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Nearly ten years have elapsed since Dr Guthrie
was, in consequence of failing health, laid aside from the more active and
laborious duties of his clerical office. Since then he has been living
quietly, and enjoyed a fair measure of strength until last summer, when he
had an attack of acute rheumatism, which, lasting as it did for some months,
aggravated a morbid affection of the heart that had subsisted for many
years. This illness was to a certain extent got over, but in November last
he was again brought very low by an attack of congestion of the lungs, from
which he never effectually rallied. A remission of the symptoms admitted of
his being removed to St Leonards-on-Sea, in Sussex, where it was hoped by
his medical adviser that he might benefit by change of air. No improvement,
however, took place. On the contrary, there was a gradual falling off, until
the symptoms again assumed an alarming character. On Tuesday, the 18th
February, the change in his appearance, and particularly in the. colour of
his face, was so great, that the members of his family were telegraphed
for—it being considered quite uncertain when a fatal crisis might arrive.
This paroxysm passed, and he lingered on, suffering much from
breathlessness, but perfectly conscious, and cheered by the presence of
those near and dear to him. Day after day, further failure of strength took
place, but consciousness remained, and he looked forward in peace and
resignation to what now seemed the not far distant end. On Friday, a
telegram was received from Her Majesty the Queen, desiring information as to
Dr Guthrie's condition. For two days more no material change occurred,
though the continually increasing prostration indicated that the end was
drawing near. At a late hour on Sunday night ha was still conscious, and at
twenty-five minutes past two, on the morning of Monday, the 24th February,
1873, he peacefully breathed his last. Thus died, in a good old age, in his
71st year, at a distance from his native place, but surrounded by the
members of his family, and enjoying all the solace of domestic affection,
and the consolation of an unwavering faith in the> Redeemer, one of whom the
Free Church and Scotland may be justly proud, and whose name will long be a
household word in many lands.
"Sure the last end
Of the good man is peace; how calm his exit;
Night dews fall not more softly to the ground,
Nor weary worn out winds expire so soft."
On Friday, the 28th of February, the mortal
remains of Dr Guthrie wore interred in the Grange Cemstery, Edinburgh. The
weather was exceedingly fine. The sun shone brightly, and even warmly,
through a clear, blue, frosty sky, flecked with fleecy clouds. It was just
such a day as one could have wished for the funeral of a man of genial
nature, and whose name will ever be associated with sunny memories. The
family had complied with the general desire that the funeral should be
public, and it was attended by the municipal, ecclesiastical, and other
public bodies; by many private citizens, and by numerous strangers from a
distance. The route of the funeral procession—from the house in Salisbury
Road to the cemetery—extended for about a mile, and both sides of the
streets were crowded with decorous and mournful onlookers; whilst in the
cemetery itself many thousands had assembled to testify their respect for
the deceased. The funeral procession extended for about three quarters of a
mile, and was arranged in the following order:—
Detachment of Policemen.
Original Ragged School.
Edinburgh Industrial Brigade
(Directors and Boys).
Kirk Session and Deacons' Court of St John's.
U.P. Presbytery of Edinburgh.
Free Presbytery of Edinburgh.
Professors and Students of the New College.
Magistrates and Town Council.
High Constables.
Mutes.
Hearse, with Pall Bearers.
Relatives and Mourners.
Congregation of St John's.
General Public.
Private Carriages.
Probably upwards of thirty thousand were
assembled, the largest funeral gathering seen In Edinburgh since the death
of Sir James Y. Simpson.
On the arrival of the funeral procession at the
grave, a suitable and impressive prayer was offered up by the Eev. Dr
Blaikie, and the coffin, of ?,inc and polished oak, was lowered into the
tomb. The coffin bore the following inscription:—
Thomas Guthrie, D.D.,
Born, July 12th, 1803,
Died, Feb. 24th, 1873.
The children of the ragged school sang "There is
a happy-land," and two of their number—a girl and a boy—amid the tears of
the spectators, placed a wreath upon the new made grave.
The place of interment is the family
burying-ground, and is next the south wall of the cemetery. A slab of stone
let into the wall bears the simple inscription, "Burying-ground of Rev.
Thomas Guthrie, D.D." The wall around the stone is thickly covered with ivy,
and at each side of the extensive ground there grows a weeping ash. It is on
the sunny side of the pleasant grounds of the Grange, and we may suppose
that, with his keen sense of the beautiful in nature, and the becoming in
Christian burial, he selected this spot where the grassy turf should cover
his dust, and "many an evening sun shine sweetly o'er his grave."
On the Sabbath following the funeral, reference
was made in many churches, and in all denominations, to the death of Dr
Guthrie.
Dr Candlish preached in Free St John's Church,
which was densely crowded, from the text, Hebrews ix. 27,28— "And as it is
appointed unto all men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ
was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him
shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." In concluding
his discourse he said :--I ask you, beloved brethren, to listen to these
sentences which I am about to read, and which are not mine, but another's.
"Thank God my tongue has been unloosed!" "All reserve is gone—I can speak
out now." "Oh! most mighty and most merciful, pity me, once a great sinner,
and now a great sufferer." "Blessed Jesus! what would I now do but for
thee!" "lama father, and I know what a father's heart is. My love to my
children is no more to God's infinite love as a Father than one drop of
water to that boundless ocean out there," "Death is mining away here,
slowly, but surely, in the dark."' "I often thought, and even hoped, in past
years, that God would have granted me a translation like Chalmers or Andrew
Thomson. But it would appear now this is not to he the way of it." "Oh! the
power yet in that arm'"—the right arm stretched out with force while in
bed—"I doubt it presents the prospect of a long fight; and if so, Lord help
me to turn my dying hours to better purpose than ever my preaching ones have
been.' "The days have come in which I have no pleasure them." "Vani-tas
vanilatum! I would at this moment gladly give all my money and all my fame
for that poor body's"—(a smiling country woman tripping by)—"rigour and
cheer fulness." "A living dog is better than a dead lion." "I have often
seen death-beds. I have often described them; but I had no conception till
now what hard work dying really is!" "Had I known this years ago, as I know
it now, I would have felt far more for others in similar circumstances than
I ever did." "Ah! my dear children, you see I am now just as helpless in
your arms as you ever were in mine." Of telegraphic messages about hirn, he
said—"I bless God for the telegraph; because these will serve as calls to
God's people to mind me, in their prayers." Of the Queen's inquiry "It is
very kind." Of a young attendant—"Affection is very sweet; and it is all one
from whatever quarter it comes —whether from this Highland lassie or from a
peeress--just as to a thirsty man cold water is equally grateful from a
spring on the hillside as from a richly ornamented fountain."
Parting with a humble servant—"God bless you, my
friend." "I would be most willing that any man who ever wrote or spoke
against me should come in at that door, and I would shake hands with him."
These are fresh and racy death bed utterances; true to the nature of the man
who, to the last, retained his genial originality; the man who, with genuine
courtesy and his wonted humour, apologised for the trouble he was giving,
referring to Charles the Second's begging his courtiers to excuse him for
being such an unconscionable time in dying; the man who, child like as he
always was, chose "bairns' hymns," as he called them, for his solace in his
weakness—Oh! that will be joyful," "There is a happy land;" relishing them
as he relished that one of Cowper's, "There is a fountain tilled with
blood;" and preferring them to all other uninspired songs of praise. Here I
would fain stop, and leave the last words of a singularly true and gifted
man to tell with their own proper weight, free from the intrusion of more
commonplace remarks. I cannot, in fact, in the view of such an affecting
chamber of sickness, find it in my heart to deal in the ordinary topics of
consolation and edification for which death furnishes occasion. I am in no
mood for moralising or sermonising over my beloved brother's grave. Nor can
I attempt to compose a funeral oration or eloge upon the life and character,
the rare endowments and accomplishments, the manifold good works and
services, of him who is gone. This is not the place, this is not the time,
for eulogy. I am not the man competent to such a theme. His praise is in all
the churches, and through all society in many lands. I am here simply to
express my own feelings and yours under the pressure of a heavy grief. How I
admired and loved Thomas Guthrie, and how he reciprocated my affection
during all the years, some five-and-thirty, of our close familiarity and
most intimate and cordial friendship; how genuine and trustworthy a friend I
ever found him; what experience I have often had of his noble generosity;
how very pleasant he has been to me, I dare not trust myself to say. Friend
and brother, comrade in the fight, companion in tribulation, farewell! But
not for ever. May my soul, when my hour comes, be with thine! A great man
truly in Israel has fallen. Men of talents, men of abilities, men of
learning, are not uncommon. Men powerful in thought and speech are often
raised up; but genius, real poetic genius, like Guthrie's, comes hut once in
many generations. We shall not look upon his like soon, if ever. Nor was it
genius alone that distinguished him. The warm heart was his and the ready
hand; the heart to feel, and the hand to work. No sentimental dreamer or
mooning idealist was he. His pity was ever active. Tears he had, hut also
far more than tears, for all who needed sympathy and help. His graphic
pictures of the scenes of misery he witnessed were inspired by no idle
dreamy philanthropy after the fashion of Sterne or Kosseau, but by a human
love for all human beings intensely real and vigorously energetic.
His self-denying labours among the families of
the Cowgate, where he shrunk from no drudgery for himself, and shunned no
contact with poverty and vice in others; his noble zeal in every good and
holy cause; his rising, al most alone at first, to the full height of one of
his best enterprises—the rescuing of children from sin and sorrow, from
ignorance and crime: these and many other little memorials of his wide,
comprehensive, practical benevolence, will not soon pass from the grateful
memories of his countrymen. The fruits of his evangelical ministrations, and
that powerful preaching of the Word which captivated so many thousand ears
and hearts, the day will declare. The blank which his removal makes in our
own church, the church of our fathers,—the Free Church of Scotland,—is one
that can scarcely soon, if ever, be supplied. It will be felt for years to
come. In fact, the church does not seem to me what it was, now that Guthrie
is away. He was a power, unique in himself, and rising in his uniqueness
above other powers. He did not, indeed, venture much on the uncongenial
domain, to him, of ecclesiastical polemics, or the wear and tear of ordinary
church administration; leaving that to others whose superiority in their
department he was always the first to acknowledge. But in his own sphere,
and in his own way, he was to us, and to the principles on which we acted, a
tower of strength. His eloquence alone—so expressive of himself— so
thoroughly inspired by his personal idiosyncrasy—so full always of genial
humour—so apt to flash into darts of wit— and yet withal so profoundly
emotional and ready for passionate or affectionate appeals,—that gift or
endowment alone made Guthrie an invaluable boon to our church in the time,
of her Ten Years' Conflict, and afterwards. But the Guthrie monument, so far
as our Free Church is concerned, is in our thousand manses; a monument which
he himself reared, and in the rearing of which he may be truly said to have
sacrificed his health and strength. But endangered health and diminished
strength did not quench the ardour of his burning soul. Laid aside from
enforced professional labour, in pulpit or in parish, Guthrie was still the
man for men, holding himself always open to all calls and appeals in the
line of Christian and catholic benevolence. To our own church he was to the
last loyal and loving. No one more so. But he grew, as I would desire to
grow, more and more from year to year, in sympathy with all who love Jesus
and hold the truth as it is in Him, May the Lord, in His own good time,
answer his many prayers for the repairing of all breaches in Zion, and send
to the divided and distracted Christian family all over the world that peace
and living unity on which his large heart was set.
We close this all too imperfect record of a
noble life with the following sentences from a personal friend of Dr
Guthrie:—The leading and most essential and characteristic peculiarity of
this great man is—that he was deeply, earnestly, intensely Christian. All
other qualities of mind and heart and life were merged in the intensity of
Christian feeling. In his studies, his pursuits, his family—in his social
habits, his warm-hearted friendships, his zealous philanthropy —in his
pastoral labours and his pulpit ministrations—in his work and in his life,
love for "the Master'' was the pervading, animating, sustaining power which
upheld him. That Master has now called his servant home. He had no fear of
death. He had long known and felt that his life was precarious, and that his
death might be sudden. Yet the tranquillity, the trustfulness, even the
joyfulness of his walk, was not disturbed by the conviction that he held
life by a very feeble tenure. In a spirit of serene and devout trust, he
awaited his call. As he himself once expressed it, in speaking of a departed
friend, "Death was to him like the chariot which Joseph sent to bear his
brethren home." In the crisis of his alarming illness in Edinburgh, some
months ago, he was, by himself and his weeping family, believed to be at the
point of death, and at the gates of the Eternal Kingdom. Turning his tender
eye to the dear ones around, he said, "It may be that, before the morning
dawns, I shall see my mother, and my Saviour.'' Few things could more
sweetly and touchingly illustrate the rare combination of the child-like
tenderness of human love, and the devout simplicity of Christian faith. He
was spared for a season. That call was a call for preparedness. Another call
has come, and been obeyed.
As a preacher, Dr Guthrie, notwithstanding some
excellent published discourses, can scarcely be appreciated by those who
have not heard him. None who have heard him could readily forget him. Few
heard without deep impression. To a rugged nobleness, a majestic simplicity
of figure, voice, and manner, was added a vivid imagination, solemnized by
the sacredness of his theme, a fine poetic feeling, and a wealth of varied
illustration from the world of nature and the experiences of life. He
combined the highest rhetorical power with simple and earnest evangelical
preaching. There is probably no instance of a man who, for nearly thirty
years, sustained in so signal a manner the high reputation and great popular
acceptance of his pulpit ministrations. His church was uniformly crowded to
the doors; and many a man has stood in the passage to hear him, and, with
streaming eyes and throbbing heart, has bowed before the power of his
soul-stirring eloquence.
A zealous Free Churchman, he loved all who loved
the Master. He had many warm friends within the Established Church and other
churches; and he was earnest and unwavering in his desire for union among
all Presbyterians; and, in the first place, and at all events, for union
among the Nonconforming Presbyterian Churches. He was the zealous advocate
of National Education—liberal according to the enactments of the State, and
religious according to the convictions of the people; and he was, under all
circumstances and at all times, the friend of the principles of civil and
religious liberty, which he used to speak of as "the good old cause."
The distinguished abilities, attractive manners,
and great popularity of Dr Guthrie brought him frequently into the society
of persons of high rank. He was there, as elsewhere, greatly liked and
highly respected; but he was not spoiled. He retained to the last the
simplicity of the Scottish pastor, and the manly and genial nature which
endeared him to high and low.
There are great preachers and good men left
among us, but we shall rarely see one leave us for the better land who will
be more widely, deeply, and affectionately remembered than Dr Thomas
Guthrie. |
