writes Mr. Murray, “that it is not more simple. It is to myself
intensely interesting as containing the expression of what filled my
mind some time ago. There are passages that I hardly believed that I
myself had written.” Jezus de Kindervriend supplied a felt need and
was eagerly welcomed, but it remains one of the few books of Andrew
Murray which were never translated into English, in which language
there exist, happily, many excellent Lives of Christ for children.
The second work which flowed from Mr. Murray's pen was Wat zal toch
dit Kindeke wezen? (What manner of Child shall this be ?) It was
printed in Cape Town and published in 1863 as a little duodecimo
volume with red cardboard cover, and consisted, as the sub-title
indicated, of “ meditations for believing parents on the birth and
baptism of their children.” In this booklet the author first adopted
the method, which he adhered to in most of his subsequent works, of
dividing his matter into thirty-one short pieces to correspond with
the days of the month. In an interesting preface to a new edition of
this work in 1911, Mr. Murray tells us that the first issue occurred
while he was minister of Worcester. Several editions of the booklet
were then published in Holland, after which it went out of print for
many years, having been largely superseded by its English
counterpart, The Children for Christ. in which the number of
chapters was increased to fifty-two, to form a year’s Sunday
reading. The meditations contained in Wat zal toch dit Kindeke wezen?
were the gist of baptismal addresses which the author had delivered
during his journey-ings through the country while yet minister of
Bloemfontein.
When I was still the only minister of the Free State (he writes), I
frequently had to baptize forty or fifty children each Sunday on my
visits to the various congregations. In the course of my first
journey to the Transvaal in 1849 I christened six hundred infants in
six weeks’ time, and in the following year he same number received
the ordinance.
My father had taught me to act as he did when he paid a pastoral
visit to a congregation. To parents who applied for the
administration of baptism to their children he always addressed a
few words on the meaning, the sacredness, and the implications of
the baptismal ceremony. When travelling in the Transvaal I had to
keep the register of baptisms myself. We often had nothing more than
a tent or a tiny room, which could not contain more than the parents
of four or five infants. Yet I endeavoured to speak a few earnest
words to each couple. This led me to the practice of preaching a
baptismal sermon at each administration of the sacrament, in order
to arouse parents to the solemnity of their promises and the need of
fervent prayer if they would count on a blessing both for themselves
and for their children.
The next booklet to appear from the press was another duodecimo
volume, Blijf in Jezus. It saw the light in 1864, and eighteen years
later formed Andrew Murray’s introduction to a host of English
readers whose number is still increasing, under the title Abide in
Christ. When Mr. Murray was on a visit to Worcester in 1898, on the
occasion of a Christian Endeavour Conference, he stood in the study
of the old Dutch parsonage and said, “ This is the room in which I
wrote Blijf in Jezus more than thirty years ago.” The chief object
of this manual was to foster and guide the Christian life of the
numerous converts who had been gathered in as a blessed result of
the revival of i860 and subsequent years. It was followed by a
devotional manual for seekers, which first appeared in De Kerkbode
as a series of meditations on the fifty-first psalm, and was
afterwards issued in book form as Zijt mij genadig (Be merciful unto
me). Several other books in Dutch followed during the ensuing years,
many of which were reprints of devotional articles contributed to De
Kerk bode, though some were composed during the spare moments^ few
at best, of his evangelistic journeys.
Abide in Christ, his first English venture, was published by Messrs.
Nisbet in 1882, and Mr. Murray very modestly introduced himself to
the Christian public as "A. M.” To his brother he wrote, “I feel a
little nervous about my debut in English.” The secret of authorship
was soon divulged. “This excellent work,” said a prominent
Presbyterian journal, “is by a well-known and esteemed minister at
the Cape.”
Andrew Murray found his audience almost immediately. Within four
years more than forty thousand copies of Abide in Christ had been
sold. The companion volume and sequel, Like Christ, an English
reproduction of the Dutch booklet Gelijk Jezus, was issued in 1884,
and two years later it had already reached its nineteenth thousand.
In 1886 appeared With Christ in the School of Prayer—a. book which
has enjoyed a wide circulation, especially in America. When the
Dutch original was published, a brother-minister of Andrew Murray
wrote : “Oh, why did not the author give us this book twenty-five
years ago? Would that I might have read a quarter of a century back
what I only now read ! The School of Prayer is a perfect treasury,
and had the honoured writer published nothing else, our country
would have owed him a great debt of gratitude.” Mr. Murray was now
finally embarked upon his career as a devotional writer. His name
was widely known, and new books from his pen were awaited with great
eagerness. The next book in English was The Children for Christ, to
which reference has been made already. In the years 1887 and 1888 he
wrote Holy in Christ and The Spirit of Christ,—books which give
evidence of close theological study as well as of warm evangelical
fervour. An important addition to Mr. Murray’s published works was
made in 1895 by the issue of The Holiest of All, an exposition of
the Epistle to the Hebrews, which drew the following commendatory
notice from Professor James Denney :—
The interest in the Epistle to the Hebrews is one of the religious
signs of the times. Commentaries upon it multiply, severely
truthful, like Dr. Davidson's, verbally precise, like Dr. Vaughan’s;
theological, like Dr. Edwards'; not to mention Westcott, Rendall,
and many more. But this exposition of Mr. Murray’s distinctly fills
a place of its own. It is a true exposition, not a piece of
arbitrary moralizing on a sacred text. But it is also a true book of
devotion. The writer is as devoid of any interest in the Epistle,
but the practical religious interest, as one could imagine any
writer to be. He believes there are numbers in the Christain Church
to-day “whose experience corresponds exactly with that which the
Epistle pictures and seeks to meet," and he writes for them. In one
sense this is impossible, for history does not repeat itself; but
let anyone who doubts its substantial truth read fifty pages of Mr.
Murray’s book, and he will see cause to qualify his opinion. ... It
is characteristic of his practical interest in religion that he
everywhere lays stress on the living Saviour. The knowledge of Jesus
in His heavenly glory and His saving power (the italics are the
author’s)—it is this, he says, our Churches need. And he shows the
space this filled in the Christian mind of the first days by
printing in red, in his interesting analysis of the Epistle, all the
texts referring to the heavenly place and work of our Lord. The
circulation of a book like this can do nothing but good.
With regard to the genesis of the most of Andrew Murray’s books, it
is exceedingly interesting to note the unpremeditated manner in
which they were conceived and produced. The School of Prayer was the
outcome of a ministerial conference at George on the subject of
prayer, where the thought took so mighty a hold on Mr. Murray that
he prepared the volume while travelling from town to town for
special services. In the same manner was written Het Nieuwe Leven,
subsequently translated into English by the Rev. J. P. Lilley under
the title of The New Life. To another conference held at Somerset
East in 1891 was due the inception of The Holiest of All. The
lessons of the Epistle to the Hebrews formed the subject of study at
that gathering, and the truths which opened out were so profound and
illuminating that the first chapters of a new work, Ziende op Jezus
(Looking unto Jesus), were composed in the quiet intervals of the
ensuing evangelistic tour. At Wellington, where Mr. Murray’s home
was surrounded on every side by smiling vineyards, he derived the
most precious lessons on the believer’s union with Christ from an
old vine stump, which lay upon his study table during the summer of
1898. Out of the contemplation of this shapeless brown stump grew
The Mystery of the True Vine, which was dedicated to the members of
the Society for Christian Endeavour throughout the world; while rich
gleanings were collected in a supplementary volume, The Fruit of the
Vine. Another booklet, Be Perfect, was commenced at the Murrays’
favourite watering-place, Kalk Bay, on the last day of their annual
vacation. Preparations for departure were in full swing, while Mr.
Murray, undisturbed by the bustle and confusion, sat contentedly at
the window overlooking the sea, commencing the first chapter of a
fresh message which he had been commissioned to deliver.
After his retirement from the active pastorate in 1906, Mr. Murray
gave himself much more continuously to the writing of books and
pamphlets. His alert mind would be repeatedly stimulated, by
something he had read or experienced, to set forth in print some new
aspect of divine truth. One Good Friday morning, as they returned
from church, he said to his daughter Annie, who during the latter
years of his life acted as his amanuensis, “I must begin a new
book”; and immediately dictated the titles of twenty chapters for a
booklet on De Lie/de (Love). Occasionally the chapters would be
written first, and the title supplied afterwards; but usually the
headings were ready before pen touched paper. Two or three years
before his death he attended “ one-day conferences ” held at the
villages of Caledon and Villiersdorp, and after a week of
considerable strain reached home on the Thursday afternoon. On the
following morning he said to his daughter, almost apologetically: “I
am sorry, but as a result of my visit to Caledon I must commence a
new work”; and two chapters and eight chapter-headings were
completed the same forenoon. Some days later he observed at
breakfast : "I did not sleep very well, so during my waking hours I
composed three chapters for a little volume on Christus ons Leven”
(Christ our Life); and the three chapters were committed to paper
without delay. He used to say, in his humorous manner, that he was
like a hen about to lay an egg : he was restless and unhappy until
he had got the burden of his message off his mind. When a book was
finished, he liked to have it forwarded at once to the printer.
Before the copy was made up and despatched he often said to his
daughter: “Now just a word of humble thanksgiving first.” Then heads
were bowed over the study table, while he prayed: "Lord, we have
been endeavouring to instruct others; may we ourselves learn the
truths Thou seekest to impart; and do Thou richly bless this book to
all its readers. Amen.”
One day in September, 1912, Mr. Murray received a visit from his
nephew, Rev. A. A. Louw, when the latter drew from his pocket a tiny
volume entitled Uwe Zon (Thy Sun), and remarked how convenient it
was to have such a diminutive book to carry about and read at odd
moments—on the cart, in the train, at the railway station, anywhere
and everywhere. The idea struck Mr. Murray as an excellent one, and,
allowing no paralysing interval to elapse between conception and
execution, he began at once to compose the first of a series of
booklets for the vest pocket.1 During the following five years,
until a serious illness intervened in 1916, twelve of these
zakboekjes (pocket manuals) were written and printed, five
translated into English, forming the "Pocket Companion” series, and
several others commenced but left uncompleted at his death. Mr.
Murray has conferred no greater boon upon the Christian public than
the issue of these manuals of devotion. They are delightfully small
and portable, the daily meditations are brief and to the point,,
they contain the cream of his mystical teaching, and they are
written out of the rich fullness of his unrivalled experience
concerning the spiritual needs of God’s people.
A word or two is
necessary on Andrew Murray’s style, which, it must be confessed, is
a poor one, both in English and Dutch. English readers have ascribed
his bad English to the fact that he wrote in Dutch; Dutch readers
have ascribed his bad Dutch to the fact that he thought in English.
In truth, his defects of style were equally apparent in both Dutch
and English ; and the absence of all charm of expression betrayed
itself in translations into other languages as well. A letter is
extant from a cultured reader of a French version of one of his
works, regretting that the language was such as to repel rather than
attract readers. Mr. Murray was perfectly aware of his linguistic
shortcomings. One of his earliest letters, dating from the
Bloemfontein period, contains a lament over “my miserable deficiency
in composition”; and to his daughter and amanuensis he would say, in
later years: “My child, I have no style, or only a very bad style."
On one occasion, when he had just completed some expository work, he
observed: ‘‘I am deeply grateful that I have managed to finish these
two articles on Ephesians in three days. But I shall have to write
it all over again. My style is not what it should be—far too
prolix.” On his daughter’s remonstrating, he rejoined: “Well, you
just read Charles Fox on The Spiritual Grasp of the Epistles, and
you will see the difference. With him, every word means something.”
But while Mr. Murray was by no means insensible to beauty of style
in others, he seems to have made no sustained effort to perfect his
own. The intensity with which he felt the burden laid upon his
heart, and the urgency with which he sought to deliver his message
and fulfil his solemn trust, made him in a sense indifferent to the
form which that message assumed. At one time he set himself
deliberately, it would almost appear, to resist the temptation to
clothe his thoughts in fine language. “ I feel it very difficult not
to preach myself,” he writes to his parents in 1848, “ by attending
too much to beauty of thought and language, and feeling too little
that God alone can teach me to preach.” This attitude was probably a
natural reaction from the tendency which he observed in Holland, on
the part of men who had surrendered the essentials of Christian
truth, to deliver from the pulpit moral essays in language of great
sweetness and purity, and thus to set before their flock husks for
wheat and stones for bread.
On the other hand, his style possesses the strength and eloquence
which are born of deep earnestness, and of a sense of the solemnity
of the issues presented to men’s minds and consciences. An intensity
of purpose and appeal, such as almost every page of Mr. Murray’s
writings reveals, can never fail of that true eloquence which stirs
men to their very depths. In the possession of a style of writing
which moves the emotions, searches the conscience, and winnows sins
and shortcomings, Andrew Murray is surely without compeer in this
generation. Let us take, by way of illustration, his comments on the
word To-day in The Holiest of All:—
To-day!—it is a word of wonderful promise. It tells that To-day,
this very moment, the wondrous love of God is for thee—is even now
waiting to be poured out into thy heart; that To-day all that Christ
has done, and is even now doing in heaven, and is able to do within
thee, is within thy reach. To-day the Holy Ghost, in whom there is
the power to know and claim and enjoy all that the Father and the
Son are waiting to bestow, is within thee—sufficient for every need,
equal to every emergency. With every call we find in our Bible to
full and entire surrender; with every promise we read of grace for
the supply of temporal and spiritual need; with every prayer we
breathe, and every longing that rules in our heart, there is the
Spirit of promise whispering. To-day. Even as the Holy Ghost saith,
To-day.
To-day !—it is a word of solemn command. It is not here a question
of some higher privilege which you are free to accept or reject. It
is not left to your choice, O believer, whether you will receive the
fullness of blessing the Holy Spirit offers. That To-day of the Holy
Ghost brings you under the most solemn obligation to respond to
God’s call and to say, Yes, to-day. Lord, complete and immediate
submission to all Thy will, and a perfect trust in all Thy grace.
To-day!—a word too of earnest warning. There is nothing so hardening
as delay. When God speaks to us He asks for a tender heart, open to
the whispers of His voice of love. The believer who answers the
To-day of the Holy Ghost with the To-morrow of some more convenient
season, knows not how he is hardening his heart. The delay, instead
of making the surrender, in obedience and faith, easy, makes it more
difficult. It closes the heart for to-day against the Comforter, and
cuts off all hope and power of growth. O believer, even as the Holy
Ghost saith, To-day, so when you hear His voice open the heart in
great tenderness to listen and obey. Obedience to the Spirit’s
To-day is your only certainty of power and blessing.
His methods of work during the latter years of his life are thus
described by his daughter : “He sits up very straight in his study
chair, and dictates in a loud, clear voice, as though he were
actually addressing his audience. His hours of work are usually from
9 or 10 till 11 in the forenoon, during which time two or three
chapters of a book are completed. He is very particular about
punctuation, and always says: "New paragraph,” pointing with long,
slender finger to the exact spot on the paper where the new line
must commence, "full-stop,” “comma,” "colon,” “semi-colon,” as the
sense may require. Should his secretary perpetrate some mistake or
other in spelling, he would make some playful remark like: "You will
have to go back to the kindergarten, you know.” At n o’clock he
would say: "Now give me ten minutes’ rest; or no, let us write some
letters for a change.” Then half a dozen letters would be quickly
dictated, in reply to requests for prayer for healing, for the
conversion of unconverted relations, for the deliverance of friends
addicted to drink, or, it might be, business letters. Occasionally a
letter would be dictated for the Kerkbode on the state of the
Church, or for the public Press on some matter affecting the
country. The manuscript of a new book was often kept inside the
pages of an illustrated annual. " Now bring me Father Christmas,” he
would say, and the manuscript pages of one of the Pocket Companion
series would be produced from the covers of the journal which had
shielded them from harm. When recovering from an illness, he often
wrote in bed. He always dictated in a tone of great earnestness, and
was specially anxious to get a great deal into a page. "Write
closer, closer,” he often repeated. When near the end of the
foolscap page, he said: “Now the last four lines for a prayer”; and
then he would fold his hands, close his eyes, and actually pray the
prayer which ended the written meditation.
Whether Andrew Murray's literary career can be divided into distinct
periods is open to doubt. It cannot be truthfully said that he
passed through clearly defined stages of spiritual growth, which can
be traced in his published writings. The reader of his earliest
volumes is impressed by the maturity of thought and experience which
they reveal. All the teachings of his later lifetime are present,
though he does not as yet bring out their full implication with the
force and intensity that characterize his more recent works. This
intensity is noticeable in the way in which he emphasizes and
underscores and prints in black type words and sentences which he
counts important. No one who compares a page of Abide in Christ or
Holy in Christ with a page of The Holiest of All or The Key to the
Missionary Problem can fail to be struck with this marked
difference. Thus, though all the truths which Mr. Murray proclaimed
so persuasively were present from the very outset, the emphasis
which he placed upon them varied in the course of time. His first
writings had chiefly in view the edification of believers—their
building-up in faith and love and prayer. To this class belong Abide
in Christ, Like Christ, The New Life, and many others. During the
next period, commencing with the publication in 1888 of Holy in
Christ, he dwells with greater persistency bn the subject of
sanctification. This period may be subdivided into two by the year
1894—the stage when he was not yet acquainted with Law’s writings,
and the stage when he had fallen under the influence of that great
mystic. The final period, characterized by the stress which he lays
on the weighty subject of intercessory prayer, we may regard as
ushered in by the appearance in 1911 of The State of the Church—a
Plea for more Prayer. It must be observed, however, that the
dividing lines are vague and blurred. Books on prayer were published
during the " Sanctification ” period, and books on both
sanctification and prayer during the first or " Edification ”
period. But, speaking generally, if we regard the subjects which
chiefly engrossed the author’s attention, the classification stands
as suggested above.
To a greater extent than almost any other religious writer of our
age Mr. Murray possessed the insight and the authority of one of the
prophets of olden time. At critical moments in the history of the
Church he never failed to raise his voice and to direct attention to
the real issues. Those who are intimate with his career in South
Africa will agree that there was no man who could rise to a great
occasion like Andrew Murray. He possessed the gift of speaking, at
the right season, the right and just word, of opening up the larger
view and kindling the nobler emotions. This gift he exercised in his
writings also. In 1896 a leading article in the British Weekly
originated an interesting discussion on the Dearth of Conversions.
This was a subject which made instant appeal to earnest soul-seekers
like D. L. Moody and Andrew Murray. The latter contributed to the
Life of Faith four papers on the question that had been raised. He
deals first of all with the alleged reasons for the grievous state
of affairs—the influence of the Higher Criticism, the prevalent
literary culture, the lack of evangelical sermons, and so forth ;
and then, with his usual point and force, he indicates the real
cause : “ the dearth of conversions can be owing to nothing but the
lack of the power of the Holy Spirit.” There is no one who/ reads
Mr. Murray’s papers—which were published in pamphlet form by Messrs.
Marshall—but feels instinctively that his intervention raised the
discussion to a higher level, and that his diagnosis of the evil
went behind superficial symptoms and reached ultimate causes.
When The Key to the Missionary Problem and The State of the Church
appeared in 1901 and 1911 respectively, leaders of the Christian
Church recognized that these books were more than mere publications
: their issue constituted events in the history of the Church of our
days. Of the former book and the impression which it produced we
have already spoken in the chapter on Andrew Murray as a Missionary
Statesman. The State of the Church was an outcome of the Edinburgh
World Missionary Conference. When the nine volumes containing the
reports of that great gathering were published, no one scanned them
with more eager interest than Mr. Murray. "To which volume, do you
think, did I turn first?” he once asked the present writer. “To the
volume on Carrying the Gospel, I suppose,” was the reply. “Not at
all,” said Mr. Murray; "what interested me first and foremost was
The Home Base.” It was the perusal of this sixth volume of
“Edinburgh 1910” that inspired The State of the Church, with its
trumpet-call to “ seven times more prayer.” “Sevenfold is the sign
of the burning furnace seven times heated. It is in the new
intensity of the prayer of those who already pray that our hope
lies.”
In South Africa the message of The State of the Church laid powerful
hold upon the most earnest minds in the Dutch Reformed Church.
Professor de Vos, of the Stellenbosch Theological Seminary,
addressed an open letter to his fellow-ministers, acknowledging and
deploring the Church's lack of spiritual power, and suggesting that
they should meet together and in God’s presence seek to trace this
weakness to its source. A conference, attended by more than two
hundred ministers, missionaries, and theological students, was held
in April, 1912. Mr. Murray, who of course was present, tells us
that:—
The Lord graciously so ordered it that we were gradually led to the
sin of prayerlessness, as one of the deepest roots of the evil. No
one could plead himself free from this. Nothing so reveals the
defective spiritual life in minister and congregation as the lack of
believing and unceasing prayer. When once the spirit of confession
began to prevail, the question arose as to whether it would be
indeed possible to expect to gain the victory over all that had in
the past hindered our prayer-life. Such confessions gradually led to
the great truth that the only power for a new prayer-life is to be
found in an entirely new relation to our blessed Saviour. Before we
parted many were able to testify that they were returning with new
light and new hope, to find in Jesus Christ strength for a new
prayer-life.
Through his writings Mr. Murray has reached a world-wide audience.
His books have been translated into most European and not a few
Eastern languages. Thus they have circulated not only in the
languages in which they originally saw the light—Dutch and
English—but also in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish,
Danish, Russian, Yiddish, Arabic, Armenian, Telugu, Malayalam,
Japanese, and Chinese. As to the influence which they have exercised
in China, the Rev. Donald McGillivray, of the Christian Literature
Society for China, writes :—
A good many years ago I was travelling in the interior, and came to
a missionary’s home. She very soon informed me that she had made a
discovery. She said that for some years she had had some of Andrew
Murray’s books on her bookshelf, but had not read them. Lately,
however, she was moved to take one down, and it revealed to her the
blessedness of being filled with the Spirit. From that time I also
began to read his books. The Spirit of Christ in particular brought
great blessing to myself and to the Chinese, to whom I passed on its
message. Some years afterwards I was called to Shanghai to do
literary work in connextion with the Christian Literature Society.
One of the first books which I translated was Andrew Murray’s Spirit
of Christ. The book passed through many editions, and we often heard
of the good it was doing. In one city a revival broke out through
the book: in another case a' pastor preached on it Sunday by Sunday,
taking a chapter each Sunday as subject.
The Ministry of Intercession also was a blessing to China. The
Prayer-cycle at the end was adapted and translated for use in China,
especially in the mission of the Canadian Presbyterian Church. With
Christ in the School of Prayer has lately been issued by our
Society, and there may be other works of his which have also been
translated into Chinese. I have no doubt Dr. Murray’s books have
been rendered into many languages, but I thought that his influence
upon China should be mentioned in his Life.
Mr. Murray’s works frequently appeared in other languages without
his knowledge or previous permission, and he derived, of course, no
pecuniary benefit from them. Indeed, the cases were wholly
exceptional where translations brought him any gain. Leave to render
any of his writings into another language, when asked, was freely
and gladly given. Of the works which appeared in German dress the
majority were published by Ernst Rottger, at Kassel. When in
Switzerland in 1903 Mr. Murray got into touch with this gentleman,
and stayed for some days with his family, who were earnest Christian
people. Herr Rottger gave a most interesting account of how Mr.
Murray had influenced his life. As a young man he read The Children
for Christ, and from that book he obtained a conception of what a
Christian home might be and ought to be. He then sought in marriage
the hand of a young Christian maiden with whom he was acquainted,
and who had spent some time in England. She agreed to become his
wife; they were married; “and in this way,” so he concluded, "Mr.
Murray helped me to find a life-partner and found a Christian home.”
Of the' blessing which Mr. Murray's writings have brought to the
thousands, the tens of thousands, and the hundreds of thousands who
have purchased and presumably read them, it is impossible to speak.
Scores of letters have been preserved, from correspondents all over
the world, expressing the deep gratitude of the writers for
spiritual benefit derived from the study of Mr. Murray’s volumes.
The author of these lines has personally examined some one hundred
and fifty such letters, and their perusal has produced an
overwhelming impression of the blessed ministry which Andrew Murray
exercised by the use of his fertile and tireless pen. Unknown
persons in every quarter of the globe hail him as their spiritual
father, and ascribe whatever growth their Christian life has
undergone to the influence of his priceless devotional works. “What
I owe to you eternity alone will reveal,” is the language of a lady
in New South Wales ; and her testimony can be paralleled by that of
correspondents from the United States and Canada, Great Britain and
the Continent, Holland and South Africa, India, China, and
Australasia. Many of the letters contain not merely the expression
of gratitude but prefer requests of various nature. There are first
of all numerous requests for intercession : prayer is asked for the
conversion of beloved children, for the healing of sick relatives,
for the rescue of friends from doubt or from drink, for
congregational and mission work, for philanthropic and literary
undertakings. There are the inevitable requests for autographs. Some
letters beg for a donation towards some Christian enterprise or
other. One letter from an Armenian asks for a subsidy in order to
publish a translation of one of Mr. Murray’s works. But all the-
letters testify to the love and esteem which a great reading
constituency, scattered over the whole earth, bear towards the
saintly man who has endeavoured to lead them into paths of
righteousness and true holiness.
Only a small selection, taken almost at random, is here given from
letters which have escaped destruction:—
A gentleman in India writes:—
I am now seventy years of age. It is more than thirty years since I
first read Abide in Christ;
and after that The Spirit of Christ gave me a vision which made
everything in life different.
A lady in America, a worker among the negroes in the Southern
States, says :—
I just want humbly and with all my heart to thank you for all you
have done for me, and also to ask you to take to God in your
prayer-hour the enclosed card, bearing my name and place of service.
A minister in Canada testifies:—
The State of the Church has so helped me that I cannot refrain from
sending you a word of heartfelt thanks. If that book only does for
other ministers what it has done for me, then you have not written
in vain.
A young Dutch lady writes:—
When I was seventeen years of age you delivered some addresses here
in Haarlem (Holland), which made a deep impression. I was
subsequently converted by reading your booklet Not my Will.
A girl from the South of France sends the following message :
I hope you will excuse me for the liberty I take to write to you in
my bad English. Gratefulness is my only motive. I possess since last
year your dear book of Abide in Christ, translated in French. I
cannot tell you how many times I have read it over and how much good
it has done me.
A lady in England, expressing thanks for the blessing derived from
With Christ in the School of Prayer, prefaces her letter of
appreciation by quoting some words from a paper entitled The
Blessing of a Book, viz.: “He had to live deeply in order to write
helpfully. Some recognition of the help we have gotten from him is
due to him.”
A gentleman in Ireland says :—
I have read all, or nearly all, your books, some of them twelve
times. Next to the Bible, they have been more helpful to me than any
books I have ever read. Humility and Waiting on God are the two that
have helped me most.
A native of Basutoland, South Africa, affirms, in sentences which
will raise a smile, that he has learnt the following lessons from
Mr. Murray’s works :—
A native Christian in South India commences his letter thus:—
Most venerable and dear Sir,—I have been for the last one year
studying your book Abide in Christ with great interest and
earnestness. The book has been really a blessing to me. I came to
understand what abiding in Christ actually was only after coming
across your valuable work.
A gentleman from Somersetshire, into whose hands The Key to the
Missionary Problem had fallen, writes:—
I have been greatly profited by reading your book on Missions, and I
cannot help thinking that some effort should be made to bring it to
the notice of every member of the various Churches. I respectfully
suggest the issue of a million copies (to start with) at one penny
each !
The wife of an Australian minister relates the following :—
Now, as for so many years past, your books, beloved Father in God,
are next to God's Word my very greatest spiritual help. Only lately
a lady, living two hundred miles from Sydney, sent down for a copy
of your book Absolute Surrender. I had two copies, brought from
England, and immediately posted her one. I have since heard how the
book is lent from house to house, direct spiritual blessing
following in many cases. I have now made arrangements with a
bookseller to get me everything you write as it comes out.
A pastor in the United States writes:—
I have long wished to write to you to express, however feebly, my
sense of gratitude for good received, under God, from your books.
While we have not met in the flesh, yet I somehow feel that I know
you from frequent meetings at a common mercy-seat, and from becoming
so familiar with your mind and spirit through years of study given
to your various books.
A gentleman writing from New Jersey, U.S.A., says:—
Some time ago I got a copy of your book entitled Waiting on God. It
interested me very much, and I have been over it once or twice with
great profit. It has been my habit for the past few years, at the
end of^the year, to send to a number of my friends in the Foreign
Field and in England a book as a Christmas greeting. It occurred to
me that you would be interested to know that I distributed something
like fifty copies of Waiting on God, and asked my friends to begin
on ist January to read it with me. I sent the book to Madeira,
England, Scotland, North Africa, East Africa, Syria, India, China,
Japan, and also to friends in this country. I want to take this
opportunity of thanking you for what you have done for me and
allowed me to do for my friends.
" Nowhere can I recall such a fine bit of Christian philosophy as is
concentrated in this card, under the heading In Time of Trouble
say," so writes an enthusiastic American correspondent, and his
words invite the story of how the card originated. When Mr. Murray
visited England in 1895, as described in the previous chapter, he
was suffering from a weak back, the result of an accident in Natal
some years previously, when he was thrown violently out of a
capsizing cart. He was due to speak one evening at Exeter Hall, and
it seemed as though he would be unable to fulfil his engagement.
Some expressions he had employed, too, had given offence and
provoked hostile criticism, so that mental suffering was
superinduced on physical. When his sympathetic hostess, Mrs. Head,
brought him his breakfast, she informed him that a lady had called
in sore trouble, and anxious for a word of advice. “ Well, just give
her this, that I have been writing down for myself,” said Mr. Murray
; “ it may be that she will find it helpful.” And he handed Mrs.
Head a sheet of paper containing these fines :—
First : He brought me here; it is by His will I am in this strait
place : in that I will rest.
Next: He will keep me here in His love, and give me grace in this
trial to behave as His child.
Then : He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He
intends me to learn, and working in me the giace He means to bestow.
Last : In His good time He can bring me out again—how and when He
knows. ,
SAY : I am here—
1. By God’s appointment. 3. Under His training.
2. In His keeping. 4. For His time.
Psalm 1. 15. Andrew Murray.
This message for the day of adversity seemed to be so timely, that
interested friends had it printed on a coloured card, and
distributed in large numbers. They had the satisfaction of knowing
that it carried a rich blessing to many hearts and homes.
The following letter, addressed to Mr. Murray in the early days by
one who occupies such an honourable position in the Church of Christ
as Dr. Whyte of Free St. George’s, must find a place among these
extracts:—
Bonskeid, Pitlochrie, N.B.
Sabbath afternoon.
Dear Mr. Murray,—
I have been spending a New Year week out of Edinburgh and up in this
beautiful spot, sanctified for me by generations of praying
progenitors. I have read a good deal during last week; but nothing
half so good as your With Christ. I have read in criticism and in
theology; but your book goes to the joints and the marrow of things.
You are a much honoured man : how much only the day will declare.
The other books I have been reading are all able and good in their
way ; but they are spent on the surface of things. Happy man ! you
have been chosen and ordained of God to go to the heart of things. I
have been sorely rebuked, but also much directed and encouraged by
your With Christ. Thank you devoutly and warmly this Sabbath
afternoon. I am to send your book to some of my friends on my return
to Town to-morrow.
With high and warm regard,
Alexander Whyte.
Though there have been significant exceptions, the writers of books
have also been, in most cases, diligent readers' of books. This was
certainly the case with Andrew Murray. When asked to mention the
authors who influenced him in his earliest years, he used to say
that hey was too busy, at Aberdeen and Utrecht, in studying English,
Dutch, and German, to do much general reading. In his uncle’s Scotch
home he found himself, fortunately, in a reading atmosphere, for the
manse was well supplied with Church magazines, missionary
periodicals, theological and devotional books, and works of general
literature. Of missionary biographies he could remember the lives of
John Williams and Robert Moffat,1 and the pleasure and inspiration
which their perusal imparted.
The strenuous years at Bloemfontein left small leisure for the study
of books, which were then both scarce and dear, but his
correspondence shows that periodicals like the North British Review
and the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung were keeping him in touch with
the life and thought of Europe. In his letter to John Murray, quoted
at the commencement of Chapter VIII, he expresses the hope of being
able to “do more in the way of reading than heretofore”; and the
works he mentions evince a distinct and happy inclination towards
those most stimulating of all books—biographies. “Novels,” says his
daughter, “he could not and would not read, but biographies were his
delight.” His bookshelves were crowded with many Lives, beginning
with those of Mary Lyon and Fidelia Fiske, which greatly moulded all
his educational work. The Life and Letters of Edward Thring and
Skrine’s Pastor Agnorum, as well as the life of that remarkable and
eccentric man, Almond of Loretto, were given, loaned, or recommended
to scores of teachers. In later years he acquired and studied the
lives#of Hannah Pipe and Dorothea Beale. Other favourite biographies
were those of George Fox, David Brainerd, John Wesley, William
Burns, Andrew Bonar, George Muller, D. L. Moody, and Hudson Taylor.
To the lives of the educationalists mentioned above must be added
the works of Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Herbert
Spencer,—writers who all assisted in greater or less degree in
shaping his views on the principles and practice of education.
In enumerating Andrew Murray's book friends during the last twenty
years of his life, there is one writer who occupies a place of
pre-eminence—William Law. “ The more I read his writings,” says Mr.
Murray, “ the more I am impressed by his insight, range, and power.
I marvel how it is that he has not been assigned a far higher place
than he actually holds. For fine observation of the human heart
there is surely no one like him among English writers.” Mr. Murray
possessed the Works of William Law in the nine-volume edition
published in London in 1762. The tracts to which he was specially
drawn were An Address to the Clergy, The Spirit of Christ, The
Spirit of Love, A Serious Call, and Christian Perfection. These were
read, re-read, and underscored, in token of his appreciation of the
inestimable worth of their teachings. This deep appreciation was
even more strikingly proved by the fact that he edited no less than
six volumes of selections from Law’s writings, viz. : Wholly for
God, The Power of the Spirit, The Divine Indwelling, Dying to Self,
and two little booklets in the “ Pocket Companion ” series, one in
English (The Secret of Inspiration) and one in Dutch {God inons).
Dr. Alexander Whyte’s volume, William Law, Non-juror and Mystic,
found its way to the bookshelf at Clairvaux as soon as it was
published, and Mr. Murray acknowledged the service which it had
rendered him in the following words: “With many others I owe Dr.
Whyte a debt of gratitude for this introduction to one of the most
powerful and suggestive writers on the Christian life it has been my
privilege to become acquainted with.”
When asked on one occasion how he came to be interested in
mysticism, Mr. Murray replied that his attention was directed to it
by the writings of the German theologian J. T. Beck, from which he
was led on to study the works of other mystics. He greatly prized
the Theologia Germanica, with its unknown voice from the past and
its preface by Luther. A fresh copy of this work was ordered from
England in 1916, and it was one of the last books that he read and
pencil-marked. Ruysbroeck and Madame Guyon, as well as Dora
Greenwell of the moderns, were among his chief friends. He greatly
admired Catherine of Siena and Santa Teresa, of whom he possessed
several Lives. Vaughan’s Hours with the Mystics was in the
Wellington home for many years, until it was finally despatched to
Nyasaland to be added to the missionaries’ library at Mvera. He
greatly valued also The Quiet in the Land and Three Friends of God
by Frances Bevan, with whom he carried on some correspondence. All
that Dr. Whyte wrote or edited was welcome—The Apostle Paul, and the
appreciations of Lancelot Andrewes, Santa Teresa, Sir Thomas Browne,
Jacob Behmen, Bishop Butler, Father John, Samuel Rutherford,,, and
H. Newman. Among more recent books he was an admirer of Amiel's
Journal Intime, and delighted also in the writings of Charles Wagner
and Pastor Stockmaier; P. T. Forsyth, A. E. Garvie, and W. M. Clow;
Bishop Handley Moule and Dr. J. R. Mott; and the German professors
Harnack and Eucken.
Books on prayer accumulated rapidly during the last years. He was
very full of this subject, and when he discovered any work which
brought him spiritual benefit, he wanted others to share in the
privilege and profit. Such was the case with Cornaby’s Prayer and,
the Human Problem, of which he despatched numerous copies, specially
marked, to various friends. With this writer, a missionary in China,
he had considerable correspondence on the question of prayer and the
establishment of prayer-circles. Bounds’ Power through Prayer was
another book which impressed him, and for Granger Fleming’s The
Dynamic of All-Prayer he wrote a recommendatory preface.
Mr. Murray left several projected works incomplete at his death. He
was greatly interested, in connexion with the missionary problem, in
Zinzendorf and the Moravian Brethren, and wished to publish in Dutch
a life of Zinzendorf for the benefit of his readers in South Africa.
For this purpose he collected, in addition to Hamilton’s History of
the Moravian Church and Hutton’s briefer work, quite a number of
lives of Zinzendorf in German, which language he read with ease and
pleasure. But the book was never completed; and this too was the lot
which befell an elementary treatise on education, also planned in
Dutch. Better fortune has attended a work on The Inner Life of St.
Paul, for which he bought and borrowed many studies of the great
apostle. A work on St. Paul, by a man of Andrew Murray’s spiritual
insight, should prove to be no small boon for the Christian Church;
and happily it was nearly completed when he died, and will probably
see the light in due course.
New books and periodicals from England were constantly arriving at
Clairvaux. Mr. Murray would read aloud at meal-times passages which
had struck him as memorable. In this way the members of the family
heard many of Tersteegen’s poems, such as Ambassadors for Christ,
Bands of Love, and a poem on Acts xxvi. 16, commencing:—
Mine the mighty ordination Of the pierced hands,—verses which were
associated with the ordination, in 1894, of his nephew, Rev. W. H.
Murray, as missionary to Nyasaland. When the books of Charles Wagner
were being generally read and discussed, he quoted from The Simple
Life—
I love life and humanity under all their wholesome, sincere forms,
in all their griefs and their hopes, and even in all the tempest of
thought and deed. Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
The thought expressed by Wagner on the beautiful and mellowing
influence of an old person on the inmates of a home greatly
impressed him :—
Mercifully there is Grandmother’s room. Through many toils and much
suffering she has come to meet things with the calm assurance which
life brings to men and women of high thinking and large heart.
From Pastor Agnorum he quoted:—
I shall relate, not of what I have done, but of what I have failed
to do; the duty discerned, not achieved.
Mr. Murray had a way of writing quotations and moral axioms on
little cards for future use. Here is one which was inscribed on a
shop-ticket taken from a dressing-gown, and hung for years from the
study mantelpiece :—
Live in that which should be, and you will transform that which is.
After reading Herrmann’s Communion of the Christian with God, he
repeated the following sentence from that work: “ A heavenly life is
not incompatible with our earthly work.” At the breakfast-table he
discoursed on German theology, and on the attitude of the school of
Ritschl, to which Herrmann belongs. Dogma or doctrine is of no
account; the centre of Christianity is the historical Christ, in His
life and practice. When conducting the morning devotions he prayed "
that we may realize the love of Christ, more tender, infinite, deep,
and true than any earthly love, however tender.” Mr. Murray’s
admiration of the gifts bestowed on other men, and his enthusiasm
for what he found admirable in their life or work, were unbounded.
On receiving a copy of Coil-lard of the Zambesi, he sent a few lines
of thanks to the authoress, Miss Mackintosh, saying among other
things: “Though I had long known and loved and honoured Mr. Coillard,
whom we more than once were privileged in having as our guest, the
first chapter on his ancestry, his up-bringing, his call to mission
work, and his devotedness to his life-task, made me feel as if I had
entertained an angel unawares ... It is wonderful how the written
page can give back the spirit of a man with all its heroic
influences.”
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