Search just our sites by using our customised search engine

Unique Cottages | Electric Scotland's Classified Directory

Click here to get a Printer Friendly PageSmiley

Memoir of Norman MacLeod, D.D
Moderatorship and Patronage, 1869 - 70


HIS unanimous election by the General Assembly of 1869 to the dignity of Moderator gave him no ordinary satisfaction. The event was gratifying in itself; but it was specially valued as a token of the liberality of the Church, which could bestow such an honour on one who had so recently fought for freedom at the risk of losing his ministerial position, and was highly appreciated as a mark of confidence in his personal loyalty and attachment to the Church.

From his Journal:—

"April 8th.—It is a deep working out of love to say or do from true love that which may cause the object of love to manifest hate to us and yet to love him in spite of his hate.

"How wonderful is the love which can discern and accept of the love of God revealed in and by deepest suffering, and which rejoices in the love in spite of the suffering! 'He took the cup' and 'took the bread,' symbols of a broken body and shed blood, and 'gave thanks!'

"Love is the only way along which the whole world may reach greatness. The proud despise it as too common and vulgar. They prefer to reach it by way of genius or talent.

" . . . See clearly what you wish. Sincerely desire that others should see it also and seek it. Help to bring them into this mind by perfect truth and candour, patience, meekness, respect and tender consideration for their feelings and their prejudices. Never despair, and believing in God and His good-will to man, be sure that the right will come right.

''Deal with others as God deals with you, and all will be done with truth and charity and patience. Want of candour and want of confidence in our fellow-men hinder and weaken us.

"I believe we would always gain right ends sooner, whether political or ecclesiastical, if we openly declared what we wanted, and made no mystery of it. Wrong alone fears the light. 'Policy,' in most cases, if not in all, belongs to the devil and darkness. It creates the very suspicions which it endeavours to conquer."

To A. Strahan, Esq.:—
"SHANDON.

"I have come here for a quiet day's work. I send you a morsel to keep your printer's devils going. I shall send as much more to-morrow."

From his Journal:—

"May 18th, Tuesday.—I record my gratitude to God for the quiet and comparatively unbroken fortnight I have had, and the measure of good health also given me, and the peace of mind to prepare my long address for the Assembly. I go to-morrow to reach the highest point in my public life. My mother, dear one ! wife and nine children, aunts, brothers, sisters, nephews, and nieces, and troops of friends to be with me. What a height of mercy ! Oh, may this be a talent used lovingly, humbly, and unselfishly for His glory ! Such is my earnest desire.".

In giving the customary address at the close of the Assembly, he took the opportunity of uttering his convictions on several important matters of ecclesiastical policy. Among other points he noticed certain characteristics of the age of which he thought account should be taken by the Church.

"1.—The age in which we live is one of searching inquiry in regard to truth. We do not complain of this; for however perverted the spirit may sometimes become, and however much it may manifest mere discontent with things as they are, yet the spirit itself in its essence is good, and should be hailed by all who love the true and the right for their own sakes, be the consequences to themselves what they may.

"2.—Another characteristic of our time may be described as a jealousy of all monopolies, of all privileges which would secure good to the' few, at the expense, directly or indirectly, of the many. And this is being applied to existing Church Establishments. Treaties of union, Acts of Parliament, and the like, however invaluable they may be, even as means of securing time for discussion, or as affording the strongest possible grounds for a patient and considerate policy, must ultimately yield to the prime question of political justice as decided by a national jury. The country will determine, wisely or unwisely, what it deems best, not for this or that class, this or that denomination, but for the general good. And I might add, that establishments of religion are henceforth likely to be dealt with, not according to an imperial policy which recognizes the unity of the State, but with reference to the wants and expressed wishes of each separate nationality, so to speak, whether of Scotland, England, or Ireland, in which they respectively exist. On this principle the Church of Ireland has been dealt with, not as an Establishment connected with the Church of England, far less as connected with the Establishment of Scotland, but merely with reference to its suitableness for Ireland, as determined by its past history, present position, and future prospects. And thus, too, must the Churches of Scotland and England in the long-run be tried, each on its own merits, each according to its adaptation to the religious wants of the country in which it exists. Now this is a principle of which national Churches should not complain, inasmuch as their power and efficiency are inseparable from the fact of their being acceptable to the nation as a whole. If by any fault of theirs they lose the confidence of the nation, or fail to recover it after a fair trial, their continuance is more than imperilled, seeing that they exist for the nation. and not the nation for them.

"For myself," he said, in reference to the question of Subscription, "I confess that I do not see how the Church of Christ, or any section of it, as a society professedly founded on the teaching of Christ and His apostles, and having a history since the day of Pentecost, can exist without a creed expressed or administered in some form or other. As far as I know, the Church has always had some test for the doctrinal beliefs of its teachers and members, or for their beliefs of the historic facts of the New Testament which constitute the basis of objective Christianity.[John ii. 10, 11; 1 John iv. 1 ; 2 Peter ii. 1 ; 1 Cor. xv. 8. ] Moreover, the theory held by us, as an Established Church, implies that the State ought to know what are the doctrines professed by the Church which it proposes to establish. Hence those doctrines when mutually agreed upon, become the law at once of the Church and of the State.

"What therefore in these circumstances can be done by our National Church 1 Shall we, for example, compel every minister under pain of dismissal, or of incurring charges of dishonesty, to accept every statment, every alleged fact, every argument for doctrine, and deduction from doctrine, and proof of doctrine to be found in the Confession] Is this what the Church really means before Cod when it uses the formula? And do we practically make no distinction between those things on which Christians, the most learned and the most holy, may and do differ in all Evangelical churches, and those doctrines on which, as a whole, all are at one? Possibly we may obtain honest agreement in minute details, but I fear it will only be on the part of the very few, of the very ignorant, thus necessarily creating the dead unity of a churchyard, rather than the living unity of a Church, and fostering a faith like that of Romanists, which rests practically upon the mere Church authority. It appears to me that the quantity or quality of any confession to those who thus receive it, is of no more importance than the quantity or quality of food is to a man who only carries it, but does not eat it. But on the other hand is it possible without running still greater risks for a Church to give official permission to any office-bearer to make this distinction between Essentials and Non-Essentials? Then where is the line to be drawn? And what value would there be in this case in any Confession at all? Might not the most dangerous and Anti-Christian opinions be preached in our pulpits, and the result be that to include sceptics we practically exclude true believers? It is so much easier for some to sneer at creeds altogether, and for others to raise a cry of horror as if God's Word was attacked when a doubt regarding them is expressed, than for both parties to carry the burthen of fair and candid men, seriously considering the difficulty and suggesting such a solution of it as may satisfy our sense of truth in regard to ourselves, and our sense of justice and charity towards others.

"And now let me ask with unfeigned humility and with a full sense of the difficulties which I have indicated, whether a practical solution, if not a logical one. may not, on the one hand, be found in common sense and spiritual tact and Christian honour on the part of those who, with doubts and difficulties, desire to enter or to remain in the Church, and that from no selfish motive; and, on the other hand, by the exercise of those same gifts and graces towards such individuals on the part of the Church? The minister can thus easily determine for himself how far he honestly agrees with the teaching and doctrine of the Church, or cordially accepts it as that which has been recognised as constituting the essentials of Christianity by the whole Catholic Church from the days of the Apostles; while the Church, retaining her power to exercise discipline in every case of departure from the Confession, may also exercise due caution, charity, and forbearance."

The Dean of Westminster, who was present at several meetings of the General Assembly, afterwards addressed the following letter to Dr. Macleod as Moderator:—

From Dean Stanley:—
"Deanery, Westminster.

"My dear Moderator,
"I was obliged to leave in such haste on Friday, as to have had no time to thank you for the great kindness of the past week.

"It was a sincere grief and disappointment to me not to be able to be present today to hear your address, and to-morrow to assist at your dinner. Nothing but the call of imperative engagements here would have prevented it.

"Meanwhile I have had the very great pleasure and profit of having become acquainted, by personal intercourse, with your famous Assembly, and with the established organ of the Church of Scotland.

"I cannot bring myself to believe that an institution so represented is doomed to fall, or that the Scottish people will consent to the overthrow of a body which gives such pledges of dignity and progress to the whole country.

"If at your dinner you should think it worth while to refer to this humble expression of regard from a Presbyter of the sister Church, pray consider yourself at liberty to do so.

"Yours sincerely,
"A. P. Stanley."

From his Journal:—
"Aird's Bay House, 2nd August, 1860.

"The Moderatorship was a time of great peace of heart. There was no contretemps of any kind. The house was very full, and every one was kind. Dean Stanley attended our Assembly, and visited the Free Church one also. He lived in the same hotel as we did. My address, which occupied two hours, was delivered to a crowded house, and was kindly accepted. It has since been published.

"After the Assembly, on the following Sunday I went to Balmoral; and at the end of June went with the Anti-Patronage Committee to London. The Scotch Members gave us a dinner. Had an interview with Gladstone, accompanied by twenty-seven M.P.'s. It was my own decided opinion that we should go to Government to do away with Patronage. If they refused to aid us, they could not accuse us of want of sympathy with the country ; and if they aided us, they could not destroy us. They could not well order new clothes for a man, and then kill him.

"Some think that Gladstone, in his interview as reported, wished that in the memorial which he suggested, we should discuss the question of sharing endowments with other Presbyterian Churches. No one, at the time, as far as I know, believed this. Had I done so, although warned by several influential Members of Parliament not to discuss anything at that interview, and also feeling the extreme difficulty of my position as representing the Church, accompanied by a deputation with so many M.P.'s of different sentiments, yet I would have refused, without consent of the Church, to entertain and discuss the question of Disestablishment, when we were commissioned to consider Patronage only. But a leader in the Daily Review made me think that this meaning might be given to the words, and possibly truly, so I protested in a speech given in Glasgow, at my brother's induction dinner to Park Church, against what seemed to me the insulting idea of asking us to entertain such a question, although the Church might do it. This called forth an abusive article." [Considerable difference of opinion prevailed as to the exact words used by Mr. Gladstone, but that Dr. Macleod had quite apprehended their purport, may be gathered from the following letter, written by Mr. Gladstone's Secretary to the Rev. Mr. Dykes, of Ayr :—"Mr. Gladstone has no report by him of his conversation with the deputation that waited on him in the summer, and is unable, without that assistance to make any positive assertion on the subject ; but according to his best recollection, he gave no opinion of his own on the proposal of the deputation, but inquired if it had been considered what view was or would be taken of the proposal by the other Presbyterian communions in Scotland, and what effect its adoption would have on the relation between those communions (regard being had to their origin) and the Established Church."]

Ecclesiastical policy was never congenial to him, and it is doubtful how far he was fitted to be in this sphere the leader of a party. He had strong convictions as to the principles by which a national Church should be guided, and drew a line, clear enough to his own mind, between the generous comprehension which he advocated, and the latitudinarianism which would override the limits of catholic belief. But he had neither patience nor taste for diplomacy, nor for the finesse required to "manage" a party. His special calling, in the circumstances in which the Church had been placed since 1843, had respect to her life and practical work; and he felt that in proportion as he helped to make her better he would also make her stronger. But, although he was not an ecclesiastical politician, he acquired an influence in the councils of the Church, and, what was still more important, an influence beyond her pale which was perhaps wider and more vital than that of any or all the leaders or parties. [I am reminded, that since the Disruption there have been no parties in the Church. This may be true in a technical sense, but practically, each Assembly has been divided on special questions : and these divisions have usually been determined by a general policy.]

On this subject Dean Stanley wrote:—

"He was the chief ecclesiastic of the Scottish Church. No other man during the last thirty years in all spiritual ministrations so nearly filled the place of Chalmers; no other man has occupied so high and important a position in guiding the ecclesiastical movements of his country since the death of Robertson, we might almost say, since the death of Carstares . . . Macleod represented Scottish Protestantism more than any other single man. Under and around him men would gather who would gather round no one else. When he spoke it was felt to be the voice, the best voice of Scotland."

It was fortunate, therefore, for the movement for the Abolition of Patronage, that when it first took definite shape, the Church was represented by one whose antecedents gave him claims to attention in professing to speak on grounds of public rather than sectarian policy.

His own views on the question of Patronage were sufficiently defined. He never for a moment imagined that it was contrary to Scripture ; and, as actually exercised in the Church, he deemed there might be many advantages as well as disadvantages connected with its continuance. It was, however, on grounds of Christian expediency, and in view of the relation of the Church to the country, that he now supported its abolition. Even as early as 1843 he had foreseen the necessity of moving in this direction, and in his closing address as Moderator of the General Assembly he strongly urged the motives by which the national Church ought, in his opinion, to be actuated.

"By a national Church, I mean one whose clergy are secured a decent support out of certain funds set apart by the State for their use; a Church whose doctrines have been accepted by the State, as those which are henceforth to characterise the teaching of its ministers, and whose government and discipline are in their several outlines defined, recognised, and protected by law. Such an organization exists, not for the sake of the clergy, but for the sake of the country. The people do not thus belong to the Church, but the Church to the people. Our stipends are not given for our own sake, but for theirs. The Church is their property, and all her ministrations are established for their advantage. If this be so, then a national Church can never, without forfeiting its true position, regard what are called its own interests as being in any way independent of the interests of the country, but rather as subordinate to them.

"A Christian body, self-supported, whose members are united by a mere voluntary agreement, may exist for itself only, and teach as it pleases, being answerable alone to conscience and to God. Not so a Church which has had conferred upon it the privileges and consequent responsibilities of an Establishment. Every question which comes before such a Church for decision must be judged of with reference to the general interests of the nation. According to this principle, the views and wishes of Churches dissenting from our communion, on grounds which it may be possible for us to remove, and the beliefs even of those of our fellow countrymen who reject all Churches, demand from us earnest and anxious consideration. The office-bearers of the national Church are trustees of a property which is theirs only in so far as they regard it as a common boon, which all citizens are entitled to share. How many of our divisions might have been prevented, had all parties, acting on this principle, carried in common the burden of the Church, and endeavoured to make her claims harmonious at once with the righteous demands of the State and of the country ! How much might yet be done if we would pass over all the narrow space bounded by Church party into the wider space limited only by Christian patriotism! We are thus bound, as far as is consistent with our existence as a Christian Church, to include within it as many, and to exclude from it as few as possible, of our countrymen. And in order, I repeat, to do this, we should weigh their conscientious convictions whether as to government, forms of worship, or doctrines of minor importance, in the light of that true Christian charity, which is at once the highest form of freedom and of restraint."

His anxiety was, if possible, to rebuild the Church on a foundation sufficiently wide to include the Presbyterianism of Scotland. He did not, however, delude himself with the hope of any corporate union immediately taking place with the Free Church and United Presbyterians, in consequence of the abolition of Patronage, He knew too well their historical antecedents, understood too well the spirit which years of antagonism had created, and had weighed too carefully other practical difficulties to expect any such happy consummation. In reference to this he used to quote from "Christabel" these lines—

"Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.

* * * *

Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother;
They parted—ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining—
They stood aloof, the scars rem tilling,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between;
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been."

But he certainly dared to hope that, after time had exercised its healing influence, these Churches would be thankful for the preservation of the national endowments for religion, and appreciate the attempt now made to open the doors of the Establishment as wide as possible to all Presbyterian bodies. In these endowments he saw the only sufficient security for the existence of a well paid and well educated ministry for the nation. All he had seen and learned of Voluntaryism in America, and all he had known of its working in this country, had convinced him that, when existing alone, it was not only insufficient for the proper support of the Church in poor districts, but involved in its very nature elements of danger to the tone, independence, and liberty of the clergy. [See his Speech on Patronage in the Assembly of 1870.] It seemed to him therefore a betrayal of the interests of Christianity in Scotland, where the people were practically at one in their beliefs, to throw away the patrimony of the Church for the sake of a party triumph. He was therefore determined, as far as in him lay, to conserve the Church for patriotic ends, and, with this view, was anxious to bring her government as much as possible into harmony with the lawful wishes, and even the prejudices of the people.

"We must endeavour to build up a Church, national but not sectarian, most tolerant, but not indifferent—a Church with liberty but not license, endowed but not covetous, and which, because national, should extend her sympathy, her charity, if need be her protection, to other Churches, and to every man who, by word or deed, tries to advance the good of our beloved country." [Speech in Assembly, 1870.]

Some months after the deputation had waited on Mr. Gladstone, he wrote to the Duke of Argyll in the following terms:—

"29th March, 1870.
"No man realises more fully or intensely than I do the difficulties which surround us on every side in attempting to preserve the Church as an Established Church, or even to secure for Presbyterianism the ecclesiastical funds of the country. We cannot remain in our present position and receive an attack, for our doing so would provoke an attack, and justly too, as that would not be acting a worthy part. We cannot retract after the vote for movement in regard to Patronage. We must advance, stronger in numbers, in activity, in talent and influence, than during any previous period subsequent to '43; and stronger still I humbly hope in an unselfish desire, as becomes a national Church, to seek the good of the country. And for this end we ought to be willing to share as far as practicable the advantages or the prestige of the Establishment, or at the worst, its endowments, with all who will receive them. I advance therefore to make honourable terms, not with 'the enemy,' or mutineers, but with those regiments who have left us, formed themselves into a Free Corps, and have weakened in so many ways the army which should be united against the common foe. Our attempt is not hopeless ! No attempt can be so which, before God, seeks to do good. A higher blessing in some form must come than if no such attempt is made. I have faith in God. All will depend on the spirit which may actuate the Churches.

"The removal of Patronage, I am aware, is but one step, and not the greatest. But I fancy that if it could be enacted that induction should take place ' according to the laws of the Church,' leaving liberty to regulate from time to time the laws regarding the election, that the difficulty of ' spiritual independence' would be practically solved.

"The Free Church could not, without denying her principles and history, refuse at least to consider the question in the gravest manner, and the responsibility of refusal would be laid on her. A considerable party in that Church, and in the whole north of Scotland, which has declared against union with the Voluntaries, and mourns over the 'sad defection' of Candlish, Guthrie, and Buchanan, would gladly entertain the idea. The United Presbyterians, who in their political eagerness to join the Free Church, consented to let the principle of Establishment be ' an open question' could hardly make its practice (a mere £ s. d. affair) be a ground for rupture, and thus, if there was an Endowed Free Church in friendly co-operation—in unity, if not union—with those tender consciences which 'cannot touch the coined money,' we should have reform, in harmony with our past history, and not Revolution.

"In spite of all that Voluntary Churches have done, never were endowments, in addition to free gifts, more needed, if we are to have, beyond the towns, clergy who can hold their own among a cultivated and educated laity.

"There is a great fear on the part of some of our Broad Churchmen, least an immigration of barbarian races into the Establishment should extinguish all the freedom and break up the Church by a series of massacres, or force other and counter migrations to Independent or Episcopal Churches. They tell me I should be the first man to be shot! But I do not fear this. Indeed, I begin to fear much more lest liberty should degenerate into license : anyhow, I have confidence in truth, time, and public opinion.

'I write to you without reserve. I believe in your good-will to the Church, your love to your country. 'Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?'"

To Dr. Charteris:—

"There would be, on the one hand, great danger to fair and honest freedom by union at present with the Free Church. We should be terribly tried by a demon of Dogma, wandering in dry places, and no real man daring to pass that way. Even John Calvin would be strangled. Hymns! Organs! Simpler Creed! Simpler formula! Pfui! All gone, and the Church would soon follow.

"I see no chance of any legislation by which their idea of spiritual independence can be made possible. Do you? And if possible, desirable. Do you?

"But, on the other hand, I hold an endowed Church, according to all experience, to be almost essential to our possessing men of culture, and such are a great gift from God. We may do without them, but we shall do immensely better with them, and this leads to union, for the strengthening of the Church.

And again, bad as high and dry, tight-laced, hard, straight-line, orthodoxy is, there is something inconceivably worse, and that is cold, heartless, breathless, speculative unbelief. If I fear the Presbyterian Church of Scotland being frozen by orthodoxy into fixed and dead forms as respects thought, I fear a million times more her ministers and people being frozen into eternal lumps of ice.

"Lastly, if our Church in Scotland is to do the utmost possible work as a Church for Scotland, it must be by method, by the saving of waste power, whether of men or money, and by gaining more moral and spiritual power by means of fewer temptations to malice, envy, pride, selfish ambition, &c., and by affording greater inducements and opportunities to cultivate common sympathies and common affections in praying, preaching, and working together in advancing our Lord's kingdom. All this points to union."

From his Journal:—
"Auto's Bay, Loch Etive, 1869.

"At the end of June, I went with Watson and Strahan to Berlin. I fixed the missionaries to the Aborigines of India. We left Glasgow on Tuesday, and I was back on the next Friday week. I had a most uncomfortable journey, and was very wearied. I returned by Hamburgh; since that I have been here."

To Canon Kingsley:—
"Aird's Bay House, July 24, 1869.

"Your note about Captain A— came when I was occupying the Chair of the General Assembly. After that I had to go to Balmoral; then London; then Berlin ; all on public business. Now I am trying to rest beneath the shadow of Cruachan, and to pump out the letters which have nearly drowned me.

"What a glorious country this is! I think Loch Etive the finest loch in the Highlands. It worms its way like Olaf Tryggveson's snake boat for up among silent hills for thirty miles, with branching glens going nowhere, here and there a hut like a boulder, ending with the shepherd's of Etive Glen.

"It is worth coming all this way to row up the Loch, for there is no road on either side, and its shores are unpolluted. No Murray knoweth them. The trail of the old clans has not been obliterated by foot of civilised man. An old seal raised his head and wondered if I was going to join Prince Charlie. The sheep stare at me. The hills seem to dress themselves in their best robes and colours to receive strangers.

"Well, Benares and Bunawe, Lucknow and Lome are queer contrasts!

"What a glory before me is that Cruachan! For a week after arriving I was so fagged and out of sorts that Nature touched me only on the outside. My soul seemed nature-proof. It begins now to receive some of its beauty; and next to the Bible I find Nature the holiest teacher.

"It is fortunate for me that you will be unable to read this."

From his Journal :—
"20th August, 1869.—

I leave in an hour for Inverie, Mr. Band's place in the north.

"I have had a wonderful time of happiness with all my dear children, all so well and joyous; one of those many times of heaven's sunshine on earth we have had together, but which cannot, in the transition period of education by trial, be repeated often.

"I preached every Sunday, except the one I was in Glasgow. I have written two 'Peeps'—Madras and Calcutta; also a long article in Record on the Aborigines, and at least two hundred letters. We have had little trips—on Loche Awe and Loch Etive—once with dear Shairp.

"I have been made Dean of the Thistle."

His former assistant and minister of his Mission Church, the Rev. Mr. Young, of Ellon, gives the following reminiscence of an evening spent at Aird's Bay:—

"The Doctor had retired early in the day into a quiet room for work, but as the day wore on, and he heard us at croquet, he left his letters and India Mission work and joined us for a while. He likes this game, for it brings him into the open air and the society of his children, and so enthusiastic does he get that he affects even to loose his temper as the play goes against his side. It was, however, only a brief interlude of relaxation, for he was soon at his writing again, and scarcely emerged till late in the evening. We had gathered in the drawing-room, and the music had just commenced, when a tap on the window outside summoned me to join him. He is tired after his day's work, and sits smoking under a tree. The solemn calm and beauty of the landscape, seen in the fast-fading light, have suggested a multitude of profound thoughts which he wishes to communicate. I sit almost speechless, for he discourses most marvellously about God's mercies and their varied effects on the grateful and ungrateful. There is a nervous eloquence in his words, and although it is very dark, I know that his whole frame heaves with emotion, as he pictures the hard struggle which the Christian has in acquiescing in the divine will when that will requires the surrender of some choice blessing. This leads to a touching autobiographical sketch, in which he tells of the deep waters he had some years before passed through during the time Mrs. Macleod was in fever. 1 never was so impressed as by that conversation. The sacred quiet of the late evening, the earnest pathos of the speaker, and the thrilling nature of the theme powerfully affected me. When he ended, we wiped the tears from our eyes, and joined the family in the drawing-room, and enjoyed music and singing the rest of the evening."

From his Journal:—
"December 31st, 1869.—

In a few hours the century will have lived its threescore and ten years ! I question if since time began, with the exception of three or four great eras, such as the calling of Abraham, the Exodus, the birth of Christ, the Reformation, the invention of printing, or it may be, the breaking up of the Roman Empire, the birth of Mahomet, or of Buddah—such an influential period has existed. The invention of the steam-engine, the discovery of gas, telegraph, chloroform; with the freedom of slaves, the British acquisition of India, the opening up of the world to the gospel, the translations of the Scriptures, will make it forever memorable.

"It has been a happy year to myself, and some events in it have been to me interesting personally.

''I have collected some thousands for Retiring Allowance Fund: addressed very many meetings on Missions; founded and collected for Aborigines Mission; got free site for new Mission Church at Bluevale; aided in arranging plan for ten new churches. Written eleven articles for Good Words.

"January, 1870.—We had our old gathering on the first of the year at Shandon. My beloved mother, alive and hearty, at the head of our table! Such mercies are awful! And very rare it is in a man of fifty-eight to have such a mother—so grand and good, so full of love and sympathy—almost painful from its intensity—to be one with him from his infancy!

". . . . God Almighty, imbue us all with Thy charity! The longer I live the less do I desire to judge any man. There is no one but God can decide as to any man's character. This is a product of so many causes— temperament, the society into which he has been cast, intellectual capacity, the teaching he has received, whether from the books he has read, the clergy—perhaps bigots, ignorant men, superstitious dogmatists, mere talkers—he has heard, and a thousand circumstances—that we dare not condemn the man, though from the light God has given us we may say, 'to me this is right or wrong.' Many a so-called 'infidel' is nearer the kingdom of God than many an 'orthodox' minister. Many an unbeliever is a protest against those who in honest ignorance have, in the name of God, spoken what is untrue. What we all need is a child-like spirit to trust God, to hear God, to believe that there is a God who loves us, who desires out individual well-being, who can and will teach us, and lead us into all essential truth, such truth as will make us His children in teachableness and obedience.

"The clergy have often done great damage to the truth. They have sought more to fit in what has been proposed as truth to them, to a system of theology given them in the Divinity Hall, than to see it in the light of God himself.

"It is an awful thought that some men cannot bring God's own revealed truth into the light of reason and conscience. I have such profound faith in revealed truth to us as to rejoice that it shall be tried by what God has revealed in us. I would tremble for any truth that could be maintained by nothing more than by the authority of the letter, by an ' it is written.' Jesus used this argument; but it was to the Devil, who had no spiritual eye to see. So may we address his disciples, and leave them to think of it. Yes, and it answers to what is written in the soul, conscience, hopes, sorrows, joys, and expectations of humanity. I almost adore the Bible. The more I read it, without almost any thought of questions of inspiration, but simply as a record of fact, of precept and principle, of judgment and of mercy, of God's acts and 'ways' (i.e., the principles of his acts), all culminating in Christ, as a revelation of what God is to man, and what man was created to be to God, the more my whole moral being responds to it, as being a revelation of God. The authority of the Bible is to me supreme, because it 'commands' my reason and conscience. I feel it is from God. It was once otherwise with me. It is so no more; and the older I get the more my spirit says amen to it.

"I feel a great difference from looking at revealed truth, not as it dovetails into a system of theology, but as it appears in the light of God, as revealed in Christ. A divine instinct seems to assure me 'this is true,' 'it is like God,' 'it is in harmony with all I know of Him.'

"I believe all our churches are breaking up. We have almost settled the questions of mere dogmatics. Calvinism, Arminianism, and all the isms connected with men have done their work in educating the Church. Rome tries by the force of numbers centered in Papal infallibility in regard to dogma, to hold the Church together. Protestantism is, in another form, trying to create unity by restraints that are also external. But what we crave for is the union of life, 'Christ in us,' which alone can convince the world that a new supernatural power has really entered humanity, a power which alone can produce in us a new character, and make us partakera of the divine nature. I think we shall be all smashed as respects churches and systems, and this, as a negative preparation for the second coming of Christ—not an objective coming, but one through the Spirit, as Christ in us, the whole life of Christ, uniting all who know Him, as the one hope of glory. May Thy kingdom come!

"The power of mere traditional views of so-called Christianity is to me utterly astounding. I heard an excellent young man preach last night. He logically carried out the assumption that our Lord endured the very punishment our sins deserved. Hence, he said, the damned in hell alone could understand His sufferings! Yet such monstrous—shall I call it blasphemy?— never struck him. God forgive us clergy, who have made men infidels by all the 'hard speeches' we have in our ignorance uttered against Thee.

"The Lord reigns! Let the earth be glad! Our hope is in Him who 'is able,'—who else can?—to give us light and life.

"My life is not what I would have chosen. I often yearn and long for quiet, for reading, and for thought. It seems to me to be a very paradise, to be able to read, think, pray, go deep into things, gather the glorious riches of intellectual culture, rise into the empyrean of abstract truth, write thoughtful and careful sermons, grasp at the great principles of wise statesmanship, master all the historical details necessary as data for future reference, &c, &c.

"God has forbidden it in His providence. I must spend hours in receiving people (not of my congregation) who wish to speak to me about all sorts of trifles; to reply to letters about nothing; to engage on public work on everything; to waste my life on what seems uncongenial, vanishing, temporary, waste. Yet God knows me better than I do myself. He knows my gifts and powers, my failings, and my weaknesses, what I can do and not do. So I desire to be led, and not to lead; to follow Him; and I am quite sure that He has thus enabled me to do a great deal more, in ways which seem to me almost a waste of life, in advancing His kingdom than I could have done in any other way—I am sure of that. Intellectually I am weak. In scholarship nothing. In a thousand things a baby. He knows this, and so He has led me and greatly blessed me, who am nobody, to be of some use to my Church and fellow men. How kind, how good, how compassionate, art Thou, O God!

Oh, my Father! keep me humble. Help me to have respect towards my fellow-men—to recognise their several gifts as from Thee. Deliver me from the diabolical sins of malice, envy, or jealousy, and give me hearty joy in my brother's good, in his work, in his gifts and talents; and may I be truly glad in his superiority to myself, if Thou art glorified ! Root out all weak vanity, all devilish pride, all that is abhorrent to the mind of Christ. God, hear my prayer ! Grant me the wondrous joy of humility, which is seeing Thee as All in All!

"January 17.—That which does not commend itself to the consience of the Church, i.e., the true Church of men who reverence God, who seek Him, desire to do His will, and peril all in knowing Him, is not to be received. God himself challenges the response of the enlightened conscience—'Judge between me and my vineyard.'

"I thank God that He, not man's absurd arguments, can touch sinners and bring them to Himself.

"How often are men right in the thing, and wrong in the argument. How often right in the argument, and wrong in the thing! All-merciful, wise God, have mercy on us and teach us!"

To Rev. W. F. Stevenson:—
"February, 1870.

"I returned at the end of last week from England, where my wife and I spent ten days very happily. We visited, with our friends the Lumsdens, Oxford, Kenilworth, Stratford-on-Avon, and, aided by a carriage and two horses, had a splendid day with the hounds, and followed them from the meet to the death. The clergy are too much Jacob all over, and might be improved by a little of Esau. What a fine man could be made out of them both—better than either!

"I have too much on hand. I begin another new church for my poor people. But I am now as firmly convinced as Muller or you are, that whatever work God gives us to do will be done and finished, if done to Him and by Him? So I shall build my church—get £10,000 for my Retiring Fund, establish my Aborigines Mission, get fit men and money for home and abroad, and also become myself a better man—though last not least!

"I wish I had a long talk with you on public affairs. All is preparing, by bad as well as good, for the coming of Christ in us—to reign on earth."

He resumed once more the fatiguing labour of addressing Presbyteries and public meetings in different parts of the country on behalf of the India Mission; and while he was grateful for the personal kindness he always experienced and the expressions of increased interest on the part of clergy and laity with which these meetings were generally concluded, he had yet to deplore the absence of permanent results. The movement which was inaugurated, the resolutions that were heartily carried where he was present, were too frequently forgotten a few weeks afterwards. He was also not a little annoyed by the readiness with which many excellent ministers assumed an attitude of suspicion towards the Mission, lest it should be conducted on too ' broad' principles.

"This India Mission," he writes, "our only mission to the heathen, is on its trial. The deputation to India was but a prelude to the more difficult work of seeking to give life to this great, stolid, dull mass of clergy and people."

"I solemnly declare," he writes again to a respected brother clergyman who was standing aloof, "that except I am better supported by the clergy I will give it up. I have neither time nor heart for it. Last night, lame with gout, I addressed two thousand five hundred people in Perth. I have now been for four hours doing nothing but writing letters connected with another meeting—and this is but a drop in my bucket—and in the midst of this constant worry of mind to have cold water or lukewarm water thrown over me ! The fire burns in my bones for a mission and a Church at the point of perishing. In God's name I will fight my gun till I die— bat you must come into the battery."

From his Journal:—

"Our India mission has never been so strong in point of agency since '43. But will the Church respond? The Lord knows? My terror is that she will not; and then God will in judgment take away that which has been given! How fearful! God's ministers to be the obstructions to missions! God's ministers to be the last! 'Then cometh the end!'

"May the Lord avert it! It is almost inconceivable into what a hard, formal state, even ministers may come! A sort of Protestant Pugi; ["Pugi" is the Indian name for ritual.] a Romanism of mere 'sound words'—forms; no life, no longing or yearning to win souls to Christ; no faith, but a conceited philosophism, a puppyism of would-be philosophical or evangelical cant, or an unbelief whose one end is cultivating popularity with farmers and parishioners.

"As to farmers, I was visiting to-day a working man's family from the country. What an account they gave me of the family life so often found in our Scotch farms! The indifference of the masters, the consequent ignorance, brutality, and moral filth of the servants—the atrocious selfishness of the whole thing! I have the poorest possible opinion of the morality, the common decency that is too frequently observed on the farms of Scotland. As Dr. Chalmers said of------so I may say of a mass of our agriculturists—they are a set of galvanised Divots.' ["Divot" is an expressive Scotch word for a turf—sod.]

"... There is a great talk about education. Well, I would prefer what is foolishly called 'secular education' (as if all truth was not from God, and therefore according to His will) to none. Put why not religious instruction, if 'religious education' is too glorious a thing to aspire after. Surely the facts of the Bible, what it records and says (whatever value individuals may attach to them), should be given to our children? I think that the facts of Mahommedanism and even Brahminism, as well as those of Greek and Roman mythology, should be given to the citizens of a great nation which rules millions believing in both. How much more the facts of the Bible ! As for the Shorter Catechism, I would not wish it taught in schools, or any catechism or abstract dogmatic teaching. Give me the alleged facts! I shall then have the skeletons which I can through the Spirit quicken into a great army!

"The ignorance of some critics on Scripture is wonderful! There is just as much bigotry, narrowness, and fanaticism in sceptics as in Christians. I have often marvelled at the ignorance of writers against the Bible in regard to facts, or as to what enlightened theologians have written.

"I don't believe one fact narrated in Scripture will be found, in the end, adverse to, but in profound harmony with science, reason, conscience, history, and common sense.

"Narrow-minded theologians have been the greatest enemies to the gospel. They are sincere, pious, devoted, but often conceited, self-willed, and ignorant, making their shibboleths inspiration. Pious women, good souls, have also played into the hands of infidels, and done them much service.

"Ignorant missionaries of the revival and extreme Calvinistic school have been great barriers in the way of the gospel in India.

"Why is it that 'liberal' Churchmen don't work? Why don't they take up missions, tract and other societies? They leave these to many old wives. The good and wise men among the 'Evangelicals' would be thankful for their aid."

"March 11th.—I have been astounded by a most influential member of the Church saying to me, 'What is it to me whether Christ worked miracles or rose from the dead! We have got the right idea of God through Him. It is enough, that can never perish!' And this truth is like a flower which has grown from a dunghill of lies and myths! Good Lord, deliver me from such conclusions! If the battle has come, let it; but before God. I will fight it with those only, be they few or many, who believe in a risen, living Saviour.

"This revelation of the influence of surface criticism has thrown me back immensely upon all who hold fast by an objective revelation. Nothing can possibly move me from Jesus Christ, the living Saviour, the Divine Saviour, the Atoning Saviour, whatever be the philosophy of that atonement. I fear, yet fear not, a great battle with all forms of Antichrist."

"April 6.—If the Church of Scotland will relax her formula, improve her worship, by using a liturgy as well as extempore prayer, prescribe a regular course of Scripture lessons for reading in Church, have good music and organs if need be, no patronage, a more careful superintendence of men, as was done by the old superintendents, establish a Central Sustentation Fund to support and stimulate Home Mission work—then we may be stronger than ever. "We must be the Church of evangelical freedom and progress.

" ... If the sorrows of Christ, were the necessary results of His relationship to God and man, must they not continue? Why not, but in a form consistent with and modified by His present glorified and triumphant state?

"Our heaven is not a selfish one. It is sympathy with Christ. A part of its glory may be noble suffering such as a wise and a good man would prefer inconceivably to the spiritual self-indulgence of golden harps and enjoyment.

"Then cometh the end! When? But until then—what? What of the wicked? What of their education beyond the grave? What of the mission of the Church to them? May not our Foreign Mission last in the next world? What if tremendous self-sacrifice will be demanded of the Church to save the wicked, in every case where that is morally possible, and the death of Christ for sinners be repeated in principle?

"O blessed God! How beautiful is that blue sky seen through my small study window! What glory in Thy clouds? What calm and peace above this world of battle and of blood!

"We are made for society. God has implanted the social instinct in us, but the only bond of society is unselfishness."

From Sir Arthur Helps:—
"Council Office, 1870.

"You are a very foolish man in one thing; and, as a sincere friend it is my duty to tell you so. I have noticed this error in you more than once. You are by nature, and you cannot help yourself, however much you may try to fork Mrs. Nature out, an eloquent man in talk as in speaking.

"The good talk of others excites you, and you heartily respond to it.

"People never like you better than when you do so respond. And then, afterwards, you have qualms of conscience and worry yourself by saying", 'Was I not too tempestuous?'

"No, you were not; you were never more agreeable. I must, as a true friend, drive this silly notion out of your head.

"For example, the other day that clever Saturday reviewer who sat next to me was your most dire opponent. He fired arrows into you, sharp arrows. You went on, never minding. With the arrows sticking in your breast, you went on thundering at him, and being perfectly unconscious of the adherent shafts.

"Now that reviewer went away with me, and he expressed the most affectionate admiration for you.

"I declare to you, that vehement as you are (and I love your vehemence), I never heard you say a discourteous thing to your opponent whether he were present or absent, and the latter is by far the greater merit.

"Never again talk to me about repentance in this matter. Sometimes I think you arc too merciful to your opponents."

To Principal Shairp :—
"April 23rd. 1870.

"Matthew Arnold is good, but I do not think that the inspiration, in any honest sense, of the Apostles is to be set aside and their testimony as to fact and dogma to be criticised as one would a lecture of Jowett or a volume of Rénan. He jumps also too rapidly from the position of not seeing a statement as true to that of rejecting it as if untrue, rather than to wait for light. I see also a tendency to deal with a spiritual machinery of motive, law, conscience, will, to the exclusion of a living personal God, just as men are doing with machinery of law in the natural world. But I did not mean to write an article. I believe the Bible from Genesis to Revelation will be recognized more and more as a revelation chosen and approved of by God, as the best possible, just as true science increases in breadth, unity, and depth. I despise and abhor that self-indulgence of whim, and measuring everything by the agreeable. I'd rather sweep chimneys and bo a man, than a king and be a spoon."

To Mrs. Macleod:—
"Balmoral, May, 1870.

"Yesterday was a day of battle and of triumph and no mistake for my friends the evil 'speerits.' Through the ignorance of that wretched ' Boots' I was kept hanging about the Perth platform from 12 noon-day, till 11.45 p.m. Think of it if you can, sleeping, walking, yawning, smoking, groaning, smiling and abusing! A train leaves Aberdeen at 3 a.m. while the Queen is here. I got it. Messenger's carriage full, of course. Had to hire another. Arrived here at 6 a.m. Have slept since, and breakfasted in my own room. Seen no one. Tired, but have been worse.

"On opening my bag found hair-brushes and comb left behind! Of course. Oh these wee deevils!"

To Rev. A. Clerk, LL.D.:—

"That early school of Campbeltown—boys first and lads afterwards—up to college days has had a deep effect on me. I am amazed as I think of the reckless and affectionate abandon with which I threw myself into it! My slap-dash manner and words are its result, and will stick to me more or less all my life."

To the Same on the death of a very dear son:—
"Glasgow, 1870.

".... I trust you and Jessie realise the truth of Adie's life and love to you all. He is not unless he remembers, and as he does he loves. I always think of him as received by his numerous relations, grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts and uncles, and his little brother grown up and feeling so thoroughly at home, and rejoicing in life and in hope, and sustained by a great faith in the hope of meeting you all, and in you all pleasing God on earth as the highest of all. I preached lately on death in the light of Christ coming for us and taking us to Himself, and on heaven as a place prepared for us, i.e., adapted in every detail to the feelings, associations, &c, of human beings, young and old, cultivated and ignorant. All this is necessarily bound up with the fact that He who was a child, as well as a man, who lived among and loved such persons as ourselves, must build, furnish, and adorn the house in a way suitable to all the members of His own family—the dear bairns most of all, for them He took to His own heart."

His summer quarters were fixed for this season at Java Lodge, in the Island of Mull, not far from the celebrated ruins of Duart Castle. The view from the coast was superb, including, what was to him of unfading interest—the hills of Morven and distant Fiunary, the scene of his earliest and happiest associations.

From his Journal :.—
"Java Lodge, July 17, 1870.

"The Assembly—for I must go back in my brief record of events— passed off well. Its characteristic was its treatment of questions chiefly bearing on the practical life of the Church. The Patronage question, though carried by a large majority, did not excite much enthusiasm; first, because there was no great hope of Government taking it up unless a strong political pressure was brought to bear upon it—this was not likely from the influence of political Dissenters on the elections in Scotland;—and, secondly, should it be carried, we felt no great security for better ministers being appointed than now, when the people have it practically all their own way, checked by Patronage. But the resolution of the Assembly put us in a better position with the country. Dr. Cook, almost the only statesman we have, acted a very unselfish and patriotic part, seeking the good of the Church, and not a party triumph.

"I spoke on Patronage, Christian Life, Home Missions, and India. I published my sermon given at the opening of the Assembly. But how can I publish as I preach?

"I have this moment heard that France has declared war against Prussia. It is awful to think of the thousands who are on this quiet Sunday, here all peace, marching to wounds and death. The Lord Jesus is over all!' This is an end of the Napoleon dynasty, and an end of Rome for the Pope! So much for the dogma of the Infallibility.

"The Emperor is mad ! He must fail. I argue that the French dare not cross the Rhine at Strasburg, as the Prussians will advance from Coblentz and Maintz—these being magnificent bases of operation—and they will thus outflank the French, and compel them to keep to Metz as their centre. They are outnumbered, and must fail.

"August 10.—Victory, victory for Prussia! ( Woerth). We shall have the grand battle east of Metz. If the French gain, by dividing the Prussians, what then? It would be but momentary. To cross the Rhine is not impossible. But the French are outnumbered, and will receive a terrible smash! They will fall back on Paris, Paris will revolt, Napoleon will abdicate, and in three weeks be, with his family, in London. There will be a Provisional Government. All will be confusion. The Lord reigns!

"Sunday, 27th.—What a glorious day! I preached on Missions. These days of preaching make the little Highland churches the monuments to me of the most happy days of my sojourn. Never did the landscape appear more magnificent; the shadows and lights upon the hills were unearthly sheen. In glory, a rainbow rose—for there was no arch—up from the Buachaill Etive, and was such as the Shekinah may have appeared to the tribes who from afar looked on the encampment of Israel. The sea crisp with sparkling waves; the sky intensely blue, in great spaces between huge masses of cumuli clouds, with some more sombre; the distant hills were near and clear, as if seen through crystalline air; and then, the lights upon them! bright rays lighting up, below, yellow cornfields, and green pastures ten miles off, and above, sometimes a bare scuir or deep corrie, or broad green hill-back, with heavy dark shadows slowly pursuing the sunlight over hill and dale. I beheld Morven along with Aunt Jane. We gazed together on the distant church, beside which as holy a family lie interred as I have ever known. I saw the trees which mark Samuel Cameron's house, where I spent such happy years, and received an education, the education of my beloved ones in Fiunary included, such as has moulded my whole life. I enjoyed one of those seasons of intense and rare blessing when tears come we cannot tell why, except from a joy that rises in silent prayer and praise to the Creator and Redeemer.

"Dear Dr. Craik is dead, and his funeral sermon has this day been preached. His illness and death—how real have both been to me! He was a good man, a great strength to the Church, and a most sincere friend, and I mourn his loss.

"Blessed be God for the gathering in and eternal union of His people. Our friends in heaven remain the same persons, with all their sinless peculiarities. They therefore remember us, and love us more than ever. Are they interested in us ! perhaps concerned about us? Why not! The joy of the redeemed is not a selfish joy. I would despise the saint who enjoyed himself in a glorious mansion singing psalms, and who did not wish his joy disturbed by sharing Christ's noble and grand care about the world. So long as man, and my dear ones are in 'the current of the heady fight,' I don't wish to be ignorant of them on the ground that it would give me pain and mar my joy! I prefer any pain to such joy! I cannot think it possible that my heaven there shall be different from my heaven here, which consists in sympathy with Christ. If He has a noble anxiety, limited by perfect faith in what is going on upon earth; if human sin is a reality to to Him, if His life there as well as here is by faith in the Father; if He watches for the end, and feels human sin and sorrow, and rejoices in the good, and feels the awfulness of the wrong, yet ever has deep peace in God; why should not His people have the joy of sharing this Godlike burthen of struggling humanity? 'Then cometh the end.' But the end is not yet. The final day of judgment may be millions of years hence. Until then the whole Church may have its education of labour and teaching continued in mighty ventures of self-sacrifice, and in ten thousand ways put to the proof, in order to improve those talents of faith, self-denial, hope, acquired on earth. This might imply suffering; why not? Many picture a heaven which is a reflection of their own selfish nature. ' Don't trouble us;' 'Tell us no bad news;' 'We are saved, let others drown;' 'What is the earth to us?' 'It is past; give us fine music, fine scenery, and let the earth— shall I write it?—go to the devil!' That is not my heaven! I wish to know, 1 wish to feel, I wish to share Christ's sympathies, until the end comes.

"The idea that Dr. Craik no longer cares about Missions to India, would give me a poor idea of a heaven of sympathy with Jesus Christ."

To Mrs. Drummond, Megginch Castle:—
"Isle of Mull, 27th August, 1870.

"I am in retreat, banished to a spot beyond space, and where time merges into eternity. Posts are rare. Their news is post mortem—dead—belonging to a past world history ! Your kind note arrived here long after Dean Stanley had become Archbishop, and the Established Church destroyed. To have met him in your house would have been a true delight to me, but I was and am still in Mull, and where Mull is, no one knows except Sir Roderick Murchison, who knows everything, and he only guesses about it; so I can only express my great regret at having been so far away, and thus deprived of such good company. There was a foolish report spread here this morning about a chance whaler, that a war had broken out in Europe, that the French had taken Berlin, and, after landing at Aberdeen, were marching on Glasgow. If this is true, I won't leave Mull until peace is proclaimed; but if the news proves a canard, as I think quite possible, I shall return this week to Glasgow, which I hope to reach six weeks after the world, according to John dimming, is consumed! "

To the Rev. Thomas Young:—
"August, 1870.

"As to sudden death I never could pray to be delivered from it, but only to be ready for it. God alone who knows our frame and temperament, knows by what death we can best glorify Him. Sudden death may to many be a great mercy."

To A. Strahan, Esq":—
"Java Lodge, August, 1870.

"What an evening of glory! The lights, the hills, the castled promontory are as of old, and years too have fled, and Ossian is old also.

"What a dinner awaited you! Flags flying, chickens delicate as sonnets of Miss----------, vegetables as many as the articles on----------, and far more digestible. Champagne with a brilliancy and bouquet that rivalled the papers of the editor, rice pudding as pure and wholesome as------'s sermons.

While every hill looked down, and every coney opened its eyes, and the fish swam and the ocean murmured, and the red deer got white, all with excitement to see—what? Your arrival that arrived not, Oh, it was sad, sad!'

From his Journal:—

"War! How strange that war has formed the subject of our oldest poems, paintings, and histories, that it is at this moment as terrible as ever! What does it mean 1 How can we account for its existence, its apparent necessity in the kingdom of God 1 It does not imply any personal hate whatever, no more than the execution of a malefactor does cruelty and love of blood. The bravest soldier is associated with the gentleman, and highest chivalry. It seems to me that lawful war, as distinct from war of passion, originates in what appears to be a social Jaw. That as God wishes mankind to be divided into nations smaller or greater, and as no nation ought to exist in which there is not government, and as government implies power to protect life and property and enforce its laws, so must the more powerful govern for the greatest good of the greatest number. Who the most powerful are can be determined only by war, unless the weak give in. It is by this law of the weak giving way to the strong, by this sifting process of war, that our clans have been absorbed into a small nation, and small nations into a great one, strong enough to hold its own. Any race, or any people have, therefore, a perfect abstract right to assert its superiority, or independence, if it is superior; but war alone can determine that, if the fact is disputed. In the long-run as a rule, each successive great advance in the world's civilization and progress has been the result of war. Battles are great sacrifices preceding resurrections. What man designs is one thing, and what God brings to pass is another. This great war is really to determine not whether Louis Napoleon is to be Emperor, but whether the Latin or Teutonic race is to be strongest in Europe and the world!

"As to 'the inventions for murdering people'—this is all nonsense. Every contribution made by science to improve instruments of war makes war shorter, and in the end less terrible to human life, and human progress. Never was the ameliorating influences of education and Christian benevolence more visible than in this war. The more that kingdoms are much about the same strength, the less likely is war. And, by the way, it is an index of a time when one state will respect its neighbour, that the tendency of all improvements in guns, &c, is to make defence in an increasing ratio more powerful than attack. But the ultimate defence must be in man, for nations are really strong not in machinery but in man. Their manhood must alone or chiefly determine their freedom and independence.

'"Peace at any price' is but selfish indulgence at any price. Liberty and self-government at any-price! Life is of no value without freedom."

To A. Strahan, Esq. :—

"I so hate those eternal love stories, this everlasting craving after a sweetheart! I wish they would marry in the first chapter, and be done with it. Is there nothing to interest human beings but marriage? What a fuss to make about those two when in love!"

To A. Strahan, Esq :—

"Whatever may be my fault, it does not consist in my chariot-wheels tarrying; as the following statement will prove:—

"Friday, 31st September.—Left Glasgow for Aberdeen at nine, p.m., arrived at Aberdeen at three, a.m.

"Saturday, 1st October.—Left for Balmoral. Dined with Her Majesty.

"October 2.—Preached a sermon on 'War and God's Judgments,' which the Queen asks me to publish, and to dedicate to herself, as soon as possible —not a line having been written.

"October 3.—Joined my wife in Perthshire, dead beat.

"October 4.—Rested my chariot-wheels and greased them.

"October 5.—Returned to Glasgow, and answered twenty letters; wrote long Minutes for Sealkote and Calcutta; had prayer-meeting in the evening.

"October 6.—Commanded by the Prince of Wales, and left at seven, a.m., for Dunrobin, 220 miles off. Dined at half-past nine, left the drawing-room at half-past one, a.m., and smoking-room at half-past three. Left per train at six, a.m., and never halted five minutes, being past time, until I reached Glasgow at half-past six, p.m.

"October 7.—A weary Saturday, to prepare two new sermons for Sunday amidst manifold interruptions.

"October 8.—Preached twice.

"October 9.—Again dead beat, and went to see my old mother the first time for six weeks.

"October 10.—Returned, and received a letter from a patient friend, asking. 'Why tarry thy chariot-wheels?' !!!!

"Bother the chariot-wheels!

"I am as nervous as an old cat."

To A. Strahan, Esq :—

"I am more anxious about Good Words than perhaps even you are. It is one of my heaviest hourly worries, how little I have been able to do it. As a public man I am worked from 6 a.m. till 10 p.m., and if a man must be occupied twenty-four hours in killing rats or planting carrots it is practically the same to him, as far as time is concerned, as if he were attacking Paris."

To his Eldest Son :—
"1st December, 1870

"I was very glad, my boy, to hear from you, and that you have told me so well and fully all you are about. I am quite satisfied with everything, and pray God that you may be able to form those habits of study and of mastering difficulties, and of persevering in what may be uncongenial but necessary for you, all of which is of such importance. You are, in fact, now moulding your whole future life. May it be worthy ! Never, never forget your daily dependence on God and His interest in you. The Stockport panic might have had a fearful ending, but it was stopped in time— 3,000, three stories up, and but one stair of outlet, with the panic of fire! [He refers to a panic which took place while he was preaching at Stockport on behalf of his Sunday School Union, when his presence of mind and calmness did much to preserve order.]

"I am giving the last corrections to the sermon on war. When you read it, it will appear very simple to you, and easily written. But it may encourage you to know that this is the seventh time, at least, I have corrected it, and each time just as fully as the previous one. So difficult do I find it to write with tolerable accuracy. Begin soon! "

To Mrs. Warrick, New York
"Glasgow, December 15th, 1870

"I heard all about your great sorrow, all those pleasing yet harrowing details which make one realise the whole scene. Such an affliction is to us a profound mystery. This seems to me the lesson taught by the Book of Job, for Job never found out in this world why he had been afflicted, although he knew that it was not because of his individual sins (and he was right), but in order to bring out the reality of his life in God; yet he was left in darkness, and although sons and daughters were given him, the old dear ones were seen no more. And there are like times of darkness in which the servant of the Lord can see no light, but must be cast on the bare arm of God for strength, and on the heart of God for peace. Yet we can never be in such pitch darkness as Job was, now that we see God's own beloved Son as the man of sorrows ; and in Him have the assurance given us of a Father who will ever act as a Father even in sending grief, who never acts arbitrarily, but who appeals to the heart of the most tender and loving parent to judge from his own truest affection towards his children, as to what He who is perfect love, feels towards themselves. Faith in this God is our only refuge and strength in times of dark and mysterious sorrow.

"I am utterly powerless to help------at Chicago. I never directly or indirectly asked a favour small or great from court or government, and never will. I am tongue-tied and hand-tied; having so much intercourse with both, this seems strange, but it is a fact."


Return to Book Index Page


 


This comment system requires you to be logged in through either a Disqus account or an account you already have with Google, Twitter, Facebook or Yahoo. In the event you don't have an account with any of these companies then you can create an account with Disqus. All comments are moderated so they won't display until the moderator has approved your comment.

comments powered by Disqus

Quantcast