- Preface
-
A General Practitioner
- Through the Flood
-
Fight with Death
- The Doctor’s Last
Journey
- The Mourning of
the Glen
Read
also another books from the author:
Days of Auld
Lang Syne
Rabbi
Saunderson
Besides
the Bonnie Briar Bush
Katie Carnegie
MY acquaintance with John
Watson, of Liverpool, began as, I suppose, did that of thousands of
other Americans, with the appearance of “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush.”
Always fond of everything relating to Scotland, having been reared on
Walter Scott, Hugh Miller and Thomas Edwards, and having read the
biographies of Thomas Chalmers and Norman Macleod, I seized upon the
writings of Barrie, Crockett and Ian Maclaren as they appeared, and read
each at one sitting. I can live, over again the days, the places, the
impressions, everything connected with my first reading on Sunday
afternoons, of “The Window in Thrums,” “The Little Minister,” “The
Sticket Minister,” and “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush.”
I never saw Ian Maclaren until he came to Yale University to deliver the
Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching before the Divinity School. The
method of his coming was interesting. Probably not a dozen people in
America had ever heard of Dr. Watson before his stories took the world
by storm. After Ian Maclaren was known in every household as a story
writer people began to ask: “Who is this Ian Maclaren?” They then
learned that he was the Rev. John Watson, pastor of the Sefton Avenue
Presbyterian Church, Liverpool, and incidentally that he was a good deal
of a preacher. Those who had English connections heard that he was an
exceptionally gifted preacher.
It has been customary in connection with the Lyman Beecher Lectures to
secure eminent British clergymen, as well as American, and in this way
such men as Doctors Dale, Fairbairn, Brown, Stalker, Horton, Forsyth,
Henson and Horne have been brought to America. One of the members of the
Divinity School Faculty happening to be in Europe—if I remember rightly
it was Professor George B. Stevens—he took occasion to visit Dr.
Watson’s church. He was so greatly/ impressed that he called upon him,
and sounded him upon the possibility of his giving the Lyman Beecher
Lectures. The outcome was that in 1896 he came to New Haven for a month
and gave his eight lectures which were afterwards published under the
title, “The Cure of Souls.”
The lectures proved a great success. The only trouble was that everybody
in New Haven—all the good souls who were no more interested in the
technique of preaching than in the art of etching— turned out to see, if
not to hear this famous story-writ er, “Ian Maclaren,” who had written
“A Doctor of the Old School.” (Most of them did not even know to what
church he belonged and had never heard of him as a preacher.) As a
result Marquand Chapel could not hold even the early arrivals. The crowd
would have filled it fifty times over. The lectures were scheduled for
three o’clock. By 2:15 not a student could edge his way to the door. The
lecture was hurriedly transferred to College Hall, and the entire course
was given there, to an audience that crowded the floor and the
galleries.
As it happened these delightful lectures proved just as interesting to
the general public as they proved valuable to the students of divinity.
It should be remembered that these lectures on preaching are given every
year—eight of them. They have been going on for a great many years and
it is no easy matter to give a course of eight lectures on preaching
without repeating a good many things that have been said by previous
speakers. It has been only the outstanding eminence of the lecturers
that has saved the course. Most of them have been men of such striking
personality that even old things have become new in passing through the
alembic of their experience. To judge from Dr. Watson’s lectures it
might have been supposed that no one had ever before lectured on
preaching. They were as fresh and new as though they were the first
words ever spoken on this great theme.
The audiences fell in love with the man at the start. He was the image
of repose, and yet the warmth of his personality was manifested in the
first sentence he uttered. His voice was resonant, and a very remarkable
organ to interpret the thought and feeling of the speaker. The lectures
were a unique blending of idealism and the humblest details of the
preacher’s work, even to the arrangements of the heading of the sermon.
It was apparent to everybody before he had spoken ten minutes that the
lectures were to be largely autobiographical, although the personal
pronoun never appeared in them. Now and then bits of pathos occurred
that moistened the eyes—but there was never an approach to maukish
sentiment—never any of that “practising the brine act,” to quote the
college boys when referring to certain preachers who occasionally
visited the college chapel. Best of all, there was the most delightful
play of humour running through all the lectures. It was like sunlight
playing upon the deep. It was never obtrusive and yet it was always
present. It was in the man’s eyes and voice. It was enhanced by the
immobility of the face. It was spontaneous as sudden bursts of light. On
the large lecture platform many members of the University faculty were
sitting. It so happened that five or six of the very oldest were sitting
just at the lecturer’s left. They became especial targets of his wit,
and once or twice his sly hits at them brought a roar from the audience.
He himself never smiled.
The lectures were exceedingly helpful to students. They were permeated
with a fund of homely common sense. No part of a minister’s life or work
was left untouched. The minister’s health, his personal religious life,
his study, his pastoral work, his work with young people, his own
relation to God, all received as much attention as the writing of
sermons, the delivery of the message, the contents of the great message
the preacher had to give. There was only one moment in the whole course
when the placid waters were even temporarily ruffled. The English and
Scotch clergy smoke much more than do the American clergy, especially
the New England clergy. It is a very common experience to meet clergymen
in England with pipes in their mouths. Dr. Watson was probably not aware
of the prejudice which exists in New England against a minister smoking.
So, very innocently, in the course of one of his lectures, when he was
talking about the minister getting close to men, he happened to say
something to the effect that often peculiarly intimate closeness came
when the minister and some man of his congregation were smoking their
pipes together, and that a good pipe was not a bad thing in establishing
confidences. It brought down a storm upon his head. In the New Haven
papers several letters appeared the next day roundly scoring a minister
of the Gospel for “advising young ministers to smoke’’ (he hardly did
that, but it went the round of the country in those terms). The lectures
are on the whole among the most valuable ever delivered at Yale, and
they are worthy the careful study of every clergyman. And as for
interesting reading—well, few books surpass “The Cure of Souls.” I often
reread it for its charm, its exquisite diction, its flights of fancy,
and its real humour.
The lectures were strewn with parenthetical remarks. Here are three or
four which brought more than smiles and which are indicative of those
running through the whole course:
“A sermon ought to be a monograph and not an encyclopaedia, an agency
for pushing one article, and not a general store where one can purchase
anything from a button to a coffin.”
Speaking of the personal element in preaching, and of the use of
illustration, he remarked in parenthesis: ‘1 Travel must be used very
skillfully and sparingly, because the Righi and the Bay of Naples are
not unknown to a congregation. On the whole, it may also be better for
the average man, for the sake of his people, not to go to the Holy Land,
unless he has great self-control. His personal experiences will make
even the Mount of Olives a terror, and his interpolated explanation,
from .what I have heard, will desecrate the noblest passages in the
Gospels. Some congregations who in the kindness of their hearts sent
their ministers to the Holy Land would now cheerfully pay twice the cost
to obliterate the journey from the memory of the good man, and to
rescue, say the fifteenth of St. Luke, from illustrative anecdotes.”
“A course of sermons on the metaphysics of faith, followed by another on
the philosophy of prayer, will go far to make infidels of a
congregation. One wants his drinking-water taken through a filter-bed,
but greatly objects to gravel in his glass.
“It is, however, possible to be exasperatingly healthy, and one can
understand a much tried woman being driven away from a minister whose
radiant, unlined face showed that he had never known pain, and who had
married a rich wife, and taken refuge in a church whose ministers had a
liver and preached rampant Calvinism. . . . Invalid ministers have a
certain use and do gather sympathetic congregations—becoming a kind of
infirmary chaplains. But their ecclesiastical and theological views must
be taken with great caution.’’
I heard all of the eight lectures and I also heard him preach in the
college chapel and speak to the students at the Y. M. C. A. meetings in
Dwight Hall. He was very effective in these talks to young men. But
during his month’s residence I had occasion to meet him in some charming
New Haven homes and here I got further insight into the man’s character
and learned much of his early life. There were three or four homes in
New Haven that seemed peculiarly attractive to him and he would often
drop in for an evening, and was frequently the guest at dinners there.
To sit before an open fire with him was a rare experience. In these
homes to which I refer, there would often be a group of three or four
men whose names were known among educated people in all Europe and
America. The conversation was such as one would expect. Often Dr. Watson
would sit silent for fifteen or twenty minutes listening to these men.
Then, by some sudden turn, he would take up the talk and for several
minutes we would hear some of the raciest comments on life. But when the
story-telling was at its height then he shone above all others. Some one
would ask him a question about Scottish country life and off he would
go. Or some one would ask him if the characters in “The Bonnie Brier
Bush” were based on actual men and women (they were, by the way) and he
would give the most delightful pictures of
Scottish country life as he knew it as a young minister. No one could
surpass him as a storyteller and I have seen staid, aged scholars laugh
until tears rolled down their cheeks. I met one of New Haven’s dignified
scholars on the street one morning and asked him how he was, and he
said: ‘ ‘ I have a stitch in my back; I went out to dinner with Ian
Maclaren last night.” It was not only the stories—it was the way he told
them. I was assistant to Dr. Munger at the time of Dr. Watson’s visit to
New Haven and that is how I happened to see so much of him. I doubt if I
shall ever hear such story-telling again. But once or twice I saw him in
very melancholy mood. These moods came over him and nothing could move
him out of them except solitude or preaching. He had much of the Celtic
temperament, as is very apparent to those who know his writings. It
appears in his novel, "Kate Carnegie,” almost more than in his short
stories. The appearance of this novel, "Kate Carnegie,” was a source of
both pleasure and disappointment to him. The critics handled it somewhat
severely because it lacked that dramatic element necessary to a great
work of fiction. But to choice souls it was a delight. The sketch of
Rabbi Sanderson is one of the best pieces of writing Ian Maclaren ever
did. The Rabbi lives—just as Dr. McClure lives. To me "Kate Carnegie” is
a book of great charm, and I read it frequently. Dr. Watson’s delight in
it came from the appreciation of it by many whom he greatly admired.
I remember his telling one evening about the hundreds upon hundreds of
letters he had received from people who had read “A Doctor of the Old
School.’’ These letters had come from every country in the world—many of
them from Australia, South Africa, Canada and America. Some came from
places he had never supposed contained men who could read English. Many
of the letters were from physicians and some of them were very
beautiful. These letters were a great comfort to him and he read and
reread them many times. But other experiences befell him from the
publication of “The Bonnie Brier Bush.” The heresy hunters got after
him. When this fact did not annoy him, it amused him, and it was very
funny to hear him tell the story of it. What started the charge of
heresy was the emphasis, in the stories of Scottish life, on the
unlimited love of God, but more particularly the confusion of what some
call “natural goodness” with religion. He would amusingly refer to the
fact that he “did not know whether he was being blamed for making God
love His children too much, or making man love his neighbour too much.”
The heresy trial passed over. It is not the first time that charges of
heresy have been brought against Scotchmen because of their novels.
There are some of my readers who can probably remember back far enough
to recall the storm of accusation that fell upon the head of George
MacDonald when “Bobert Falconer” was published. Many Scptch and English
pulpits were closed to him for years.
With the popularity of Dr. Watson’s stories a curiosity to see some of
his sermons began to be felt in Great Britain and America. As a result
“The Mind of the Master” was published. Its reception greatly pleased
him. It is a group of unusual sermons—for they were originally used as
sermons, although appearing as essays in the book. Another volume, “The
Potters' Wheel,” a series of papers for those in affliction, is very
tender and very full of original thought, too. Dr. Watson had deep
insight into the workings of the human soul, and being a man of great
heart his ministry to the suffering was very effective, and this little
volume is the fruit of many years' real “Cure of Souls.” It will be
remembered that he was in this country on a lecture tour when he passed
away. He enjoyed these lecture tours, but got rather tired of repeating
lectures over and over and rather tired of travel.
Let me close this sketch with a picture of one evening in New Haven. A
dinner party of a few choice spirits had been arranged for Ian Maclaren,
among those present being Professor George P. Fisher and Dr. T. T.
Munger, of both of whom he was very fond. I was privileged to drop in
after dinner and sit in an inconspicuous corner—a sort of learner—and
listen. And how I listened and how I laughed! Ian Maclaren—for it was he
rather than the Rev. John Watson who was to the front that evening—was
in a boyish mood and for an hour he told Scotch stories. He never
enjoyed himself anywhere else in America as much as during that first
month when he was in residence at Yale University. The many students of
Professor Fisher will be interested in this quotation from a letter
which Ian Maclaren wrote upon his second visit to America in 1899:
"On Saturday we left for New Haven, the seat of the University of Yale.
Professor Fisher, our former host at Yale, was standing on the platform
when we arrived, and gave us the kindest of receptions. He is a typical
don, so scholarly, so witty, so gentle, and it is a privilege to live in
his house, where one breathes humanity in the old Latin sense, and is
brought into contact at every turn of the conversation with the wisdom
both of the present and of the past. Beneath his roof one meets all
kinds of scholars, and every one seems at his best, so that one has the
benefit of a University in the form of social intercourse. Yale reminds
one of an English university, because its buildings are scattered here
and there, and some of them are now nearly two hundred years old, and
because the scholars at Yale have the old-fashioned love of accurate and
delicate culture, and are altogether cleansed from showiness and
Philistinism. Upon Sunday morning we went to the University Chapel,
where I preached before the president and professors, and where I
preached, which is a different thing, to fifteen hundred students of the
universities. One looked upon a mass of humanity in the bright and
intelligent faces, and was inspired with the thought of the
possibilities in those lads who would be the clergymen and lawyers and
statesmen and great merchants of the United States. If they are
interested the * boys’ have no hesitation in letting the preacher know,
and have endless ways of conveying their weariness. For my subject I
took ‘ Jesus’ Eulogy on John the Baptist/ and made a plea for
selflessness as the condition of good work and high character. In the
evening I spoke to about five hundred students in the beautiful hall of
the University Christian Association. This time I took for my subject
‘Faith and Works/ and afterwards met a number of men who were
exceedingly kind, and, as is characteristic of American university men,
very gracious and courteous. During my stay with Dean Fisher I had the
opportunity of conversation with several distinguished Biblical scholars
whose names and whose books are known on both sides of the Atlantic, and
to a general practitioner like myself this intercourse with experts was
most instructive and stimulating."
The above comes from the
book:
The One Great Society: A Book of Recollections
By Frederick Lynch. D. D.
