€<^^ PRINCETON, N. J. 'fe *^^ 3 ^A ^^^>::i R-^ ^MMm. ^ ^^ ^ ^^:?■ / MEMORIALS OF JOHN MCLEOD CAMPBELL, D.D. M E M O R I A L S^^^Si?^ i* APR 25 1910 OF . ^, -.,_-, JOHN M^LEOd'^CAMPBELL, D.D. BEING SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. EDITED BY HIS SON, The rev. DONALD CAMPBELL, MA. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. WITH PORTRAIT ENGRAVED BY C. H. JEENS. MACMILLAN AND CO. 1877. All rights reseivi'd. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER I. iSoo— 1S25. Boyhood at Kilninver — Glasgow University — Expeditions in the High- land$ — Letters to his Sister — Occupations while a Preacher- Letters from 1 82 1 to 1825, Pages I— 16 CHAPTER IL 1825— 1827. Beginning of Ministry at Row — Resolution not to join a Party — Influence of pastoral experience on teaching — Friendship with Story and M'Leod — Letters of these years, . . . 17 — 48 CHAPTER III. 1828— 1831. Progress of Thought and Teaching during 1828 — Becomes Acquainted with Edward Irving — Conversations in Edinburgh and London — Letters, April, 1828, to January, 1830 — Outline of Proceedings in Church Courts — Letters, July, 1830, to March, 1831 — Speech before Synod, ........ 49—86 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. 1831 -1834. Farewell to Row— He Preaches in Argyllshire and Skye— Letters, July, 1831, to December, 1832— He Settles in Glasgow—Declines to Join the "London Church "—Death of Irving— Letters of 1833 and 1834, 87-128 CHAPTER V. 1835-1843. Mr. Campbell's Health Fails— He Discontinues Preaching— Residence in Paris — His Marriage — Letters of these Years — Carlyle's French Revolution — Erskine and Chalmers — The Disruption Controversy — Death of Thomas Erskine Campbell, . . . 129- 165 CHAPTER VL 1843— 1848. Death of Dr, Campbell — Correspondence with Mr. E. Bickersteth — Letters referring to Dr. Campbell's death — Letters to Mr. J. Campbell, Mrs. Macnabb, and others — Tours in Belgium and Italy —Articles of the Church of England- Reaction against Calvinism in Scotland, ........ 166 — 211 CHAPTER VIL 1 849- 1 853. Publication of Christ the Bread of ZZ/c"- Letters to Mr. D. Campbell, Miss Macnabb, Mr. Erskine, and others — Life of Dr. Chalmers — Scott's Appointment to Owen's College — Lord Ashley, Maurice, and Kingsley — Disraeli and Bentinck— Carlyle's Life of Sterling — Bunsen's Hippolytus — Maurice at King's College, . 212—259 CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER VIII. 1 854- 1 85 7. Mr. Campljell writes his Book t)n the Atonement — Letters Kcifening to its Publication — Letters from Arran — His Estimate of A. J. Scott — Letters to Mr. Erskine, Miss Duncan, and others Ferrier's Mtia- /.^^'j-zV^f— Spiritualism — The Indian Mutiny, . 260-305 CIIAl'TER IX. 1858- 1S60. Death of Mr. Campbell's Brother — Illness in London - He is obliged to give up Preaching — Letters to Mr. A. Macmillan, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Maurice, and others — Mansel's BaDtptoii LcctJires — Death of Mr. Story — The Bishop of Brechin on the Eucharist — Death of Mr. Macnabb- -Visit to England — Retrospect — Letter from Rev. D. T. Vaughan, 306—340 MEMORIALS. MEMORIALS. CHAPTER I. \ 1800 — 1825. _^^ Boyhood at Kilninver — Glasgow University — Expeditions in the High- lands — Letters to his Sister — Occupations while a Preacher — Letters from 1821 to 1825. It is intended that these volumes should contain a record of the life and work of John M'Leod Campbell, drawn from his own correspondence. The letters will be left, as much as possible, to speak for themselves; and the editor's task will be accomplished, if he succeeds in placing before the reader so much narrative or explanation as may serve as introduc- tion to each of the sections into which the correspondence is naturally divided. The work of Mr. Campbell's life began with his induction to the parish of Row, in September, 1825; and the main interest of his correspondence begins at the same point. His earlier letters have indeed an interest of their own ; but few of them are suited for publication. It will be enough to indicate briefly the course of his early life, and to select a few passages from his letters, which may shed light on the time of preparation for his future work. He was born on the 4th of May, 1800, at Ardmaddy VOL. I. A 2 MEMORIALS. chap. i. House, near Kilninver, Argyllshire ; and his boyhood was spent in the manse of Kilninver, of which parish his father, the Rev. Donald Campbell, was minister. From 1811 to 1820 he was a student of the University of Glasgow; and he completed his course in Edinburgh. In 182 1 he was licensed as a preacher; and four years later he was ap- pointed to the parish of Row. He owed the beginnings of his education to his father, who was an excellent Latin scholar. Born in Skye in 1758, he had been educated at the University of Aberdeen, at the time when the well-known Dr. George Campbell was both Principal of Marischal College and Professor of Divinity. He carried with him from college an intimate knowledge of the principal Latin poets ; and many pas- sages from them remained fresh in his memory to the last. In theology he belonged, like his distinguished teacher, to the school which honoured the names and studied the works of Archbishop Tillotson and Samuel Clarke ; and his sympathies were in the main ■\\-ith that " moderate " party in the Church of Scotland, which in his youth included the names of Principal Robertson, and other distinguished men. He had married, in 1798, Mary, youngest daughter of M'Leod of Raasay ; but his married life was of short dura- tion. In April, 1806, he was left a widower with three children, of whom John M'Leod was the eldest. Circum- stances combined with natural disposition to make the relation of father and son in this case one of pecuhar tenderness. After his father's death Mr. Campbell received a letter from his old college friend, Mr. Penney, which con- tained these words: "Your dear father, being in some sense both father and mother to you, naturally concentrated in himself the feelings due to both, and possessed from you the affection which, in its peculiar strength, a mother generally claims." 1800-25. KILNINVER AND GLASGOW. 3 Much of the love of natural beauty which characterized Mr. Campbell may be traced to the situation of his early home. He used to recall with pleasure the fact that his boyhood had been spent on a hill-top ; and in one of his latest letters he compared and contrasted the view from the home of his old age on the Gareloch, with that which he knew so well, in his early years, at the mouth of Loch Feochan. He spoke of " that outflow to and inflow from the Atlantic" which he had enjoyed in sunshine and in storm : " the golden light of the bright west making the ten miles between us and Mull 'one sea of gold like unto glass,' or, in stormy weather, the waves rolling in from the Atlantic, with all the space between us and America to swell through, breaking on the points of Kerrera." For nine years (1811-1820) his winters were spent in Glasgow, and his summers at Kilninver. There is not much that need be noticed in his course at college. When barely fifteen he gained his first prize in the Logic Class, which was then taught by Professor Jardine, of whom he afterwards spoke as his intellectual father. Like many others, he looked back to the Logic Class as marking an epoch in his mental growth. Next winter, in the Moral Philosophy Class, he received the commendation of the Professor for an essay, in which he had ventured to argue in favour of conclusions different from those which had been adopted in the lec- tures. ^ His summers were diversified by expeditions in sailing- boats along the western coast. In 181 6 he went with his father and brother to visit their cousins the M'Leods at the Manse of Morven — that "Highland Parish" which has been so well described. "We spent the forenoons," he wrote to his sister, " in walking about, and seeing the beauties of the ^ The point in question was this : Is Conception to be regarded as a primary faculty, liice Sensation, Memory, and Judgment ? The young essayist maintained that it was. 4 MEMORIALS. chap. i. place, and in delightful chit-chat. The evenings were de- voted to dancing; the night, by which I mean several hours after supper, to singing songs." Ne.xt summer he went farther north, and visited Skye and Raasay. "What a world of cousins have I been introduced to ! and many of them friends of whose existence I formerly scarcely knew anything. Raasay is one of the most beautiful places on the face of the earth. A beautiful house, and the most sublime view of an assemblage of Skye hills opposite." A generation had passed since Dr. Johnson and Boswell visited that hospitable island. The great Englishman's visit was long remembered ; and among other incidents it was related that he had given a lesson in reading to the youngest child, afterwards Mrs. Campbell, Kilninver. During his last three years at Glasgow University he was a student in the Divinity Hall. He had several friends during his college life, of whom he used afterwards to speak; some of them English Nonconformists ; and among these there were some whose opinions differed much from the prevailing Scotch theolog>'. But his most intimate friend was William Penney, ^ whose acquaintance he first made when they were competitors for the same prize in the Logic Class. "He lightened," says Mr. Campbell in one letter, "the pressure of the hour of study, and in- creased the pleasure of the hour of enjoyment." They read together " new poems and those old ones which are always new:" Byron and Shakespeare being their chief favourites. Near the beginning of 1819 his sister went to India with her cousin Lady Hastings; and some passages from his letters to her may complete this brief record of his life up till the end of his time at Glasgow University. ^ Afterwards Lord Kinloch, one of the judges of the Court of Session. iSoo-2 5. THE RADICALS IN 1820. 5 Glasgow, January loth, 1S19. Not to be very sad in sitting down to write on the subject of your going to India is impossible ; nor will I, my darling Jean, attempt to disguise my feelings in thinking of this separation. Within the last ten days a great change has taken place in the foundation on which I raised many of my hopes for future happiness ; and now I must put off for a time the expectation of seeing you well and happy, and endeavour to satisfy myself with knowing that you are so. All this I calculated so little upon that I can scarcely believe that it is so. . . .1 know how much your fond heart will be wrung at parting with your father and brothers ; and I know that you, as well as I, have indulged in many joyful anticipations in the prospect of your going to Kilninver next summer. It is however our duty, my dear Jean, to do what appears right whatever struggle it may cost us. India is not to you that land of strangers that it is to many who go there ; you go with friends, and will be welcomed by friends when you arrive there. January 25th, 1S19. God bless you, my dearest sister. He will bless you if you fear him — if you ever return with pleasure to the pages of your Bible. It will be the sweetest memorial of the Manse of Kilninver. How the soul turns to Him when it feels the mutability of every ground of promised joy ! Kilninver, May 12th, 1820, Last winter was a most extraordinary one in Glasgow. You are of course acquainted with the radicals as the cause of a great bustle and even very great fears in all our great manufacturing towns for some time past. The radicals are very numerous about and in Glasgow ; and the large body of military which it was found necessary to keep constantly in 6 MEMORIALS. chap. i. town, and for some time to keep almost constantly under arms, gave Glasgow very much the appearance of a town in the vicinity of some seat of war. . . . There were about the beginning of April eight or nine days of constant alarm; and you could not go out without meeting small bodies of the hussars or of yeomanry going out on secret expeditions, with perhaps two or three civil officers and a justice of peace in a postchaise along with them. One day, a Wednesday, was particularly fearful. It was the Wednesday after the treasonable proclamation, and people's minds were easily alarmed. About t^vo in the afternoon a report came into town, and was in an instant conducted from one mind to another, and pervaded Glas- gow like a shock of electricity, that the radicals were in full march from Paisley. I was on the street when I heard it, and walking with a fellow-student of this town who belonged to the sharpshooters, and consequently hurried home to arm. I accompanied him and found his mother in the greatest terror, asking if they were near the town. . . . We endeavoured to remove her fears by assuring her that it was mere report ; but the tremendous clatter of the Dumbarton- shire yeomanr}', galloping about the streets with their immense plough-horses, seemed to her to speak more convincingly. And certainly the bustle was most appalling, — those enor- mous brutes galloping from every quarter to the place of rendezvous. The militarj' were soon all in readiness for the radicals, but the radicals did not choose to come. My friend and his comrades were dismissed with orders to assemble at four in the morning ; commands which were not quite so pleasing in Glasgow at that season as they are in India, I suppose, at every season. I dined with him, and in the evening at eight I went home to my studies, and he went to the Political Economy ; and all seemed quiet save that it was a most terrible night of wind and rain. At nine some fine sentence, I suppose, of 1800-25. GAELIC DICTIONARY. 7 my essay was spoiled by the bugle sound to arms, which was repeated and repeated, and came to the ear from every quarter of the town. I did pity the poor fellows who were summoned, but they answered with the utmost alacrity, and in a few minutes you heard the yeomanry scampering away. Next morning I learned that the whole volunteer sharpshooters had been on duty all night, and parading the streets in every direction. So much for the history of a day in radical times. This is not, however, a fair sample, as this was the worst day in town. Your father was rather alarmed about me; but I never felt the slightest degree of personal fear, though I own I really did fear that the radicals would have the boldness to encounter at least one attack of the military, and of course leave a number of themselves, poor deluded people, on the field. Part of the summer of 1820 was spent at the Manse of Dundonald in Ayrshire. The minister of that parish. Dr. M'Leod, was engaged in compiling a dictionary of the Gaelic language, under the auspices of the Highland Society. For this work he required assistance ; and he was glad to obtain the services of Mr. Campbell. " The great inducement held out was the opportunity of improving myself in my know- ledge of the Gaelic, which, of course, I could study nowhere else with the same advantages." " I am quietly seated (he writes in July) at Dundonald, engaged with the Dr. in ex- tracting honey from the many cabbage roses — or any other large flower you please — with which we are surrounded, hav- ing the aspect of folio dictionaries of Welsh, Armoric, Irish, Persic, Hebrew, &c." The winter of 1820-21 was spent in Edinburgh, where he completed his course as a student of Divinity. It is interest- ing to note the fact, that, while he neglected none of the prescribed studies of the Divinity Hall, he was bent upon acquiring as much knowledge as possible of subjects of more 8 MEMORIALS. chap. i. general interest. Even so early as 1817 he voluntarily added Natural History, Political Economy, and French to his theo- logical studies ; and in subsequent winters he attended lec- tures in Chemistry, Anatomy, and, I think, Mineralogy. It was not till he became engaged in the actual work of a parish that all his energies were concentrated upon subjects of re- ligious thought; and the freshness and thoroughness with which he afterwards applied himself to theological questions was probably due, in part, to the wide range of his early studies, and his familiarity with the principles of scientific re- search. It was thus that he was led so soon to ask himself, not, What is the doctrine which has the authority of great names ? but rather. What doctrine agrees best with the Scrip- tures and the facts of human experience ? When he had completed the course of preparatory study, and received license as a preacher from the Presbytery of Lorn, the question of his settlement in ministerial work be- gan to press upon him. Even so soon as December, 1820, Principal Baird (of the University of Edinburgh) had shown him a letter with reference to an appointment then vacant in London. It came from the Secretary of the Caledonian Asylum, Hatton Garden ; and stated that the Directors desired to receive candidates for the ministry of the church connected with that institution. It is remarkable that the Principal should have been ready to recommend so young a man. Mr. Campbell wrote to ask his father's advice : " How the cares of life are begun to press upon me ! There are many considerations, in regard to which I find it difficult to use the scales. But I leave it to your nicer and more ex- perienced hand." His father's reply has not been preserved ; but, anyhow, nothing came of the Principal's proposal. About a year later Edward Irving was appointed to the church in Hatton Garden. How different would have been the course of both lives, if Campbell had gone to London instead of Irving ! 1800-35. TIME OF PREPARATION. 9 In the summer of 1822 he determined to go to England not, however, in the capacity of a preacher, but for the pur pose of studying at Oxford. But he found that there were obstacles in his way which he had not anticipated ; and, rather than take an oath which seemed to imply disloyalty to the Church of Scotland, he reluctantly abandoned his " dream of Oxford." In August of the next year he preached on three Sundays at Rothesay ; and it seemed possible that he might be appointed assistant and successor to Dr. M'Lea, who was " old and frail." Lord Bute, however, thought that the charge required a man of more experience. The place had had attractions for him : " it was within a day's journey of Kilninver ; while the steamboats to Glasgow gave it almost the advantages of a town living as to books." But he bore the disappointment well ; glad to be ' longer a free man,' and hoping to be better furnished for the work, before he undertook the charge of a parish. This hope was, no doubt, fulfilled : the two years which intervened before his appointment to Row were a useful time of preparation. In Edinburgh he attended lectures ; read diligently ; preached occasionally in Dr. Muir's church ; and saw something of the society which at that time included some distinguished names. Sir William Hamilton, then a young man lately come from Oxford, was lecturing on Uni- versal History ; and Mr. Campbell found the lectures " very philosophic and enlightening." "Sir William's m.anner is rather bashful, but his utterance is good, and his style rather rhetorical ; while his matter displays a good deal of deep thinking." His reading included the principal Scotch writers on Philosophy, — Reid, Stewart, and Brown ; and Butler's Analogy was carefully studied. He also kept a book for all " general views " which occurred to him. London and Oxford had each had a place in his plans for the future: at last, in April, 1824, he accomplished a journey to England ; and his letters record some of the impres- lo MEMORIALS. _ ceap. I. sions which the new country made on the young Scotch preacher. In the summer of 1825 he had the prospect of being appointed to one or other of two parishes, Row and Dun- keld ; and for some time he was kept in suspense. " I feel (he writes in June) much more anxious as to the proper con- ducting of these matters than as to the result." Dunkeld would have had this advantage, that his knowledge of Gaelic would have been turned to account ; but although English only was used in the Row church, he was glad to hear that there were people in the parish to whom Gaelic would be most acceptable. On the 8th of September he was inducted to the parish of Row. The feelings with which he looked forward to his future work are recorded in a passage in a letter to his sister in India, which will be found at the end of this chapter. His sister had been married, in 1820, to Mr. James Macnabb of Arthurstone, Perthshire, and of the Bengal Civil Service. To his Sister. KiLNlNVER, November 2nd, 1821. Immediately after being at Arthurstone we came home from Edinburgh ; the meeting of Presbytery at which I was to pass my last examination and receive license being approaching. This meeting took place early in July. My part in the business of the day was to read two discourses (a lecture and a sermon) on subjects presented to me at a former meeting of Presbytery, and to bear an examination on Church History and Hebrew. I have now been for some months a preacher of the Gospel. In that time I have preached frequently and have had always the satisfaction of preaching to very attentive audiences. I have, however, been too long a hearer, and mingling with hearers, to flatter myself that the expression of the faces of those whom I have 1800-25. FIRST SERAION. 11 successively addressed was an index of the improvement their minds received from the words of the preacher. I did not preach the Sunday immediately after I received permission to do so, it being the Sacrament Sunday here ; and the concourse of people usual on such occasions would have given too much of the terrors of publicity to my first public appearance. I preached, however, the Sunday after. It was a strange feeling to enter the pulpit of the church in which I had so often sat as a schoolboy ; for the school, you remember, was taught then in the church. When I found it shut on myself and there was no retreating, it was painful and fearful to look on the anxiously expectant faces of my father's parishioners, all crowded in our small church to hear him preach whom some of them remembered as a lisping boy, at a date which to people of their time of life seemed but as yesterday. Every eye was fixed on me, and yet there was so much kindness and friendly interest mingled with the curiosity of the look that after the first moment it encouraged me. I knew that my father's parishioners wished to be pleased with his son ; that anything at all commendable would be dwelt upon by them; while anything that could not be praised would be ascribed to youth, inexperience, bash- fulness. I did not, hovfevex, possess itiy se If dwcing the whole service, and feel so much the consequent injustice to my discourse in regard to delivery that I could not, when I came out, get rid of the impression that I had completely dis- appointed expectation. It was not so, however, thanks to their indulgence ; and I even got much credit for speaking the Gaelic so well, which, from my having been so much out of the country, was more than they looked for. My memory is sufficiently good to admit of delivery without my papers at a very small expense of time in getting by heart, and I find that this gave me great command of the people's attention. 12 MEMORIALS. chap. i. To his brother-in-la'cv, Mr. Macnabb : Written after attending a Hhtsical Festival in Glasgmu. Greenock, 14th December, 1821. The first was God save the King, during the performance of which the whole house stood up, entering into it with a delightful enthusiasm. I believe the overtures were verj' fine, but I was not qualified to judge of them as wholes. I was, however, de- lighted with bits of them here and there. It was the vocal part of the feast that my palate relished most. Mrs. Salmon I first heard. I was delighted. Her voice was sweet, and seemed completely under her control ; every tone of it seemed drawn out like silk threads of a silvery white, on which you were content to allow your feelings hang, and with which you let them vibrate. Then came Braham. I was quite disappointed with him in the two first songs he sang. But the third from him was charming : " Mary from Castle Gary." I had no conception he would have sung a Scotch song with so much feeling or propriety of expression. Madame Gatalani was of the performers ; and this is what will cause me to look back with pleasure on the Glasgow Musical Festival, fifty years hence, if I shall be in the way of thinking of such things then. I was told she would astonish but not delight me. I certainly was never more astonished, but neither was I ever more, so much, delighted. The pleasing nature of every tone she utters strikes you at once. Whenever she opens her lips you hear a sound which, were it to fall on your ear in one of the most sequestered spots in the woods of America, while all the songsters of the grove warbled around you, would arrest and fix your attention, not because it came from a human being,- — for I suspect that would not occur to you, — but because it was in itself ab- stractly and absolutely musical. i8oo-2S. TESTS AT OXFORD. 13 To his Sister : After hearing of tlie death of her infant daughter. KiLNlNVER, April 12, 1822. Children are said to bind together the parents by new bonds of love, and it is delightful to think how your little Flora by her short life and by her death effected this. Hers was, indeed, a brief span ; and to the ordinary observer it may seem that she was taken away before she had served any of the purposes of her being : but, in reference to her- self, she came into life and entered on eternity ; and in re- ference to others, she has brought two human beings, whose happiness in life must depend chiefly on the feelings with which they regard one another, nearer to one another than they were previously, and made them more blessed in one another, as she has been the means of showing them one another's worth, and acquainting them with new regions of beauty and interest in one another's minds ;! while, departing, she has wafted with her to heaven an additional portion of the hearts of two of those who are bade to lay up for them- selves treasures in that place, and for whom the Redeemer is preparing an everlasting habitation in the mansions of bliss. Certainly for these purposes has my dear little niece lived and died. To the Sa}?ie. Arthurstone, Jany. 17, 1823. In summer last, having decided upon going up to Oxford in October, I was gathering some information that might be useful on the subject of the choice of a college, &c. It was then that I got introduced to Sir William Hamilton, — an Oxonian, now a professor in Edinburgh, — expecting some benefit to my studies at Oxford from his advice ; and in the course of conversation with him had a difficulty first suggested 14 MEMORIALS. chap. i. to me. He put it in this form : " Can you, are you aware, come back to the Scotch Church after being at Oxford ? " I answered that I never intended to leave it ; that I went to Oxford as a general student, not a student for the English Church. He answered that oaths were required which, as a Presbyterian clergj-man, I could not take, and that he suspected they would not be dispensed with. He was not, however, certain, having never asked to be excused. The result of his doubt was that, with the advice of Lord Banna- tyne and ray friend Principal Baird, I determined on going up in October and ascertaining, on the spot, whether they were really thus rigid. My illness in October prevented my acting on this plan ; but there was a friend of mine going up to study at Oxford, and he promised to make every inquiry as carefully as I could do for myself. He writes to me that, ere I become in any shape a student there, either by joining a college or the less rigid establishment of a hall^ I must kiss the gospels on the following oath : " I swear that the book of Common Prayer and of ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons containeth nothing in it contrary to the Word of God, and that it may be lawfully so used, and that I my- self will use the form in the said book prescribed in publick prayer and administration of the Sacraments, and none other." However easily I could admit the statement of the first part of this oath, — and, certainly, I could not have much hesi- tation in so doing, — I could never subscribe to the last part, as every Sunday that I preached in a Scotch pulpit I would be violating it. Thus, then, I awakened from my dream of Oxford. The English wells of knowledge, at least those dignified with the name of Universities, being thus sealed fountains to me, I had much pleasure in accompanying our father to Edinburgh with the prospect of drinking again where I had taken so many pleasant — sips, I must say, for I never was a hard student there. i8oo-25. APPOINTMENT TO ROW. 15 Glasgow, 6th May, 1S24. My Dearest Father, — I wrote you last from Chester, Friday night. Saturday we circumambulated the walls of that curious city, the last specimen of the towns of other days in the kingdom. . . . Monday morning we saw the three wonders of Liverpool, — the docks, the market, and the town buildings ; and then sailed. A little boister- ous the first night, but Tuesday we had a most delightful sail up ^he Firth, declaring a thousand times that we had seen nothing half so fine during all our wanderings. We were here to dinner Tuesday, and yesterday had the felicity to be of the party of his old students who gave the venerable old Jardine a dinner. It was the most soul- stirring sight I ever witnessed : two hundred and twenty of his old students, assembled from all ranks and all professions, to pay this tribute to their esteemed and revered intellectual father. The occasion was the close of his fiftieth and last session of teaching. Colonel Mure of Caldwell sat in the chair, — his oldest, i.e., first pupil, and Lord Glenorchy, one of his later ones, was croupier. KiLNlNVER, [September, 1825.] I have the comfort of telling you, my dearest sister, that I go to Row with all the guarantee of usefulness, which a most affectionate and cordial reception from all the people can give. I think I have also the guarantee of devoted purpose of faithful labouring ; and I have the kind wishes and the fervent prayers of many whose interest is no less of a professional than of a personal kind, who, while they desire to see me happy, would only be content to see me so in doing good. My dear and respected friend. Dr. Muir of Edinburgh, comes to introduce me, this being usually the office of a 1 6 MEMORIALS. chap. i. personal friend ; and, while 1 trust that his address may be blessed in preparing the people for my ministrations, I know it will have a powerfully strengthening effect on myself. Prin- cipal Baird also most kindly offered his services on this occasion, but I had previously arranged with Dr. Muir. Row is rather a populous parish, about 2,000 ; but more than half that number are gathered together in Helensburgh. By the time you receive this letter I shall be among them, speaking to them from the pulpit on the Sunday and on the week-days from house to house, after the example of Paul at Ephesus, concerning those things that belong to their peace. When my dearest Jane thinks of me, let her not forget how I am engaged, and the importance and lasting interest that may depend on the effect given to my words. 17 CHAPTER II. 1825 — 1827. Beginning of Ministry at Row — Resolution not to join a Party — Influence of pastoral experience on teaching — Friendship with Story and M'Leod — Letters of these years. Mr. Campbell did not fail to carry out that " purpose of faithful labouring " with which he had looked forward to the charge of the parish of Row. When his ministry there was drawing to a close he thus reviewed its beginning : " As to Church Politics, I was distinguished, to my own mind, among the young ministers my contemporaries by a deep conviction of the practical evils that had arisen from party feelings, and by a determined purpose to hold personally a per- fect neutrality. As to pastoral feeling, I was then con- scious to a single and strong desire to be the instrument of good to the flock over which I had been appointed overseer; but beyond the purpose of active devotedness this desire took no distinct form ; nor had I any theory or view peculiar to myself, as to the reason of the want of living religion, to the prevalence of which my eyes now in a measure opened." ^ ■^ Reminiscences and Reflections, page 10. As it cannot be assumed that all readers of these volumes have also read the Ratiiniscences, it seems best to quote from that book, so far as is necessary to a con- VOL. I. B 1 8 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. The resolution to identify himself with neither of the parties which then divided the Church, — the Moderates and the Evangelicals, — had important results in the sequel ; but he never regretted that he had taken this course. He was chiefly influenced — to use his own words — "by fearing that the fetters of party might interfere with free obedience to light;" but also by the consideration that "the men of each party seemed to him doing injustice to what good was in the other, and to see its evils through a magnifying party feeling." ^ Some years before he went to Row, his old tutor, Mr. M'Lachlan, had been afraid that he would become " too High " — a term then synonymous in Scotland with Evangeli- cal ; and it is clear that, although brought up chiefly among Moderates, he was early attracted by some of the distinc- tively evangelical doctrines. He had been not a little influ- enced by reading the life of Dr. Thomas Scott, the well- known commentator, which had been given to him by a lady for whom he had a great regard, Mrs. Campbell of Lochnell. In reviewing the steps by which he had been led to con- clusions differing from the popular theology, Mr. Campbell wished tc fix af-ention on the fact, that the path was not speculative but practical. In preparing his sermons he used little but his Bible and concordance ; consulting commen- taries only ' to ascertain the precise translation of the origi- nal.' It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that he wished to work out any system of theology for himself. That which pressed upon him was the religious condition of his people, with whom he soon became well acquainted by nected view of Mr. Campbell's life at Row. At the same time, as his own review of his Row ministry is already before the public, this part of his life may be more briefly described, than would otherwise have been necessary, in the present work. ^ Reminiscences, page I Si. 1 825-27. EARL V MINISTR Y AT ROW. 19 visiting them diligently in their homes. In fact he made and acted upon the resolution, to give the character of ministerial visits to all his intercourse with his people, dreading ' the error of making religious discourse the topic only at seasons set apart for the purpose.' Thus he was led to feel strongly that ' religion was a thing of all times and of all seasons ;' that it was not enough that people should 'give a little of their time to God,' that they might with an easier conscience 'enjoy themselves in the rest of it.' Finding a great discrepancy between the prevailing religion and the Christianity of the New Testament, he was forced to ask himself how this state of things had arisen, and ho\t it could be remedied. In a letter written in 1869, on the subject of sermon- writing, a passage occurs which refers to this part of his life : — " I never felt my preparations for preaching so severe a task as writing for the press has been : not even when, while yet a preacher, and therefore seldom pressed for time, I was fastidious enough to have a sermon on the stocks for ten or twelve days. When afterwards often writing two long sermons on the Saturday (and far on into the Sunday morning) I thought so little of anything but to get out what the week's thought — stimulated by parish work and intercourse with my people — had accumulated in me, that my writing flowed on with the freedom of extempore speaking when the heart is full. Then you know I soon gave up writing, getting on easily with my earnest and solemn pleadings with men to be reconciled to God ; pleadings which alas ! so soon took a too controversial character from all that was throwing me on the defensive ; and my teaching and my feeling lost much of the sweet pastoral tone which close contact with my peojDle and their need gave to my ministry for more than the half of my short Row life. I have used the word ' alas ; ' but perhaps I should not give any place to the feeling that prompted it. 20 MEMORIALS. CHAP. ii. It has too much of the character of the sort of regret with which, in the hard conflict of life, men recal the quiet and easily-flowing time of boyhood and youth, and life's prepara- tory work. I should not say 'alas;' for however much it may have accomplished in profit to individuals — and it was the time most marked by such profit — that earlier portion of my ministerial life as a parish priest may have had its chief value in its fitness to prepare me for all that fighting for truth which was before me. For in that time of quiet dealing with individual souls, the process went on of coming to know practically the need of man awakening to the con- sciousness of alienation from God, and seeking the peace of a true reconciliation. No forming by much reading an ac- quaintance with what had been thought and taught in the past, neither any amount of free exercise of my own mind in weighing theological questions, could in the least have been a preparation for my subsequent work such as my pastoral experience at Row has been, — that pure pastoral experience which was simply a ' ministry of reconciliation.' As com- pared with what is engaged in as the study of Divinity, it was in some sense the Baconian direct contact with nature in the substitution of i7iduction for speculation. It has, I feel, been a gain to me and not a loss that my pastoral work thus stood first in order, and that my thinking has been stimulated by the exigencies of that work, and not by any love of speculation or craving for originality." The parish of Row, forming the eastern side of the Gare- loch, extends northwards to Loch Long, and is bounded by Cardross on the south-east. It is about fourteen miles in length and three in breadth. Mr. Campbell traversed the parish on horseback, visiting and holding " Diets of Cate- chising" at the numerous farm-houses, both on the loch-side and in Glen Fruin. He never lost, to use his own words, "the feeling of the impression made on him on the first 1825-27. FIRST DAY'S VISITING. 21 day of his parochial visiting." ^ His last visit that day was to a cottage about a mile south of Garelochhead, in which an aged couple lived. They came with him to the brow of the hill, overlooking the loch, on which their cottage stood, and each had a parting word for the young minister. The old man said, " Give us plain doctrine, Mr. Campbell, for we are a sleeping people;" and his wife solemnly quoted the words, " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." He never forgot the cordial welcome with which he had been received by many parishioners and neighbours; and no one gave him a warmer welcome than Mr. Story, whose parish of Rosneath lay on the opposite side of the Gareloch. Mr. Story was ten years older than Mr. Campbell, and he had been for seven years settled in Rosneath. Their acquaint- ance soon ripened into an enthusiastic friendship, which continued till Mr. Story's death. In the summer of 1827 Mr. Story was obliged to go to England on account of the state of his health, and he did not return to Rosneath till after an absence of nine months. " During his absence from home, Mr. Campbell, as his nearest neighbour, acted to a great extent as Mr. Story's substitute in performing those duties which required the ofhces of an ordained clergyman, and in attending to persons in sickness and affliction. In these circumstances their correspondence naturally was constant and ample." ^ On his first Communion Sunday Mr. Campbell had the assistance both of Mr. Story and of an older friend, Dr. Norman M'Leod, who had become minister of Campsie about the same time that Mr. Campbell went to Row. Their fathers were first cousins and attached friends,, and the sons continued the friendship which they inherited. Nor did it cease with that generation. Dr. M'Leod's son ^ Remuiisceiices, p. 89. ^ See Memoir of Rev, R, Story, by his son, Dr. Story, pp. 90, 91. 2 2 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. Norman, then a mere boy, became, as time went on, one of Mr. Campbell's dearest friends. The elder cousin ever regarded the younger with a loving interest which followed each step of his career, and the readers of his Life know well the affection and reverence with which Norman M'Leod always thought and spoke of his "beloved John Campbell." The manse of Row was not habitable at the time of Mr. Campbell's appointment, and some years passed before a new manse was ready for occupation. After one or two changes of residence, he took up his abode at Shandon in the spring of 1826. The Gaelic name of the cottage linked it with his Highland home, and in -vmting to his father on the ist of May he began his letter thus: "Shandon Cot- tage, alias Baduninver, the old name, given from being a tuft of trees at the estuary of a stream, and differing but by the substitution of living trees for a burying-groimd from Kilninver ! So much for having an etymologist and a High- lander for its tenant." To his Father. Row, Monday, 24th November, 1825. How do I feel that I am the child of many mercies. Monday at Greenock ; Tuesday at Ardencaple; Wednesday mth an afflicted family, the Neilsons of Ardardan, whose father was taken away by a short illness; Thursday from morning to night visiting according to intimation. I sat down only Friday morning to write two half-hours for Sunday, and that on a particular subject, it being the Sabbath appointed by the S}Tiod as a day of thanksgiving for the fine season. Was interrupted at five in the afternoon by Story, who remained all night. Saturday, was dividing poor's funds, and till five in the afternoon did not get back to my papers ; and at one in the morning had finished my 1825-27. VISIT TO CAMPSIE. ' 23 two half-hours. Preached Sunday widi as much ease and as independent of my" papers as usual ; and after coming out of church found waiting me in the school-house my dearest father's welcome epistle, with the notification of the India letter. And then to go, as I did directly from the church, having so promised on the Wednesday, to that house of deep mourning, — a beautiful sunny afternoon, according well with the frame into which the belief that I had been enabled to speak a word in season to my poor people, and your refreshing letter, put me; but oh how contrasted with the darkness that rested on the house to which I was going ! Who had made us to differ ? Gratitude certainly was my part, and gratitude for this among the other views of it, that that same Being had given me the opportunity of carrying consolation to the mourners. I remained with them that night. Next day was the funeral, which I accompanied to Paisley in one of the mourning coaches. ... I remained that night also at Ardardan. I know that I afforded them comfort. I hope I may have been the means of doing them more lasting good. God alone giveth, and He alone knoweth, the increase. I had a most delightful visit to Campsie, and not much duty: — a sermon on Thursday and one on Monday, and on Sunday one table. Norman's whole service was very supe- rior indeed. Our assistants were your friend Mr. M'Laren, who desired his remembrances to you ; Mr. Niven, who ordained me ; and Mr. Goldie the preacher, with whom I was well pleased. . I am leaving this cottage. Story begged me to do so, as even he could not stand such cold. I go down to the Row house till Whitsunday. Lady Janet Buchanan is come home, and Miss Jane, and her intended, Mr. Tritton, with whose appearance I am very much prepossessed. 24 MEMORIALS. CHAP. II. To his Brother in India : With reference to the death of tJieir old tutor, Mr. M' Lachlan. KiLNiNVER, December 26th, 1825. I wish, my dearest brother, in writing to you from the home of our youth for the first time after I have known another home, that my return here, and the happiness of rejoining our dear father, were the only occasion of my writing and the only interest of my letter : but it is now my melancholy duty to communicate, what you will learn with as much regret and pain as I have in telling it, the death of our poor dear friend Mr. M'Lachlan, the teacher of our earlier days, the companion of our later years. My last letter com- municated the departure of dear Mrs. Grant. In that letter I promised to \vrite to you from Edinburgh ; but was not able to fulfil my promise. I got home to Row on Saturday, and on Tuesday had a letter from my father, saying that our poor friend was seriously ill, but bidding me wait the letters of next post. I, however, came off immediately, and at Loch- gilphead met the tidings that I was too late.^ O Donald, how few hearts beat so warmly to you and me, and to our dearest father, as that which now is cold. In the loss of our friends, it has been said, we die daily. There has hitherto, since I could understand and feel such an event, been no death that touched me so nearly, or been so much the loss of a portion of myself. I had for some time been promising myself so much pleasure in receiving him in my own house, and in showing him my parish, and how I managed it ; and then, when his visit was put off till my return after this pro- jected visit to Kilninver, I had so much to tell him on my arrival here, and so much to hear from him. ^ He often spoke of the anxiety of this journey. He wished to com- municate to his old friend what he had himself lately learned of religious truth. 1825-27. DEATH OF HIS TUTOR. 25 If it is not allowed to us to judge our fellow-servants here, far less when they are gone hence. But I know you will learn with comfort that his views on the most important subjects of thought were much changed when I last saw him from what they were when you and he were afraid that I would become " too High;"^ and his heart was in his work. I never felt more than I do now the duty of speaking plainly regarding the only grounds of true peace in life or hope in death. [After speaking of conversations which they had had together :] It is comfort which I cannot express that I have so spoken to him, and assisted him in the work to which I have urged him. It is comfort, not merely as the recollection of a duty discharged, a duty laid upon me as his friend and as Christ's servant, but, still more, as satisfying me that he could not be constantly thinking of me and speaking of me (as he was in his illness), without having such conversations as I now refer to recalled ; and how far such recollections might have power given to them, the God of grace alone knows. I remember — but this was more than twelve months ago — when expressing to him my grounds of hope, and that I rested entirely on the merits of Jesus Christ for acceptance in the sight of God, feeling that I needed a Saviour who has atoned for my sins, he exclaimed, " My dear boy, what have you ever done ? " But he had changed much, very much. He had come to feel satisfied that my doctrine was the doctrine of Scripture, and his mental vision was gradually becoming clearer, and he was seeing himself more and more in the light of divine holiness, and, I trust, did at last read the doctrine which I found in Scripture, " that all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," also written upon his own as it is upon every human heart. These are all reminiscences on the side of ^ This feeling must have been expressed before his brother went to India, in 1821. 26 MEMORIALS. CHAP. ir. hope, which it is soothing and allowable to cherish. But, while we approach the subject of the fate of another with caution and humility, and look only to what is cheering, let us never forget that it is our ignorance which demands this diffidence. Our charity is not a charity which multiplies the grounds of hope beyond the one simple one of faith in Christ, working by love to God and man, and purifying the soul, and fitting it for that place into which there entereth nothing unclean or unholy : we are only multiplying for our consolation the chances, or the evidences, that this faith has been in the soul in which we are interested. When, there- fore, we turn to ourselves, all timidity and caution and fear of being too severe is worse than foolish ; it is most dan- gerous, for here we are not left to conjecture (unless we choose, in the Avords of Hume, " the calm twilight of doubt "). We can examine ourselves, and we are called to examine ourselves whether we be in the faith; and we should take no sleep to our eyes, nor slumber to our eyelids, until we know that Christ is forming in us a hope of glory — until the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are the sons of God ; the image of God, which was destroyed by sin, being renewed in divine knowledge and in true holiness. [He goes on to expand these thoughts, but the letter is too long to be given in full.] . . . You were ever so near his heart that the very mention of your name used to cause his eyes to fill. The ring you desired me to get made for him, and into which I had put some of your hair, he wore as a sort of charm. ... I found from his maid that he was most anxious about it in his last illness ; and when his finger became so small that it would not remain on, he got it put up, and made the maid solemnly promise that she would see it safe in my hands. I believe he gave no other directions about his earthly gear. . . . They will now feel their loss in Seil. It may be long ere they have such another preacher. ... It was impossible not to love his 1825-27. ERSKINE'S '' INTERNAL evidences:' 27 kind heart, and many an honest tear has flowed in testimony of their affection. [After mentioning some particulars with reference to people at Kilninver :] My dearest Donald, no one was ever more fondly remembered at " the dear schoolboy spot" than you. It is most delightful to see the interest with which they inquire for you. . . . Our neighbours are well. . . . With the warmest love of your father's and brother's heart to you and Jean, James and Colin, ever your own loving brother. Row, Saturday, 25th February, 1826. My DEAREST Father, — I had just been guiding the prayers of our little family group to our Heavenly Father for your support in the duties of the day, when your letter came in, informing me that you were that day preaching at Kilmel- ford. I long to know that you were not the worse of your exertion. I addressed a thinner congregation than usual (from- the badness of the day; and yet you had such a journey in it !) on the text, " O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help " (Hosea xiii. 9). I have lately been reading a book, which I shall take home with me if I cannot get it sooner sent, Erskine's " Internal Evidences," which is the only book with that title which deserves the name, as it is really an extracting of evidence from the peculiarities of the scheme itself; and in it a topic on which we once had some conversation is put upon its proper basis,— I mean the connection between the doctrines and the morality of the Gospel. He feels it a most dangerous thing to receive them both but as two distinct things; and his language, which you remember was mine, is, " I don't say, believe the one, but remember you must also do the other; 'but, believe the one, and because you believe the one do the other. Yea, examine your belief and you will find it the firmest basis upon which morality ever rested." i8 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. The importance of this view I daily more and more feel ; for I have so many proofs that no one will ever have a suffi- ciently high standard of morality who does not rest his hopes exclusively on the merits of Christ. Such a one sees no limit to duty, and — to use a comparison of your own in your Synod sermon — actually " shoots at the heavens;" whereas, while there is any trusting to our o^\^l merits, there is a con- stant lowering of the divine requirements, — such a lowering as is necessary in order to our feeling that we have any merits. Adieu for a time, my ever dearest earthly friend. May you and I be found, in that day in which Christ makes up his jewels, in the number of those who have been purified by faith which is in Him. Shandon Cottage, Sunday Evening [1826]. My Dearest Father, — We have just concluded the evening devotions of our little family group, enlarged to-night by the presence of Duncan and Colin M'Kinlay, and assimilated somewhat to the dear group similarly employed at Kilninver by our choice of the Gaelic, and Duncan's officiating as precentor. . . . My text to-day was, "Sanctify them by thy truth;" the object of the sermon being to show first that the production of holiness in us was the great object of the scheme, and, secondly, that the instrument by which the holiness is pro- duced, is a true faith in Christ. But I have no room for particulars. ... I am just now again proceeding with my visiting, and finding much comfort in it, and in many other occurrences. One case I may shortly mention. A highly respectable man — married and not very young — came to me the other night to say that he was longing to see me, but that I had not come to his house ; but being passing he could not but call to tell of how much comfort I was the source to him. This man has lately come to feel the power 1825-27. A WELCOME VISITOR. 29 of the truth ; and the history of his change and its fruit are both ahke pleasing. The history of it is : his anxiety about a sister-in-law led him to attempt impressing her with religious principles. In attempting to teach her he came to feel his own ignorance, and thus was led to read, to hear the word, and to pray ; and he at last came to a clear and soul- composing view of the truth. Again, as to the fruit, — that it is to holiness and a pure morality, — I give one remark of his in evidence : " It is plain," said he, " that God always intended the good of his creatures ; for how happy would the world be if men kept the commandments of God." The visitor above referred to was Mr. Peter M'Callum, Helensburgh. Mr. Campbell often recalled that visit, and the comfort that it had given him to find that some one had really got good from his teaching : just before he had been feeling much discouraged. Mr. M 'Galium was on his way back from Garelochhead, where he had been seeing Isabella Campbell. He too treasured the recollection of the inter- view, and recalled the solemn welcome with which he had been received. Mr. Campbell had beside him a copy of the Olney Hymns, from which he read passages to his visitor. Some months after he left Row, Mr. Campbell wrote a letter to Mr. M'Callum, which began with these words : " My dear Peter — dear in many recollections of you since the night you called on me at Shandon — the first that ever told me that God had made me the instrument of good to their soul ; and made much dearer to me by your remembrance of me since our separation." Shandon, 13th June, 1826. My Dearest Father, — I have now two letters to ac- knowledge, the first of which relieved me from much anxiety by assuring me that it was not any return of the inflammation of your eye that had occasioned your silence. 30 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. [After speaking of certain church collections for a chari- table fund:] The attention to display and effect, and the use of great names, are instances of the operation of prin- ciples, whose influence in the religious world of the present day I continually deplore. There is nothing more delightful than to see the influence of rank and property given to the truth ; but the puffing up a name and a popularity by boast- ing of the favour and applause of men who have no claim to religion, and whose judgment in the matter must, according to the professed principles of those who seek the sanction of their countenance, be the judgment of ignorance, is to my mind most offensive, and a very bad feature of the present times. Are these the followers of the meek and lowly Jesus? or are they really the persons whose dearest heart's wish is the coming of that kingdom of God which cometh not with observation? But to their Master they stand or fall. Blessed be His name that we have our faith and our duty to learn, not from the principles or the practice of any of our fellow-servants, but from the unerring standard of Eternal truth. By their fruits ye shall know them. Thus we may judge of the men. Of their professed principles we may judge on other grounds. Yet still there is a tendency to judge of the doctrine from the lives of those who profess it. ... I know that had my mind been left to the natural influence of contemplating the practical inconsistencies of the strict professors of the truth, I should long have con- tinued in ignorance of that which is the source to me of peace and joy in believing; and that simple single-eyed looking to the cross of Christ for acceptance with God, and that constant dependence upon the influences of the Holy Spirit for strength to labour and for the success of my labours, in which it is my constant prayer that I may live, — these had been strangers to my soul; and, want- ing them, I should have wanted the sources, the only true sources, of internal happiness, and of activity and 1825-27. FIRST COMMUNION SEASON. 31 energy in outward duties. So that one of the first steps in the path in which God has led me has been a deter- mination ahvays to seek to discriminate between men and their professed principles. Shandon Cottage, Thursday, 13th July, 1S26. It was, you may indeed believe, with much delight that I recognized your hand. I hope the cure of your eye, though slow, is sure, and will not leave any weakness. It will call upon you for additional care for some time. I am just now very busy. Story's sacrament, which kept me on that side of the water from Friday to Mon- day night, was a considerable interruption to my prepa- ration. . . . I do not intend to give a large dinner on the Monday, as is the usual jDractice of this country, but a prac- tice that does not at all meet my approbation. I shall have nobody but my assisting brethren. ... I have upon the whole had much comfort in my young com- municants, though more in the anxiety to know than in their actual knowledge. But by next year I hope to have them better prepared. The number is unusually great — about thirty-five. Mr. Norman comes to me on Wed- nesday, and remains till all is over. I am going to have a Gaelic sermon from him on Thursday after the English services. Carluke Manse, Sunday Evening, 15th Oct., 1826. My dearest Father, — I did not intend writing you till my return home, but feel disposed to tell you now, while the impression is fresh, how much enjoyment I have had in the course of the week, and that I am now about to close a Sabbath (which, I trust, through God's blessing on what I 32 MEMORIALS. chap, II. . first spoke and then heard, has been one both of useful- ness and improvement) with a deHghtful feeling of God's goodness in permitting me during the week to admire Him in His works, and then to be the instrument of bringing other minds into the state of seeing Him who is invisible. I have indeed been drinking happiness from many foun- tains, and one which you will believe was very sweet was William Penney's most able and admired appearance at the bar of the Synod, a brief and most imperfect account of which you have in the Herald. Wylie met us ^ at the Synod, and arranged our move- ments ; and on Friday we met him at Blant^TC Manse, near Hamilton, at breakfast. He came with his own and his father-in-law's gig, and we drove first to Bothvvell Castle, yielding our minds up to the present beauties of the autumnal tints of the richly-wooded banks of the Clyde, and to the many feelings associated with those fine ancient ruins. . . . Next morning we visited Cadzow Castle and the Oak Chase, in which the old Scottish wild cattle are still preserved. The cattle we did not see, but the oaks were a sight which amply repaid our drive. They looked like an antediluvian forest, and one almost looked to see among them the giants of those days. We then visited the Palace and the paintings, to me a very rich treat indeed. Daniel in the den of lions has to my mind an expression like what the words of Luke regarding Stephen, when he saw God sitting on the throne and Jesus on the right hand of God, suggest. We got here to dinner; and it is certainly a delightful manse, I mean speaking morally and intellectually. The congregation to-day also pleased me much ; they were so well out, though the morning was not inviting, and had so much the appearance of people accustomed to attend. ^ i.e., Mr. Story and himself. 1825-27. LIFE OF BRAINERD. 33 To-morrow we see the Falls, and Tuesday visit Lee before going down to Glasgow. My dearest father, this is not a Sunday letter ; but I long to let you know that I am enjoying so refreshing and exhilarating a visit, which I know will give you pleasure ; and do rejoice with me that I am enabled to say that, amid it all, I turn in my heart to my people, and feel that these pleasures will be dim and feeble to my recollection when again labouring among them. To Miss Mary Dunlop. [Without date : probably November, 1826.] My Dear Madam, — I embrace an opportunity of send- ing you Brainerd. I had very great comfort in my second visit to Barbara Campbell. There is a sober certainty about her views and hopes, and a steady light, for which we cannot too earnestly pray. Covet earnestly the best gifts. In reading Brainerd you will feel distinctly that his Heaven was begun on earth. It is no ground of distrust as to our interest in Christ that we should not have realized his feelings ; because they were not the foundation of his hope, only an accompaniment of his faith. Yet as such feelings have been granted to other souls, under the same dispensation of grace with ourselves, it is as fitting that we should seek them in the use of the ap- pointed means, as that we should seek a meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light. The one happiness is as open to our prayers as the other. How inadequately then do we conceive of the privileges of our condition as nozv adopted into the family of the sons of God, if we confine our desires even to a clear and firm ground of hope. But I must break off. With many and fervent prayers that you may grow in grace, and advance from strength to strength, and from glory to VOL. I. c 34 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. glory ; that you may die entirely to this world, and have your life hid with Christ in God; allow me to be yours very faithfully, J. M'L. Campbell. To his Father. • Row, December 24th, 1826. . . It was Tuesday night I received your letter. I had been the previous day at Jordanhill about the plans for my church ; and that day at Barbara Campbell's funeral. At Jordanhill I had had much pleasing religious conversa- tion ; attentive listeners while I spoke of the riches of my Saviour's grace ; and in consigning Barbara's remains to the tomb I could feel an ajspropriate and justifiable com- fort in remembering the words, " He is not here : He is risen." As to Lismore, I do not know that I would feel justified in leaving Row at present. There is such a promise of use- fulness 3 and it would so check the growing interest of many awakening souls to see one who had so laboured to awaken them leaving them when they are just beginning to feel the need of instruction. Besides, this country presents a far better field of usefulness for me than that ; and particularly the church of Row in summer ; and, independent of every- thing else, I would not like Lismore with a ferry between me and so large a proportion of my people, making visiting them parochially and visiting the sick almost impracticable. I mil not say that a Highland parish would wear me out sooner as to fatigue ; because I would regulate my exertions by my strength ; but, knowing what I feel here when a wet night and a regard for your anxieties keep me away from a sick- bed, I am sure I could have little parochial comfort in the united parishes of Appin and Lismore. . . . 1825-27. ISABELLA CAMPBELL. 35 Shandon Cottage, March 7th, 1827. . . . What Duncan says as to last Sunday^ will explain my silence ; and as he was writing I have put off doing so till next Sabbath. I am indeed getting behind with my series of sermons ; but I shall make it up again when I have the opportunity of paying you the ipsa corpora. ... I am not visiting this week, making the snow an apology to myself for a little rest. But I improved yesterday, which was fine, in visiting Isabella Campbell, who is still on earth, though her heart has long been in Heaven; as certainly the feelings and views which it sends to her lips prove ; for they axefrotn Heaven. I had not seen her for seven weeks ; and when you consider that an hour of her conversation is certainly the greatest treat this countryside affords me, you will see how busy I am. I hope and indeed feel that my work and labour will not be in vain in the Lord. Oh how the enlarged views and high and yet most humble hopes of a young woman of nineteen or twenty, with no other or at least little other teaching than that of sickness in- terpreted by the Bible and sanctified by prayer, calls upon us in the ministry to be unceasing in our endeavours to acquaint our people with the value of their Bibles and the power of prayer. ^ This refers to a letter from one of his household which accompanied his own letter. It gave an account of a severe snow-storm on the pre- ceding Sunday. The snow was about a foot deep, and the road from Shandon to Row Church (a distance of about two miles) was impassable. Only a congi'egation of twenty-five persons assembled ; and it seemed unlikely that Mr. Campbell could reach the church. He found his way, however, along the shore, below the high-water mark ; and the service was held in the school-house. In the afternoon he crossed to Rosneath and preached there ; and he stayed that ni^ht with Mr. Robert Campbell at the Clachan. 36 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. Row, Monday, 30th April, [1827]. ... I did not write last night, for it was the last night of the family at Blairvadich ^ before setting out for England, which they have done to-day ; and I passed it with them. I shall miss them more than I could miss any other friends in this country, Mr. Story excepted ; but I have too much important work on hand, and too many real causes of distress in the hardness of my own heart, and in the slowness to receive my message of love from God on the part of my people, to yield to any sentimental feelings of regret at the interruption of our intercourse, which was pleasant ; and I hope profitable to them, which God only knows; and to myself profitable also through the teaching of God's word and spirit, which make all intercourse with others only the opportunity of tracing all the windings and turnings and self- delusions of this heart of sin. A man whose work is to instruct souls can never be at a loss for benefit in society, if he is, as he ought to be, on the look out to extend acquaint- ance with those souls which are the material on which he has to work. . . . To his Sister. Row, June 4th, 1827. I desire to be very grateful to God for the prospect of seeing my dear sister so soon, and pray that he may enable me, in believing confidence in His love, to leave the fulfil- ment in the hands of Him who has given the prospect. I have much, very much, of which to speak to you. Many things have happened since we parted, which, as inhabitants of the present world, will give us topics of conversa- 1 The Buchanans, M'ho were his near neighbours, and whose friend- ship he valued much. 1825-27. PROGRESS IN RELIGION. 37 tion. But, blessed be His grace, who has shone mto our hearts by the Hght of the glorious gospel of Christ, our most interesting intercourse Avill concern the things of a world to come, and that great truth that God so loved the world that He sj^ared not His own Son, but freely gave him up to the death for us all, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. Of this truth a friend in writing me the other day said, " that master-truth of which the soul that hath once seen it shall never have enough through eternal ages." I felt that I could enter into the feeling expressed. How I long to compare what you know of Christ with what He has shown me of Himself. I trust it is in reserve for us to be helpers of one another's faith, as well as sharers of one another's joy. Perhaps that God (who is love) who in His love per- mitted us to pray for one another's growth in grace when far apart, may in the exercise of the same love make us the instruments of promoting that growth in one another by bringing us together, and so fulfil our prayers by our- selves. I rejoice to dwell on this thought at the same time that my prayers ascend in the faith that he has all instruments in His hands, and can give power to any, and that without Him all, even the choicest, are powerless. ... I would, you may believe, be delighted to go to meet you to London. But when you know that in July the sacrament is dispensed in this parish, and that I am entirely engrossed just now with the preparation of my young communicants, you will see that it is quite impossible for me to think of such a thing. Indeed any time which my duty to a population of more than two thousand souls may per- mit of my giving to you, will be more profitably as well as more delightfully given in the quiet of one of your homes in Scotland than in the bustle of your stay in London. . . . 38 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. . . . May that Spirit who blessed to me your first trial, ^ and your words when under it, bless all your trials and all your joys to your own soul day by day. To his Father. Shandon Cottage, Monday Evening, 23i-d July, 1827. My dearest earthly fi-iend, I sit down to write to you on this Monday evening, the last of the days of sacred devotedness connected with this solemn season. My brethren, after dining with me, are gone to their several homes (Norman went away in the morning) ; and William Penney has gone down to see a friend at Helensburgh ; and I am left alone with that never-absent Friend, whose love I have so largely experienced, and who has overruled all the circum- stances of this time with such tender kindness. In the solemn stillness that at this moment encompasses me, with the beautiful landscape before me to remind me of the God of nature, and those views of redeeming love which are ever present to my faith to remind me of the God of grace, I cannot feel alone. Neither is there any tedium to be re- lieved by writing ; but in thinking of God's manifold good- ness to me, the thought of one who has been made the channel of so much of it cannot (as it never is) be far distant ; and I know you will have your own about your boy at this time, which it is his duty to relieve. As to bodily health, I have had much cause of thankfulness in the striking contrast between what I am to-night and what I was on the corresponding evening last year. . . . I was thrown late with my studies from other encroaching engagements, and had only time to \vrite my sermon. The fencing, serving the table, and address after all was over (which is customary in this country), I was obliged to 1 See letter to his sister on the death of her child, page 13. 1825-27. MR. STORY IN ENGLAND. 39 leave to what I might be enabled to say at the time; and I do not like extemporizing when it can be avoided. But — thanks be to God in whose strength I sought to speak — both Norman and William declared they had never been so pleased with any appearance they saw me make. My colleagues discharged their duties in a way which much satisfied and, I hope, edified my people. Oh that God would enable me to feel all His goodness to me on this occasion, for it has been very great. To Rev. Robert Story. Row, August 9th, 1827. My very dear Brother, — I found in your letter cause of thanksgiving and matter for prayer. Oh that both were more according to the importance of that to which they refer; viz., the belief that the Lord is daily more and more setting you apart unto Himself, and the hope that He may rapidly advance His own glorious work. I have deep happiness in thinking of you and your Greek Testament, and in believing that the Eternal Spirit, who inspired that precious volume, does not disdain the employment of opening up to you its meaning. You must not make an effort to return at an early date. You are a young man, and with a constitution naturally strong. If you do it full justice, it may be completely restored, and many years of usefulness may yet be in the number of God's mercies to you. If, however, you too im- patiently grasp at a return to your labours, you may give an earlier but a crippled service, and of ultimately less effect. We must — God requires it of us — that we make use of our reason in these matters ; and I think it the clear dictate of reason in your case, that you remain in England, not only until you are well, but until you have been some time well. 40 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. This was the feeling of all your brethren ; ^ and, as the prac- tical expression of it, we have arranged the supply of your pulpit, beginning with the fourth Sunday of September, on to the second Sunday of December inclusive. I shall endea- vour to make up for your absence, the best I can, in the other departments of duty. Now do, my dear dear brother, allow even a fool, as you consider him in matters of health, to teach you wisdom. I had much comfort in my attendance at Arrochar.^ Dr. Hamilton preached an able sermon on Assurance : the old view. I took the liberty, when we went together to a room before dinner, to discuss the point with him. I did not feel that he was shaken; nor did I expect that, though the Lord may yet bless even my feeble words \ but I was quite delighted with his fairness and candour in arguing. . As we had no other paper I read the sermon on " Faith which worketh by love," which I had put in my pocket going to Arrochar; and thus left the Dr. in full possession of my views. Oh that the Lord would honour me as the instrument of his grace. It was a pleasant presbytery, Wylie and the Princi- pal dined with us. ... I saw Isabella on my way up to Arrochar. She is continuing rather better. Mary Dunlop has been again with her, and is also better. . . . My father is here on Monday, and proceeds [home]. I follow on Saturday, and preach at Kilmelford Sunday; and the Communion will be the following Sunday. I could not give him less than two weeks. I write hurriedly, for Wylie is by me, to go out to ride. I long for your next letter. . . . And now for a time farewell. Oh may God be with you, acquaint you with Himself, and cause you to be at peace. ^ i.e. the Members of the Presbytery. ^ At a meeting of the Presbytery, and of a Clerical Society. 1825-27. YOUNG COMMUNICANTS. .41 To the Same : After tlie Coiiiiinim'oii at Rosncatli. 2nd October, 1827. [After detailing some of his conversations with the young people who were about to be admitted for the first time as communicants:] I \vas very plain with . I told him that I felt I did not know him. I told him that some of his words conveyed the impression that he was still working in a self-righteous spirit; and laying before him the truth, I left him to himself He said he had not much utterance, but that he had it in his heart. As I cannot be here next Sabbath I saw them after service yesterday. I spoke to them for nearly an hour, and was as minute and practical in respect of rejoicing in the Lord only, — having no confidence in the flesh,- — keeping the heart with all diligence, — letting their light shine before men; and the Lord enabled me to be very faithful and practical. I pressed upon them much intercessory prayer, as a means of, among other effects, cherishing love to all around' them. I desired their prayers for you and for myself, and explained the wonderful conde- scension of God in hearing us sinful worms, in our prayer for one another. 's expression of countenance, during this exhortation, pleased me more than anything I had seen of him ; and (with whom I had been most apparently severe, from the feeling that he might be deceiving himself), when I shook hands with them all at parting, looked so thankful, and shook my hand so cordially, that I do hope it may be in truth the want of " utterance," as he says. At all events I shaped my discourse with a double view. So much for the young people, of whom you will see that I believe three have decidedly been brought to Christ's marvellous light ; and two I think most favourably of; and three I hope for. . . . What the Lord may have done among the elder people I have no means of know- 42 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. ing; but they had most striking sermons from Mr. M'Farlane on Thursday. Proudfoot was most faithful and powerful on Saturday; Carr, whose preaching you know I don't think searching, still commanded their attention; and Dr. Barr gave two sermons which, though he had held my— may I not say, 02ir — views of assurance, would not have required a word of alteration. . . . I myself was enabled to declare freely the whole counsel, as I believe it, on the words, " Christ Jesus was made of God unto us, wisdom, righteous- ness, sanctification, and redemption." In order that the people might feel as little as possible that they were a flock without a shepherd, I commenced the ser- vice on Thursday, and concluded it on Saturday, as you would have done ; and the Lord has been most bountiful to me 5 for, though I have had seasons of weakness of faith — not of doubtvig, but of insensibility — in which I have felt most vile, yet He was at my right hand to support me. My dear dear brother, there has been much prayer for you. I hope your soul has been refreshed. As to externals, the people were well out on all the days. Everything proceeded with much solemnity. The crowd in the church was not oppressive owing to the coolness of the day; and all were accommodated excepting a few Row people, who ought to have remained at home. The elders, to drink whose health and return thanks with whom I went down after dinner, by way of being you in everything, beg their remembrances, and that they long for your return. This I say as bid, though I would not add " return " till Dr. Macrorie says you may. . . . Sandy Scott is licensed, with great approbation ; the old Dr.^ quite delighted ; although there was one of his subjects on which Sandy was led naturally to consider the doctrine in which they differ, and he did not think he would be faithful in avoiding it; so he did not. As you are from home Sandy preaches first ^ His father, one of the Greenock ministers. 1825-27. SCOTT IS LICENSED. 43 for me. Oh the Lord give him faith, love, and a sound mind. Those who preach the truth in its simphcity have need to strengthen one another by prayer; for there is a spirit of hostiHty to it stirring up. Oh I do rejoice to think of you, my dear dear brother, for whom my prayers are recorded in heaven, joined with us, helping by counsel and by prayer. I am charged with countless remembrances of aifection from those about me. All well. Oh the Lord God of hosts be your stay and your joy. Amen. To his Father. October, 1827. . . . I do believe that there is a dawn of better times on our church ; that the moderate men and high men are alike to give place and to be succeeded by truly spiritual men, who will have no object in all they do but the winning souls to Christ. And, oh, I do trust that such a band of minis- ters will be produced in part, not by the removal, but by the cojiversion of many who now are slumbering upon the downy pillow of moderatism, or storming in the popular clamour of high-flying church contention. . . . I go to Edinburgh on Monday, being that night on the way at Carluke. I preach on the Thursday and the Saturday, and have only the duty of serving tables on the Sunday.^ . . . I was much struck with an expression used by my dear friend Scott the other day, — used with reverence and deep feeling. He said, he felt the privilege of asking for the in- fluences of the Spirit to throw light upon the Word, was like having access to ask an author his own meaning. ... I have brought a copy of Leighton's Works for you from Edinburgh. I love the writings of Leighton, because they breathe so much of the spirit of an evangelist. I sent a copy 1 He was going to Edinburgh to assist Dr. Muir at the Communion "season. Dr. Muir had lately lost a near relative. 44 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. likewise to India. I am very busy, and have had a good deal of sickness among my people. Two died in one week, and in neither case had I any sign of good. Oh, what would death be if men would but believe in Him who brought life and immortality to light. How astonishing that men will persist in living as if they were never to die. Surely it is un- pardonable in any intelligent being that has to go hence, and can by any possibility ascertain its true condition, to remain in darkness as to it ; and yet, how few push the matter until they first see their danger, and then attain to safety. To the Same. IVritieii after his return from Editiburgk. Friday, November, 1827. . . . My visit, though short, was one of considerable comfort. I had much cause of thankfulness in the support extended to my dear Dr. Muir ... I was very re- luctant to leave him. But in the circumstances he would not have allowed me to remain, although I had been so dis- posed ; and these circumstances were that my dear Isabella Campbell, to whom, as a sister in Christ, I bore a brother's affection, was to be buried on the Tuesday, and that it was her particular wish that I should attend : a wish originating, not in any mere earthly feeling as to the presence of one dear to her, but in a motive of a piece with the whole of her singularly heavenly character. Her motive was, that she hoped it might be, through the blessing of God on my words, an occasion of bringing glory to her Redeemer by the con- version of souls. When she mentioned this I did not foresee any other opportunity that I was to enjoy of promoting this object, beyond the prayers usual on these occasions, and conversation on the way going and coming with some of the people present. But God, who had put the wish in her heart, favoured the fulfilment of it in a remarkable manner. 1825-27. FUNERAL OF ISABELLA CAMPBELL. 45 The burying-ground being at Lochgoilhead, it was deter- mined to go in a steam-boat taken for the occasion ; and the day being wet, without any difficulty or formahty I got them all below, and the cabin just contained us all ; and then I stated to them that I felt it my duty to improve the time in saying something of what it had been my privilege to know of her whose remains we accompanied. And having once begun to speak I proceeded to explain the secret spring of all that distinguished her, — the simplicity of the assurance of her faith ; and then I pressed that faith on them ; and God enabled me to speak from the time I commenced till the boat stopped, which would be an hour and a half. The Lord will give the increase. Indeed, I know that some were impressed ; and I have no doubt that others formerly im- pressed had their impressions deepened ; for I was enabled to be faithful and simple. I mean to preach next Sunday at Rosneath a funeral sermon, as Mr. Story is away ; and I shall also refer to her death the following Sabbath at home, as it was in Helensburgh she died. Oh, what a delightful state of things it would be if we could have the same well- grounded assurance as to all who leave us which I have in regard to her. I shall, Monday, write and give you some account of her last illness. I rejoice in God's mercy to you in the recovery of your eye. To Rev. R. Story. Saturday, 22nd December, 1827. . . . My thanks are due for your letter after your return from Albury,^ and its most deeply interesting inclos- ure, only just received. How differently does our Father deal with us ! For you He sees bodily pain and peaceful sunshine usefulness to be best. He gives me health of ^ The first Albury Conference was held m November, 1827. See Mrs. Oliphant's Z//^ <7/"/rt7«^, ch. xii. 46 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. body, and makes the trial of my faith the encountering an enduring opposition to that truth which His grace has made dearer to me than hfe. At home (Row) there is much resistance, but which is leading to inquiry, and which God will overrule for His own glory, and I doubt not the eternal happiness of many souls among my people. On your side of the water I bless God that I can say that those who have come to Christ are upheld; but there is opposition, or rather speculation, on my statements, and longings ex- pressed by some for your return, that they may consult you on the subject. At Greenock there is a great excitement. . . . I saw the other day, and was enabled fully to solve all the difficulties with which she had been puzzled ; and now she is, I trust, more finnly established. At her house, at John Ker's, and at Alan's couch-side, I have had several groups of attentive listeners, and much interest is awakened ; but alas ! that I must add that all my brethren are counteracting. ... At Port-Glasgow the Lord gave an opening through an application to me to preach the annual sermon for their Female Benevolent Society on a Sabbath evening. So, being there, I took the forenoon duty for Dr. Barr. I preached an hour and a half each time, and was much strengthened ; and Alan's friend, William John- stone, -wTites him that the Lord has granted the blessing. . . . The Glasgow ministers have all taken alarm. The other week Mr. Brown of St. John's took the assurance of faith as a subject of essay, in the Society of which you are a member; and at the suggestion of dear Mr. M'Farlane of Anderston (in whom, though he does not quite see as we do, I feel a deep deep interest), I went up; and, though not a member, I had the opportunity of commenting on the essay given to me, which came of themselves. I was enabled to declare the truth twice — first, when asked my opinion of the essay ; and then again, in a reply, with which I was indulged, to comments made on my opinion. The 1825-27. DISCUSSION IN GLASGOW. 47 society were all of one mind, but some members expressed their high satisfaction with the holy nature of my views, when they were actually received. . . . The Lord put it into their hearts to treat me with much respectful atten- tion, although not giving in. But the truth has been scat- tered, and though it may lie a while on the surface, it may yet take root. This was Wednesday was eight days. Last Thursday I was preaching in Glasgow for one of their charities. The discussion, independent of any direct effects, had produced much conversation in the interval, and brought a very great proportion of the ministers in town to hear me. I preached from the words, " Sanctify them by thy truth," and was greatly strengthened. I am indeed in this respect a wonder to myself I do not know what the result may have been ; but Mr. M'Farlane, Anderston, who preaches at Rosneath to-morrow eight days, will bring me tidings. The Lord gives me another opportunity in Glasgow on Tuesday the 8th January, when I preach for the Moravian Mission, the body associated in my mind with dear Gambold, and much that is dear besides. I mean to speak, as God will enable me, from the delightful and appropriate words, " God is love." The present aspect of things is deeply interesting. You see how I need here the prayers of the faithful. ... 1 must add to these statistics that there is much excitement in Edinburgh. Dear Lorne^ tells me that I am much spoken of and against there also. But the Lord has permitted me to hear of no fewer than five, to whom my sermons there were blessed, and now dear Sandy Scott is there, . . . You can easily conceive how much, humanly speaking, I need your support just now, but God can support me by other means if He withholds you; and I must say that, much as I long for you, I wish you to wait the spring, rather than risk a relapse by returning to Rosneath. One chief reason for hastening ^ Mr. Lome Campbell of Portkill. 48 MEMORIALS. chap. ii. home is the present loss of time as to the contemplated memoir of our dearest Isabella Campbell. But the materials might be sent to Liverpool. It ought not to be delayed. I shall attend to the supply of your pulpit until February; so have no anxiety about it. Mr. M'Farlane and I have (the thought is his) determined to direct the attention of our people to the Lord's doings in times past in this land, in pouring out the Spirit, by making it the subject of discourse on the first Sabbath of the year; and we mean to press prayer for an abundant outpouring in the approaching year upon all who love the prosperity of Zion, as a suitable devoting of that day. And he means to endeavour to supply your absence by preaching on this subject in your pulpit upon the last Sabbath of the present year. You will rejoice in this, and wherever you are you mil be with us in spirit. This is the first quiet evening I have had at home for three weeks (I was at Campsie, &c.), and it is Saturday, though I thus employ it. When from home it has been with me a continual pressing of the truth somewhere, and often followed up with individuals to a late hour. Now to Him who is able to keep you, and present you blameless before his Father ■\\dth exceeding joy, I commit you in love, — the love of eternity. 49 CHAPTER III. 1828— 1831. Progress of Thought and Teaching during 1S28 — Becomes Acquainted with Edward Irving — Conversations in Edinburgh and London — Letters, April, 1828, to January, 1830 — Outline of Proceedings in Church Courts — Letters, July, 1830, to March, 1831 — Speech before Synod. The last letter of the preceding chapter contains indications that Mr. Campbell's teaching was beginning to excite op- position. The sermon of which he speaks (preached on Thursday, 20th December) had not the effect which he desired. Referring afterwards to these occurrences, he wrote, " Most of the ministers of Glasgow were present, and -'' from this occasion I date the opposition of my brethren." ^ He had hoped that the explanation which he had given at the clerical meeting would tend to remove their prejudices. They, on the other hand, seem to have expected that his opinions would be modified by the arguments which they had used ; and they were disappointed to find that he still maintained his old ground. " For many Sabbaths," he says, "most of the ministers in Glasgow were preaching with pointed reference to what I taught. There was as yet, however, no organized opposition in the parish of Row." It was not till March, 1830, that the opposition to his ^ Reminiscences, p. 20. VOL. I. D 50 MEMORIALS. chap. in. teaching led to action on the part of the Presbytery of Dumbarton. Meanwhile, as appears from his letters of 1828 and 1829, Mr. Campbell pursued the course of his thought and teaching, undeterred by the attacks upon his doctrine which came from many quarters. It was during the former of these years that the subject of the universality of the Atonement began to form a prominent part of his teaching. Those who may wish to examine the history of his thinking at this time will find his own detailed account of it in the Refiiiniscences} It is enough to point out, in illustration of the correspondence, that there were two marked stages in the development of his opinions. His anxious meditation on the religious state of his people, and his experience of the small effect of his earlier teaching, led him to this conclusion — that, in order that they might be free to serve God, with a pure disinterested love to Him, " their first step in religion would require to be, resting assured of His love in Christ to them as individuals, and of their individually having eternal life given to them in Christ." This was the essence of the doctrine of "Assurance of Faith," which aroused opposition in Glasgow at the end of 1827. And the controversy in which he was thus in- volved, led him to take a further step. This " assurance," which he saw to be the necessary beginning of true religious life, must rest upon something outside of the moods and feelings of the individual ; it must have its foundation in the record of God which the Gospel contained. Hence, he was led to the closer consideration of the extent of the Atone- ment ; and he came to the conclusion, that, unless Christ had died for all, unless He was indeed the gift of God to every human being, there was no sufficient warrant for calling upon men to be assured of God's love to them. Strange as it may appear, many who had approved of his teaching as to ^ See especially the long letter to his brother embodied in the Intro- ductory Narrative, and Part II., "Progress of Thought and Teaching." 1828-31. EDWARD IRVING. 51 " assurance," now began to draw back : they said that, if the Atonement were universal, the individual Christian was de- prived of all assurance. Those, on the other hand, who had objected to the former doctrine, now held that it had be- come more dangerous, because connected with the doctrine of universal pardon. Having thus glanced at the trains of thought which were now filling his mind, let us note some incidents of his life at this time. Of these some of the most interesting are con- nected with his intercourse with Edward Irving, with whom he became acquainted for the first time early in the summer of 1828. In May of that year the great preacher came to Edinburgh, and proceeded to deliver a course of lectures on the Apocalypse, to crowded congregations, at the unusual hour of six o'clock in the morning. Mr. Campbell went to Edinburgh to confer with Irving and Chalmers on the sub- ject with which his mind was busy, — namely, the former of the two doctrines to which we have just referred. Of this interview Mrs. Oliphant has written thus: "John Campbell of Row, saintly in personal piety, and warm in Celtic fervour, came with the natural diffidence of youth to seek an inter- view with Irving. . . . He had come to ask counsel and help in the midst of his hopes and difficulties." ^ Mrs. Oli- phant, while recording correctly some of the circumstances of this interview (of which she had heard from Mr. Campbell), has fallen into a mistake as to the relative position of the two men, and the motives with which Mr. Campbell sought an interview with Irving. Referring to the above passage, ^ he wrote to me as follows in October, 1862 : "The fact was — and it is well that you should have an accurate knowledge of it — that I went to Edinburgh at that time to see Irving (and Dr. Chalmers also), in order to lay before them the conclusions at which I had arrived on the subject of Assur- ance of Faith, and the practical experience as a minister with ^ Life of Ii~jing, page 232 (in 3rd edition). 52 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. which my arriving at these conclusions was connected. I did not go to consult them as one having ' difficulties.' I went in the hope that the grounds of my own convictions would commend themselves to them ; and this latter form of my hope seemed to be realized as to both ; though I can- not say that there was anything more as to either of them. But they both took the position of intending to weigh what I said ; not — that which I had so much experience of then with other ministers — of deciding at once that I was wrong, and setting themselves — some kindly, some impatiently — to put me right." In the same letter, after describing another conversation with Irving (which took place in London some months later), he recurs to the interview in Edinburgh : " That interview, of which Mrs. Oliphant gives an imperfect account, was on this wise : I found Irving sitting alone ; at least there was no one with him but a child of his host who was playing on the rug. I introduced myself to him, and told him that I had come to see him, to state to him what my experience in personal dealing with my people had brought me to see on the sub- ject of assurance. He said he was glad to see me ; that as- surance was a 'subject on which he needed more light, and that God might teach him by me ; and turning to the child he added, ' He might teach me by that child.' What more passed I cannot recal, but this much remains with me ; and I mentioned it to Mrs. Oliphant simply as illustrative of what was very characteristic of him — viz., his practical expectation of Divine teaching through others ; in cherisliing which he had no feeling of giving a place to others, or that he was either exalting them or lowering himself. This his adding * He might teach me by that child ' expressed ; and this was added both to reveal his own consciousness, and that he might not hurt a brother. To understand him thus is to have the key to what seems to puzzle people — viz., the seem- ing weak yielding to the influence of others in his receiving 1 828-3 1. VISIT TO LO.\DON. 53 anything, — the seeming strong self-reliance in which he stood to what he had once received. But his ideal was to put him- self and others out of account, and exalt God alone." A few weeks later Irving came to Row. He preached at Rosneath on Sunday, the 8th of June ; and next day he crossed the loch and occupied Mr. Campbell's pulpit. "I was much delighted," he wrote on the loth, " with Campbell and Sandy Scott." ^ When Irving visited Row, Mr. Campbell was just about to start for London, in order to meet his sis- ter on her arrival from India. Irving asked him to preach in his church on the following Sunday — an invitation which he most gladly accepted. It seems to have been on Tues- day the loth that the two friends parted for a time in Glas- gow. After they had prayed together, Irving said : " Dear Campbell, may your bosom be a pillow for me to rest upon, and my arm a staff for you to lean upon." The letters of that time say little of the visit to London ; but they are supplemented by two letters written long after, one of which has been already quoted. He was thankful that it was in his power to combine (as he says in a letter of the 1 6th June), the duty which he was discharging to his sister " with the all-paramount duty of publishing the gospel to perishing sinners." He preached on at least three Sun- days, June 15th, 22nd, and 29th. His sister, as well as his cousins from India, heard him now for the first time ; and slie remembers the deep impression which was made on many. One of his sermons was on a special occasion : he preached in Gaelic before the Caledonian Society, and Irving, seeing the enthusiasm of the Highlanders, told his friend that he envied him the power of preaching to them in their own language. When he first went to London, he himself had volunteered to learn Gaelic, if that were necessary. It was about this time that the friends had a conversation in Irving's house, of which Mr. Campbell often spoke. " We 1 Life of Irving, p. 233. 54 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. were speaking of a sense of sin, and Irving said, ' I do not know how it is, but I see that the Reformers had a far deeper sense of sin than we have.' I repHed that I beheved it was because they had a deeper sense of the love of God as em- bracing the sinner, and as what the Atonement reveals. I do not know what more I said in expanding this. . . . Irving hstened to me with that earnest weighing attention which was characteristic of him. He then got up and paced back and forward for a good while, during which I was silent. At last he stopped and said, ' I believe you are right, and that you were sent to show me this.' To what extent his system Avas then modified I do not know. . . . But from that time he preached the Atonement as for all, and the faith of the love manifested in it as the great power to awaken the deep sense of sin, as well as to quicken love to Him who first loved us." About the middle of July Mr. Campbell returned to his work at Row. On the 19th Irving wrote as follows to his wife : " The session were loud in their acknowledgments to Mr. Campbell, and none more so than Mr. Mackenzie, who, before, had been in some doubt of his doctrines. Now I think the judgment of so many pious and intelligent men, supported as it is generally, I may say universally, ought to have its weight among the gainsayers in Scotland. I wrote for Campbell two letters, as I said, and saw him off on Saturday night." ^ The letters which follow indicate sufficiently the course of his life at Row during these two years. To his Father. Row, Saturday, [April, 1828.] You are in my debt ; but I am not a hard creditor, and therefore sit down to A\Tite you a few lines, that you may know how it is with me ; and that I am well in body, and ^ Life of Irving, p. 238. 1828-31. PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 55 through the continual upholding of the Holy Spirit am en- abled to live in some nearness to God. Oh, truly, it is our life to know God, and to live on His love ! I have kept myself very quiet since my return from Glas- gow. I am, however, going up again next week to preach for the Gaelic School Society. I would have declined, but that it was a Gaelic sermon they asked ; and knowing that their range of Gaelic preachers is so limited, I thought it on that ground my duty to comply. ... I am daily made to see more and more clearly the blackness of the darkness which so prevails in this land of professing Christians ; and the few converts to the simple truth, of whose conversion the Lord has made me the instrument, have so completely realized the picture which the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles give us of the primitive Christians, that I am con- vinced that the only reason why these times seem so different from the present, and why the fruits of the Spirit, which are righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, are spoken of as the characteristics of an early golden age of the church, I am convinced that the only reason of this is that the truth is not now so faithfully pressed upon the people as it was then ; that, in fact, it is veiled by the distinctions of human system, and so many things interposed between the soul and the sun of righteousness, that his purifying light is altogether intercepted. I have of late had more than usual encouragement in my own parish. Several of the elder people have come to me under much anxiety, to have the way of life more clearly pointed out ; and many are beginning to suspect that they have been trusting all along to a name to live without having ever passed from death unto life. They are now in fact coming to see what I would be at ; and, as I might have expected, while some are made to feel grateful for having their false peace disturbed, others are so reluctant to admit that their peace has been false, that they resist the doctrines 56 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. which imply it. They all, however, come to hear, and much inquiry and reading of the word are the result. My preach- ing at Glasgow, as I told you before, has been too decided for many ; but I have the comfort of knowing that the Lord has acknowledged it in blessing it to weary and heavy-laden sinners ; and the great stir which has been produced will, I am confident, be overruled for much good. It has become the epidemic disease of the present age that men should find peace in the combination of an orthodox creed wath much religious bustle ; but heart religion has been long at a low ebb. I met Norman M'Leod at Lady John's funeral. They are well with him. I have not seen Lord John for some days, but he is pretty well. . . . Mr. Story is still in England. I long in a sense for his return ; though I cannot say that I have formed a distinct wish on the subject, seeing that his detention is of the Lord, and therefore right. He is getting gradually round, and we look for him in eight or nine weeks. To Rev. R. Story. Row% nth April, 1828. [After referring to two letters which he had received from Mr. Alexander Scott :] I see that you and I occupy more common ground with Sandy than Irving ; our line between light and darkness being much more marked. Most fully do I go along with you in what you say to dearest Alan Ker as to the need of reformation in the Protestantism of the present day ; and in our dear glorified Emmanuel's strength am I prepared to go along with you and any other labourers whom the Lord may send into the harvest, counting not my life dear unto myself Oh it does grieve me to see the name of Jesus, that peace-giving purifying sound which — as dear Isabella used to repeat — is to us as ointment poured forth, — that name, I say, lost in our pulpits ; yes, lost, for though 1828-31. PERPLEXITIES OF THOUGHT. 57 they use the word, they so hamper clog and veil truth that in the multitude of their words that joyful sound is not to be distinguished. . . . To Miss Mary Dunlop. Row, Monday, April, 1828. . . . As to Sandy Scott, his remark to his mother, quoted by your cousin, was explained by a letter to me received Wednesday. Having shaken himself loose from systems, and entering upon the study of the Word for him- self, there are many things received among us which seem to him brought into doubt ; and in his inquiries into which he needs the prayers of his believing friends. Not that these doubts affect the ground of peace or the message of peace ; but being concerning matters of much importance, parti- cularly as affecting the character of Christ's church, it is the bounden duty of every steward of the oracles of God to seek to know the mind of the Spirit as respects them. It often occurs in the history of deep thinking minds, particularly when pressed by a sense of duty to prove all things, that views for a time rise before them, and exceedingly perplex, which often subsequently a ray of divine light shows in an entirely new aspect. These events in their history are un- known but to themselves, and to Him in the secret of whose presence they dwell ; and when the simple and clear result is presented to others, they little conceive of the path by which the Spirit has brought the teacher, and by what dark- ness he was prepared for the light in which he now rejoices, and to which he invites them. Haliburton's life is a striking disclosure of such a history as this. But there are many Haliburtons, although one only has written ; and oh little do they know who talk of youth and inexperience, how far they are from the mark when they speak of that as a first thought and a first love which has had ten thousand thoughts and S8 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. feelings before it ; and little do they conceive of the mass of experience which, in a mind bent to one subject, may be crowded into a very brief period of time. But I am going from my object, which was to ask for our dearest Sandy Scott that you be both much in prayer for the presence of the Holy Spirit with him in his studying of the word. [After referring to the " address," which Mr. Story had asked him to read from the pulpit of Rosneath Church.^] I felt it due to him and to the truth — dearer, I trust, to both of us than our lives — to write him, putting him in pos- session of that knowledge of the state of things here of which from his absence he is ignorant, and pressing the consequent importance of weighing every word we utter ; and then ex- plaining the grounds of my objection to his words, as pre- senting the truth in a shape in which I could not prove it from the Word of God. I know there are winnowing times coming, and I bless God that through grace I have no feel- ing in the prospect of them but an earnest desire that in any way which he sees meet I may be found glorifying Him, and instrumental in the salvation of souls. But after reading, as I have just been doing, the writings of men who have gone so far at least on the path in which we are, as to have all seen the fallacy of the system of evidences, however much they have differed from us and from one another in their statement of truth (I refer to Glass and Sandeman, Barclay the Berean, and M'Lean the Baptist, as also Boston, Mar- shall, Harvey, Sic), and, I grieve to say, tracing a most un- christian spirit in some of them, and, alas ! that I should have to add, the most unchristian in him who most nearly coincides with us, I mean Barclay ; — after this I feel made to tremble, not for the Ark of God, but for those who touch it. We must consider well the ground we take. I think their taking their ground too soon was the source of much ^ See Memoir, p. wt, et seq., where Mr. Campbell's letter to Mr. Story on this subject is given. 1828-31. DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 59 of the error of the persons to whom I refer above ; and that subsequently they went to the Bible, rather to find argu- ments to defend what they had stated, than to see what further light the Spirit might give. As to dearest Mr. Story, the very peculiar history of his mind, together with its natural qualities, leads me to feel that he has been set apart like Paul from the first, to be a witness to the name of Jesus in the days of the revival of the knowledge of the simple truth ; and his being at present laid aside as it were from the claims of ministerial duty I read as a call upon him to seek the maturing of his views in the study of the Word and prayer, rather than hasten to the declaration of them in any shape which is likely to give permanency to what now seems to him the proper form of the Gospel message. . . . Let us all bow our heads before the Lord, who manifests diversities of operation while there is but one Spirit, when we reflect — a reflection which the reading of his life must force upon you, as the recollection of it does upon me — that our dear glorified brother Brainerd, who was not only in labours more abundant but in feelings more exalted than any of us, would not have presented the Gospel message as we now do ; nay, that most probably he would have been very jealous with a godly jealousy of such sermons as mine. The conviction that it would be so does not in the least shake me in the conviction that God has permitted me to see more nearly as it was the apostolic form ; but it does afford me much comfort in thinking of those who differ with me, as it is a resting ground to the pleasing thought, that in the sight of God we may be seen standing firm upon the same rock of ages ; or, rather, hid in the same all-glorious cleft. I have just come to the close of a day through grace en- tirely devoted to the pressing of Eternal truth upon immortal souls. The increase is with God, and all is well. Oh how 6o MEMORIALS. chap. hi. shall I praise Him in that He gives me to consecrate time to eternity ! I desire to rejoice with you in the similar manifestation of His love which you enjoy. Oh may He give us to be faithful and grateful. You have both alike the prayers and the Christian love of your affectionate friend in the truth. To his Sister. My manse is advancing rapidly. I anticipate, if the Lord will, receiving you in it in spring. . It is looking most lovely through the screen of trees in front and looks out on a most lovely scene. Oh for grace to feel that, with all its loveliness, it is but a beautiful tent pitched in the wilderness, and — by the exceeding mercy of my God in calling me from darkness to his marvellous light — I may add, pitched on the green margin of the well of living water. Row, November loth, 1828. The memoir of Isabella Campbell will not be a large volume, as you will see by the smallness of the price ; and the most valuable part of it, her letters, will not be very considerable. But seeing that it was so much her constant prayer that God would use her for His own glory, and seeing that the memoir will be written by my dear friend Mr. Story in the same spirit, I do not measure its usefulness by its bulk, but by the preciousness of its contents as the truth of God embodied in living ex- perience, and by the faithfulness of God as the hearer of prayer. I think in general religious memoirs are too much spun out, and got up too much on a book-making principle. Mr. Story is a man of talent and taste, and will bring both with him to his share in the work ; but he agrees with me in thinking that the less there is of the editor, and the more simply our much loved sister in Christ is made to appear as herself— as nearly as possible just what we knew her — the 1828-31. RELIGIOUS MEMOIRS. 61 better. I had not come to see the truth of God so clearly during her life-time as I do now ; or rather, had not come to see so much the importance of pressing upon the attention even of those who seemed to be Christians what I saw beyond them. So that I do not know how far she would have re- ceived as general positions what in substance she was per- sonally enjoying. I have not been very strong of late ; but since I wrote you last have been able, without injury to my- self, to go through my ordinary duties, and now on Monday feel nothing the worse of yesterday's exertions. Oh how peacefully would I cast the burden of this weak body on the Lord if I but more constantly realized His infinitely deeper interest in those objects for the sake of which alone I have any wish to be strong. Row House, i2tli December, 1828. . . . I had much freedom at Perth in preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ ; and the Lord brought many to hear, and there was a manifest impression, of the nature and results of which God alone judgeth. . . . There is not in 's manner and air the holy separateness from the world so beautiful in Mr. Erskine, but I trust I may believe that his heart is in heaven. I had rather an idle day on the road to Glasgow, save what I was enabled to pass in prayer for those with whom I had been, and some conversation on the Gospel with a gentleman in the coach, and also some advice in Gaelic to a young woman from the Highlands. I gave my evening to ray essay, and the next forenoon.^ . . . The doctrine stated as that confessed was so unwelcome as to draw all the attention of my brethren away from the 1 This was an essay written for a clerical society, on the subject of "Confessing Christ." It was afterwards published in the volume en- titled " Good Tidings," of which a new edition was published by James Nisbet & Co., in 1873. 62 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. proper subject of the essay — viz., the confessing; and all their remarks were directed against it. I grieve on their account, and on account of our poor church and land, that I see no softening in their hostility to the Gospel of the love of God to men — to all men. The state of mind in Glasgow just now on the subject of religion is such as calls for much prayer. The light that is breaking is certainly making the darkness manifest. But the Lord reigneth ; that is enough for all who know the Lord. . . Another cause of much joy in the Lord has been the account which I received in Glasgow of some young men, students in Divinity in Edinburgh, two of whom re- ceived the Gospel through me, and other two of whom were much edified when visiting Row last summer. A letter from one of the latter, whose views were darkest, manifests much progress. The above letter contains the first mention of Mr. Erskine of Linlathen as personally known to Mr. Campbell. They seem to have met first in Edinburgh in the spring of 1828 ; but Mr. Campbell was uncertain of the exact date. In March, 1870, he wrote thus : " Dear dear brother ! I am unable to say to myself with confidence whether it was in 1827 or 1828 that dear Scott took me to him, as to one who knew that love of God in which we were seeing eye to eye." 7^0 his Father. Row, 2ist December, 1828. . . . I now sit down on the Sabbath evening to state to you briefly what I have set forth to my poor people in two long discourses. My choice of a text to-day was determined by the latter part of my intercourse with my old elder, who was taken away the morning after I last wrote to you. I had considerable comfort in his latter days, and more especially 1828-31. SPECIMEN OF TEACHING. 63 in the way in which he entered into my comments on the first part of the xiv. of John : " Let not your heart be troubled, &c." " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father, &c.," verses i, 7, 9. This is with me a very favourite passage ; the truth it contains being the anchor of my soul, viz., that in knowing the mind and feehngs of Christ I know the mind and feehngs of God. Any soul knowing the amount of this statement, and believing its truth, must be found trusting in God with a trust inspired simply by the knowledge of what He is, and stable as His character. It is thus I attain to assurance ; not by considering the fruits of my faith, or anything that is personal to myself, but by find- ing in God what warrants my trusting simply (and irrelatively of my own character) to Him : which is a holy doctrine, be- cause this trusting is a holy state of being ; the state of un- fallen creatures, because they never sinned ; the state of creatures who have fallen, and for whom redemption is provided, when they come to know that redemption, and to see their sins pardoned in the blood of Jesus. My subject then to-day was — What is known of God by him who knows that Jesus Christ is God : viz., (i) His love which is traced in all the words, in all the merciful miracles, in all the condescending kindness to His disciples ; in all the long-suffering with their hardness of heart ; in the tears shed over Jerusalem ; finally, in His laying down His life a ransom for many. (2) God's holiness, which is seen in all Christ's exposures of hypocrisies, and condemnation of sin in every form in which it presents itself; in the high and heart-search- ing standard of morality which he employed ; finally, in His death as He on whom was laid the iniquity of us all. (3) God's estimate of our essential blessedness, and His pro- vision for imparting it to us ; which we learn in viewing what Christ did for us in connection with His sermon on the mount : which I regard, in what it says of beatitudes, as setting forth states of mind and heart to be in which is salva- 64 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. tion ; in short, that to which Christ proposes to save us, and not that_7^rwhich He will receive us, and allow us to call Him Saviour. If, indeed, the latter were the truth, then to read the beatitudes would be to read the sentence of our own eternal misery ; for none of us are what they describe as the Gospel finds us; and none of us can make ourselves what they require by any efforts or any volitions ; besides that, received as conditions, they would make the Gospel no longer free, and, moreover, would suppose men in coming to Christ already saved, i.e., made good. But, as I have said, I see them thus to harmonize with the Gospel, in that they are not the setting forth what I must become in order to be par- doned, but the setting forth what it is God's intention to make me by the power of that free pardon which is given to me, and to enter on the enjoyment of which, by the un- doubting belief that it is mine, is the first act of faith. To his Sister. Row, 6th March, 1829. . . . I have no wish to leave the Church of Scotland. I see no church theoretically better ; and practically they are all on a level. I agree with you in thinking my teaching more according to the standards than that of those who differ with me. I agree also with you in saying that of many of my brethren it is true that we divide more in the personal appli- cation of what we preach than in the doctrinal statement. As to the extent to which there is anything new in my views, I think I have a distinct conception of it, and when I go back to the writings of Luther and Calvin, I find it not great. ... . . . I know that, as you say, I might publish — yea, might preach — the truth without challenge if I avoided two things : innovations in language, such as saying that all are pardoned, and personal interrogations, such as. Are you born 1828-31. CAUSES OF OPPOSITION. 65 again ? Uo you know yourself to be a child of God ? But I would pass without challenge only because I would not be understood ; because, through false associations formed with right words, I might be saying the right thing and yet con- vey a false meaning. Row, Sunday, 27th September, 1829. My much loved Father, — May the Lord bless you and cause the light of His countenance to shine upon you. I am pretty fresh to-night after my day's work, in which, through grace and strength perfected in weakness, I have had much comfort; and I believe God has spoken through me to some hearts present. I am also alone, and would say something of the delightful subject of which I have been speaking, Hebrews x. 19-21. You have heard me bringing out of the preceding context the doctrine of universal pardon, as that thing in the cross of Christ which fits his blood for perfecting the conscience, and purging it from the sense of condemnation. What I was made to see in the text of this day was the inference of the Apostle from the proof of pardon, as so entirely the opposite of the inference which men allege to be deducible from it. Men say it will cause indifference ; the Apostle values it en- tirely as an access to the enjoyment of communion with God. They say, If we are all pardoned we need not heed what we do. He says. Seeing we are pardoned we have access into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and let us avail ourselves of it and draw near. And from the very fact of having been pardoned he argues the awful fate of those who will not come to God, who has had mercy upon them, and rejoice in His love. The succession of topics in my dis- courses was, (i) the proof that all are forgiven; (2) the Apostle's estimate of the blessing of forgiveness, viz., an access into the holiest ; (3) the meaning of the language used, viz., that Christ is the way to the Father, because in VOL. L E 66 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. Him the Father is revealed so that we can enjoy His character ; and that He is a Hving way, as one in whose strength we approach ; and a High Priest, as standing in the presence of God for us, and giving us the Spirit and, so to speak, receiving the prayers of the Spirit in us in the return of the Spirit to God — being thus literally a Mediator through whom God comes to us, and we go to God. This is a subject of deep interest. It is the life of Chris- tianity experimefitaily to know it. And it is the most remote thing possible from what is commonly called religion, stand- ing not in duties to the external world, — although it produces these, — but being a thing that would proceed equally in the solitude of a desert as in a crowded population, although in the one case without opportunity of outward beneficial ex- pression to others, and in the other blessing all around ; just as the sun would shine as it shines, and be the same sun, although there had been no planets to benefit by its light. . . . Mr. Erskine has just been in, and desires his love to you. To his Father, Row, 25th January, 1830, [After speaking of the opposition to his teaching, and of some books and pamphlets which were being published on the subject:] I must not do anything rashly. I feel as if my present indisposition were given as a breathing time, and I am so using it ; and I cannot enough praise the Lord, who is keeping me in the secret of His presence, and showing me His covenant, for the consolation which I am tasting. As to those who have received the truth, not one of those in whom I have had confidence has yet been in the least shaken. . . . As to myself, I am thankful that every new objection only more and more clearly demonstrates the thick moral dark- ness in which the objectors dwell. Again and again it has 1828-31. PRINCIPLES AT ISSUE. 67 been suggested to me that surely the difference is more verbal than real ; and if there were any truth in this, it would be a painful consideration indeed, that upon a verbal differ- ence, even although right in my choice of words, I should so embroil the church. But oh ! it is not verbal, but real and most fundamental, and most extensive, not as to one, but as to all points. For although my opponents agree in stating the necessity of holiness and love to God and good works, yet they show a total ignorance of these things by expecting that they can exist in men who do not know that their sins are forgiven, and can proceed from the selfish motive of a wish to be pardoned. I say it is a comfort to find the dif- ference so great, because it makes the path of duty more clear, and the call of duty more imperative ; and that must be a clear path, and that must be an imperative call, which can justify putting oneself in opposition to a whole church ; and not the Church of Scotland merely, but I may say all the sectaries likewise. . . . " Our light afflictions, v/hich are but for a moment, work out for us a far more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory." I always felt that this and similar passages must be for Christians of all ages ; but it was not until the truth awakened the sleeping enmity of the natural hearts of men, that I was experimentally made to feel the need of them, and experimentally to feel that they were all I needed. I know many will say, " It is easy for a man to stir up persecution by his own folly, and then apply these passages to himself." I answer, how is it that the grossest forms of error, even Socinianism itself, has never stirred up anything like this ? Or how is it that, unlike all speculative debates, every man loses his temper on this subject? or how is it that the world and the serious people join hand in hand here? and that too while constrained to admit the blamelessness of the teacher, yea, and of the taught, for not one of those taking up these views has as yet done anything 68 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. to justify reproach ; so that, hke Daniel, men find nothing against them excepting in the matter of their God. No, no; the key to it all is, this is a personal demand upon every man for a personal religion ; i.e., a personal faith, a personal hope, a personal love, a personal regeneration, a personal new life. Few have these personals to meet the demand, and they can only keep their false peace by casting doubt and contempt upon the authority that makes the demand. It is unnecessary to give a detailed narrative of the ecclesiastical proceedings in Mr. Campbell's case. The story has been already told more than once, with greater or less minuteness.^ Besides, the letters written to his father during the proceedings touch upon the most interesting points ; and they enable us to understand Mr. Campbell's position, as seen from his own point of view. To make these letters perfectly intelligible, it is only necessary to state a few facts, with which the reader may naturally wish to be acquainted. On the 30th of March, 1830, a memorial, signed by twelve parishioners, and complaining of the doctrines taught at Row, was presented to the Presbytery of Dumbarton. An- other memorial, signed by about eighty householders and heads of families, testified " their undiminished attachment to Mr. Campbell as their pastor : " they " trusted that no- thing would be done by the Presbytery to weaken the hands of so faithful a minister of the gospel." ^ The fullest account is to be found in a volume entitled, "The Whole Proceedings in the case of the Rev. John M'Leod Campbell ; R. B. Lusk, Greenock, 1831." The Life of Mr. Story, by his son, contains a clear and interesting narrative (See Part II., chapters II. and III); and a brief account, partly written by Mr. Campbell himself, will be found in the Introductory Narrative, prefixed to Reminiscences and Reflections. 1828-31. OUTLINE OF PROCEEDINGS. 69 In consequence of instructions received from the General Assembly the Presbytery held a parochial visitation in the Parish of Row on Thursday, 8th July ; and Mr. Campbell preached before them from Matthew v. 1-12. After service the Presbytery recommended the memorialists to convert their memorial into a libel. The libel was served on Mr. Campbell on the 9th of September; and his \vritten answers were given in at the next meeting of Presbytery on the 2 1 St. The Presbytery decided that the libel was relevant ; in other words, that the doctrines in question were heretical : and the next step was the " probation " of the libel ; that is, the proof that such doctrines had been actually taught. This stage was reached in February, 1831 ; and the examina- tion of witnesses was continued on the 2nd and 3rd of March. Finally, on the 29th of March the Presbytery found the libel "proven;" finding that "the defender has entertained and promulgated the doctrine of universal atonement and pardon through the death of Christ ; and also the doctrine that assurance is of the essence of faith, and necessary to salvation." The case came before the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr on the 13th of April; and Mr. Campbell supported his appeal from the decision of the Presbytery in a long speech, which he afterwards considered as his best statement of the grounds of his defence. The Synod came to no formal decision, but referred the case " simpliciter " to the General Assembly. The proceedings in the Assembly began on Tuesday, 24th May; and its decision was pronounced before the house adjourned, at a quarter past six, the following morning. Only 125 members voted, out of an Assembly of more than 300 ; and the sentence of deposition was carried by a majority of 119 to 6. 70 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. To his Father. Row Manse, 27th July, 1830. I regret the losing one post in giving you tidings of myself after the duties of this solemn season.^ I am, in now doing so, called upon to be very thankful for all the circumstances connected with them. Dear Norman came on the Thursday, and preached half the day. He had said to so many persons that he was not coming, that I did not expect him ; and, instead of contain- ing any contradiction of my usual statements, he must have appeared to the bulk of his hearers to put his seal to many of them. He would not remain over Sunday, in the prospect of going to Morvem. My only assistants on Sunday morning were Story and Wylie. Story began in the tent, and was succeeded by Mr. Wylie. This was the only way of saving my going out, which they both resisted. Monday I had the happiness of hearing dear Scott again addressing me and my people ; and he has just left me, all the better of preaching. I did not, in the state of his health, ask him, but he felt equal to it and volunteered. Row, Saturday [nth September, 1830]. My beloved Father, — The libel has been served on me — on Thursday a little after church. It consists of the major proposition, the minor, the proof of the minor, and the conclusion and list of witnesses. The major is — " That albeit the doctrine of universal atonement and pardon through the blood of Christ, as also the doctrine that assurance is of the essence of faith, and necessary to salva- tion, are contrary to the Holy Scriptures, and to the Confes- sion of Faith, approven by the General Assemblies of the ^ This was, as it proved, his last Communion in the parish of Row. 1828-31. CONTENTS OF LIBEL. 71 Church of Scotland, and ratified by law 1690 ; and, moreover, are condemned by the fifth act of the General Assembly, 1720." The minor is — "Yet true it is and of verity, that you hold, and have repeatedly promulgated and expressed the foresaid doctrines from the pulpit and other places." Then the proof goes on — " In so far as you have said so and so : " here follow some of the expressions ascribed to me, but most of which are inaccurate ; and then it goes on : " and more particularly that, on such a day, in such a place, you preached such words as these, or words to the same effect." Then follow extracts from the sermon before the Presbytery, particularly the words which the Presbytery have already condemned ; and also copious extracts from the sermon entitled, "The Everlasting Gospel," preached at Greenock ; ^ and also statements purporting to have been made when I preached one night at Helensburgh. Then follows the conclusion that, therefore, I should be deposed, and my church declared vacant ; and then the list of witnesses. Their witnesses are all respectable and intelli- gent. I go, as I proposed, to Edinburgh Monday. The line of defence I shall then arrange ; but, so far as I see, I contem- plate no other stand but on the relevancy — that is, on the major proposition; of which I can show that it contains no criminal charge, inasmuch as the doctrines set forth are neither contrary to Scripture nor to the Confession of Faith, and that the act of 1720, being but a judgment of an assembly, and no law of the church, cannot be founded upon. I am hurried. We are made very joyful here by the accounts of your preaching. ... I desire to abound in prayer, that as God has again enabled you to speak, so He may put His own words into your mouth. You see ^ The sermon is number IV. in Gooii Tidings, p. 60, new edition. 72 MEMORIALS. chap. iu. your fears as to their putting the question of the humanity of our Lord into the libel are groundless. . . . Tell Mr. F. that Mary Campbell, Femicarry, is to be married to Mr. Caird, whom you met here. My beloved Father, — The Presbytery have found the libel generally relevant — that is, they have found the major proposition (which I sent you) to be true. My defence was that it was irrelevant — that is, that the proposition was untrue. This is my great question, and there- fore I have appealed upon it. They are now examining (having adjourned till to-day) the minor proposition and several counts (ten in all) into which it has been broken down. But the matter is substantially decided. I have had much cause of thankfulness in the whole matter, so far as I have been personally called to difficult and laborious duty. It was not until I went to Edinburgh that I found that I would have to give in written answers. On finding this I immediately returned home. . . . The Lord gave me abundance of scribes to act the part of amanuenses, and it was a great saving of fatigue ; and in little more than Friday and Monday — for I went to meet Roy and Penney to Glasgow on Saturday — I was enabled to give in answers amounting to i8i pages. I long to put them in your hands. The passage you send was one of those that I had previously founded upon. But it was very welcome as coming from you. I am writing in the Presby- tery to overtake the post, and must conclude. I shall write again when it is all over. — Your affectionate and loving son, J. M'L. Campbell — abiding in the peace of God and the secret of the Lord's presence at Dumbarton at the Presbytery bar, 22nd September, 1830. 1 828-3 1. PROCEEDINGS IN PRESS YTER V. 73 Row, Wednesday Night. My beloved Father, — How marvellous are the doings of the Lord ! When I wrote to you at Dumbarton this morn- ing, I was looking for nothing else than that the moment they had finished the consideration of the libel, they would find me guilty in terms of my own confession, and, so far as passing sentence could go, depose me. Think of my astonishment when, after a lengthened discussion of every one of the ten counts, picking out the relevant from the irrelevant matter, one of them, Dr. Fleming, got up and said : " Now that they had disposed of the libel, he felt it right to state that he felt there were some distinctions intro- duced in the defences, some of which he understood, and some of which he had not sufficiently considered ; and that therefore, before going farther, he would propose appointing a meeting to confer with me on the subject of my defences to hold yesterday fortnight." It was then proposed to have the libel and defences printed, that they might have time to study them before meeting with me ; and after some discus- sion as to whether the Presbytery should order them to be printed, it ended in their extrajudicially recommending to me to do so, and furnish them with copies. This, of course, I shall immediately do, and put copies in their hands as soon as possible ; and oh may He who put this unlooked for leniency and kindness into their hearts, give them to bow to His own truth, which He has enabled me to state in these defences. You will conceive how accurately I was enabled to dictate when I tell you that, excepting a few sheets copied at first, it was the first copy that I gave in. Indeed, I never almost altered a word even ; and although these 181 large pages were dictated in the little time which I mentioned to you, I do not know that there is one sentence in them which I could wish to alter. Truly the Lord is a very present help in time of trouble. 74 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. Wednesday Morning [5th October, 1830]. My beloved Father, — The conference ended in nothing. They adjourned consideration of the matter till December. In the meantime my appeals go on at the Synod on Tuesday. When they met they at first seemed determined to make it a mere sham, simply asking me judicially if I adhered to my answers, and proposing to go no farther when I replied that I did. But Dr. Fleming insisting that this would be no conference at all, he was allowed to read some passages in the answers, and then some in the Act of Assembly, 1720, and in the Confession of Faith, &c. After the reading of each passage, with the corresponding passages in the Stajidards, I was permitted to speak in explanation, which I did, but they heard in silence and made no reply. Thus passed the conference. They then proposed a reference of the whole matter to the Synod, from which, for fear it should interfere with my appeals, I said I would protest ; upon which they gave it up, and simply adjourned to December. I write in the steamboat on my way to Glasgow, to make some excerpts from books in the college library on the subject of the true interpretation of the Standards. ... In December Mr. Campbell went for some weeks to Kilninver, and while there he wrote the long letter to his brother, printed in the Reminiscences, which gives an account of the proceedings up to January, 1831. [Row], 3rd February, 1831. . . . I have a long letter from Lady Flora Hastings. They desire me to send to you the assurance of their united love. It is nine pages, franked by her brother. I think you would admire it very much, and it pleases myself 1828-31. EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES. 75 to a certain extent. It is written as the result of reading all my sermons left with them, and tells, first, what she receives as true — viz., the extent of the atonement, the view I hold of the human nature of Christ, and the doctrine of the second coming. The two first she says she has always held, though she never y^'// them so much before ; the last is to her quite new. She then gives me a number of cautions and good advices, which are really such, and given in a sweet spirit. Row Manse, Saturday, 19th February, 1 831. . . . Already, I may say, though but two of my witnesses have been examined, that that which I said in my answers I would be enabled to do, has been done — viz., the disproving of anything ascribed to me beyond what I myself freely avowed. Indeed, I could have made out my case from their own witnesses' depositions, although I had stopped there. . . . The depositions of the prosecution contain within them materials from which any impartial inquirer would, without assistance, extract a fair and true apprehension of my teaching. My first witness contradicts what was false, and clears up what was obscure in the previous record ; and my second witness was enabled to give answers on every point of doctrine in question, which I cannot better describe than by saying that if all the best and most guarded and most explicit statements, which I had myself made on any occasion, had been culled out of my discourses and put together, they would not have done me more justice. In short, I might safely substitute them for my answers ; and yet they contain internal evidence that they were truly the recalling of what he had heard. This last examination was the work of yesterday. It lasted six hours and a half, in all which time tlie witness did not utter one word that I could wish had been other than it was. He evidently prayed during the asking of 76 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. every question, and in answering spoke as under the most awful sense of what he said. They have adjourned to Tuesday the ist of March, at Dumbarton, at lo a.m. It will probably take another week. ... I had no fatigue at all yesterday ; nothing to do but to listen in mental prayer and praise. Dear Mr. Carlyle has been enabled to do his part so well ; and his steady but respectful firmness has been a valuable check on the Presbytery. The first of my witnesses was Mr. Hervey Strong, American Consul. He has been resident here for more than two years. The second, of whom I have said so much, was Mr. Hawkins of Dunnichen, whom you have heard me mention. . . . One of the most striking things connected with the examination was that the answers most important to my case were elicited by their cross-questioning for another end. What may be the result of so many intelligent and accurate statements of what has been called the Row Heresy, given by men who were looked upon almost as mad because of their interest in what was taught at Row, upon the court that now hears them, or on the higher courts, or on the church in general when they are published, it is impossible to calculate. Even Dr. Hamilton was obliged to confess that it was not so bad a doctrine as he had supposed. This was after separating yesterday. Dumbarton, Thursday Evening, half-past 7, 3rd March, 1831. . . . We met here on Tuesday, at ten a.m. ; sat that night to near twelve, being fourteen hours ; met yesterday at nine, and sat till half-past one, being sixteen and a half hours ; met to-day at nine, and will probably finish some time before morning. Each witness being examined for five or six or seven hours, there is now and then an answer a little out of joint; but upon the whole I may say that every witness has been enabled to prove the honesty of my answers ; 1828-31. SYNOD AND ASSEMBLY. yj and both Mr. Bonar and Captain Stirling, and I may add Mr. Lusk and Peter M 'Galium, though only three or four hours each, have been as accurate and often as striking as Mr. Hawkins. The effect of Mr. H.'s testimony on the ministers has continued. Upon the whole they have been very different from the first days ; and last night Captain Stirling's testimony drew from Dr. Graham a most compli- mentary speech. . . You will be thankful that they are going to postpone giving judgment until the case has been printed, and they have had time to peruse it. I see much cause of thankfulness in this delay. Row Manse, Thursday, loth March, 1831. I was very thankful for the progress which your last letter records, and also for the comfort which you have found in the communications regarding your son which God has granted; seeing that He saw it right to deny you the being present. You have by Hugh received the mason's (Douglas's) testimony : more wonderful far than that of Hawkins if you consider the man's circumstances. The two counsels will be heard on the 29th. At the Synod, as well as at the Assembly, both the question of relroancy and of proof w'lW come to be discussed ; and as the Lord has given me such a man as Carlyle, I have made up my mind, in both the higher courts, to divide the work with him ; taking to myself exclusively the first question, and leaving to him the second. Thus I shall simply defend the doctrine. He will defend me. You will be thankful to learn this. I do not look to his legal knowledge, though he is quite up to all the law that applies to the case ; but I feel that, while he will look to the same source for guidance to which I look myself, many things regarding me will come better and be more tolerated from him than from myself I wish you, dearest father, to arrange having the com- 78 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. munion in your parish in the end of April or very beginning of May ; in case it may be the last time that you can, without exposure to church censure, give me the place I have had for some years. I will not conceal from you that I have little expectation of anything less than deposition. Dr. Chalmers has, indeed, said that " the Moderation was not half so excited against me as the Evangelicals;" and that "he hoped I might begot through." But it is very doubtful whether he will be a mem- ber ; and besides, the "Moderation" in my presbytery are not better than the rest. The precious proof which has been brought forward tells in two ways ; and while it leaves less room for misconception in those who are fair and inquiring, it shows that the doctrine called heretical has taken a hold of men of education and fortune ; which will greatly increase the alarm of those who are determined to put it down. Come what may, I thank God for the proof. But I would not have you take your comfort from the prospect of present justification of your son by the church on earth, but from the prospect of open acquittal in the coming judgment, when Christ the righteous judge shall render to every man accord- ing to their deeds. The above is the last letter of any importance referring to the proceedings in the Church Courts. Of the Synod he had not much to tell ; and, ,as his father was a member of the General Assembly, there are no letters describing its proceedings. Before the vote was taken, Dr. Campbell addressed the Assembly in a speech, as manly as it was affect- ing, which ended with these words : " I bow to any decision to which you may think it right to come. Moderator, I am not afraid for my son ; though his brethren cast him out, the Master whom he serves will not forsake him ; and while I live, I will never be ashamed to be the father of so holy and blameless a son." . 1828-31. POSITION ASSUMED. 79 At this point the present chapter might naturally end ; but it seems right, before leaving this part of Mr. Campbell's life, to indicate the grounds on which he defended his position as a Minister of the Church of Scotland. Writing thirty-one years later (in November, 1862) to Mr. D. J. Vaughan of Leicester, — when the subject of subscription to articles was exciting fresh interest, — Mr. Campbell referred thus to the position which he had assumed at this time : " It belongs, it appears to me, to the living Church to accept the purer teaching, or reject it, and the teacher with it, — doing this at its peril. This appeared to me clear when teaching what I knew the living Church in Scotland was likely — and, unless by some special grace of God, was sure — to reject. And although I felt it right, seeing ground for so thinking, to state reasons for concluding that the word re- demption was not used by the Westminster Assembly in the sense in which holding redemption limited was a limiting of ' the atonement, I was at pains to make it clear that I stood simply on the truth of my teaching, — its harmony with the Scriptures. ... I remember well the pain with which I heard one of my judges (a D.D.) say, ' He cannot preach this, and be a minister of the Church of Scotland. Let him go to England and preach it, and we may bid him God speed.' This was, I believe, an extreme case. But I was thankful, and am now thankful, that any measure of liberty to get away from the question, ' What is the truth of God here ? ' I protested against." The fullest explanation of the grounds of his defence is contained in the speech which he made at the bar of the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr. That speech is much too long to be given in full; it occupied five hours; but the following passages are quoted as illustrating his position : — " I feel" (he said), "that it is a very awful thing that it should be the feeling of a great many people, — and a feeling 8o MEMORIALS. CHAP. III. from which I desire that my brethren may be saved, — that the greatest charge against me is that, according to the concep- tion of those bringing the charge, that which I teach is not consistent with the Standards of the church. . . " Now, Moderator, I am not admitting that the doctrines I teach are inconsistent with the Standards ; on the contrary, I maintain that they are not inconsistent with them. . . But I feel that to take this ground would be failing in duty to the truth of God ; and more especially at present, when it is so general a feeling that it is charity to be indulgent to all manner of opinions, and that to speak dogmatically is neces- sarily an evil." He then proceeded to read some passages from the Con- fessions of Faith of the Protestant Churches, " to show that the principle now stated, as to the proper place of doctrinal declarations proceeding from the visible church, has been recognized by the church herself" The first quotation was from the Scottish Confession of Faith of 1560, article xviii. ■' Of the notes whereby the true Kirk is discerned from the false; and who shall judge of the Doctrine;" and it ends thus : " If the interpretation, determination, or sentence, of any doctor, church, or council, repugn to the plain word of God, written in any other place of Scripture, it is a thing most certain, that there is not the true understanding and meaning of the Holy Ghost ; supposing that councils, and realms, and nations have approved and received the same. For we dare not admit any interpretation, which repugneth to any principal point of our faith, or to any other plain text of Scripture, or yet unto the rule of charity." He next read a passage from the preface to the same Con- fession, "which has always been recognized as of authority in the Church." " Protestand that gif onie man will note in this our confession onie artickle or sentence repugnand to God's halie word, that it wold pleis him of his gentleness and for christian charitie's sake to admonish us of the same in 1 828-3 1. SPEECH BEFORE SYNOD. 8i writing ; and we, upon our honoures and fidelitie, be God's grace, do promise unto him satisfaction fra the mouth of God, that is fra his haly Scriptures, or else reformation of that quhilk he sal prove to be amisse."^ "Thus is there distinctly recognized," (he continues), " a principle which, meeting us here in the preface, must be applied to the whole Confession, — that the Church would not have us to conceive that she puts her Confession on a level with the Scriptures, and that her language to any of her children would never be, I charge you with heresy, because you do not hold what I have taught you ; but that she distinctly says, I shall not charge you with heresy, excepting upon the ground that you hold what is not according to the word of God ; and if you show me that anything that I have taught you is inconsistent with the word of God, I shall give it up, and allow you to regard it as heresy." He then read a quotation of similar purport from the pre- face to the Confession of Helvetia, which was approved by the Assembly of 1566, as is recorded in Calderwood's His- tory ; and he went on to say : — " Now what I see thus put forth is this most important truth, that the place of the Church, in respect of professing Christians, is the place of the father of a family in respect of his children ; whose place is to teach them out of the word of God, that which he believes to be contained in the word of God ; and to ask their faith to that because it is the word of God ; but who is going out of his place, and forgetting what it truly is, the moment he says that anything is to be received because he says it, and that he is not obliged to give any higher authority for what he teaches than his own." After enforcing this principle at some length, he continues : " Is the Church of Scotland not bound by the principle now set forth ? Does she become entitled to hold any other ^ The quotation is from Dunlop's Collection of Confessions, vol. II, , p. 17. VOL. I. F 82 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. language because she is an established Church, or by the toleration of dissenters, or the liberty which she may be will- ing to give to her members to join any denomination they please. Does she regard herself as the Church, and if so, what constitutes her the Church ? What is the inspired de- finition of the Church ? Not that she is a body formed by Act of Parliament, but that she is 'the pillar and ground OF THE TRUTH.' That is the definition given by the Holy Ghost ; and that alone is the definition for a Christian to re- cognize. The Church requires not endowTnent to make her a Church. She was a Church before she was endowed ; and if her endowment was taken away to-morrow she would still be the Church. It is an awful heresy that would invade the freedom of searching the word of God by the ministers of the Church ; that would teach that because she is an established Church her ministers are to enjoy less liberty when seeking to bring forward, for the edification of their people, from the word of God, 'things new and old.' On this sub- ject I entreat my brethren and fathers to remember this plain fact, that the Church at no time has contained all the light that is in her living head, — that of the fulness that is in Jesus Christ there has been but a part at any time in His body, as a • living thing. And, unquestionably, the Church is to take to herself admonition from the example of the Apostle (Phil. iiL 13) : 'This thing I do, forgetting those things which are be- hind, and reaching forward unto those things that are before.* In respect of the Christians to whom he writes, the Apostle distinctly recognizes that their knowledge is limited, and teaches that it ought to be progressive, expressing his trust that it would be so (v. 15). What is true of individual Christians is true of the Church as a body ; and surely as the Church would admit that an individual Christian was re- jecting the express command of the Holy Ghost if he said, I shall be satisfied with the knowledge unto which I have at- tained, and shall not seek to be taught farther, — she cannot 1828-31. DOCTRINE OF REFORMERS. 83 consistently hold that such language would become herself. . . . If a Confession of Faith were something to stint and stop the Church's growth in light and knowledge, and to say, ' Thus far shalt thou go and no farther,' then a Con- fession of Faith would be the greatest curse that ever befel a Church. Therefore I distinctly hold that no minister treats the Confession of Faith aright, if he does not come with it, as a party, to the word of God, and consent to stand or fall by the word of God, and to acknowledge no other tribunal, in mat- ters of heresy, than the word of God. In matters of doctrine, no lower authority can be recognized than that of God. " Having said thus much, I shall now ask your attention to the evidence which I desire to place before you, that the Church has hitherto been saved from denying the Lord that bought her — by which I mean denying the truth that Christ has died for all." He then proceeded to consider the confessions of the Reformed Churches, as compared with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The latter, he showed, taught that Christ died for all men ; the Reformers did not protest against this doctrine, and therefore must have accepted it. In support of this position he quoted, besides other docu-- ments, the Scotch Confession of 1560 (Article IX.); the Pro- per Preface for Easter Day in the Communion Service of the Church of England; the second Article of the same church ; the English Confession of Bishop Jewel, &c. He then continued : " I think it abundantly manifest that, while these expressions were natural, as coming from the lips of persons who had not been accustomed to hear the death of Christ for all called in question, and who did not mean to call it in question themselves, they would have been most unaccountable expressions coming from the mouths of per- sons, who, having been accustomed to hear that doctrine taught, but who did not hold it themselves, were setting forth their views on the subject." 84 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. Coming down to the time when the Westminster Confes- sion was drawn up, he maintained that the Westminster Assembly was convened under the authority of a Commis- sion, which recognized the Articles of the Church of England as the basis of the Assembly's deliberations. " Now, the Assembly being thus constituted, every one must admit that, if the Westminster divines had gone about to state a limited atonement, they would have been acting in the face of the commission given to them, inasmuch as they would have been flatly contradicting the doctrines of the Church of Eng- land. My statement is that they have not done so ; that they have is the charge brought against them by every person who holds that they have expressly limited the atonement. . . . Now this is the result of our consideration of Confessions, on the subject of the extent of the atonement, that all of them appear to have distinctly recognized its universality, except- ing that dra\vn up by the Westminster Assembly. It indeed does not state this truth, but neither does it expressly deny it." / He then considered the meaning of the word Redemption, as used in the Westminster Confession ; giving his reasons for believing that it "has reference to the deliverance of man from his evil state, and not to the atonement." He next spoke of the doctrine of the Church on the sub- ject of the Assurance of Faith. While he held that on this subject the Westminster divines had not "denied what those who went before them taught; yet they taught it in a form of speech exceedingly cold, and unfit to do justice to the truth." " Moderator, I am anxious to put you in possession of the exact feelings with which I contemplate the Westminster Confession of Faith. I hold that neither on the one subject nor on the other has it set forth any lie. As to the truth of the matter, its statements are substantially true ; but certainly I do hold that it is the fact, that from the living religion of the Refonnation Church, — from the indications of personal 1828-31. CONCLUSION OF SPEECH. 85 experience which we have in the Confessions of the early Church, — there is an awful falling off in the Confession we now have." . . . It is " our place rather to be willing to know the sins of our fathers, that we may be humbled before God for them, than to think of them in such a way, and hold their opinions in such esteem, as will expose ourselves to the danger of following them in that in which they may have erred." Enough of the speech has now been given to indicate the attitude which Mr. Campbell assumed with reference to the Standards of the Church. All that need now be quoted is the closing passage, which is as follows : — " I have fully set forth to my fathers and brethren the doctrines I have been teaching in the church of Row, and wherever else God has permitted me to speak in his name. And, on the subject of my appeals, I now again ask that you would come to this conclusion, that the major proposition of the libel is not relevant, and consequently that there is no occasion to consider the minor at all. And I do feel that it is not inconsistent with the place which you and I now oc- cupy, that I should call upon you, fathers and brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will soon judge us, that you sit in deliberation on this matter, as those who are not deciding on Confessions of Faith — as those who are not discharging a duty like that of lawyers seeking to apply acts of Parliament; but as those who are called to pronounce whether certain doctrines are true or false — are in the word of God, or not in the word of God — as those, in other words, who are called to the high responsibility of judging that word, of which the Lord has said, that that word shall judge you in the last day. And therefore, oh let me entreat and beseech you, in the name of God, that you be found realizing the awfulness of sitting in judgment, not on Con- fessions of Faith, or Acts of General Assemblies, but on the oracles of the living God ! And oh may God grant unto you 86 MEMORIALS. chap. hi. all that in the Spirit of Him who is to come and reveal the righteous judgment of God — the Spirit of Christ the judge, by the power of His Spirit, you may now judge righteous judg- ment, and give a decision which may go to settle the troubled waters of men's minds in this district of the Church, and more especially in the parish of Row; and give a judgment to strengthen the hands of a servant of Christ, that his heart faint not, because of the opposition of ungodly and ignorant men ; that he may be strengthened to confess the truth, through your acknowledging the truth of what he preaches ! I ask this as not forgetting that a decision of my presbytery against me gives to the enemy of the souls of my people an advantage in resisting the truth of what I teach. I do not say that they are excusable who are thereby prevented from receiving the truth ; but I say it is the duty of my brethren to remove a stumblingblock out of the way. I have said, ' the opposition of wicked and ignorant men;' in so speaking I do not refer to my judges. I desire that I may not be miscon- ceived. I am not impeaching the honesty or integrity of my brethren ; I only say they have given a decision which is fitted to have this evil operation, that it hath strengthened evil hands. " I now leave the cause in the hands of the Synod." 87 CHAPTER IV. 1831— 1834. Farewell to Row — He Preaches in Argyllshire and Skye — Letters, July 1 83 1 to December 1832 — He Settles in Glasgow — Declines to Join the "London Church" — Death of Irving — Letters of 1833 and 1834. The years which followed his deposition were the time of Mr. Campbell's greatest activity as a preacher. Until the end of 1832 he lived with his father at Kilninver; and he preached constantly in the neighbourhood, especially at Oban. But before entering on this work he returned to Row, both to wind up matters of business connected with the allow- ances to the poor, and to say farewell to his old parishioners. On a lovely Sunday evening at the end of July he preached to an immense congregation in the New Churchyard at Greenock. It was estimated that not less than six thousand were present; and his voice was heard even beyond the crowd by persons sitting in their own houses at open win- dows. A fortnight later he preached his farewell sermon to the people of Row, taking the parable of the Sower as his subject. The letters mav be left to tell some of the details of his 88 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. life at this time. He generally preached at Oban on Sun- days; sometimes in the Independent Chapel, and sometimes — when the congregation was very large and the weather fine — on the green hillside above the town. Many came in boats from the neighbouring islands ; some from great dis- tances ; and on week days he often met them near their own homes, in Kerrera, Luing, and other islands. In a letter to his sister, written in May, 1832, he says : " Your desire that I should visit our mother's country is one that I also cherish." Accordingly, in the autumn he spent some weeks in Skye and Raasay, preaching everywhere ; and he was received with great kindness by the people. Many of them had known his father in former years ; and they were glad to welcome the son. As they said them- selves, he " had a great right " to come and preach among them. In December he took leave of the people who had been coming to hear him preach at Oban, having now decided to take up his abode in Glasgow, and preach there regularly on Sundays at least, at whatever other places he might preach during the week. To his Father. Written at Ardrishaig, on his ivayfrotn Kilninver to the Lowlands. [Probably July, 1831.] Dearly beloved Father, — 'Why should you not have your usual scribble from the Point? I am not more fatigued than usual on such occasions, although I preached by the way (being about two hours only in the pulpit), and certainly I am not less disposed than usual to re-echo our farewell from this distance. We got on very smoothly — I generally driving till a shower came, and then giving the reins to Duncan — without any incident till I came to the foot of the Kintra Brae. I 1831-34- OPEN-AIR PREACHING. 89 there had come out and was walking up, when an elderly- man came running after me, and accompanied me half up the hill. He began with expressing his sorrow for the awful condition into which the Church had brought herself by casting me out, and went on to speak of the anxiety of the people to hear. He will, I think, be a proper point of communication with Craignish, when I can preach there. Among other things he said : " Cha d' iar sibh ach bhith air bhur deachan leas an Scrioptair, agus nan deanamh iad sin cha b' urrin dhoibh bheir coir amach." ^ My congregation was not large, owing to the weather. Many had come from great distances expecting me in the forenoon, and had gone away. I saw my Castle Sween correspondent, and I also made acquaintance with a man on Lochfine-side ; so that I can easily, on my return to the Highlands, make an intimation of my preaching. But good night, for I am sleepy. The Lord bless and keep you. Helensburgh, Monday, ist August, 1831. I wrote a very hurried letter on Saturday. I was at that time engaged in distributing the allowance of the last two months to the poor, in order to have all cut and square for the heritors on Friday first, when there is to be a meeting to receive my account of my stewardship. Afterwards I dined at Mr. Story's, who was for the first time down to dinner, and thereafter crossed to Greenock, where I preached yesterday, first, in the afternoon, to the Highlanders in Gaelic in the Methodist Chapel, and then in the evening in the New Churchyard. It was a most lovely evening. I never saw such an assemblage — at least six thousand — and the evening was so still that they heard me quite easily. I ^ "You never wished but to be tried by Scripture, and if they had done that they could not have cast you out. " 90 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. suppose all the ministers in Greenock together had not so many hearers. Dear old Mrs. Campbell said that on the former Sunday, on seeing the people hurrying from the chapel to the burying-ground, when it was understood that I was to preach, she was made to remember the words of Joseph to his brethren, as applicable to me with reference to the conduct of my brethren : " But as for you ye thought evil against me ; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive" (Gen. 1. 20). I feel quite well to-day after my exertions, and write at Helensburgh just before making my calls. Everybody is astonished to see me look so well. . . . Helensburgh, Thursday [12th August, 1831]. . . . Yesterday I went to Bonhill, and preached in a tent to about two thousand people, and am to-day feeling extremely well. It was a lovely still evening, and, as they came very close round, I spoke easily so as that they heard, I have made up my mind to preach here on Sabbath first at five p.m.i The Bonhill people are going to preserve the tent— a wooden one, as comfortable as your communion one, and made for the occasion ; and they are going to send it over in a cart for the use of the people here on Sunday first. I believe most of themselves will be over likewise. Never had a more attentive audience. I am unwilling to disappoint Captain Stirling of my promised visit, and Macan and I may perhaps go there on Monday ; so that we cannot be with you till the middle of the week. ... I am thankful that it appears likely there will be no more about Mr. Story in the Presbytery. 1 The sermon which he then preached in a field near Helensburgh is given in the second volume of Row sermons, at p. 245 ; it was his farewell to the people of Row. I83I-34- IN THE HIGHLANDS. 91 To Mr. Story. KiLNi.WER, September, 1S31. My beloved Brother, — I am thankful for the tidings of yourself and dear Mrs. Story which your letter gives. I have to repay you with good accounts of my dearest father's health, and with the welcome intelligence that Jean Mary and her husband are safe and well in London, having arrived there on Thursday last. As to my own health, it is better, but I have not a very strong feeling. After preaching at Inveraray on the afternoon and evening of Sunday (and to a considerable congregation on the latter occasion), I preached at Strachur on Monday, and Kames, Lochgair, on Tuesday. If, however, you have seen David Ker, you have heard of these things from him. The day I parted with him I rode forty miles, and preached to a considerable congregation at the Ford. I was, however, a good deal jaded by the time I got here at night, and rested till yesterday, when I had a very large congregation here, and was tempted to speak for a longer time than usual, and with a very great expenditure of voice. So to-day I am again fatigued. But I have intimated preaching for the four next days at four different places (three islands, and one on the mainland), not far from this ; and Sunday I preach at Oban. My present arrangements go no further. I am thinking of going as far as Inverness, and thence down by Aberdeen, and meeting the Macnabbs at Arthur- stone. I have met no actual interruption as yet. I was told at the Ford that if I crossed a certain stream there to the usual place chosen by Missionary preachers, the proprietor was determined to interfere. Of course I did not expose myself to that. . . . Beloved Brother, I remember well your warnings as to making a sect instead of making Christians ; and I feel deeply the awful sin involved in doing anything fitted to 92 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. lead to such a result, and if there is anything to which my attention has latterly been more than ever pointed, it is the taking men's minds from words to things. . . . My father welcomed your remembrances. To his Sister. KlLNlNVER, 1 6th March, 1832. . . . As to my plans — I am now about three months in this country, during the most of which time I have preached a great deal ; and from the anxiety to hear, and the distances from which the people were content to come, on the Sundays at least, I had pretty much the same congregation wherever I was. Indeed I was very often on the Sundays in one place, viz. Oban ; so that the same people have heard many discourses; and as there has manifestly been a great interest awakened, and as I have distributed among them a large quantity of my tracts, I am persuaded that I may say that a pretty close and lengthened attention has been given to the subjects on which I have preached by a considerable number of the people of this country; and there are several over whom I have been asked to rejoice as having come to know and rejoice in God. ... In these circumstances I feel that I should not much longer remain here at present. Then, as to my choice of my next station, it is early in the season for parts of the Highlands where I am com- paratively unkno\\Ti; and, besides, I anticipate visiting these in the summer and harvest months. . . . Of the past I cannot here give the retrospect I take. The Lord grant that what I see I may write on the future in charac- ters of improvement. There never was a time when all excite- ment — anything that can prevent our seeing with a single eye — could be more a subject of righteous jealousy. The Lord give us to be thus jealous. If our eye be evil, our I S3 1-34- THE CHOLERA. 93 whole body shall be full of darkness. If single, our whole body shall be full of light. How many are the beams which we need to have taken out ! Whatever doctrine or requirement of God demands the acknowledgment that we have taken a wrong step or omitted taking a right one — that we have been in error or in disobedience ; or demands the sacrifice of some present comfort, some present peace and harmony, some present esteem of others ; or implies exposure to the imputation of folly and madness, or worse ; every such doctrine or requirement of the Lord has inter- posed between us and the single-eyed vision of it a beam that needeth to be removed. How needful that we begin with removing these beams, with counting the costs of discipleship. ... I propose preaching here thrice yet in public ; viz., at a place in Muchairn, ten miles from this, in the open air on Sunday first j on the occasion of the national fast at Oban on the 22nd; and Sunday week in the open air on the church green here, leaving this the beginning of the following week. To his Father. Glentyan House,! Friday, 20th April [1832]. . . . In my three former letters I very unaccountably omitted any notice of the cholera. I find, as might be feared, that it occupies much less of the attention of those dwelling where it is, than of those receiving, post by post, the public reports. Some days, however, an unusually large number being reported, there is some talk produced ; and then it dies away. Indeed it is very awful to see how, between the ignorant denial of its existence by many of the poor, and the self-congratulation of the rich on its supposed limitation to the ill-clad and ill-behaved of the ! Glentyan was the residence of Captain Stirling, mentioned above as one of Mr. Campbell's witnesses. 94 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. lower orders, this awful judgment is softened do^vn in men's apprehensions to something about which they need not much disturb themselves ; and any little thought they do bestow on it is frittered away in discussing contra- dictory theories about contagion, causes, preventions, cure, without the slightest acknowledgment of God. How very awful is the aspect it presents in Paris. It appears that before it came it was the subject of much scoffing, which has given place to ignorant amazement and panic. And is not the moral evil which it has developed in these murderous mobs worse than itself? How widespread this spirit is ! I find in Glasgow that it is felt that the lower orders have an increasing distrust of their superiors. The distrust, coming along with the feeling of their being them- selves the proper fountain of power, must work frightfully soon. The people will treat every addition to the popular power as something extorted from an enemy; and they are already speaking of opening up old scores— the Man- chester massacre, &c. That headiness and rash acting, violently and cruelly, on a mere surmise, which showed itself in Paris in treating men as prisoners upon any or no ground of suspicion, has shown itself in this country. Thus two ladies, acquaintances of mine, crossing a field to avoid a cholera funeral which they saw approaching, were pursued by some blackguards getting up the cry, " These are the wives of the murderers, the Doctors, the Burkers," and escaped by taking refuge in a farm-house. 2 1 St, Glasgow. — I left our kind friends at Glentyan well, inquiring about you with much interest ; and now I finish my letter at Glasgow, on my way to Jordanhill, where I remain to-night, being to preach here to-morrow, forenoon and afternoon. I rode my little mare at a walk from Glentyan to Paisley, where I took the coach. She seems doing remarkably well, and in a io-w weeks will be fit for my work. Monday I propose going to Campsie. I I S3 1 -34- VISIT TO DUMFRIES. 95 hope to get away to Irongray on Friday. The coach starts at six in the morning ; so I must be here on Thursday night. . . . May 2nd, 1832. . . . I got on very well on Friday. The hour was early, six o'clock, and I had taken an outside place for economy ; but the inside was not full, and I got in as long as I chose to remain, which was till noon. The day was very fine. I got to Miss Goldie's at five o'clock p.m. — seventy-four miles. With her I found a very kind welcome. On Saturday she drove me up in her carriage to Irongray Manse, four miles. We were to remain all night, and till after church next day ; and before setting out we ascertained that I could have the Methodist Chapel at Dumfries (which is small, about the size of Kilninver Church) to preach in on Sunday evening; of which she got printed intimations made and put up. In that chapel I preached also Monday morning at seven, and Monday evening at seven, and Tuesday morning at seven ; and am to preach there again Friday afternoon and evening, and Sunday afternoon and evening. My evening congregation was on Sunday very crowded, more being disappointed of getting in than got in. Monday night, being a week-day night, was not so crowded, though quite full. The morning meetings were also very fair. . . . This morning preaching is no more than as a smart walk before breakfast, the place being small and the congregation small. The sermons are also shorter, that I may not inter- fere with family arrangements as to breakfast. To the Same. Written on board the Skye Steamer in the Sound of Mull. [September, 1832.] . . . I found the boat full of Skye people, returning 96 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. from the Falkirk Tryst, which, it would appear, was not thought good. We are now in the Sound, and with smooth water — else I could not write — and are likely to be at Tobermory soon after ten. They go on at three in the morning, and nobody goes ashore. There are beds, but they are all engaged, and I shall be quite well on a bench. We contemplate being at Isle Oronsay at twelve noon. ... I am to send this ashore at Tobermory. The wind is so laid that we expect pretty smooth water at the Point. ... I have the prospect of meeting Roderick M'Leod and some other ministers to-morrow on their return from Eig to Skye. Isle Oronsay, Saturday Night, 15th Sept., 1832. . . . I did, after all, get a bed ; for which I was very thankful when I found the vessel rolling very much off the Point. The wind was not high, but the late storms had left the sea in commotion, . . . Mr. Roderick was not of the party that came on board at Eig, he having gone to Rum. I spoke to those who were, Mr. MTvar and Mr. M'Donald at least. I understand John and Hannah Rasay are both in this country at present. The Lord enable me to meet all my friends aright. Here I met with a very kind welcome from Colin Elder and his wife. I purpose being Mr. M'lvar's hearer to-morrow at Kilmore, and preaching here at four p.m. I could not, at least for the first day, expect a congregation during service in the parish church. I find Mr. Roderick much looked up to in this house; and I presume I shall find it the same with all who have any claim to seriousness in religion. The Lord grant that he do not throw himself into any painful collision with me. But I am here to speak in the name of the Lord, and must not take upon myself any burden of careful- ness. Oh, how vain and sinful are most of our anxieties ! That which is not good we ought not to desire at all ; that 1831-34- PREACHING TOUR IN SKYE. 97 which is good we ought to desire and pursue in faith, looking to God for it. *' I would have you," says the Apostle, " without carefulness." Yet he would have us diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. This is the secret — to have that diligence which belongs to those to whom a task is appointed, and yet that freedom from carefulness which belongs to those who can peace- fully leave the result with the task-giver. It is a secret, and when stated seems to the natural heart a contradiction. The Lord teach us to know how to work as creatures, as setting the Lord before us ; as feeling not masters but servants- — not persons working on their own account (as we speak of a man set up in business for himself), but working for another — for Him who hath bought us with a price, so that we are not our own. The feeling of a servant in a house, who just does his appointed work, and takes for granted that his breakfast and his dinner and his supper shall be waiting him at the appointed time, is to me as a type of the feeling with which we should dwell in the household of faith, doing that thing, whether a mental or a bodily exertion, which our God has appointed for us ; all the while believing that our bread shall be given us, and our water shall be sure. ... I am taking too much of my time from my host, so shall say farewell. Manse of Strath, Tuesday, 25th September. . . . I am progressing slowly. In Sleat I preached at Tormore, being at night at Mr. M 'Donald's, who gave his barn; and at Sasaig, being at night at the minister's, who was himself my hearer, and procured a house for me, and with my intercourse with whom I was much pleased. We had a great deal of free and friendly discussion, and before I came away he said: " Mr. Campbell, I never under- stood so much of your views before, having had them only second hand ; and now, in the strength of God, I will VOL. I. G 98 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. enquire more into them." I preached also at Knock in a barn, being at night at Mr. Elder's ; and I preached at Isle Oronsay, being at Mr. Colin Elder's. I did not get to the other side of Sleat. In Strath I preached at Corry in a barn ; at Kyle in the open air — a lovely day ; at Breakish on Sunday in the open air; at Strathaird yesterday, and also this forenoon, in a bam ; and here this afternoon. To- morrow will be a blank day, as I will be travelling to Raasay. . . . Everybody is most kind to me ; and I am, I may say, constantly preaching — that is to say, in conver- sation commending some part of the truth of God. Your friends all seem to have a most kindly remembrance of you; and often country people, after hearing, come asking for you, and saying I have a great right to come here to preach. . . . I shall find abundant employment in Raasay till Monday or Tuesday; and then, if the weather is inviting, and that it will be convenient for Sir John to ferry me, I shall make my visit to Hartfield before going to M'Leod's country ; if not, I shall leave it to the last. I have not yet found a pony. I indeed get conveyances enough from my friends ; but if I meet a very desirable one I will buy it. I am quite well. . . . My beloved father, I find it good to be proclaiming through the land of my forefathers the glad tidings of the dying love of Jesus, and of his coming King- dom; warning them to repent because the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. I trust and believe that it will not be in vain. Snizort Manse, Tuesday, i6th October, 1832. . . . Since writing to you from Portree I have been preaching in Snizort and Kilmuir. In Snizort I have met the great bulk of what are esteemed the most pious people in the island. I preached in what they called a reading- house there to a large congregation (about 400) from the 1 83 1 -34. PRE A CHES A T SNIZOR T. 99 passage in Luke, second chapter, which is the subject of No. 8 of the tracts :^ the message of the angel to the shepherds. I was enabled to preach clearly and strongly. They were attentive; but how they received it and me I know not, save that the leading persons among them sat down during the prayers and were silent during the psalms ; and the majority followed this example. I do not feel that it is for any good to speak of this ; while I secretly weep over such hostility to that doctrine of the love of God to all, revealed in the death of Christ for all, which must be the foundation of their own peace, if it be peace through Christ received as a free gift. I may anticipate, I suspect, my reception in Bracadale from this. I preached besides at Earles, and twice at Uig; and in Kilmuir, at Stinzel, where I met a cousin, Mrs. Martin ; and at Duntuilm in Cousin Bell's hus- band's bam (to 400) ; and at Mogstad in Mr. M'Donald's bam (to 400). Indeed I have been out only at Stinzel, where the barn was too small. I continue to speak much in common conversation, and with much apparent welcome. Mogstad ^ was very attentive, accompanying me to the east side, and piloting me thence to Duntuilm by the worst road I ever travelled. Through that road I had a fair trial of a pony of his, which I have since bought. He rode it himself for some months, and it has carried him forty miles in a day more than once. . . . The pony is very lively and very gentle, walking and cantering about as well as my old pony, but not a fast trotter. I think you will be much pleased with him. ^ This tract, "Good Tidings," is also No. 8 in the new edition (1873) of the volume which bears that title. 2 Mr. M 'Donald of Mogstad. Mr. Campbell revisited this neigh- bourhood, and stayed some weeks at Mogstad in the summer of 1861, when it was the residence of his cousin, Mrs. Martin. This place figures prominently in the adventures of Prince Charles : it was then the seat of Sir Ale.\ander Macdonald. |0o MEMORIALS. chap. iv. If I can keep to my plan I shall be this day fortnight at Hartfield, after being done with Skye, and meet the Inver- ness steamboat at Invergarry this day three weeks, and be with you to-morrow three weeks. . . . To his Sister. KiLNiNVER, 30th October, 1832. I realized much, in my visit to Mrs. Erskine and the interesting group of which she was head, the importance to children of the universally religious character of a family. I know that there is a temptation to feel as if the association of sacredness with religious discourse could only be kept up by making it something special and unusual. I believe that it is more a superstitious awe than a feeling of real sacred- ness that is thus cherished, while the tendency to make religion one thing and common life another is fostered. What I felt in regard to this subject when with them was how much of a preventive influence as to all the evil to which children, and specially boys, are exposed, there was in the conversation going on in a house in which all the interest of all things was made to spring from God, even before any conversion of heart to God takes place. I believe that many of the disappointments which religious parents have experienced in regard to their children, have sprung from the secluded secret character of their own religion, of which their children have known anything more from oc- casional advices than from the manifestation of an habitual living walking with God. How many influences of evil are there in the ordinary conversation of many who really have tasted that the Lord is gracious ! How often do those who know themselves to have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, seem to forget that it is from their vain conversation received by tradition from their fathers ! How many remarks fall from 1 83 1 -34. RECEP TION BY '' PROFESSORS." i o i the lips of those who have learned that one thing is needful, which are in fact putting a seal to that false estimate of things which prevails in the world, and according to which we do well to be careful about many things ! It was a prayer which I was often made to put up while in the north, and to which in the grace of God I received many answers, that the opening of my lips might be con- cerning right things ; and it ought to be our prayer always that God would grant unto us, through Christ, to be as the mouth of Christ, to give expression to the mind of Christ concerning all things with which we have to mingle and of which we have to speak. On the whole my visit to Skye is to me matter of much thankfulness. In all the families there was an appearance of respectful consideration of the truth. In several indi- vidual cases there was an appearance of decided and deej) impression. My reception by those who are called " pro- fessors " was trying to the last. Holding that Christ had died for all seemed to them so fundamental an error as to poison necessarily all my teaching. My intercourse with my cousin, Roderick M'Leod, was no exception ; yet there was a deep solemnity about him for which I was very thankful. I could not say that there was anything captious, whatever there was of darkness, in his opposition. . . . Although I have given you such an account of my re- ception by the "professors" in general, I must add that in some more remote corners where there was no previous prejudice, as Glendale, the Word seemed to come with power to them as well as to the rest, and there was ap- parently a deep response. The Lord grant that they be not deceived into thinking that they had been taken un- wares. . . . I feel that with many the simplicity of the truth gives an impression of superficiality ; while I feel that, in point of fact, that searching of heart is superficial which I02 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. admits of a rest in anything else than a simple faith in God. 25th December, 1832. I yesterday preached to a large congregation at Oban, the third day and fifth sermon since my return. It was the saddest day, in that kind of sadness, since my farewell sermon at Helensburgh to the people of Row. They gathered so about me, and seemed so unwilling to part with me. I am persuaded many whom I know by face, but not by name, have received a blessing. I find the residence of the Stirlings and Erskines has had a very awaking influence. The strong measure^ adopted by the ministers has affected some, but not the people generally. Mr, Campbell entered upon his work in Glasgow in the first week of the year 1833. On Sundays and Mondays he preached in a hall (the Lyceum) which had been engaged for his use. By degrees the audiences which came to hear him began to have the character of a fixed congregation ; and after a year had passed he saw it right to assume a pastoral care of those who attached themselves to his ministry. He also preached on week-days at Greenock, Paisley, and other tOAVTis ; and for a time his health did not suffer from these constant exertions. There is little to notice in the incidents of 1833. The letters contain references to certain proceedings in the Presbytery of Lome, of which little need be said. It now seems strange that clerical intolerance should have gone so far as to require Dr. Campbell to read from his own pulpit a document which misrepresented and condemned the doc- trines taught by his son ; and no one will be surprised that he refused to read the " admonition," or to excommunicate his people for going to hear his son preach. ^ See below. 1831-34. MR. HENRY DRUMMOND. 103 It was in March, 1833, that Edward Irving was deposed from the ministry of the Church of Scotland by the Presby- tery of Annan. He had already been removed (in May, 1832) from the Scotch Church in Regent Square; and the new church, which was to be associated with his name, had been worshipping for some months in Newman Street. At the beginning of 1834 Irving was sent to Edinburgh, where a church had been established in connection with the " Irvingite " church in London ; and a month later he was followed by two apostles of the new church, Mr. Cardale and Mr. Drummond.^ They came to ordain the angel of the church in Edinburgh ; and then went on to visit other towns in Scotland, and to gather adherents to their church. " If a sect were establishing in the West of Scotland," Mr. Drummond wrote to Mr. Campbell, " there is no person I should be so anxious to induce to join it as you." Besides Irving himself, Mr. Campbell had several friends among those who gave in their allegiance to the new com- munity ; such as Mr. Carlyle, who had acted as his counsel in 1 83 1, and Mr. David Ker, who had accompanied him on one of his preaching journeys in Argyllshire.^ But, in spite of his regard for those men, and his sympathy with them in some matters, Mr. Campbell refused to join them. His reasons for so refusing will be found distinctly stated in two letters written at this time. The first is addressed to Mr. Carlyle, and was written in February, 1834, when Irving was still in Edinburgh, The other, written to his sister in May, gives a full and interesting account of his interview with Mr. Drummond and other members of the " London Mission," which took place at Greenock. " Mr. Campbell," says Mrs. Oliphant, " had to hold his ground against two most acute and powerful opponents — one of whom was Henry Drummond, brilliant and incisive in controversy, as in most ^ Irvine's Life, pp. 405-407. " See p. 91. I04 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. other things — and to defend and justify himself for not joining them." The points involved in these discussions were of no small importance : — On what ground ought we to receive or reject a message which professes to come from God? In what relation does the individual Christian stand to the ordin- ances of the Church? Is faith a blind submission to authority — a sacrifice of personal Hberty ? or is it the " living hearing of the living God " ? Such were some of the questions which were then so keenly debated, — ques- tions which have by no means lost their interest in the present generation. Unable as he was to agree with Irving during these later years of his life, Mr. Campbell never ceased to cherish the warmest affection for his old friend. After Irving came to Glasgow in broken health they were often together. Sometimes they rode together into the country ; sometimes Irving rode by himself on Mr. Campbell's pony. One day, when the sun was bright and the sky cloudless, there was a pause in the conversation, and Irving, looking upwards, said with deep emotion, " Oh that Thou wouldest rend the heavens and come down ! " Mr. Campbell's letters record some details of Irving's last days. It was a comfort to him to know that his name was on the lips and in the thoughts of his dying friend; and that the truth which made them one was present with him at the last. To his Sister. Glasgow, 19th January, 1833. . . . I have another call to write in the subject of the meeting of Presbytery of the 8th, in case my father may not have written himself on the subject. It appears that but for the tenor of our father's speech they would have proposed to him to propose to me conditions as to my teaching on I83I-34- A PASTORAL ADMONITION. 105 which alone he would receive me to his house. They, however, did not do so ; but, as the result of a previous correspondence with Dr. Inglis of Edinburgh, they ap- pointed the reading of a certain pastoral admonition from the Presbytery to the people from all the pulpits within their bounds, setting forth the danger to which they exposed their souls by going to hear me, and warning them that if they persisted they would be denied the ordinances of Baptism and the Holy Communion. The admonition in question my father represents as embodying a statement of the doctrines which they assume that I teach, and of which they express their abhorrence ; and that statement is in- tended to include my teaching on other points besides the subject-matters of the libel. Of all my teaching it gives a very erroneous impression, and on the subject of the Lord's humanity it represents me as teaching what might justly be mentioned with abhorrence, viz., "that our Lord's holiness was not immaculate." My father dissented, declaring that he would never submit to reading such a libel on his own son to his people, neither would he act upon the warning to them contained in it. They said they could employ one of their own number to read it at Kilninver. Our father has only dissented, not appealed, therefore they will go on with the measure. It is an awful deadening of their sense of justice that is implied in their embodying in such a form such grave charges against a brother, which have never been made the subject of any judicial inquiry at all. . . . I have heard some encouraging things that I would just mention. Standing in Mr. Wilson's wareroom last week, a man came in whom Mr. W. introduced to me. The man immediately took me by the hand, taking off his hat with his other hand, and, with his eyes full, said : " Dear sir, I am most thankful to meet you. The first ray of spiritual light that ever entered my mind was through you at Paisley three years ago, and up to that time I was a Socinian." io6 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. A young man, a printer, employed in the printing office in which my sermons were printed, took home with him one night a damaged sheet to read it. He was struck, and showed it to his mother. It took hold of her, and this incident was the commencement of a reading of the ser- mons, tracts, &c. in that house, which has issued in the father, mother, brothers and sisters being now all rejoicing in God, . . . HoPETouN Place, Glasgow, 28th January, 1833. I have contemplated for some time sending you the accompanying parcel of tracts, and small volume containing a complete series of them ; as you should have tracts that you would have comfort in distributing, and as some will read a book who will not read a tract. I met a Roman Catholic gentleman from Edinburgh, to whom Mr M'Donald had sent a copy of this little volume, who seemed to have perused it with deep interest. I often think of giving you the centre of a week, though I should be back to my post before the Sunday. All my days, however, are as Sundays ; for I find it good to have a weekly sermon in a place, a day on which they expect me. Thus T preach every Friday night at Greenock, and contemplate being every Tuesday at Paisley. I am here (besides three times on Sunday) every Monday night. I also hope to be enabled to preach regularly, say every second week, at Port-Glas- gow ; and also every second week at Kilbarchan, that is, Glentj'an. My congregations here have been in general fresh ground every time ; yet I am beginning to mark a great many faces. , I observe that many come on the Sunday evenings and Monday who do not come during the day of Sunday; that is, they wish to hear as much as they can without absenting themselves from their own churches. I continue to hear of encouraging things. 1831-34- WORK IN GLASGOW. 107 Wednesday I went to Row. That night I saw a number of old faces, as I spoke at night at Major Paterson's. I felt meeting them a good deal. Friday, before crossing to Greenock, I received the Communion cups long ago sub- scribed for by the Row people, and for some time lying waiting me at Peter M'Callum's. They are plain and hand- some, four in number, with a suitable inscription. Glasgow, 26th February, 1833. ... As to the over-working of mind of which you com- plain I have been myself sensible of it. It is chiefly through the demand which dear Mr. Erskine's overworking mind makes upon others. I could wish for more repose ; and of late I have been feeling much that the intercourse of the people of God is too much as if the command had been " little children, teach one another," not " love one another." Yet even that working of mind about the things of God has much more of God in it, and helps more to live above the world, than any other conversation that I have seen taking its place. . . . The number of persons that come to inquire whether I intend to form a congregation here of whom I would take a pastoral care, and the character of some of these inquirers, as seeming really to have got a blessing since I came here, along with the influence of the un- certainty of my stay in making many afraid to come much to hear me, for fear of thereby being excluded from church- fellowship elsewhere, while the prospect of it was not held out with me — these things make me feel that soon I must determine whether to make this a permanent residence or not. I am persuaded, although there is no great burst of feeling, nor any general awakening of men's minds produ*ced by my preaching here and in the neighbouring towns, that there is a deep and gradually widening attention awakened. io8 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. This very evening I have been interrupted in writing by a young man, a student of Moral Philosophy here, who has been attending in the hall where I preach, and who seems in a most awakened state. An incident occurred to me the other day in Greenock which I think I have not men- tioned to you. Something wrong with my shoe sent me into a shoemaker's shop. I waited awhile, while he was putting it to rights, not saying much. When it was ready I took out my purse, asking what was to pay. He said, " Nothing." I said that was too much from a stranger. He seemed embarrassed, and at last said : " Oh, nothing, sir, you will pay nothing. I trust I may say I owe you a thousand times more." I looked at him, and saw him weeping. And then I learned that when the tract No. 4 was preached he was in the floating chapel, and had re- ceived a blessing, and constantly attended my ministry when he could ever since. . . . I was much refreshed at Greenock by dear Peter M'Callum's sunny, peaceful, loving countenance. To his Father. Glasgow, Thursday, 9th May, 1833. [After referring to the annoyances to which Dr. Campbell was subjected in connection with his son's opinions:] . . . It is the same scene beginning to be acted over again, which has been so often exhibited in the Jewish Church, and subsequently in the Roman Catholic Church, and now in the Protestant Church : and, unless we see our cause as the Lord's own cause, and our trials as for His name's sake, we shall not take the encouragement in God under them which we have a right to take. No doubt our kind and gracious Heavenly Father cares for every matter that affects us ; and, however individual or personal a trial or a grief may be, we are to come with it to the Lord for con- i83r-34- CONSOLATION IN TRIAL. 109 solation, support, and guidance ; and His word is, " Call upon me when thou art in trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." But when a great thing is going on, a controversy concerning the name of the Lord, which this about atonement and assurance is — the question about the atonement being the question, "Is God Love?" and the question about assurance being, " Will those who know the name of the Lord put their trust in Him ? " — when such matters as these are moving and agitating men's minds, and the hidden unbelief and ignorance of God in teachers them- selves is bein.i; manifested, and the enmity of men's hearts to the truth is showing itself in conduct towards persons associated with it — then the trial to which those are sub- jected, in whose case that enmity takes a visible form, and becomes acts of persecution, is no private trial ; and the consolation provided for them is no ordinary consolation. " But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye ; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you." . . . I go down the river to-night, and am still spared in the midst of this influenza. It is calculated that two out of five have it of all the inhabitants of Edinburgh. I don't go to a house but I meet it, here and at Paisley. . . . To his Sister. 144 Queen Street, Glasgow, loth June, 1833. I had no leisure in the Highlands to tell how my time was occupied. I preached all over the portion of Lome and Argyle which had been the field of my labours the former summer, and on two Sabbaths at Oban, and on one at Kilninver. On the Sabbaths my congregations were about 2,000; my week day congregations were from 50 to 4,000, the term-time, flittings, and markets interfering. The impression on the whole is one that awakens thank- fulness; while there was also much painful indication of no MEMORIALS. chap. iv. deadness and insensibility while hearing the word, even in many who had come great distances to hear it. I found the influence of the Presbytery's admonition greatest in the outskirts, where I preached less frequently formerly. KiLNiNVER, 23rd October, 1833. In my hurried letter last Sunday night, I referred to two subjects on which I desired to write to you. One of these was the death of my much loved Alan Ker, You may have heard me speak of him as the greatest sufferer I ever knew or knew of. Long his sufferings were endured in the strength of a cheerful disposition and much variety of mental resource and much kindness of affectionate relatives. Latterly for many years, in which he was chiefly confined to bed, he had had the strength of faith, and endured as knowing the rod and Him that had appointed it. His brief intervals of comparative ease he made in a wonderful measure profitable to others in the way of conversation : and most of those who have had any con- spicuous place of late years, as Erskine, Irving, Scott, &c., have been at his bedside ; as well as a little further back, Thomson, Grey, Gordon, &c. To me personally he was very peculiarly attached, always regarding my labours with deep interest, and accompanying me when he knew of my movements in the spirit of prayer; and those also who were specially dear to me had a special place in his thoughts, as my Father, yourself, and my little Mary. . . . When I first heard of his death (which was too unexpected to admit of my being sent for) I realized chiefly the blank that was left. I was made to feel how little I had yet entered into that word, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee, and there is none in all the earth that I desire besides Thee." Our God is our portion, and our all-suflicient por- tion ; yet he gives us many good gifts besides, which often 1 83 1-34. DBA TH-BED REPENTANCE. 1 1 1 feel to our hearts as their riches ; and the extent to which they may be so felt is not known until our God recalls them. Then it appears how far they had come to be felt as needful to us. Oh ! for that peace in God in which God is felt enough, and yet the fullest and purest en- joyment of His good gifts is proved. I felt one good gift taken away. I supposed the case that other similar gifts were also withdrawn ; and the sense of blankness and desolation that came over me in conceiving all those whose names my heart so readily recalled no longer within my reach, was very great. Yet I could bless God that I knew that there was enough in what would still remain to me, viz.. His own love ; and that it would but need to be carried more into the realization of that love in order to its being felt enough. . . . To his Father. After hearing of the death of a person ivhom hi Juxd visited the day before. Glasgow [1833]. . . . Much have men ignorantly spoken on the subject of a death-bed repentance ; but surely no one can be at a death-bed without, if he realizes the scene at all, realizing how awful it would be to hold such a repentance too late. Oh ! no ; it is not too late, even although it should come too late for strength to express it in words; for if it be in the heart God will see it there. And no one can truly be himself cherishing a confidence towards God, that springs truly and exclusively from the free mercy of God in Christ, without feeling that the sight which he has of Christ is one which, being received at any moment before the last, the heart will be turned towards God, and so prepared to meet him. Our preparation for judgment is Tightness of heart towards God. Of that rightness of heart outward Godliness is the fruit; but that light of the forgiveness 112 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. that is in Christ which produces that rightness of heart is saving Hght, even when there is not space given to manifest by conduct that it has been received. Oh ! what legal notions of salvation men cleave to, perverting the blessed truth that " Faith without works is dead ; " and, in a seeming zeal for works, really neutralizing that message of free pardon, the faith of which alone can ever be fruitful. To Mr. Macnabb. II HoPETOUN Place, 22nd January, 1834. I cannot send you an empty sheet, particularly when I have so full a heart as through the exceeding goodness of our God I have at this moment. Yesterday was indeed with me a day of experiencing the granting of the desire ** that I thy chosen's good may see, and in their joy rejoice." In the forenoon I visited one of my people, of whom I spoke to Jane as having had such a testimony borne to her by her mistress, who said to me, " I cannot agree with Jeannie in many of her views, but truly I must say she adorns her profession." This Jeannie has got into bad health, and been obliged to go home to her father's. I rode down some miles to see her, and sat with her for an hour. She reminded me more of Isabella Campbell than any person I have seen since she was taken away. I was more a listener than a speaker, and yet there was the most perfect freedom from the least taint of self-reference or self-showing- forth in all the words of praise to the Lord which she poured out ; or rather I should say her doctrine distilled like the dew, it fell so softly. Oh ! I was sent home deeply humbled, yet filled with thankfulness. Truly " He will beautify the meek with his salvation." Last Sunday evening was one of my Gaelic nights, and with a very large congregation. I felt very much oppressed all day in myself, and at night very much oppressed by the 1 83 1 -34. ORDINANCES NO T NEGLECTED. 1 1 3 thought of the practical godlessness of my poor countrymen in Glasgow; but I believe my sorrow was not without profit to others. One thing I am specially thankful for, as what I gather from all I have been learning of the fruit of my ministry of the Word here for twelve months, that the teach- ing has been exceedingly practical — more so much than it was at Row ; and that those receiving it have in consequence learned much more what it is to be living epistles of the grace of God, commending Christ in the way of their filling the place which in the providence of God has been given them to occupy. Thus, a mother who had been very reluctantly allowing her daughter to go to the chapel, at last ceased making any demur, saying " Whatever people said, the teaching could not be bad that produced such fruits." To his Father : After his return frotn Forfarshire. II HoPETOUN Place, Glasgow, 3rd February, 1834. ... I could have with much pleasure made a much longer stay among them all. I would have liked to remain a Sun- day, but in the prospect of being one absent so soon I could not. I am indeed unwilling to be a Sunday absent but as seldom as possible, seeing that I have no one to put in my place. I will not here enter upon the subject of what you say as to -ordinances. . . . Certainly there is no sect or denomination of Christians to which I would ever attach myself. As to forming a new sect, I have no wish to do so ; but the credit or discredit of doing so I have already, as much as I can have it ; and the only possible result of not having ordinances, in respect of men's talk, would be that they would say, Rowites, like Quakers, dispensed with the ordinances altogether. However, what men say or would say is a small matter. The words, " Do this in remembrance of VOL. I. H 114 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. me," are express ; and what remains for me is to take heed that I be not accessary to or instrumental in the neglect of that command. . . I am thankful for the prospect of seeing you so soon. ... I did not like to make inquiries about Mr. Fergusson's prospects at Perth, for fear my seeming to be in- terested in him might do him harni. . . . To the Same: After returning /rom Kilninver. II HopETOuN Place, Glasgow, ist March, 1834. You would be thankful for the fineness of yesterday. There was a breeze, but it was quite off the land, and therefore made no sea. . . . To-day I have had a nice ride of about twelve miles on Brasag. I feel quite well, and have no doubt that I am to be the better of the trip. . . . I found Mr. and Mrs. Dunn and their child quite well. I shall see the rest of my people to-morrow. Oh ! it is a great undertaking to be the pastor of a people. To preach from time to time is comparatively an easy thing. In sunny summer weather it is easy to do the shepherd's part ; but in frost and snow, and storms of wind and hail, it is no holiday work ; nor in scorching heat either. And things corre- sponding to these conditions of the weather I may look for : but Jacob kept sheep fourteen years for his two wives ; of which time he says that "the sun wasted him by day, and the frost by night : " yet of the time he says that the years were as days because of the love in which he underwent his toil. It needs, then, but faith and hope to realize the day when the objects of present care will be a crown of joy and rejoicing to the faithful shepherd, and love to their souls in the meantime ; and all will be cheerfully undergone. I have always had a great shrinking from pastoral care ; and 1831-34- LETTER TO CARLYLE. 115 yet I know that "if any desire the office of a bishop he desires a good work" (i Tim. iii. i); and I also know the Chief Shepherd is able and willing to infuse into my heart of His own love and care ; yea, and doth love this proof of love to Him, choosing it when He said to Peter : " Lovest thou me ; then feed my sheep ; feed my lambs ; " and I further feel that the call in my circumstances to exercise pastoral care over those brought together by the preaching of the Word here is strong, and that I am not " hastening to be a pastor." Yet so weak are we that I often tremble at the thought of it. But the Lord will strengthen me and counsel me from day to day. . . . To his Sister. II HoPETOUN Place, Glasgow, March 5, 1834. I went out Monday to Glentyan. ... I was a hearer on Monday night, the people having been assembled in the school-house to hear Mr. Erskine. As I had come out he wished me to preach. I would not consent, however, and was afterwards thankful I had not ; not only because of the refreshment to myself in what I heard from him, but also that a number of my Paisley people had come pur- posely to hear him. I was much refreshed also by my intercourse with him. His face and manner, as well as conversation, seem, more than ever I saw him, full of peace and joy in God. To Mr. Carlyle.i II HoPETOUN Place, 4th February, 1834. My very Dear Brother, — I am your debtor in the Lord for two letters, for the love and care of which I desire to thank you. I am desirous that you should distinctly understand my position in reference to that great and ^ See above, page 103. ii6 MEMORIALS. chap, i v. spreading work which you desire to see me acknowledge and rejoice in as the work of the Lord. I am not sure that you have distinctly apprehended the principles which I stated to you as affecting my mind on this matter. I refer partly to your first, and partly to your last letter, while I say that I do not object to the importance attached to the ordinances of Rule and Instruction, but to the nature and character of the acknotuledginent demanded for them ; and that it is not merely the danger of following Christ without being careful to abide in Him for life that I sought to warn you against, but the danger of following without knowing that it is Christ you follow. In so far as you and others have appeared to me to desire that Christ would set in His Church, as at the beginning, the gifts of Apostles, Prophets, Teachers, &c., I have been more in the way of blaming myself for desiring this too little, than you or others for desiring it too much. What is declared to be for the edifying of the body in love, none who have tasted of love can consistently fail to desire and pray for, unless through an apprehension of a change in God's counsel as concerns His Church, which I do not entertain. How far I have been practically inconsistent with my own faith in this matter, or how far the spiritual and supernatural have been approached by me in my meditations and prayer's with sinful misgivings and fears, I do not measure. I know and confess that I have in this offended. But to desire such gifts is one thing, and to welcome what claims to be such gifts is another thing. Now, it has never been matter of consciousness with me that I have been resisting light in withholding such welcome hitherto. I do not regard the having spoken in tongues or in power as constituting the person a prophet in the sense of i Cor. xii. 28. Apart from all positive objection, I do not feel that it would be faith to receive merely because I saw no objection against, while neither did I see any distinct' 1831-34- OBJECTIONS TO ''IRVINGITE" SYSTEM. 117 evidence for ; that is, to believe a thing is what it claims to be merely because, so far as I see, // may be so, or that such and such are God's acts merely because I cannot say but what God might so act. In such a state of things, as I could not reject, so neither could I receive ; but would feel that I most honoured God by waiting for light. But I have felt more than the mere absence of positive evidence : I have felt positive objections of some magni- tude, chiefly these two: ist, the want of correspondence between what claim to be the gifts of Apostles and Pro- phets, &c., and what seems to have been the character of such gifts as they were possessed by the Church at the beginning ; and, 2nd, the doctrine as to ordinances so inter- woven with the whole work, if not itself positively declared by those speaking in the Spirit. The weight of the first objection it is not so easy to estimate. I have heard things said on the subject to which I could not assent, feeling them to be a limiting of God : while at the same time I felt that if God gave gifts new in kind, He would give them also new names, and not (as He would otherwise be doing) make reverence for His written Word a stone of stumbling. The second objection I feel more tangible and capable of being distinctly appreciated. It concerns the position in which individual Christians are supposed to be placed by the existence in the Church of the ordinances in question ; the position as to the personal liberty of the inward man. " He whom the Son makes free is free indeed." T/iis freedom is being a Son, having the Spirit of Adoption, abiding in the house for ever, and so follozoi/ig God as dear children, and having the answer of a good conscience towards God, following Christ as His sheep, knowing His name, and fleeing from the voice of every stranger. Now, my objection to the view on the subject of ordinances, which stands connected wnth the work in London, is that it seems to demand the sacrifice of ii8 MEMORIALS. chap, iv, this personal liberty. I know how this has been met, and how what I contend for has been stigmatized as, in religion, parallel to radicalism in politics. But I feel that there is no parallel, inasmuch as the radical demands liberty to think for himself — I only demand liberty to hear the voice of Christ. If you say, " Christ is in the Ordinance ; Christ rules, exhorts, proclaims the Gospel, warns, comforts : an Apostle, Pastor, Evangelist, Prophet, is but the mouth of Christ." Be it so ; I am content ; only, let me know the voice of Christ. Are we then agreed ? No ; for you assume that it is the voice of Christ, and hold it obedience of faith to do so, . because it is the appointed mouth. I dare not assume any- thing in the matter, but seek to know the voice itself, not venturing to infer it to be so because of the mouth. Do you say, "Why not dare? Have you no faith in God's ordinance?" I have no such faith as you ask, seeing no warrant for it, but, on the contrary, everything to forbid my so putting an ordinance between my conscience and the living hearing of the living God. My dear Brother, I think I have said enough to be easily understood. I need not therefore multiply words. You will easily see how, with such views, I come to fear in the present matter a following without knowing it is Christ you follow. First, because it seems to me that positive knowledge that it is Christ is not demanded — the demand being always to prove the negative; secondly, because I see some reason to feel that there is some evidence for the negative in the difference of aspect be- tween the present work and that at the beginning ; and, thirdly, because you all seem to adopt a principle as to ordinances which would make your following not to be a following of Christ, even although it were Christ that was going before, and makes it at any time likely that I83I-34- INTERVIEW WITH "LONDON MISSION." 119 you may follow when there is no presence of Christ at all. I know how much must be got over by any acknow- ledging the work, before they will be able calmly to weigh anything that is presented to them as a reason for pausing and reconsidering ; and I know how ready an explanation of a brother's difficulties is furnished by the assumption of adherence to preconceived notions, or a shrinking from the cross, or jealousy of the church in London. Per- sonally known as I am to you all, I still dare not ask you to assume that I have not fallen into one or all of these snares. . . . All I ask of you is not to take for granted that I have ; while in myself I feel thankful for some measure of clearness of testimony of the Spirit witnessing with my conscience that indeed I have not ; but that I am rather under the influence of true jealousy for the glory of Christ in us all — in all His body. . . . To his Sister.. Written after his interview with Mr. Henry Druiiimond and others at Greenock, l II HoPETouN Place, 14th May, 1834. . . I now sit down to give you, as briefly as I can, some account of my interview wath the London Mission last Saturday ; I having called for William Tait and ac- companied him to Mr. Drummond's, where w^ere present during the whole time Lady Harriet and Mr. D.'s family, and Mr. Taplin, and latterly Mr. Place. Mr. Drummond met me courteously, and Hke a man of his breeding, but without any impress of the character of his mission in his manner. He opened conversation by referring to our fonner intercourse ; and as that had been on religious grounds and with religious men, so the reference to it ^ See page 103. I20 MExMORIALS. chap. iv. was of the same nature, but with no other tone or character than to make me feel at ease with him ; in short, that nothing I had heard of him in the interval should produce constraint. He then referred in a way that I felt light and gay, considering the moral aspect that it presented to my mind, to Mr. Matthews and Mr. Dickie having done something by way of excommunicating or anathematizing me ; speaking as one seeing it in a ridiculous rather than any other light (which, however, is the light apt to present itself to him naturally). I simply told him the real circum- stances in a grave way. He then (from something said as to Mr. Matthews' friend, Mr. Von Luken, and his rejection of the work which he saw at Port-Glasgow, saying he had seen something similar formerly in Germany) spoke of Mr. Goode's book^ (the book I mentioned to you), saying that he believed that it was true that there had been all along from time to time such spiritual works appearing, and all along with condemnation from the existing Church, but that seeing — as some one had said of the French prophets — their execu- tioners were their historians, and enemies their judges, we were not to come to Goode's conclusion. I said that Goode's conclusion was not rested on the judgment of contemporaries merely, but chiefly on the issue of such works, and the evil in which they ended. He replied that he did not doubt that, though good at first, they had ended in evil ; and that through lack of the ordi?ia?ices ; that not having pastors, &c., they had had no discernment, and so that evil got in among them. On my referring to the keepitig enjoyed by the Old Testament prophets, and saying that I did not feel the explanation removed the difficulty, he said, "Nor do I quite;" and then he spoke of the ^ The reference must be to a book entitled The Modern Claims to the Possession of the Extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit Stated and Examined, by the Rev. W. Goode, M.A. (subsequently Dean of Ripon). I quote the title from the Gtiardian of 14th February, 1877. 1 83 1 -34. FREEDOM NO T LA WLESSNESS. 1 2 1 Port-Glasgow people, saying that they had got into so evil a state through lack of ordinances ; that when Mr. Arm- strong went to them they had trampled upon his ordination, saying that they had as good a right to preach as he had. I told him it was no contempt for ordinances to fail to bow to them when they were not acknowledged to exist ; that thus a presbyterian, brought up from his infancy with no other association with an episcopalian minister than that he was a half-papist (as was common with many in Scotland at one time), might refuse to bow to him as an ordinance of God, while showing all due respect to his own minister. He said if a man is an ordinance he ought to be obeyed, and that ignorance was no excuse; that the Jews knew not when they crucified Jesus. I said the ignorance was widely different. In Jesus God had been manifested to them j and that the inner man, which ought to have known and acknowledged God, had been addressed ; and in this were they left without excuse. And that as all rebellion was really rebellion against God, and all lawlessness of will was refusing Him to reign over us, so was it tJiat within which testified to God's right to reign, by which rebellion was left without excuse. He then objected that this was radicalism, and put an end to all authority, leaving every man to do as he pleased. I said. No, inasmuch as it was not that a man should hear the voice of his own inclination that was contended for, but that he should hear the voice of God within him. He said that that was a figure of speech, to talk of the voice of God within. I said I meant it as a reality. He said God was to be met in the ordinance. I said when God was present in anything He was to be met in it ; but it was in the light of God within that he was to be known and met ; and if there was nothing within men which to address, and on which to calculate, there was no real dealing with man as a responsible being. He then seemed to agree and admit, but not to allow 122 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. that it interfered with what he had said; nor was I able to make him see that it did. In explanation of the obedience due to the office of pastor he gave two cases. He himself, before he was made a pastor, on one occasion asked counsel of his pastor. It appeared to him wrong counsel. Nevertheless, in obedience to the ordinance, he had taken it. Afterwards he saw it to have been right counsel. Again, one of those under his own care was visited with a spiritual influence, which seemed to the individual to be of God. He (Mr. D.) judged it to be of Satan, and said : " Though you see no reason to doubt that it is of God, I call upon you to resist it ; and I take your doing so upon my responsibility as your pastor." The person obeyed, and was delivered from the power; "for," says he, "out of the Church there is no discern- ment." I said. No, not out of the true Church, the mys- tical body of Christ, in which was, and in which alone was His, Christ's, discernment ; but if I have not myself dis- cernment in Christ to enable me to reject Satan, but that he can prevail to pass himself off upon me as the Spirit of God, is it not but a small step further for him to make me refuse my pastor's judgment ? He said, " You may, and be cut off for your rebellion ; " thus, you perceive, making my want of confidence in the ordinance a crime, for which to be cut off; yet seeing nothing in my receiving Satan for God, but rather admitting that I was not bound to have known. I think it was about this time that Mr. Place came in. He almost immediately took the conversation out of Mr. Drummond's hands, and went out into a declama- tory, dogmatical laying down of their doctrines; saying, that God was only to be met in ordinances, only in the creature ; that in these was God manifested ; that thus was God manifested in the flesh ; and much such state- ment : the sum of which seemed to be, that to meet the 1831-34- FAITH NOT UNREASONING. 123 living God was only a reality known in putting certain confidences in certain ordinances as His appointments ; and that direct personal communion with Him apart from these was an imagination ; and to contend for it was to deny God manifested in the flesh. I told him and Mr. D., who agreed with him in substance (though differing widely in his manner, Mr. D.'s being calm, attentive to what was objected, and as one willing to weigh it. . . .) — I told them that I felt it more a denial of Christ come in the flesh, to deny the members of His Body the power of knowing God's voice for themselves, or coming personally nigh to God. To my demand for knowing God's voice, Mr. D. again objected, that it was a more subtle kind of sight, and was not faith ; that I would only believe what I could understand \ and Mr. Place broke in, asking how I knew anything : was it not by faith ? How did I know that my father was my father but because he said it? I replied that I had many good reasons for thinking of my father as my father, but that as to no human relation in which faith in a creature was the ground of knowledge could I have the certainty that I had that God was my Father and my God. On my proceeding to say why I had this confidence, he said, " You now dishonour God in giving a reason for believing that He is your Father, for so to do would be to dishonour your earthly father." I said I was commanded to give a reason of the hope that was in me, and that hope was that God would confess me as His child in the day of the mani- festation of the sons of God, which hope I could only justify by explaining why I thought of myself as a child of God. About this time (for Mr. P.'s taking a part made the conversation rather rambling; so I can scarcely arrange it), Mr. P. said, ** Let me ask you how the Brazen Serpent healed the children of Israel : was there anything in it ? was it not just an ordinance? and was not God's name in the temple at Jerusalem ? was not that an ordinance ? " I said 124 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. that these were types, and but shadows of the real ordin- ance for heahng, and that real setting of God's name, which was in Christ ; that health was not in Christ as in the brazen serpent, nor the name of God in Him as in the temple, but that God was really in Him, and that therefore the saving power and living name were in Him, in coming to which alone was the ordinance of God in Christ come to ; and in coming to which alone, in the part of that name set in any particular member, was the ordinance of God in that member come to. (For they had said that pastor was a part of the name of God in Christ, and that the ordinance of a pastor was the setting of that in a man). They, or rather Mr. P., answered that I was going into metaphysical reasoning ; and Mr. Drummond said that what I said was true, but that what he set before me was not inconsistent with it. It was in connection with this, and when I sought to show where we differed, that Mr. D. said, " You would have the flock as wise as the pastor." I said. No, but I would have the pastor feed the flock with wisdom ; and in so far as he so fed them ought they to follow, or indeed could they follow ; for that when Christ said, "My sheep follow me," He meant a real inward following in His light and life, and not a darkly obeying certain rules ; that of the Chief Shepherd it was said, " He was made of God unto us wisdom;'" that this meant a reality, and that same reality, according to their measure, was to be looked for in His ordinance of pastors, and in the following with which they were followed ; according to the words, " Follow them as they follow Christ;" "whose faith follow." Again Mr. D. said, " But there is no discernment out of the Church." I said, " How do men come into the Church? is it not believing God in the preached Gospel? and are they not of the Church in so believing? He said, " They believe the Evangelists that preach to them." I said. Then, if they receive the Word as the word of men. 1831-34- DEATH OF IRVING. 125 and hear not God in the heart, they enter not by the door into the sheep-fold. He said, " I would venture to say that your hearers, if asked why they listen to you, would just say, 'He is the best preacher we know.'" I said, William Tait knew once something of my people, and I would refer you to him, whether those whom I regarded as indeed receiving my teaching would have so answered ; or whether they would not all avow and claim, in all that they had received, that they had been taught of God. On his assenting, Mr. D. said nothing. About this time my boat hour was come, and I was obliged to hurry away. I have sunk much amplification, and, I daresay, have left out some things altogether. It was a conversation of more than three hours. You have the principal part. Lady Harriet spoke twice in the power : a few words each time, seem- ingly referring to, but not deciding upon what we spoke of. If you please you may send this to Mr. Erskine, as I have not time to write to himself Say to him that I find it will not be necessary to be a Sunday away, and that in present circumstances I do not feel that it would be right. To his Father. [Glasgow] 30th October, 1834. . . . Mr. Irving is here. I called for him yesterday, and accompanied him on his ride to-day. He is but weakly, has a short cough and shortness of breathing. He thinks himself better since he came here. I do not feel that I have made any impression on him as yet. But it may yet be. I do not find him at all like the rest. I go to Greenock to-morrow to preach. I hope to see Scott there. . . . To his Sister. Tuesday [December 16, 1834. Irving died on December 7.] You saw dear Mr. Erskine's thoughts on the departure 126 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. of dear Mr. Irving (at least their tone), and I now copy part of a letter from Mr. Scott on the same occasion. I feel thankful for all out-coming of the true oneness of those of whom I thought as all dear brethren at one time, when so much has been coming out so strongly of the root of difference that exists in our liability severally to walk in some measure in our own way. " Dear, dear large- hearted, noble-minded Edward Irving has left us — has been taken, I doubt not, into a fatherly presence for his filial heart — into a living light in which all errors and darkness flee away. I should not, I am persuaded, have shed a tear in thinking of him, as I did many, but for the feeling how cruel seemed the delusion under which, with the simplicity of a child, he had come away from London and remained here, counting, as it were, the time till strength should be restored to him, and he should be a mighty instrument in the hands of God for advancing his kingdom. And 'now it is as it is." The above Mrs. Rich extracts from a letter from dear Scott to herself in a letter to Mr. Erskine, which manifests her own deep feeling under the dispensation. ... I saw dear desolate Mrs. Irving after my arrival, Saturday evening, and again for two hours nearly yesterday. . . . Mrs. I. is composed, though manifestly feeling most deeply. . . . She told me, Saturday night, that on the Saturday when I was there for the last time, but, you know, did not see him, when she told him who had been in she added, " You love him very much," to which he replied "Yes, very much, I trust it may be a righteous love;" and that on the Sunday he, speaking to himself (that is, not addressing himself to any person), mentioned my name several times : she did not say how, but I was thankful that I was not only in his heart, but in his thoughts; because the truth which made us one may, I trust from the kindness of these 1831-34- ''THE NEGLECTED TESTAMENT." 127 thoughts, have been more present with him than that in which we differed. Indeed I feel it a great comfort that that Sunday (his last day here) he twice said, " My desire is to depart and to be with Christ on his throne." She made some reply which she did not mention, but I infer choosing his remaining or hoping it. His answer was, " Yes, but I have expressed the desire of my heart." Surely he thus testified that whatever he might believe the Lord had yet for him to do on earth, his felt treasure was in Heaven. At one time that day she repeated to him the words, " Thou wilt not suffer thine holy one to see corrup- tion," when he sung twice over that which follows, " Thou hast made known to me the path of life," &c., and, she said, with great triumph. The nearest approach to a contemplation of death as the possible issue of his illness, so far as she mentioned, was his saying on that same day, " If I die, I die unto the Lord." He had no sleep on the Saturday night, but passed the time in such comfortable meditation, and, as it seemed, communion with his Lord, that when she told the doctor he had had no sleep, he said "Surely she was mistaken, for the night had appeared very short." His death was without struggle. She had seen many deaths of old and young, but not any — not the infant on her knee — had died so gently. I was finding no trace of the subject of the Church in anything she was mentioning until she said that in the course of that same last day he had asked her to read to him " the testament of the Lord to His Church — the neglected testament;" when she read to him the Fourth of Ephesians. I have heard nothing from London, nor have I seen, to have any conversation with them, any of the London people here. But I do not think that this event will of itself arrest any who have imbibed the system, though it may separate from them any whose bond was the man. 128 MEMORIALS. chap. iv. They got on without him in Edinburgh and in London latterly, and may continue to do so. This new thing may work as well as popery or as anything else after the mind and minds have passed away with whom it originated. To his Father. II HoPETOUN Place, i8th December, 1834. ... I need scarcely say to you that I felt Irving's death very much, although you will not easily realize how much. My last intercourse with him, though in many respects painful, yet endeared him much to me. His widow accompanied her father and mother to Kirkcaldy, to remain there a few days, and then proceed to England to her four orphans, the eldest a girl of nine. How solemn that he should to the last have held by the expectation of having the promise fulfilled which implied his recovery. Burns and Rainy said that his death was not connected with any affection of the lungs, though to ordinary eyes it appeared consumption. . . . 129 CHAPTER V. 1835— 1843. Mr. Campbell's Health Fails — He Discontinues Preaching — Residence in Paris — His Marriage — Letters of these Years — Carlyle's French Revolution — Erskine and Chalmers — The Disniption Controversy — Death of Thomas Erskine Campbell. The incessant work, which Mr. Campbell had now been carrying on for several years, began at last to tell upon his health. It will have been observed that it was not an un- common practice with him to preach on every day of the week ; and it is not surprising that his health suffered from such constant exertions. In the spring of 1836 he was persuaded by his friend, Mr. Erskine of Linlathen, to consult Dr. Andrew Combe when on a visit to Edinburgh. By his advice he discontinued preaching for many months ; and he spent the summer of 1836 at Kilninver, where he rested and recovered strength. Resuming his work in the autumn, he was able to carry it on for more than a year. In September, 1837, a new chapel, which had been built for his congregation, was opened in Blackfriars Street. Mr. Scott shared with him the duty of the first Sunday; and they preached to very crowded congregations. In December, however, he was again obliged to give up work, owing to the rupture of a VOL. I. I I30 MEMORIALS. chap. v. small blood-vessel. On the 17th and 24th he was allowed to address his people at one service ; speaking from the precentor's desk, and not straining his voice. Even this, however, proved too much for his strength. About the end of the month he again consulted Dr. Combe, who forbade him to preach at all until his health should be restored. The early months of 1838 were spent at Parkhill, Forfar- shire, with his friend Mr. Duncan ; and the complete rest proved very beneficial. In April he went to Paris, having been recommended to consult Dr. Hahnemann. He was accompanied thither by his brother, who had lately returned from India after an absence of sixteen years ; and when his brother returned to England, about the end of May, Mr. Campbell remained in Paris, where Mr. Erskine and he lived together for some months. Soon after his return from France, Mr. Campbell was married, on the 26th of September, to Mary, daughter of the late Mr. John Campbell, Ardnahua, Kilninver. How much he owed, in the years which follow, to the loving care and the wise counsels of his wife, could be told only by himself With her he took counsel when he under- took the task of writing a book on the subject of the Atonement; and, but /or her constant sympathy and en- couragement, he could scarcely have brought that under- taking to a successful issue. Some words, which he \vrote to one of his children on the twentieth anniversary of his marriage, may be quoted here : " This day twenty years I received your precious mother to be my wife. I felt then as one receiving a great gift of love from Him who is Love. I thank Him and bless His name that, notAvithstanding of anything in myself that has limited in this, as in all things, the fulfilment of the purpose of His love, that purpose has been realized, not only according to the hopes of that time, but in many ways besides not then conceived of" 1835-43- RESUMES WORK. 131 After visits paid with Mrs. Campbell to bis friends at Linlathen and Jordanhill, he took up his abode, in Oc- tober, at 34 Taylor Street, Glasgow, where he lived for some years. At the same time he resumed the work of his ministry at Blackfriars Street, which had been so long interrupted by the state of his health. To his Sister. Glasgow, October, 1835. . . . I think I did not mention formerly the great pleasure that I had had at Lochgilphead, the evening after I parted with you all, in a man from Lochfineside, an elderly man, who had been taught to know the heart of God as it is revealed in Jesus, and to trust himself to its will and loving choice for him, without any human instru- mentality through the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. Being acting as an elder in the Church, and in consequence having frequent intercourse with the minister, he told him what the Lord had taught him. But to his grief it only set him immediately to preach against it. The more he heard him attack it, however, the more sensible he became to the darkness in which the other was opposing, and that it was indeed " light which maketh manifest darkness " that he had himself received. There is another man, who was previously known to me, whose history was similar, and who had discovered in one of the tracts what he had previously been taught through the Scriptures, and of the difference between which and what was ordinarily taught he had been quite sensible. These two now know each other, and both of them know . I am thankful to think of their occasionally meeting, though from their residences they cannot often. There is a peculiar source of comfort in hearing of cases such as the above two, which is not in regard to the direct fruits of my 132 MEMORIALS. chap. v. own ministry, viz., that you feel there may be many such where the truth has never been heard from man's mouth. To his Father : Giving an account of the induction of his cousin. Dr. M'Leod, to his new charge, the Gaelic Church in Glasgow. Saturday, 19th December, 1835. . . . The moderator of the Presbytery, Mr. Paterson of St. Andrews, officiated on the occasion. Dr. M'Leod was pretty near in front of the pulpit below, with the Presbytery all around him, and any other ministers who were present: the body of the church and the galleries were pretty well filled, partly by the people of the church and partly by strangers. I was at some distance among the crowd, but so placed as to have a full view of the Dr. There was nothing to remark in the preliminary service of preaching, &c. When the induction was proceeded to, and the narrative of previous steps read, and the usual questions came to be put to Dr. M'Leod, of course all eyes were fixed upon him as he stood up — of a most reverend aspect, his hair whiter than I remember his father's, seemingly with the snow of more winters than he has seen ; his countenance, from his first rising, most solemn and subdued, and as the address, which was of a home natiire, advanced, assuming more and more the ex- pression of deep and sorrowful emotion, until his hand- kerchief, brought as near his face as he could venture to bring it without actually wiping his eyes, indicated to those too far off to see the tears themselves that his tears were flowing. Mr. Paterson began with expressing "the diffidence al- most approaching to shame with which he took the place assigned to him of addressing, on such an occasion, one a little before him in years, and so much before him in all 1835-43- DR. NORMAN MACLEOD. 133 other respects — one whose praise was in all the churches." . . There was then a great deal of allusion to parting with his former people, and of picturing of the difference between town and country labours ; while he said that Dr. M'Leod would have an advantage over himself and other town ministers, his visits being, not to the inhabitants of a district, but to the people speaking one language ; and that from those speaking the language in question there was no risk of the answers they often got from those locally their parishioners, " I am a Jew," or " I am a papist." Thursday, 4tli February, 1836. You indeed were tried in that my letter was so long in getting to you. It was a call to trust your son to the Heavenly Father, who, having given you a father's heart, must have Himself a Father's heart in perfection; for "he that formed the eye shall he not see ? " A father's heart is indeed a beautiful work of God ; and I can bless God that the specimen of it with which I have had to do is what it is; although the only parent who cannot err, and, therefore, the only parent who can be implicitly followed, is God Himself. An apostle could only say, " Follow us as we follow Christ.^'' Beyond this he could not press the obedience of his spiritual children. The delusion of the Church of Rome and the delusion of the London Church is one, viz., substituting " Follow us, assuming that we follow Christ ;" that is, not pretending to discern whether we follow Him, but undoubtedly believing that we do. This is popery, whether known by its old name of popery, or its new name of Irvingism ; and this is popery though not pretending to a religious character at all, but only, like a trades' union or a political union, interfering in matters of common life with the individual liberty of every 134 MEMORIALS. chap. v. man to please God, and find his life in God's favour, calling no man master, no man father. " Ye are bought with a price. Be not ye the servants of men." When men commend what God also commends, when men con- demn what God also condemns, then may we go along with them, because they follow God ; but when men com- mend what God does not commend, when men condemn what God does not condemn, then it becomes a part of the duty of confessing Christ to divide from them and say, " Should we obey you rather than God ? judge ye." The trades' unions are again putting forth their horns here, and the masters are attempting to meet combination by combination. Hitherto the men have got it all their own way, and seem as if they had and would keep the upper hand; and I think this likely, not only because it looks like it now, but, apart from appearances, because I see the arm of God bared against the upper ranks, because of the ungodly spirit in which they have dealt with the lower ranks, in that they have forgotten that God has made of one flesh all those who dwell on the earth, and have confounded together the ordinances of God for subordina- tion and social order, with principles and maxims the offspring of pride. I see that my dear people, who from principle cannot join these trades' unions, are likely to have the steadfastness of their faith tried. I trust they may have strength given them to refuse receiving the mark of the beast on their foreheads or on their hands. Edinburgh, Thursday, 3r(i March [1836]. . . . I have had a very interesting visit to this city (it is now over) ; and I trust the fruit of it will meet me hereafter. I did not see it right to preach in public as often as I have done on some former occasions ; but the 1835-43- VISIT TO EDINBURGH. 135 sermons which I preached, being seven in all, were very numerously attended, the chapels being always full and most times crowded to excess. I also taught a little in the way of private exposition, and a great deal in the way of calls and visits and individual conversation. As to religious state, the description of persons with whom I have come into close contact, as well as of the hearers generally, was very various ; being some of them persons of some standing in religion, and who are going on well ; others, persons newly awakened but promising ; others, persons wandered into the Papacy, and others into the London Church ; the identity of which in spirit with the Papacy is daily made more manifest to me. As to condition in the world, many — particularly when I preached in Mr. M 'Lean's^ chapel which is in the new town; Mr. Wight's is in the old town — were of the upper ranks ; and of these many of our Argyllshire gentry, and many also of my own many cousins, of whom a great many happen to be in town at this time. I felt thankful for the opportunity of testifying of the true riches to so many of those who are in danger of setting their hearts on an earthly treasure ; and also of inviting to become my kindred in the spirit those who are already my kindred in the flesh. I feel that more or less they have in general felt the authority of God in what I have declared ; and although I looked forward to this visit with much misgiving, and though the absence of so many of those who used to be sure to be present when I preached often gave me a sad feeling while preaching (the more painfully sad because of that which has prevented their attendance), still I feel that I have much cause of thankfulness that I came, as I think I have seldom spent so much time with so much comfort in the retrospect. ^ The same Mr. M'Lean to whom Irving delivered the well-known Ordination Charge in March, 1827. 136 MEMORIALS. chap. v. To his Sister. KiLNiNVER, nth March, 1836. I would like to present to you a true picture of my parting with my flock. The estimate they had formed of the cause ^ of my going away was, I believe, generally much beyond the truth of the case ; therefore their feeling was deeper than in one sense need have been. But, as true to the sense they have of the bond which binds us, and a faithful expression of it, their anxiety was welcome to me. . . . I felt that a separation thus of the Lord's appointing, whether more or less prolonged, or more or less serious in respect of its immediate cause, conveyed to them a solemn message from the Lord and call to self-examination as to the degree in which they were really getting meat that endureth through me, or were only receiving temporary interest and excitement; and this I pressed upon their attention, but more briefly than I intended; and this, with asking their prayers for myself, was the amount of my address. It was rather matter-of-fact and practical, than in any way fitted to touch their feelings, which I felt to be only too much moved as it was. Many came, much affected, to shake hands with me, while others slipped away (I after- wards understood) rather than add to the press about me. Two of these came in the course of Monday afternoon, not having felt able to keep away. Their simple and Christian expression of interest, and the grounds of it, would delight you much did you witness it. . . . To Mrs. Paterson. Glasgow, 7th November, 1836. My DEAR Mrs. Paterson, — I did indeed before the 1 Viz., the state of his health. See p. 129. 1835-43- LIFE THROUGH DEATH. 137 Lord desire that this sweet babe might have been spared to you ; but His thoughts were not as my thoughts. I trust that in so desiring I was partaking in His love to you, though not seeing the form in which that love should be manifested. I do not feel as if I had been saying, " Be it far from thee, Lord : this shall not be unto thee ; " for I am daily more and more instructed that through much tribula- tion we must enter the kingdom of God ; and now I am satisfied to desire and pray that, though the fig-tree should not blossom, you may rejoice in the Lord and glory in God your Saviour. All death is in the death of Jesus, and so His death, apprehended by faith in all its meaning, would enable us to say with tnitli of consciousness, and not merely with the understanding that such is the will of God con- cerning us, — "We are dead." But I am learning that the full revelation in the heart of Christ's death is a very different thing from the simple apprehension of the gracious truth that He died for me, blessed though that apprehension be ; and that faith in the death of Christ is to be helped in us by all that outward dealing of God which brings the death near to ourselves. It is well for us that God who sees the heart, and not our fond earthly friends, is judge of what we need to perfect us in Christ Jesus. How much of that which is most pleasing in their eyes, and would seem to them most to exempt us from the necessity of suffering, may in God's judgment be that which renders the suffering needful. How little jealous is man for the obedience of that law. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and mind, and soul and strength ! How indulgent of that robbery of God to give to the creature to which we are so prone ! May you, dear friends, have it revealed in your hearts in the light of God, why it pleased the Father to bruise Him, on whose broken body we feed, whose blood we drink. The possession of your D was sweet — the memory of 138 MEMORIALS. chap. v. him is sweet — the hope concerning him is most sweet. How far better, then, as respects this gift itself, to have been his parents, though thus you are now chief mourners, than never to have called him yours ! Yet, though I know it would be denying to God a tribute of thanks which is due, and which He will accept, were you to shut out such thoughts as this, I confess I am jealous of that comfort which comes solely or chiefly in such a way. I have often feared that connected with it there may be a real though covert escape from the taste of the death that is in the cup, and so a loss of the life through death. It seems to me a saying, " The fig tree is blossoming still," instead of "Though the fig tree should not blossom." What I have now said might be strained so as to shut out a right cause of thank- fulness and source of comfort. But I am most fearful as to the danger of losing the proving of that all-sufficiency of God, which to prove is our great gain in being carried through the valley of the shadow of death. His rod and His staff comforting us. . . . To his Father. Glasgow, 4tli December, 1836. . . . Dear Mr. Erskine is returned, and was in the Hall to-day. His sister'- is, he says, better in health and bearing her bereavement better than he could at all have expected. He has left her and her husband and all that remains of their family, the boy James, and their sister Mrs. Stirling, at Clifton for the winter. He himself has come to Gadder to complete his book.^ I am thankful that he has returned, as it enables me to lengthen my visit to Parkhill, to which place I go to-morrow. ... I was to have returned on 1 Mrs. Paterson. ^ The book here referred to was The Doctrine of Election^ published in 1837. 1835-43- INCIDENT AT RUATHSKER. 139 Saturday ; but as Mr. Erskine has agreed, if the Lord will, to take my place, I do not intend returning till the following Saturday. I have now been without interruption with my people five Sundays and four Thursdays ; and I have seen a good many of them here in the evenings, which has been -less fatiguing than had I gone to them. This was our Communion day, and I had some fresh communicants in whom I had considerable comfort. My teaching since my return, excepting the first day and to-day, has been all from the first chapter of the Epistle of James. I felt it very good for myself, and I trust that others also were edified. . . . Glasgow, Saturday, 6th April, 1837. My beloved Father, — I am now seated at my quiet fire-side at Port Dundas, not much fatigued, though, since I parted with you yesterday morning, I have not only got back, but been a couple of hours in the morning at Gree- nock, and had a long time also here, and made several calls. . . . You would be rejoicing in the fine weather with which I was favoured. One incident of a very solemn kind gave great interest to the voyage. We got on a rock between Jura and Knapdale, near a little island called Ruathsker, and ebb tide and high wind would have made it a very dangerous matter ; but with a flood tide and a calm — the rock also being -flat, and covered thick with tangle — it only occasioned a little delay and much alarm to the passengers, particularly a number of young women going out in quest of service. I felt much at the manifest proof of want of conscious possession of an anchor of the soul within the veil which their cries and tears gave; as to which, being myself in quietness, and with a peace which I knew greater appearance of danger would not disturb, I spoke to them, during the time we were on the rock, in- I40 MEMORIALS. chap. v. dividually; and then, in the evening, every person almost on board understanding GaeHc, I addressed them assembled around me for an hour on the quarter-deck. The occasion was one which I felt a clear call to improve, and to all appearance did so with good effect. To his Sister. Glasgow, June 19, 1837. This is a sad region at present. The suffering from poverty through the cessation of some branches of business is very great; many thousands both here and at Paisley depending on charity — which is bestowed in the form of work (deepening the river or breaking stones) at a very low rate of wages, enough only to prevent starvation ; and as the process of making work for them advances but slowly, it may be almost taken for granted that some do starve or come so low that they will never rightly rally. Some indeed have died of hunger. Whether it be their own more straitened circumstances or not, I know not, but I think the subscriptions by the upper ranks less than I have seen on similar occasions formerly. Indeed the member- ship of man with man is most solemnly manifested in the ramifications of distress and interruption of the usual supply of the means of life from the one centre of trade. The steamers are half empty, and the inhabitants of Rothesay, Helensburgh, &c., get no summer tenants for their houses. Oh ! if they would understand the Lord's controversy with them ; that for the iniquity of their covetousness is this. But the most awful circumstance in our condition is the false burdens which they are discovering; many of them thinking the fault lies with government, and that they never will be secured against such things until they get what they call their rights, meaning universal suffrage. While there are not wanting incendiaries who attempt to stir them 1835-43- OPENING OF NEW CHAPEL. 141 up to " help themselves where they can," that " being hung or shot is an easier death than starving;" and they have got a song whose chorus ends with " Blood or bread." Many, however, of the weavers who make up to one for help seem patient and broken. I met six of them together yesterday, and their thankfulness for the little I gave made me weep after I parted with them. To his Father. Sunday, 17th September, 1837. . . . We had this morning a very crowded chapel — passages and lobby all fuU.^ It looks remarkably neat, but from the crowd was oppressively warm. I preached on the trial of faith, from the first chapter of the first Epistle of Peter. I did not myself feel satisfied with the way in which I had brought out what I intended. I had looked forward to meeting my own people and to speaking what would be to them a word in season ; but they were so scattered and lost among strange faces that I could not feel that I was speaking to them. However Scott seemed to have much sympathy with what he heard, and followed it up in the afternoon with a very precious exposition of the same principle, but coming to it by another path. I shall endeavour to give some account both of what I have heard, and what I am to hear,^ to-morrow. I felt much at having none of you with me, and I knew that to Jane in particular Scott's discourse would have been deeply interesting. He makes a larger demand upon the intelli- gence and also upon the knowledge of the English language of his hearers than I usually do, and than I think he used to do long ago. . . . ^ This was on the occasion of the opening of the new chapel in Blackfriars Street. See page 129. 2 This letter was written between the afternoon and evening services. 142 MEMORIALS. chap. v. To Mr. Macnabb. Parkhill, 3rd January, 1838. In a late letter to Jean I recommended to your attention Carlyle's History of the French Revolution, to which my own attention had been directed by Scott and also by Mr. Erskine, and which I felt worthy of the commendation which they bestowed upon it as a book, which, with much to get over as to style and manner, was valuable on account of taking larger and deeper views of the events which it recorded than has been generally taken. . . . I believe it is a word in season at this present moment, and that there is much need of such a word. The French Revolution is full of warning and instruction to both the parties into which our nation, and indeed Europe, is dividing. Each of these parties may see itself, its own principles and their working, there pourtrayed — not in fiction, but in fright- ful reality. Awful will be the aggravated guilt, aggravated beyond that of those whose history gives the warning, if the warning be despised, and each party now shall march blindly forward in the footsteps of the corresponding party then, trusting to the principles by which they were ruined, though with their ruin before their eyes. Awful indeed is the blindness of the movement party, with the example afforded to them of the impracticability of the theory of the people the sovereign, and of the hollowness of that seeming equality and brotherhood which is not the fellowship of a life in which all call God Father, and in which, while all honour all, each rejoices with each in the special honour which the Father may appoint for each (as Paul speaks of the members of the body of Christ), but which begins with shutting out the Father, and contrives a brotherhood in an outward and visible equality ; like that of sons who first killed their father, impatient of his distribution to them of his goods severally as he willed, and then, in their jealousy 1835-43- CARLYLE'S FRENCH REVOLUTION. 143 of each other, and incapacity of enjoying each what the other had, made, as robbers, equal distribution of the spoil of their dead father's wealth. Such was the French brother- hood without a Father, which could not have wrought other- wise than it did work ; for, as we have " this commandment, that he who loves God love his brother also," so will Satan's command to hate God have coupled with it, to hate our brother also. But, if the bhndness of the movement party is great, that of the Conservative party is equally great. They see not what, in the state of things before the revolution, God punished by the revolution ; and therefore they see not. in the hitherto existing state of things with us, what God is about to punish by the revolution which is now preparing. Therefore, now as then, unless their eyes be opened, they will only be found throwing oil on the fire to quench it, so making it bum all the more unquenchably, until it have spent itself and left society a heap of ashes. I may say the root of Radicalism is " Honour all men," separated from its context, " Fear God." I may say also the root of Conservatism is " Honour the King," separated from its context, " Fear God." Now I say, unless their eyes are opened, unless they open their eyes upon what is set before them in the French Revolution, Radicals will go on in the path of Sansculottism, and Conservatives in the path of Royalism, Girondism, &c., until all these horrors are reacted. And of such opening of eyes generally I have no hope, so long as there seems in each party the laborious searching out of the faults of the opposite party, and the setting these down as if they were so many proofs of the Tightness of their own party. Such proofs, alas ! will not fail them. But false and destructive is the logic, " Our opponents are wrong, therefore we are right." Fallacious, therefore, is the hope that is coupled to this conclusion, viz., " Being right, we shall prosper." " Our opponents are 144 MEMORIALS. chap. v. WTong : " granted ; but, if A\Tong, this must be their error, that they are not loving God their Father, that they are not loving men, their brethren. Therefore, to prove ourselves right, we must know in truth that we are loving God the Father, and men our brethren. Otherwise they may be wrong, but we are wrong also. As a question between man and man, the real ground of complaint which a Conservative has against his Radical brother can only be that this his brother does not love him as a brother. But surely this complaint he cannot with a clear conscience make, if his Radical brother might justly retort. You do not love me as a brother. Would none complain who were disqualified from com- plaining, complaints would be few, and these few in another tone than we are accustomed to hear. . . . To his Sister. [Parkhill, 5th January, 1838.] . . . I received dearest James' letter yesterday, having the day before written to him to bespeak a patient hearing for Carlyle, whose book I feel the better of. I was very ignorant of the facts of the French Revolution (which I do not conceive James to have been), and was therefore the more struck that the course of things, and the successive positions occupied by the movement party, and the party resisting the movement, as also the successive breakings off of individuals leaving the former and joining the latter, so exactly corre- sponded with what I have observed already and had been anticipating in regard to the course of things with ourselves. I have been venturing with James some of that concise- ness which \nth you so often leads to misconception. You may say to him in explanation of one sentence in my letter, that in saying that " Honour all men " is the root of Radicalism, becoming so through being disjoined from " Fear 1835-43- RADICALS AND CONSERVATIVES. 145 God," I mean that Radicalism springs from being occupied with the subject of the inherent dignity of every human being, while that dignity is not seen in God but apart from God — so giving occasion, not to a loving consideration of others, but to a proud imperious demand from others for ourselves. The work on Education is by a person of the name of Biber, and is a course of lectures delivered in London in 1829, and published from notes by a friend who heard them, which the man himself afterwards corrected. Biber offended me — or rather pained me — by the occasional use of sarcasm in exposing what he condemned ; so that, while, in doctrine, a part of his book much resembled Mr. Erskine's, in spirit it was the very opposite of what that beloved brother has been enabled to cherish and to manifest. As to Carlyle's book, I am following up the reading of it by hearing John Duncan read aloud (in English) a French history, Mignet's, of that period, but which comes down to a later date, and into which we have struck where Carlyle's ends. Although there is much like what we are in the midst of in the record of that awful time, yet the impression made on me is that we are not so near the crisis as I had thought. There are many favourable circumstances in our situation in which we differ. As, for example, the imperceptible blend- ing of ranks at their points of meeting, and the very gradual transition from low to high ; the justice and equality of our laws ; a considerable amount of right feeling and sober- mindedness, of which there seems then to have been nothing. Thus Sansculottism has not the amount of excuse for com- plaining that it had then. As yet also we are spared that awful exciting influence to which God then exposed them in sending famine. Yet these differences may not so long re- tard the movement as considered by themselves we might expect ; for the very thoughtfulness which distinguishes our people will cause smaller evils, through brooding over them, seeing them in the light of pride, to be as greater ones. VOL. I. K 146 MEMORIALS. chap. v. Parkhill, 17th March, 1838. This is a most lovely evening, and I am sure is very beautiful, and I trust is much enjoyed, at Kincarrethie. I have had much enjoyment, when walking out to-day, in all nature, animate and inanimate, through eye and ear ; feeling the unity of God — the Creator of it all, and my Creator — brought home to me in the suitableness of it all to me and mine to it. When I think how unconscious to its own beauty was the land or the sea, or the sun that revealed the beauty of land and sea, itself surpassing them in glory ; and that even the living things— the sea-gulls floating over my head in the blue sky, the lark singing " at Heaven's gate " — had certainly far less enjoyment in their own movements and notes than I had in them through what they touched within me, — I feel the truth and reality of that reference to man which the Scriptures assign to Creation, and which well harmonizes with the higher expressions of our precious- ness in His sight which our God has given to us ; and that the right knowledge of ourselves will possess our hearts with a sense of our dignity as God's offspring, full of strength and direction, while utterly removed from pride, which can only live and breathe, and utter its vanities and lies, when God the God of Truth is shut out, and His light rejected. My darling Mary,i when she wondered how anything else than religion could interest me so deeply as that eagle did, poised on its wings far above the top of the high mountains at the head of Loch Lomond, along the bases of which we were driving — did not know how much of the substance of religion was truly in the interest at which she wondered.^ ^ His niece. * In a letter written a few weeks earlier he says : "I would feel it a comfort to write to you how I am passing my time, making new acquaintances, as Coleridge and Wordsworth ; renewing old, as precious Bishop Leighton, whose Commentaries Coleridge happily characterizes as ' the reverberation of Peter's stroke.' " 1835-43- SCOTT, ERSKINE, AND MAURICE. 147 London, Monday, i6th April, 1S38. . . . I have seen a good deal of Woolwich, without being called to any exertion, their experience of their own beloved pastor's long delicacy having taught them considera- tion. The impression which they made on me was that of great soberness and truth. Dear Scott himself, and his dear wife, and Mrs. Rich, and Miss Farrer, I enjoyed much. I also had considerable comfort in meeting there a Mr. Maurice of the English Church. He was previously known to me as the writer of Letters to a Manbcr of the Society of Friends, advocating the claims of the Church of England. . . . Be- sides the soothing and comforting influence of so much Christian love as came forth on me at Woolwich and Black- heath, I felt much comforted and strengthened through the teaching there; Mr. Erskine and Mr. Scott dividing the Sundays, and Mr. Scott also teaching on the Tuesday. I do not feel that on any of the five occasions there was any- thing brought before me that had not been present to my thoughts, and indeed to my heart before, as truths ; though in some instances it was brought out of passages in which I had not seen it. Nevertheless I found it very edifying to have it urged upon me in the way of exhortation, and with that authority which is rightly felt to belong to what comes manifestly out of the abundance of the good treasure of the heart. . . . Mrs. Irving felt much at seeing me. She has a daughter twelve years old, whose likeness to her father, softened and subdued, affected me very much. . . . Now, beloved, I have indulged myself with writing a long letter to you, wishing to make you present to my cir- cumstances, while that circumstance on which most of my well-being must always depend is uncommunicated — is in some sense incommunicable ; I mean the position of my spirit towards the Father of my spirit, God, in whom I live and move and have my being. As to this I am daily feeling 148 MEMORIALS. chap. v. more and more how tnily my life lies in the favour of God ; and no painful or bereaving dealing of my God with me ever made me feel more how needful He was to me Himself, than His tender mercies at this time have done ; of which I have felt that, when they have yielded to me all that they were in their nature fitted to yield, they left a void which God alone in the felt personal communion of my heart with Himself, apart from and independent of all His gifts, could fill. Truly He created us for Himself. . . . My parting but unbroken love to dearest James and all the darling children. I did not at first think to make any attempt to learn to speak French, but now I think I shall, as I may yet live to preach in it ! Paris, 6th May, 1838. . . . I could cover much paper with what I see here, and with the thoughts which what I see suggests ; but any- thing in this way I must forego. On the ist of May, the King's Fete, we dined ^\ith Mr. Erskine, to have the view of the fire-works in the Tuileries, opposite his windows. Of course I never saw anything at all to compare to it of the kind. I thought how the dear children would enjoy it, and how much more suited to them the enjoyment would be. Even they would, I trust, less stop with what they saw than probably did the tens of thousands who witnessed it. This is a nation of children. I cannot but feel some kindliness towards their playfulness and kindliness; yet, when I re- member the end of God in their creation and redemption, and that it is so far from their own thoughts of themselves, it makes me very sad. Were they butterflies one could be glad to see them fluttering in the sunbeams; but they are 7fien. Not that the votaries of business are really glorifying or enjoying God more than the votaries of amusement. It is as painful to see men become earthworms as become butterflies ; equally painful in the light of truth ; the business 1835-43- SOCIETY IN PARIS. 149 of the one being as little " to glorify God," as the pleasure of the other is " the enjoying of Him." To Mr. Macnabb. Paris, 27tli May, 1838. I joined Mr. Erskine on Friday evening at our original Hotel in the Rue de Rivoli, and next day we proceeded hither, to occupy apartments which he had some days before engaged. Here we are in exceeding quietness (the noise in the Rue de la Paix was oppressive), looking into a garden filled with flowering shrubs and fine trees (as fine at least as this soil seems capable of bearing), over the top of which we see our old favourite object from the Rue de Rivoli, the dome of the hospital of the Invalides. We are three stairs up, our windows open in French fashion into a balcony about 76 feet long, towards the setting sun. I trust it may prove good for Mr. Erskine and myself to be thus together. I hope it will, as I hope we shall be more with God than with each other. Except for exercise and enjoyment of the Paris gardens (the Luxem- bourg is near us) I have little to take me out, having got over the sight-seeing, which indeed had I not come with Donald I probably would not have attempted. A French master comes in to me for an hour every day. I had a half-hour out of Donald and Mary's two hours while they were here; but certainly Donald and I have exchanged our old relative places ; he making good use of his time, I very bad. Now, however, I hope to acquire the language, and to be some judge, when I revisit Dunesk, of the French acquired there. As to society, the only acquaintances that I have made are Lord Elgin's family, and Lord and Lady Mandeville, and the Duchesse de Broglie;^ but she has gone to the 1 Daughter of Madame de Stael. 150 MEMORIALS. CHAP. v. country. I only saw her twice, though for some hours each time. I feel very thankful that I know her. Mr. Erskine feels that she is superior to any woman he has ever known : and, so far as my limited acquaintance with her enables me to form any judgment, I do not, at least, wonder at his so feeling. Lord and Lady Mandeville I dined with at her mother's, Lady Olivia Sparrow, whom I had seen in Scotland. I had known Lord M. long as a student of prophecy and writer of some rather bulky books. He is interesting to me, as any man is who has devoted himself to the study of the Scriptures. He is one of the very few of Mr. Irving's old friends who has escaped the snare of the London Church. I may probably meet him occasionally while I remain. He lives over at Versailles, but comes often to his mother-in-law's. I am trying, dearest James, in my way to make you present with me, as you have made me present with you ; but that is not my gift, you know. I have no later accounts from Glasgow, for which I long, hoping I am to be told that Mr. Scott succeeded in finding words more easy to be understood.^ His con- stant intercourse with very educated people puts him under a disadvantage. I learned to know what English the mass of people can understand, and what words are to them as Greek and Latin, when I was at Row ; and the class of people gathered about me in Glasgow has been such as to keep me in practice. Now I must conclude. 71 Rue de Crenelle, St. Germains, Paris, 13th June, 1838. . . . You remember how much you both wished that I should cultivate my acquaintance with Dr. Chalmers. He is here next door to us, just a step through the garden. He ^ Mr. Scott was then preaching to Mr. Campbell's congregation in Glasgow. 1835-43- ENJOYMENT OF INFANTS. 151 seems very glad to find known friends so near. We desire to be in the Lord's hands for good in this unlooked for opportunity of intercourse with such a man. He is most amiable, most fresh and childlike ; looking at the Tuilleries, &c. as your James might. Dear brother, I have been to church twice : French sermons, by which I was refreshed ; one English, of which I cannot say so much. The first time was Sunday before last : when I went in I saw the table covered as in preparation for the Lord's Supper. I remembered that it was the first Sunday of the month, and that, had I been in Glasgow, it would be so with us there. I felt it a good deal. We both united and partook w^ith them; and I found it indeed a table spread for me in the wilderness. To his Sister. 71 Rue de Crenelle, St, Germains, Paris, 23rd June, 1838. . . , What a type of God's interest in us through Christ is a mother's delight in her babe, not because of what it is, but because of what it is the germ of; as to which the future is as yet all in her own power ; and so the germ is, to imagin- ation and hope, the germ of a perfection. Christ is the per- fection; no imagined or possible perfection, but the real perfection to which we are to be conformed (being conformed to the image of His Son); and our Father, who has made provi- sion for us in Christ with the view of this perfecting of us, deals with us and bears with us through Christ, while as yet there is in us but the capacity of receiving this good, viz., the mind of Christ ; and while for many a long day there may be manifested in us but the opposite of that which He desires for us ; and while, even after some measure of that desired good is received, it is but a very small and feeble and struggling light, shining amid much remaining darkness. 152 MEMORIALS. chap. v. Yet is it to overcome : " The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." Vague and undefined indeed is the expansion which your babe receives in your mind ; but it is all of the nature of good, of sweetness, simplicity, truth, love. You may re- member that I have sometimes felt a regret when you have spoken of the infancy of your children as the time of your greatest enjoyment in them. I believe that there is a gracious purpose, both as respects the mother and the child, in that facility in, so to speak, endowing the un- conscious infant with so much with which to have com- munion, which you have in so unusual a measure ; but it is manifest that, as compared with your subsequent intercourse with your children, it is much what mental castle-building is to the real labour of realizing in stone and lime anything habitable. It is far easier to imagine the most splendid palace than to erect the humblest cottage. Yet building a cottage will contribute more to the health of mind and body than imagining a palace ; and so, when our gain through every occupation of our time is weighed in the scales with which the meat that endureth is to be weighed, it may be found that one half -hour of painful endeavour to overcome a manifested fault in a more advanced child, has done the soul of the mother more good than many hours of dreamy enjoyment of a babe, which has been but the canvas for fancy to paint angels on. . . . I told James we expected dear Macan here. He has not yet appeared, but his time is out ; so we look for him daily. I shall have him altogether to myself for at least the first part of his stay, as Mr. Erskine is to take Dr. Chalmers for a few days to Broglie to visit Madame de Broglie. Of Dr. Chalmers we have seen a great deal, he being often up here and we there at odd hours ; and we being to meet him at different places. Our intercourse is 1835-43- CHALMERS AND ERSKINE. 153 not, however, at all satisfactory. For one thing, he is so engrossed with seeing Paris, and learning what he can of its statistics, that his mind, which is of a very concentrated kind, is not free for much other thinking ; but at all events he is no listener, being always full of something which he wishes to give out. We are exceedingly delighted with his simplicity and unfeignedness. I have gone to Lady Elgin's and Lady Bethune's, &c., to meet him ; but this has been no fatigue to me, not being myself the Lion. At Lady Elgin's the Due de Broglie and some other French noblesse, as well as some titled people of our own country, were as- sembled. At Lady Bethune's the party was exclusively formed of religious people. Lady B. is a very interesting person. We met her at the Friday meeting at Lady Olivia's, and she asked to be introduced to me after the meeting, in consequence of feeling some remark that I had made. Mr. Erskine knew her previously. At her house I met a gentleman who had translated one of my sermons into French and Italian. Our dinner party at Mrs. M 'Vicar's consisted of her two ministers (they are colleagues), and two young missionaries. As the conversation was in French, I only knew the general tone ; but I liked them all much, because of the apparent absence of all cant, or effort, or saying of things because of having a religious character to sustain. Lord Mandeville I like very much. He seems so happy in the bosom of his family. . . . To Mr. Macnabb. [14th July, 1838.] ... I am very glad that your dear mother and Charlotte have been at dear Kilninver, and not disappointed ; but it was indeed a flying visit. Nothing so draws out our be- loved Father as such an opportunity of welcoming. One who has not seen him at such a time has but half seen 154 MEMORIALS. chap. v. him. His affections are indeed the most developed part of his being ; and surely a most precious part they are in the sight of Him who made him, though not the most precious. Dear Macan has come and gone. I am thankful that he has been with us. I found him in the state of mind of which I had conceived ; only with more of a judg- ment against the London work than I had expected. He is, however, longing exceedingly for the restoration of supernatural gifts to the Church ; and though in doctrine I see to a considerable degree as he does, yet I feel that what I have latterly come to see so much more than I used to do, of the actual teaching of God as what is present with every man, and, therefore, what you can calculate on and appeal to in dealing with every man, has affected a good deal both my estimate of the hope with which we may set ourselves to commend ourselves to men's con- sciences, even without miraculous gifts, and also my estimate of the value of the impression which such gifts would make. However, doubtless, if we were all taught to put miraculous .gifts in their proper place, it would be more likely that the head of the Church would entrust us with them. Dr. Chalmers also, though his stay was longer, is come and gone. How events anticipated this moment, remembered (as one almost feels) the next, are like milestones passed on one of our fast-going coaches. How unsatisfactory, when really proved as to its capacity of meeting the need of our being, is any hope for the future which may ever become a retrospect. Therefore the faith and hope that are in God are never past. What may come out from the heart of God in the shape of events may pass; but that from which such events, even the most glorious of them, come, is food for an eternal hoping. Now abideth faith, hope, and charity. Faith and hope, as well as charity. Our paraphrase treats faith and hope as if they were of 1835-43- THE VETO ACT. 155 the things which shall vanish away/ viz., the gifts suited to the present temporary condition ; but that does not seem to be the mind of the apostle. If dear Dr. Chalmers has got any good through us (or rather through Mr. Erskine, who took him to Broglie, and indeed was much more with him), it has been more an impression left than any idea imparted. To his Father. 34 Taylor Street, Monday, 6th May, 1839. You will to-morrow, or along with this, receive the Herald with the Auchterarder decision. I read Lord B.'s speech at much greater length in the Glasgow Chronicle. I see the Dissenters are rejoicing greatly at it, twitting the Church with this proof of having sold themselves to the State. I see strong speeches made by the justifiers of the Veto Act ; but they do not seem, when the vote is taken, to have a majority. I refer to the Presbytery of Glasgow and the Synod of Moray. I do not see that it was possible for the law decision to have been anything but what it is. Certainly, in passing the Veto Act the Church, however unconsciously, violated that com- pact with the State implied in the permission of Patronage ; and it ought to have, not only counted the costs as amount- ing to this before it took such a step, but also to have dealt freely and openly with the State in the matter. As it is, ground has been given for saying that that has been attempted indirectly, and, as it were, furtively, which there was not courage to attempt openly. I do not believe the framers of the Veto Act were conscious to this ; but those who see that they have clearly 7iullified the right of presentation, while not professedly laying aside patronage, will not easily give them credit for simplicity and straightforwardness. ^ The reference is to the Scotch Paraphrase of i Cor. xiii, "Hope shall to full fruition rise, and Faith be sight above." 156 MEMORIALS. . chap. v. What the Church will do it is impossible to anticipate. That there will be a strong party disposed to take high ground with the State is certain, though on the whole I think there will be a majority for temperate measures. Wednesday, 31st July, 1839. Most beloved Father, — You have told me that at the time of my birth you felt my first cry the most welcome sound you had ever heard. I can now understand what you then felt. The Lord enable me to hold fast without wavering the purposes of grateful devotedness of myself and mine to I^im which thronged my heart when I heard my boy's first cry at half-past two o'clock this morning. There is nothing here this day but thankful joy. With love, warmest love, to you, beloved father — the warmer that I now have more understanding of that name — and to all the dear ones with you, your loving and dutiful son, • John M'L. Campbell. 1 2th August, 1839. . . . I trust my heart was prepared gladly to welcome whatever child my God might give; but I confess I was peculiarly thankful for a boy to bear your name — whether your likeness also it is not easy yet to say. Among the ex- pressions of sympathy in my joy at this season which I have received, that which was most solemn and most affecting was from dear Mr. Story, whose own joy over a first-born had soon been clouded by his removal hence. 19th September, 1839. . . . Your letter on Tuesday morning found me just starting to visit my friends the Smiths of Jordanhill, previous to their going to the south of England for the winter, on 1835-43- MARRIAGE CONGRATULATIONS. 157 account of the health of the third unmarried daughter. I found dear Mrs. Smith feeUng a good deal, but I trust and believe peaceful, as knowing that her beloved child is dearer to God than her, and is in His hands. On Tuesday forenoon I took a run up to see Lord John. He is very much recovered, but I thought him looking very ill. Lady John spoke with much regret of not having been able to accompany Lord John to see you in your own house. George^ spoke with much admiration of the beauty of Kilninver. ... I shall hope to see something of them when we are down at Mr. Story's, when it is likely Lord and Lady Arthur Lennox may be there. I shall long to be able to say that I am going to you in your solitude, and shall go as soon as I can. . . . 7o a Friend, On tlie occasion of his triarriage. Glasgow, 20th February, 1840. . , . I will freely tell you that I have been very happy since reading your letter in the thought of what I trust is in store for you. I believe you will both seek to please God. I believe your chief desire as to each other will be to help each other to please God. Such desires truly cherished are some promise of their own fulfilment. I trust you will both individually realize your oivn shortcomings in all things too truly to permit you to expect or exact too much from each other. Neither of you is to look to find in the other more than a fellow-disciple in the great school of Christ. This it is of importance to remember at such a season ; but neither of you need so much to have it brought to your re- membrance as you would were there reason to fear your see- ing each other through that false medium of extravagant anticipation and self-congratulation, through which persons 1 Mr. George Campbell, the present Duke of Argyll. 158 MEMORIALS. chap. v. related to each other as you are too often see one another. Each of you knows more for which to be humbled before God than any other but the individual self knows, or can know. This is true of every one of us. Now, that another should come nearer me than all the rest of the world, is, that that other shall be more in the way of seeing me and knowing me as I know myself than others can be ; and so, doubtless, of knowing more deeply my truth if I am a true man ; but also of seeing all that mingles and, so far, mars. Allow me one other word. The nearer any come to each other, and the more free their intercourse, the more need that, as the ordinary study of the feelings of others which politeness calls for seems less called for, there should take the place of that study a mutual reverence of each other, and that love should take the form of minute regard to how a thing will be heard or felt. I know that there is a temptation to shrink from the necessity for this as a kind of bondage, and trust that reality of love and mutual confidence renders it superfluous. But let us never think it a bondage to be called to hear before we speak, nor expect love to supersede watchfulness and prayer. 34 Taylor Street, Glasgow, ist January, 1841. Most beloved Father, — It is well to begin the year with a letter to you. It is natural that the wish for '' a good new year " should rise in my heart with a first reference to my aged father, at whose time of life health, and the capacity of enjoying life, are more a thing to wish than to take for granted; and though the addition to the wish of "many happy returns of the season" is met by the fear that they cannot be many, that fear only makes it more a prayer, that He, whose will, and not appearances, must determine, may be pleased to prolong the term of your life to the fullest and ripest old age, prolonging to yourself the space for prepar- 1835-43- THOMAS ERSKINE CAMPBELL. 159 ation for eternity, — prolonging to us all the enjoyment of your presence on earth, and of that help to faith in our Heavenly Father's love and care which we have had, and have, in the experience of our earthly father's heart. Thus my heart will wish and pray. Yet my wishes and prayers will at the most be only one element in the circumstances which will be present to the mind of the all-wise Disposer of events ; and therefore I am called to be contented with what will turn out to be His will, however I may have felt myself that I would have chosen otherwise had I to choose. But from such a responsibility I must needs shrink had it been permitted ; and so all prayer for what to our limited vision seems to be best, is to be qualified with " Nevertheless, not our will but Thine be done." Here we have much in our circumstances to help us to welcome this year. . . . Beloved father, the Lord be thy portion in this season, and His love its goodness to thine heart ; and be this true of all thy time, and through Eternity through His grace. 2nd March, 1 84 1. . . . You will be interested in the name by which your new grandson is to be known. We have decided on calling him " Thomas Erskine," after that precious friend ; and he has received the communication of our purpose in a note full of his characteristic humility and love.^ I think beloved Donald will be pleased with this choice of a name, as there ^ Mr. Erskine had written: — "May the good Father bless the parents and the children, and make your Thomas Erskine a better man and a wiser than him after whom he is named. I should be sorry to see myself reproduced entire in any human being ; and if I thought that the name could effect such a thing, I should positively object to its being imposed on the young immortal ; but I have the trust, that the name into which he is to be baptized, is the name which will be the mould of his character, and the Fountain of his .spiritual life — the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" i6o . MEMORIALS. chap. v. was none of my friends who got the same place in his mind that Mr. Erskine did. . . . Inverkip, Monday, 22nd June, 1841. From what we read in the papers purporting to be Sir. R, Peel's words in reply to the representatives of the non- intrusionists now in London, it may be supposed that, in the event of his becoming premier, he will not favour their views. But it is a remarkable indication of the state of mind in this matter that is gaining ground, that even Conservative candi- dates are obliged to speak as much in the tone of non-intrusion- ists as they honestly can; and in this county the Conservative candidate has found it necessary to promise to support the Duke's Bill. In fact the chief opponents to it are Whigs and Dissenters : and therefore if Sir Robert Peel found the Conservative members from Scotland, headed by a Conserva- tive Scotch Duke, of one mind in what is so much a Scotch question, he would be very likely to waive his own English feelings. I understand from Mr. Smith, Jordanhill, that the non-intrusionists, although they have no sympathy from the English Church on the subject of non-intrusion, have a great deal on spiritual independence, and of their resistance to the authority claimed by the civil courts to enforce a claim to ordination. 6 Cavendish Place, Brighton, 20th July, 1841. I went up to Woolwich on Saturday as I proposed, and divided yesterday's services with my friend Scott. I preached in the forenoon, and he in the evening. He has now a very nice small chapel, speaking in which is very easy. His congregation is increased from what it was when I was last with him, though it is still but small. I had a very happy day altogether — much of the same kind with that which I had in Glasgow, when we divided the day at the opening of my chapel. 1835-43- PREACHES AT WOOLWICH. i6i I came down here yesterday, and he was to be last night in London, to set out for the north by an early train to-day. At present all we contemplate of exchange is four Sundays. . . . These railroads I find a great comfort. Yesterday, between getting to London from Woolwich and getting thence here, I came nearly sixty miles, but nearly forty of that was by railroad. . I think, after parting with Mary at Portsmouth, that I shall proceed, to see the Smiths, Jordanhill, to the Isle of Wight, as I shall then be so near them. After this next week I shall be meeting Mr. Scott's people on Wednesdays ; so that I shall have less free time. Plumstead Common is a nice healthy place. Shooter's Hill rises just behind the Scott's cottage ; and there is a dry walk up to it, and from it a very fine view of the Thames, with Woolwich and Greenwich in the foreground, and London in the distance. I look forward to my stay there with much pleasure. In the autumn of 1841 Mr. Campbell's household was visited with a great sorrow — the death of the child Thomas Erskine, who has been already referred to as bearing that much-loved name. Several letters to Dr. Campbell tell of the child's illness and death j and from these some passages are here given. 34 Taylor Street, Glasgow, 23rd September, 1841, My beloved Father, — I had the pleasure of your letter yesterday morning, by which time you would have mine of Monday, giving an account of my precious Thomasie Erskine's illness. I expected to have followed it with further accounts of him before this time, but delayed, hoping to have good accounts to give if I waited. Such I cannot venture to say that I have yet; but it would be wrong to delay writing longer. . . . The activity of the complaint has not diminished, and his strength has been gradually lessening; VOL. I. L 1 62 MEMORIALS. chap. v. and, what from the first caused most anxiety, the heavy leaden aspect of his eye has not changed, but rather become more death-Hke. . . . He is a sweet, patient httle sufferer, and easily guided. We shall feel it great mercy if he is spared to us ; but if our Heavenly Father shall determine otherwise, we hope to be enabled to receive what He appoints aright ; though in such a case to say from the heart, and with the reality of an acquiescing will, " Not our will, but Thine be done," is difficult because of the weakness of faith in us. 2ncl October. Beloved Father, — My Thomas Erskine has been re- moved from under my care ; but not from under the care of his true Father, who, in the unseen world, and through the future eternity, will, in His own way, develop the capacities of this infant immortal, and cause him to " glorify God and enjoy Him for ever." Surely I can peacefully trust him to that love which gave him to me in love, and in love made him dear to me. It could only be in love that He would take him away. Not five minutes after your letter Avas sent off last night, there was a change visible in my babe, which betokened that death was near ; and about half-past eleven o'clock he sweetly and calmly passed away — ^just like an infant falling asleep at the breast. We are both feeling very much be- reaved, but we are calm and resigned, and hopeful, through time, to get from this sorrow the good intended by our gracious God. 6th October. Yesterday I committed to the grave the body of my precious babe. ... I was accompanied to the grave by my babe's two uncles, John and Donald; by Dr. M'Leod, the only kinsman of my own here ; by Mr. Wilson, whom alone I asked of my people, as a child's funeral is usually 1835-43- DEATH OF HIS SON. 163 attended by so few ; and by Dr. Scott, who has been so kmd in his labour of love bestowed on him who had been taken away. Dr. M'Leod's experience of past bereave- ments, and Mr. Wilson's present fears of that which is threatened, fitted them for feeling the more with me. The wee coffin, down so far below my feet when lowered to the bottom of the grave, which looked the deeper from being so small in proportion to its depth, seemed sadly for from me, as in the depth of the earth. But it was soon hid from me, four grave-diggers rapidly throwing in the earth that had been taken out before ; and it was soon filled to the level of the ground around. But the small sacred deposit at the bottom of it is still before my eyes, calling for faith in Him whose voice they that are in the graves shall hear — and among them my Thomas Erskine. From Mr. Erskine. LiNLATHEN, Sunday, 3rd October. Mv BELOVED Friend and Brother, — We have just heard of the Lord's dealing with you, in taking hence your little Thomas Erskine Campbell. Well, he is taken hence, but he is not out of the hand or heart of God, and it is only for a short time that he is separated from you. The great Father, who made you His symbol towards the child, acknowledges the fatherly spirit in you, and will satisfy it abiiudantly. Can you doubt that, dear friends, mourning suffering friends ; and will you not tarry the Lord's leisure — assured that it is good for the little darling, and good for your own souls. Dear Mrs. Campbell — I feel exceedingly for her torn motherly heart ; but let her trust in the name of the Lord, and stay herself upon her God — let her re- member the end of the Lord, that He is very pitiful. For the last month I had daily been thinking before God, both of you and of the litde one — feeling that I had a special 1 64 MEMORIALS. chap. v. call to love him and pray for him. ... I am sorry that I don't know his face — I should have liked to have remembered him personally. . . . To Mr. Erskine. Blair Logie, 13th October, 1841. Severe as the blow has been, there has been much even in the form of it that was like the tender care of God, while we know the end to be what should have reconciled us to it in any form ; and that our babe was not taken away eight days earlier, when we first felt that his removal was threatened, I feel more than another can realize who did not see how peculiarly unable to bear such a shock his mother then was,^ or how much she was enabled to gather herself to meet it by the time she was called to do so. Yet still until yesterday and to-day there was no such calm collected realizing of her new circumstances as I would (I believe unreasonably) have hoped for even from the first in her; but I feel that I was left quite unqualified, even by all this death has been to my own heart, for appreciating the depth of her trial, or the measure of her bereavement. Beloved brother, I thank you much for what your letter was to us both ; and we are very grateful also for the other precious and strengthening letters that have come from your house. We have felt them a help, for which you will I know all feel thankful. It was very tender in dear Mrs. Paterson to let out her own deep mother's heart to my wife. Our Thomas Erskine was indeed a beautiful promise ; and He whose word that promise was, will realize that promise far beyond our understanding of it. You know that I do not feel that I can conceive of my babe as at once entering into the full fellowship of the condition of a ^ Mrs. Campbell was then recovering from a serious illness. 1835-43. THE LAST NEW YEAR. 165 Paul, or of any who have drunk of the cup of which Christ drank, or been baptized with the baptism wherewith He was baptized. But that it is well with him I doubt not, yea that he will have some fruit of his having, even in the form in which he did so, " suffered human life and died," ^ I doubt not. But all I can say to my wife or myself is, that his Father has taken him, and that is enough for us as to him ; that (mr Father has taken him, and that is enough for us as to ourselves. Glasgow, 4th January, 1843. Most beloved Father, — We send you from this family thanks for your kind loving wishes for us in the beginning of this new year. May the Lord of life and love grant you what is good; and if your time of life forbids the expectation of many new years for you, the hope of so7Jie may at least be fondly cherished with the desire that, what- ever their number, they may be happy with elements of the true and abiding happiness — the foretaste of the happiness proper to the true " new year," the year of the Lord, which having come will not give place to another, because it will be worthy to be prolonged through eternity — " the year of the redeemed of the Lord." . . . 1 From Gambold's " Epitaph on Himself." See Works, p. 202. i66 CHAPTER VI. 1843-1848. Death of Dr. Campbell — Correspondence with Mr. E. Bickersteth — Letters referring to Dr. Campbell's death — Letters to Mr. J. Campbell, Mrs. Macnabb, and others — Tours in Belgium and Italy —Articles of the Church of England — Reaction against Calvinism in Scotland. The long series of letters to his father, which has extended over more than t^venty years, has now come to an end. Dr. Campbell died in his sleep, at Kilninver, on the morning of Tuesday, 17th January, 1843. Mr. Campbell was in Edinburgh when the sad news reached him. Those who have observed the great tender- ness of his love for his father, will understand how keenly he felt the blow. No one could fill the place which his father's removal had left empty. The course of his life for the next five or six years may be here briefly noted. In 1843 he left the house in Taylor Street, where his three eldest children had been born ; and, after a stay of some months at Gourock, he settled at Partick in the autumn. Partick, which has since become almost a part of Glasgow, was at that time a country village ; and the change to country air was made desirable by the state of his health ; for he was still far from strong. Soon after he went to live there he began to build the house, Laurel Bank, 1843-48. MR. EDWARD BICKERSTETH. 167 which was his home for twenty -four years, — from 1846 to 1870, — and the birth-place of his younger children. In the summer of 1845 his brother set out for Italy ; and Mr. Campbell accompanied him through Belgium and up the Rhine. Next year he made a longer tour : after joining his brother in Rome he spent some months in Italy, and returned by the Italian and Swiss lakes. It was never his habit to keep a journal ; but when at Bonn in 1845 he made some notes which record the impressions which he received in Belgium. His obser- vations as to the religious life of the people are very characteristic. On his return to England in this year, he met Mr. Edward Bickersteth, at that time one of the best known clergymen of the Church of England. At the time of his deposition he had received a letter of sympathy and encouragement from Mr. Bickersteth ; and about ten years later he paid a visit to the Rectory of Watton, and was much attracted by the scene of devoted usefulness which he witnessed there. When they met again in 1845 their conversation was such as led to a correspondence between them. Mr. Bickersteth \vrote ex- pressing regret at Mr. Campbell's isolated position, and a hope, apparently, that the way might be found open for his joining the Church of England. This, however, Mr. Campbell did not see that he could do ; and his feelings with reference to the proposal are recorded in one of his letters.^ In an earlier letter of this period he had expressed a desire to come near to the spirits of his brother-men more widely than he felt he was doing in ministering to his congregation in Glasgow. As years went on this desire was fulfilled in a way which did not diminish that freedom of thought and teaching which had been the chief recommendation of his position of ' isolation.' During the later years of his life he ^ Dated 8th December, 1845. 1 68 MEMORIALS. chap vi. was brought by his books into contact with the spirits of his brother-men ; and he thankfully found that his thoughts and convictions were receiving a response from men of all churches. Meanwhile he was unconsciously preparing for his work as a writer. In 1847 he was 'venturing (he says) to teach his people on the subject of the Atonement;' and that with reference not to its extent but to its nature. With regard to the former subject the Calvinism of Scotland seemed to him to be fast breaking up : it was as to the nature of the Atonement that darkness still prevailed ; and the ' word for that time ' would be one which should shed light on that central object of Christian faith. Glasgow, Thursday, igtli Januarj', 1843. Beloved Sister, — The Lord our God enable you and dearest James, and the beloved children all to bear your share in this deep sorrow to the praise and glory of His grace. The messenger from Kilninver reached me late last night at Edinburgh ; and I came here by the first train this morning ; but cannot get further till to-morrow's steamer. . . Our beloved father was in his usual health and spirits at bed-time ; and before six in the morning he had passed out of this visible — into the invisible — where our hearts follow him ; the Lord's grace lighting the way. I shall write from Kilninver, I hope, by the post of Saturday. In the meantime I write to say, beloved ones, let us cleave unto the Lord with full purpose of heart. Let us walk with Him in our sorrow. Let us be still and hear His voice. I feel as if a mighty change had taken place in my circum- stances, the nature and extent of which I yet but dimly conceive of; but in the realization of which I shall make sorrowful progress daily, hourly, for many a long day and hour. 1843-48. mS FATHER'S FUNERAL. 169 KiLNINVER, 23rd Januaiy. . . . Beloved sister, I am very peaceful, very happy in spirit in thinking of our beloved — most worthy to be be- loved — Father. I feel him mine as a part of my etei-nal riches. But my tears can scarcely cease to flow : here, where every face I meet suggests the thought, " this one too has lost a friend ; " while, as to many, it is, " they have lost their best friend ; " so that, were I not feeling what is taken from myself at all, I would be hard-hearted, understanding as I do their loss, did I not weep for them. Poor desolate Mary is rather better, though yet scarcely sleeping at all ; exerting herself wonderfully for his dear sake to have all worthy of him (as far as that may be) to-morrow. To Mr. Macnabb. Kil,NiNVER, January 26th, 1843. . . . I have had much cause of thankfulness outwardly since my sorrowful arrival here on Friday night, — much mercy in the way in which everything has been ordered ; for I desired much that everything should be in harmony with the memory of the beloved Head of this house and pastor of this people, and my desire has been abundantly granted. The return of the carriage empty, which I had sent to meet Dr. M'Leod, was a trial on the morning of the funeral day ; but I was enabled to say " Good is the will of the Lord," and to make the best arrangements as to the disposal of the places of mourners, to hold with me those black silken cords, the dropping of which on the coffin is as the letting go of the last seeming hold ; the best arrangement I could with no kinsman here. Then, just as we were about to proceed to the usual service (the handing round of wine and cake, after blessing asked and with thanksgiving following) and still in time enough to cause no confusion, a gig drove rapidly up I70 MEMORIALS. CHAP. vi. with the Doctor and Norman. I have seldom known such thankfulness for an arrival. I was enabled to be wonderfully composed during the funeral. I remembered the arrange- ment of the parishioners in two rows between the house and the churchyard when my mother was laid in the grave now opened for my father, and caused it to be observed now. Afterwards those of the class to whom funeral letters had been sent who were able to wait dined here in two parties ; one here and one in the drawing-room. I sat at the head of the table in this room — that seat which my beloved father had so often graced. Dr. M'Leod sat at the foot, and took on himself the chief part of the burdens usually borne by him who presides on such occasions, giving according to the custom toasts, which, prefaced as he prefaced them, were all solemn and tender acts of memorial. I was enabled to be composed at the dinner table also. Young Norman presided up stairs ; and as I wished to show all tenderness and all re- spect to my beloved father's parishioners, I asked Mr. M'Lean, Glenorchy, who you know is married to our cousin? to preside at their table ; which he did (I afterwards learned from Mr. M'Lean, the schoolmaster of Scamadale) with much feeling and judgment. All the males in both parishes were invited, and I believe all who could attend attended- The simple service before the funeral I made one to all, in front of the house ; the one class being on the gravel with their backs to the house, the other on the grass fronting them. This is not the usual way ; but the day was fine, and I had no room within for those who would expect to be within. Oh, why do I send these details ? I have had a melancholy comfort in doing all as I thought he would like to see it done ; and you may have something of the same comfort in knowing that it has been so done. Dr. M'Leod and Norman left me this morning. You will be thankful that our beloved father was enabled to realize what was so strong a wish of his heart, that my being put 1843-48. SCOTT AND ERSKINE. 171 out of the Church of Scotland would not cause me to be worse provided for than an ordinary Scotch minister. After his father's death Mr. Campbell received letters of sympathy from some of his friends, two of which are here given : — Froffi Mr. A. J. Scott. Plumsteau Common, January 23. My DEAR Campbell, — A generation has passed away. We are where our fathers were when our memory begins. And now to make us feel this fully, and that our ascent of life is over, and that we begin that descent which we have witnessed in them, God has taken them from beside us, and bids us take their place. I can sorrow with you. I know how good a father yours was, and that, on so many accounts, the privation is much greater than a stranger could suppose, on hearing only how old he was, and how much you were separated. His affectionate disposition, your own filial one, the entireness of his heart to the last, make this a very differ- ent visitation, I know, from what most men at your age find the death of a father to be. The Father of mercies, and God of all consolations, comfort and help you under it. We have heard often of late, and have been grieved to hear of your poor state of health. . . . Is it the mind working on the body, or the body on the mind? I some- times think we might be more efficient together, but it does not seem to be designed for us. We have mentioned your loss to Miss Farrer, and the others who know you here, and the tidings have been received with much sympathy. I am just going to begin a course of lectures on the English Reformation at my little chapel. Puseyism, or rather Popery in the Church of England, waxes madder and madder. It is more and more plain to me that the disease is in the system of the English Church itself, and that the 172 MEMORIALS, chap. vi. way is preparing for its downfall. Then, what comes in its place ? Who shall be her conqueror ? The Lord knoweth. I tremble at the thought of it, and yet I rejoice. Good at last, we are assured. — Your affectionate brother, A. J. Scott. P.S. — You may be assured of Ann's deep sympathy with you. From Mr. Erskine. Dearly beloved Brother, — I trust that, amidst the mul- titude of thoughts within you, God's comforts sustain your soul, — that the knowledge, that the will of God is the salva- tion of men, may be to you a secure and peaceful resting place. You have had a father man longer than the common lot of humanity, and one whom you could always think of with love and reverence ; and I know that his removal must be to you a deep sorrow. . . . Dear venerable old man, we can leave him with perfect confidence in the hand of his Father and Jesus' Father, who has led him on in quietness these eighty-six years, having had patience with him and having taught him to feel more than he knew. I feel for your warmhearted absent brother, and for your sister, both so much attached to him. Few children have had so much enjoyment of a father as you have had of your Patriarch. I think of him, as of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; he has been gathered to his fathers, and has left behind him a sweet memory of simpler times — of kindness and sincerity and ready protection ; a stranger and a sojourner too he always appeared to me, notwithstanding his many holds on humanity. My dear brother, I hope to see you soon again, and in the meantime I believe you will be brought into nearer experience of the Fatherhood of our Father in heaven. Yours ever with true affection, T. Erskine. 1 843-48. ED UCA TING I NFL UENCES. 1 7 3 To his Niece, Miss Macnabb. Glasgow, 7th February, 1843. My darling Mary, — Your first letter to your uncle is on a solemn occasion. 1 thank you for the loving sympathy that has called it forth. I know with how deep and tender an emotion all your young hearts have been directed towards your mourning uncle, and his sad task; alone of all the family at Kilninver, — now so desolate, — its light fled. I believe it to have been a great grace from your heavenly Father to your young spirits to have brought you, so early and so much, within the reach of the tenderest outgoings of the loving heart of your beloved revered Grandpapa. Surely your pleasant intercourse of love with him has not been merely as meat that perisheth. Surely love in you has grown in feeling and responding to his love ; reverence has been cherished, under the influence of the sweet dignity of his venerable aspect. He has been no unimportant element in your education. Goethe speaks of an accidental visit to a gallery of sculptures, as having affected his mind with an influence, which, though he was unconscious of it at the time, he could trace long afterwards. I believe that some of the most influential causes, in determining the tone and character of our minds, are those which thus awaken feelings in us, which, but for the sight of what are outward embodyings of these feelings, might have remained dormant. The sight of the beautiful awakens our feeling of beauty ; and surely it is a privilege to have been, so young, under the living power of so much of the highest beauty as was manifested in him whose death we mourn, but not as those who have no hope. Even you, the eldest, may reflect little on the benefit you have thus enjoyed as yet ; but I would hope that even the youngest of you is not left without some traces in your spirits of the outgoings of his spirit towards you, as his love has embraced each according to the capacity of each, showing 174 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. itself, I believe, with the wisdom of love, free from the weak- ness of mere instinctive fondness. I may seem, dearest Mary, to be making rather a high demand on you, in allowing myself to write to you in a strain more like what I would naturally choose in writing to your beloved mother; but I hope I do not over-estimate your capacity. And I feel that the time and the season make a high demand upon you, and that the meditation on what God gave you in giving you such a grandfather, and in giving so much of him, in which I would thus attempt to engage your mind, ought to blend naturally with the thoughts on the subject of your own education, which your present prospect of being removed for a time from your home, and placed among strangers, for a purpose of educa- tion, may well awaken. ... To educate means, literally, to draw out ; that is, to help the development of something within us— some capacity of our being as God has made us. To be well educated is to have our capacities of good fully developed. To have our education mismanaged or neglected is to have these left dormant. A capacity for acquiring languages, music, drawing, &c., being given, is worth the cultivating; and diligence in the culture will be best secured by reverence for the gift as a gift from God. But, after speaking of beloved Grandpapa as an element in your education, you will feel that I must be thinking rather of the higher capacities of your being, and of your father and mother, and brothers and sisters, hitherto, and of Miss and your fellow-pupils now, as gifts from God to help the development of your moral nature. Surely the members of your own family have been most precious gifts to you in this view ; precious to you as to one whose true gain consists in learning to love, to reverence, to obey, to sympathize, to forbear, to cherish. Of such feelings, my beloved Mary, you are capable ; and aids for having that capacity developed in you these dear ones have been. . . . 1843-48. A LETTER OF SYMPATHY. 175 And now, hoping, if not at a first, at least at some reading of what I have written, my dear Mary will enter into and feel my meaning, — I remain your most affection- ate uncle, John M'L. Campbell. To his BrotJier-m-law, Mr. John Campbell, One of ivkose children was then dying. Plumstead Common, Woolwich, 30th April, 1843. My dearest John, — I feel much at not being with you and dearest Jeannie at present, to offer you what help my sympathy might be towards realizing the sympathy of Christ. I have been permitted, my dear young brother, to be with you before now in a dark hour, and I know I was some help to you; and I am now with you in heart and spirit, and, according to the measure of my faith and love, am permitted to hope that some strength may be coming to you through my prayers. And for this I am thankful ; and as to what is not permitted, I seek to realize that it is equally a part of what our Father judges right. No doubt even this is love, and is a part of what fits the trial for being a trial oiyour faith. Between five and six years of your life on earth this boy has been a part of your visible riches, — the thread of his life intenvoven with yours, — a sweet present interest, a sweet hope also ; and perhaps at no time more a hope, more full of promise, than within the last few months. To be left with only the memory of what he was, and the dim thought of what may be God's work in his spirit in the invisible world, and what of hope of reunion hereafter you may be enabled to cherish, is indeed a great change ; yet I believe you may by and by find (as I have found) the presence of one so near and dear in the invisible world to be so useful in drawing one into the invisible that one's loss becomes one's gain. ... I know God loves you, — each one of you, — 176 MEMORIALS. CHAP. vi. also him, — and does all things well. Yet how to be other than sorrowful I find no way. No wonder then that your affliction should be great. Oh ! that your consolation may be greater still ! — Your very affectionate brother, J. M'L. Campbell. To Mr. Peter M'Callum. Portsmouth,^ 14th May, 1843. My dear Friend and Brother, — I had so much pleasure in receiving your letter, and felt so much interest in all you say in it, that I feel I must take my pen to thank you, although I should do no more. I am very thankful that the subject of what it is that the Lord is calling me to, should be much on the hearts of those that love me for my work's sake, as they may be helpful to me, both by their prayers and by their suggestions ; and I am struck how much what you feel as to my taking a wider circle in preaching agrees with what some others have been presenting to my attention, and more particularly our dear brother, Mr. Scott, with whom I have been staying during the last fortnight. And I have great hope, if my health were a little more established, that I may be able (without ceasing to be a pastor to the few who look to me as their pastor) to come near to the spirits of my brother-men more widely. You will be glad to know — though you will not expect any- thing else — that I have felt it very refreshing to be for a little under dear Mr. Scott's teaching. I have not myself preached since I left home ; not feeling very equal to it, and, at all events, seeing it right to allow its full effect to this present rest. I shall be very near you at Gourock, and will hope to see ^ He had gone to Portsmouth to meet his brother on his second return from India. 1 843-48. FIRST LESSON IN SORRO IV. 1 7 7 you from time to time. For the present I must be contented with this short note. Please give my love to Mrs. M'Callum. I think of you and yours with much affection. — Yours, in love, John M'L. Campbell. To Mrs. Macnabb, Senior. Parkhill, 27th September, 1S43. Since the intimation of the severe affliction ^ with which God has seen it right to visit you has reached me, the thought of what you and dear Miss Macnabb are feeling, under so great a bereavement, occupies me so much that I cannot withhold the expression of my deepest sympathy, and of my earnest desire that you may be comforted with the only con- solation that can sustain your hearts — the faith of the love of God, who gave and who has taken away. Since, in your greatest sorrow, I visited your house of mourning, many years have passed, and not without trials ; but in the year in which we now are it is that I have learned VL\y first great lesson in the school of affliction, and known my first deep grief; and now, when I look back on the en- deavours which I have been at many times called to make to comfort bereaved friends, it seems to me as if I had scarcely known what I was attempting — so much greater have I found the power of heart-rending separations than what I had conceived of them. Yet, though I feel that I knew not before how deep the wounds were which I was trying to bind up, I feel, at the same time, that, had I known, I could have done no more to help my friends than what I did in leading their thoughts to the love of God in Jesus Christ ; neither was more needful. I have found sorrow a stronger thing than I thought ; but, blessed be God ! I have found the consolations of His love stronger ^ The death of a grand-daughter. VOL. L M 178 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. still ; nor did I know as I now know what I was saying to others when I was urging upon them as mourners to look unto Jesus and be healed. Not that I yet know the love of Jesus, and its power to bind up the broken heart, but in measure ; but that I know so much more of it than I did as to give me increased liberty in making mention of His name to those that mourn as the all-sufficient because it is the everlasting consolation. We need to be comforted with ever- lasting consolation because it is death that makes our tears to flow. My little boy said to me lately, when I was reading the twenty-third Psalm to him, " Papa, when other persons die, and then we die, and then we are all dead, then they cannot be taken from us any more." I felt it sweet that the thought of separation was thus obviously painful to him, and that the thought of a condition in which there would be no separation seemed pleasant to him. It was nature that spoke in him. We were intended for dwelling together. Sin has introduced separation ; but our hearts are not recon- ciled to it; and surely it is a part of the goodness of the good news, " the Gospel," in which life and immortality are brought to light, that, while the first fruit of redemption, and the highest, is that we shall glorify God and enjoy him for ever, this also is its fruit that we shall eternally enjoy each other in him. To his Sister. Partick, 1843. . . . I believe the present ferment in the minds of the more serious portion of the people of Edinburgh, on the subject of what they call the Free Church, is as yet unfavour- able to my getting the ears of many there who might other- wise, and may yet, be willing to hear me. My new place of meeting in Glasgow has the advantage of being more suited to our numbers ; but there has been no marked improvement in the attendance consequent on com- 1 843-48. A T HIS FA THER 'S CI? A VE. 1 7 9 ing to it. . . . No doubt the solitariness of my position is in many ways trying and connected with snares. Yet, in the existing state of things in the Church, that seems the price of the freedom which I need. This week I go again to Edinburgh, being to be there every second Friday. . . . This our present home is a very eligible spot, — better than I thought the near neighbour- hood of Glasgow could have afforded. It is very near Jordanhill; though this I mention only to give some concep- tion of the locality. Otherwise Jordanhill is at present but a memory — a hope — not a present good. To the Same : WJien re-visiting Kiliiinver luith his brother. KiLNINVER, 7th April, 1 844. My beloved Jane Mary, — This is, I may say, our third day here. At least Friday, though it was the afternoon before we arrived, was more than equal to a day — to many days — in our connection with this endeared spot ; for on it we visited together our father's grave, — knelt together on the grass beside it ; our tears watering the freestone flag laid upon it, our heart going down into it, seeking to embrace the earthly of him we love ; going also, I trust, up from it into the invisible, where to our faith he — that which is our father — is, drawing us thither with new cords of love; at least with cords of love new in their drawing thither ; the interest lost to time in some measuretra nsferred to eternity; although, alas ! in comparison of what memory recals, how dim and formless what faith and hope seek to supply ! Yet, if dimmer, fainter, still also higher, more satisfying, — felt to be what will grow into distinctness and brightness, and know no second death. Our beloved Donald felt intensely, and had his strength tried to the utmost. I have not many times in my life seen such heavings of deep inward feeling in the i8o MEMORIALS. chap. vi. chief mourners, by whom I have stood at the funerals of their nearest and dearest. But I expected not that it would have been otherwise : neither could I wish that it should. I know too much the need our hearts have of that deep-reaching sorrow, which is to them as a subsoil plough to render avail- able to the Great Husbandman their hidden capacities of fruitfulness ; — I know this need of our hearts too well to say with Peter, " Be it far from thee : this shall not be unto thee." As to myself it was not so much being at my father's grave as being there with my brother ; and so I felt very much — what we both felt much — that it was a want, a great want, that you were not with us. We had a peaceful sunny hour for the accomplishment of our pilgrimage; and we felt its aspect, — so like his own aspect as we have seen him in such peaceful harmony with the like aspects of nature here, — soothing to us. It has been said, " sorrow is sacred." I feel that this has a manifold meaning ; and, under the sense of one part of its meaning, made no attempt to lift, even for his brother's eye, the veil that so far reserved for the eye of his Father in heaven what our most beloved brother was feehng. But I am thankful that he has been here ; and I am thankful that I have been permitted to be with him. To the Same : After reUiniing from the sale of his father's ejects at Kilniiiver. Partick, Thursday, 30th May, 1844. . . It is written, " There is a time to scatter;" and it is a sad time. " That which I plant I pluck up, and that which I build I cast down, saith the Lord," were words con- stantly in my mind in these trying days of my last visit to Kilninver, just ceasing to be ours in the common meaning of these words. Other words also, from another region of memory, were every now and then offering themselves as a 1843-48. PARTING WITH KILNINVER. i8r vestment for my feeling, seeing Donald had bade the place farewell, and you did not expect to be there : "I feel like one who treads alone some banquet-hall deserted, whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, and all but he departed." But I need not attempt to speak of the strange activity in sorrow with which my mind ranged over the past, and connected scenes remembered with words read, fitting the one to the feelings with which the other were recalled : and all the while Kilninver was very beautiful : beautiful days, glorious sunsets; and the drought, that has by this time no doubt <;old there as it has here, not having yet affected the verdure. The strange discordant bustle of the sale was trying. The concourse of people was very great. Most trying also was the silence of the days that followed, — broken now and then by the lowing of one or two solitary cows, not yet removed by their purchasers, and ranging about vainly seeking for their companions. Poor Donacha Gorach's ^ part was very touching. He had still continued coming day by day, and Mary had given him his appointed work of water-drawing. When he saw the water barrel, &c., after the sale taken possession of by a stranger, he came to Mary M'Fadyen, pointed to it, and gave a kind of melancholy cry. I felt very much the parting with the cattle. Our father used on our walks so often to direct my attention to their beauty, saying, " Are not these bonnie beasts?" And when I made any remark as to their symmetry that implied any observation or discrimination, it used to give him such pleasure. The concourse of people was great, a large pro- portion being at present in idleness. The sale was, I believe, a fair and reasonable one. The times, as they say, are look- ing up, and the cattle had a name ; but no one seemed to give, as indeed it was not desired that any should give, see- ing it was not needed, more than a fair value; so that it had ^ /. e. Daft Duncan ; a half-witted man, who was employed in menial offices about the manse. 1 82 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. none of that character of " the helping of a family" which such sales in the Highlands usually have. Their claim to be so regarded our beloved father used to feel so much, as on all such occasions to be sure to have a cow bought for him at much above its value. I retained of the furniture only keepsakes. Even for these I have barely room here, but we have got all disposed of. . . . Beloved Donald ! his visit to Kilninver I found had, as it were, written the place over again with a new set of recollec- tions ; and recollections which I cherish with deep and thankful interest. I cannot express what a process of dying my parting with Kilninver — meaning all my relation to it since our father's death — has been to me. Every visit added to the sense of death, which the emptiness and desolation in which I left it carried perhaps as far as well could be; unless yet seeing it the home of others carry it still farther. " It is appointed unto all men once to die ;•" and all that helps a man to the spirit and meaning of dying is a part, and a valu- able part, of his instruction in truth, — in righteousness. I do not, I am thankful to know, find the exercise of mind that I thus refer to other than one of learning, -^coming into more harmony with the truth of my state, both as I am mortal, and as I am immortal. As to this parting I do not think that I mentioned before that I preached one Sunday at Kilninver, and another, the last, at Kilmelford ; and then, for the sake of the Glenmores,^ after preaching in the open air in Gaelic, I preached in the school-house in English. To his Niece, Miss Charlotte Macnabb. Partick, 22nd October, 1844. . . . Dearest Charlie, it may seem unlike your Uncle John to have so long delayed meeting your invitation to come to you again as a mentor; and I am sure that slow- "^i.e. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell of Glenmore, who lived near Kilmelford. 1843-48- THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 183 ness to do so — had I so felt — would not have the excuse of indifference on your part to my friendly counsels in time past, — either in conversation or when I have written. Your request, if it did not draw forth a letter, at least quickened my remembrance of you, as the desire on your own part to be rightly guided should be an encouragement in asking for you the true guidance. Paul asks others to pray for him on the ground of his confidence that he has " a good con- science, in all things willing to live honestly ;" and we not only ask for ourselves without receiving, but, doubtless, often ask for others without receiving, because of the absence of real willingness to receive what is asked. When you would have others to help you to be good and to please God, see to it that you are honestly seeking that as to which you invite help. The change of feeling about school which you express is, I suppose, a part of the process of finding out that the creature cannot yield to you what in the depths of your being you hunger and thirst after ; which, as to many circumstances of outward condition as well as school, you need by experience to learn for yourself, and will be going on learning all your life long ; for none of us have altogether done with learning that great lesson. Knowing what your true happiness is and where alone you ever can find it, I cannot regret that either things or persons should be felt not to give what you may have thought you might reasonably expect from them, I can only regret if this experience does not suggest to you what it is intended to suggest. ' Why spend ye money for that which is not bread, and labour for that which satisfieth not?' is a question addressed to us by the voice of the Eternal Word at all times, and in all circum- stances in which we are feeling unsatisfied. And the mean- ing of the question is, not that our circumstances are evil, or our occupation improper, but that, if we are not consciously getting something good and satisfying out of our circum- stances and occupation, it is because we are not in these — in 1 84 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. regard to these — hearing the voice of God. For our circum- stances and occupations no longer remain barren or unfruit- ful of true food and true satisfaction, when we see them, and are exercised in them, according to the light that God sheds upon them; for all things work together for good to them that love God, and we never do or can complain of that which we feel is working good for us. Dearest Mary is more pleasantly placed than you are ; but we did not come to this world to find pleasure : we came for education, moral and spiritual discipline ; and that is as much to be found in your circumstances as in Mary's ; and if you are both seeking that which your God desires that you should find, in the depths of your hearts you will both be happy, and with the same happiness ; for we are told that God ' appoints the bounds of men's habitation that they may seek after God;' and God found at school and found in the houses of kind friends is one and the same God, and alike and equally the soul's satisfying portion. When God is sought and found, though pleasure as such is not sought, yet is it found, and then only truly found. For the end of our being is to glorify God and enjoy him for ever ; and this continues the law of our being, however we may be running counter to it ; and so continu- ing its authority over us, it forbids all deep rest, all conscious inward well-being, until we are brought into harmony with it, or, in the language of Scripture, are "reconciled to God." Do not think I have no understanding of, or sympathy with, the preference for home or the visiting of friends over school. What I feel is that this preference is to be in entire subordviation to the desire to follow God as a dear child in His choice of circumstances for you ; and that the diiference between one situation and another is to be a very small matter in comparison of that opportunity of pleasing God, and finding life in His favour, which is co7nmon to all situa- tions. I do not attempt to discipline myself to an insensi- bility to the difference between different situations. On the 1843-48. CHOICE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 185 contrary I desire to be more and more alive to all those right influences (which cause our feeling of difference) which make a happy home, for example, preferable to the condi- tion of a friendless outcast. I take an extreme case as an example ; but the same Tightness which there is in making a distinction in the most extreme cases there is in giving some degree of preference even where the difference is compara- tively small. What I attempt is, along with the feeling of preference according as there is room for it, to cherish an habitual welcome, independent of all such preference, for the situations really appointed for me, as containing the oppor- tunity presently offered of glorifying God and enjoying Him. I have, I feel, used almost an equivocal expression in say- ing that the opportunity of finding life in God's favour is "common to all situations." I do not mean "common" in such a sense that we are at liberty to say, " Another situa- tion would serve our need in this respect as well as that in which we find ourselves." It may not be so. Another situation might not be as suitable for us in this respect as that in which we actually find ourselves. What is to recon- cile us to our being at God's disposal is not that all situa- tions are equally favourable, but that the situation which He has selected for us has in that very circumstance a claim upon our reverent reception of it as what He has chosen, and what is recommended to us by His wisdom and love. If there was really no greater suitableness to our need in one situation than in another, we might still be tempted to com- plain that a situation in itself unpleasant should be appointed for us when a pleasant one would have done as well. But we are to believe that, though we are sure that the circum- stances in which God Himself places us are circumstances in which it is in our power to glorify and enjoy Him, circum- stances of our own choosing might be often most unsuited and most unfavourable. Indeed we often see that the very 1 86 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. thing which is the recommendation of a situation renders it spiritually unhealthy. I am, I feel, crating too fast to take the shortest way of saying what I wish to say — which always requires some weighing of words — but I hope I may, as I am attempting it, convey to you my conviction, that the words, " Hear and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David," are spoken, not only as to the choice of our spirits in regard to life as a whole, but with reference to the detail of life, and all the successive combinations of circumstances with which we find ourselves connected ; the difference, in regard to them all, between walking in the light of our o\vn eyes, and hearing God's interpretation of them, being, that while if we walk in the light of our own eyes they will yield but what is not bread and what satisfieth not, if we walk in God's light, they yield to us meat which endureth unto Eternal Life, — the sure mercies of the true David. Set yourself steadily to seek to get from your circumstances the mental discipline which they are intended to impart ; set your heart on getting meat which endureth. So doing, you will get it ; and getting it you will be satisfied, — yea, as with marrow and with fatness. Now, dearest Charlotte, I speak that which I know, and lay not on you a burden I refuse to bear myself. I also am in school — not yet at home. Oh, no ; this is not our rest. It is a great — I may say the great — mistake to attempt to change our school-room into play-ground. Do not thus err. To his Brother : Who ivas sufferifig frovi hifiammaiion in the eyes. Partick, 26th March, 1845. I have known so much of a similar though far less severe attack of the eye, as to have the more easily sympathized 1843-48. TOUR IN BELGIUM. 187 with you in the pain you have had to endure ; and in the anxieties about the result as to the sight of the eye also. Nor do I feel that my conviction as to the love and the wisdom in which suffering is sent to us at all lessens my sympathy in suffering, any more than it does my own physical sense of it when myself called to suffer. Still, however, that conviction affects the state of my mind as a whole, reconciling to what is endured in a way that no mere feeling of the inevitable could. . . . If you are reading, there is a book (the type of which is very comfortable), that I have lately read, and which has awakened a good deal of attention, which, if you have not yet got it, you should get — the life of Dr. Arnold of Rugby. Some, who might otherwise value this record of a manly and free and earnest spirit, will perhaps be stumbled a little by his anti-conservative feeling : but I would be very loath to place you in this category. Bonn, 29th August, 1845. I am at present on a tour with my brother and his wife, and our niece, Mary Macnabb, accompanying them for a part of their way to Italy. The rest of our party are all keeping journals; and I think I may afterwards regret having no ?nemora7ida of what this trip is to me. I need not for myself, or any one else who may care to read anything I write, record what is already recorded in the printed aids to travellers; but I would like to have some notes, not so much of what I see as of my seeing it ; that is to say, of my own mind as reflecting in its mirror what I see. Thmsday 21st, left England. I felt much for James parting with his precious Mary. How such occasions bring all the parent in a man into con- sciousness ! How also does one and the same love make 1 88 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. parting difficult, and furnish strength for what of self- sacrifice that parting requires ! Dined at the table d'hote ; felt of how large a family we are members. Friday 22nd. Bruges — Ghent — at night, Antwerp. This day we visited several churches. What these towns, whose glory has departed, have to witness to what they Avere, is their churches. If we who are now the head people should in like manner pass from our pre-eminence, and our present of glory become a past for travellers to inquire after and seek traces of, our railways would best tell what mighty achievements our concentrated energies could accomplish. When one sees the family portraits so often painted on the shutters attached to the fine pictures presented to these churches, — portraits of the donors painted in the act of worshiping the Holy Group that forms the votive painting itself, — and then looks around on the lofty pile of which such are the decorations, and then, using this more articulate part as the exponent of the spirit of the whole, conceives of the erection as the utterance of a people's reverence, — a great act of worship, — it is impossible not to believe that the generation, whose will took this outward form, and who could so consecrate to the expression of their religious feelings what must have been so large a portion of their earthly substance, must have had more of their life in their religion than that generation, whose greatest works express the A\ill to make the present and the visible as full of comfort as may be, rather than the stretching forth of the spirit into the future and the invisible. If one should say that there was a self-righteousness in what was done that marred it all, I would say that I saw nothing in these portraits of the donors of pictures that suggested anything else than that in simplicity and reverence they offered their gift. Why should we assume a self-righteous feeling as the 1843-48. ANTWERP CATHEDRAL. 189 moving influence ? A man may give his goods to feed the poor without charity ; and so also he may give his wealth to build a church without devotion ; but we are not lightly to assume in either case, that the act does not express what it should express. Saturday 23rd, Antwerp. The impression which I re- ceived in seeing the worshippers in the Cathedral here, was that the veneration of the people of Roman Catholic countries is probably much more developed than with us. Even where there was least of actual prayer, of asking with a meaning and an expectation, there was accompanying the merest counting of beads a visible awe and reverence. The crucifixes recalled to me the representations of our Lord's sufferings which I had often heard from Scotch ministers in the addresses to communicants at the table. There is no difference between an image or painting, and the image or painting which is by words to the imagination. How much of the seeming knowledge of Christ received in either way is a knowing Christ after the flesh.^ Rubens' wonderful pictures here harmonize well with the kind of contemplation of Christ which is visible around one ; although the grosser and coarser crucifixes are really more the oil to the lamp of worship. His pictures are dramatic poems, in which the Scripture characters introduced wonder- fully utter themselves ; and the mother in the Descent from the Cross, the Magdalene both in it and in the Crucifixion, &c., leave with us a memory of them as if we had heard them speak out of the fulness of their hearts ; and we seem to receive that additional acquaintance with them which we seem to receive as to many historic characters from Shake- speare's historic plays. Thus, these pictures have a high^ poetic interest, but I doubt much their having really any ^ Compare beginning of Chapter XI. of the Nature of the Atone- ment, — written about ten years later than these notes. 190 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. considerable influence, if any influence at all, in helping devotion. Here these notes break off abruptly. There are no letters written during this short tour. Some of his re- collections of the Rhine are recorded in a letter^ to Miss Duncan, of 15th October, 1857, where he speaks of " seeing it quite through Byron's eyes." To his Sister. Partick, 29th September, 1845. •Your letter found me full of thoughts as to my own position in the Church of Christ. Among other things the reading of a sermon of his own, lately preached, that Mr. Bickersteth gave me when I saw him at Sandgate, gave this direction to my mind's workings ; but it seems to me as if my reflec- tions on the isolation of my own position as little help me out of it, as if they were the sighings for his home of one cast by ship\vreck on some lonely island from which he had no means of escape ; the moral and spiritual difficulties that I see in the way of my getting out of my isolation seeming to me as great as the physical difficulties of such a case. You feel that you could not be contented with such a position as your own, and therefore cannot with it as mine. My beloved sister, so far am I myself from being contented with it that my heart's earnest cry to Him in whose hands I feel myself is, that in His own time and way he would deliver me from it; though in this sense I seek to be contented (and you would not \\ish me to be otherwise minded) that I endeavour to bear this cross as long as He may lay it on me. Of course you will at once see that to join any body of Christians for the sake of the prospect of greater usefulness, while I could only do so with a sacrifice of convictions, would be a doing 1 See Chapter VIII. 1843-48. SPEECH BY " YOUNG NORMAN." 191 evil that good might come. The difference between us in looking at the matter is, that you look at it not having the convictions which constitute all my difficulty ; and you know you have peculiar difficulty in feeling at ease about the posi- tion of another, when you do not see eye to eye with that other in the intellectual convictions involved ; while I confess that my comfort about my friends turns daily less and less upon the identity of our views of things, and is made more and more to depend upon what I can discern in them of rightheartedness towards God. Partick, 8th December, 1845. It is since I wrote to you last that I attended a meeting, at which our cousins John and Norman M'Leod gave an account of their visit to Canada. Young Norman's appear- ance was very gratifying. Poor fellow, he uttered sentiments as a churchman that awakened the feeling, that, were it not otherwise impossible, I would gladly be found helping him to realize his ideas. There has been nothing in my correspondence with dear Mr. Bickersteth to write about. The kindly expression of interest and regret for my isolated position, in his letter to me after I met him at Folkstone, I felt a call to a fuller statement of my own feelings as to my own position than I have ever before put on paper. I do not know how far he entered into what I said, but feel that so far at least it has not conveyed to him what I intended. I have a kind note from him in reply, but which simply expresses the freedom and pleasure with which, had he been a bishop, he could receive me into his Church, and his feeling, as to one bishop at least of his acquaintance, that he might have the same liberty. So that I have manifestly not made him feel how far I am from being at liberty to ask to be received ; as he has supposed that, if a bishop would feel free to receive me 192 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. in the knowledge of my state of mind, that should be enough for me. This I do not at all feel. Whatever freedom an individual bishop might conceive the Articles of his Church to pennit to him in this respect, the Articles must continue what they are in themselves, and my liberty must be limited by my understanding of them. We know what a cry of Jesuitism was got up against Newman because he pleaded for a latitude in the interpretation of the Articles ; which was offensive, I believe, only because of the popish end for which he would use that liberty ; for others take as great a latitude in the other direction. I will not blame Newman, or any other man, for this loose way of signing and interpret- ing the Articles, and then myself practise what I have con- demned. But you will easily see how delicate the ground is in speaking to a churchman on this view of the matter. I rnay state what I object to ; but if he replies, " We can nevertheless receive you," I can scarcely reply but by silence. I cannot, without seeming to assume to myself more con- scientiousness than he has, reply, " I would feel it dishonest with my views to profess adherence to the Articles of your Church." But, indeed, it would be doing injustice to dear Mr. Bickersteth to state the matter thus; for I have not felt called to enter into an argument with him as to the correct- ness of his Church's doctrinal statements. I only said that I did not feel that I could put that seal to them which asking admission to his communion would imply. Had I felt it right to state to him all my objections, not only on baptism and the Lord's Supper, but on higher matters also, it is not likely that he would, in the knowledge of them, have expected that I could take orders from a bishop. At the same time there is such a latitudinarianism prevailing on the subject of subscription to articles that I do not know but even then he might ; which even in such a man would not more surprise me than Fenelon's saying that he would recant whatever he 1843-4S. SUBSCRIPTION TO ARTICLES. 193 had taught if the Church should declare it to have been error. Indeed, with so much for which one may feel thankful, in the tone and character of the late meeting at Liverpool,^ there is most abundant illustration how much this latitudinarianism has affected our best men in all sects, in the freedom which Cal- vinists and Arminians felt to adopt the same formula for ex- pressing their opinions on points on which they in reality are so opposed. They must know that the words used must either be used without the realization of a meaning at all, or with the realization of opposite meanings ; and yet, because they seemed to have found words which each could use, they were content. Yet dear Mr. Bickersteth has felt as if all were right ; nor do I feel any call to criticise the report he has sent to me in writing to him, or do more than express my sym- pathy with that craving for unity in the common salvation of which it is the evidence. For this I feel truly thankful. Beloved sister, it would be no small additional attraction to the Church of England, were my seeking entrance into her possible, that my lot might be cast nearer to you and yours, and to what is likely to be Donald's home when he fixes a home. But of course the matter turns on far higher con- siderations. Partick, Saturday, 7th February, 1846. . . . Captain Paterson's report of Mr. Erskine is cause of great thankfulness. He must be in better health than he has known for many years. They hope to be home this summer, all of them. . . . Such an element of moral and spiritual influence as beloved Mr. Erskine, is rather for the advancing of the few in many places, than of the many in one place. To be useful to any great number, therefore, he must be taken hither and thither. No doubt as a country gentleman Linlathen is his place ; but this, though an honour- able, is still the least honourable of his functions : the ^ Apparently a meeting of the Evangelical Alliance. VOL. I. N 194 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. special influence that a landed property implies not being to be compared with the higher gift committed to him. I am glad to find that his improved health is permitting him to go more into society this winter at Rome. . . . The progress of our actual individual salvation is irregular, and in appearance is even more so than in reality; what looks best being never altogether so good as it looks, nor what looks most inconsistent so much so as it seems either. How often do we blame ourselves, and wash away, with tears unknown to them who judge us, the faults for which they blame with a blame that could only be just if we were justifying ourselves. . . . That self-culture at school, or at home, may be in a selfish self-engrossed spirit is certain; as it is certain that labour for others also may, as one may give his goods to feed the poor and yet be without charity. The only purifying of self-cul- ture is through coming to the light of Christ, that we may know the divine ideal for us, and learn to set the true and only right aim of self-culture before us ; working out our own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing God's working in us to will and to do of His good pleasure — i.e.^ according to His purpose for us, His will for us, as it is shown to us in Christ. 2o his Eldest Boy. Inveraray Castle, 28th February, 1846. . . . I think" much of my darling boy here, and some day I may bring him with me, to see the beautiful woods and the river and the bridges and the hills. Even just now, when all the trees, excepting the fir trees and laurels and hollies, are bare, it is still very beautiful, though not so beautiful as when I was here with Uncle Donald and Mary Macnabb. Mary Macnabb is now in Rome ; and I think when I see Rome, and am able to tell my boy what I saw, after I 1843-48. THE COLOSSEUM. 195 return, he will not be sorry that I went there. Indeed I would not wish to go unless I thought I might learn some- thing worth learning by going there ; and if I do learn any- thing I shall hope to teach it to my boy. . . . The lady that you saw at Rosneath, Lady Lome, remem- bers you and was asking very kindly about you. She has now a little boy herself, — a wee baby not half as old as Johnny ; but he is a very pretty sweet child, and makes not only his mama and papa, but the old Duke his grandpapa, and all the family very glad. To his Sister. Rome, 29th April, 1846. I am a fortnight in Rome last night. ... I have no doubt we shall all, not only greatly welcome, but greatly benefit by the sea breeze, or at the least sea air, at Naples. Indeed we are to go by Civita Vecchia, and so by sea, making the land journey one day only, instead of three. Personally I regret not being at " Appii Forum and the three Taverns," as well as losing that feeling of journeying on the road on which Paul journeyed, which taking that way would imply ; but of course this is a secondary consideration. When I feel so much interest in what I can realize as certain as to this locality in connection with the great apostle of the Gentiles, I am inclined to sympathize in the feeling of devout Roman Catholics, who assume so many more facts, and to whom practically what in such a matter as this they believe to be facts are facts. But when I think of it I feel a very great difference to exist between the nature of their interest in the localities associated with the saints, and mine in Rome as associated with Paul, or the Colosseum as associated with the martyrs who suffered there. As to what connects itself with St. Paul, it is most akin to the interest localities derive from my father's presence once in them; not Kilninver, or any 196 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. place where I have been with him, but Southend, for ex- ample, where I once went down from Campbeltown with Norman M'Leod, and places in Skye which I visited in 1832, and with which his conversation had made me familiar as the scenes of boyhood and youth. As to the martyrs, who have no individuality to the mind, of course nothing can be more opposite to what the words " plena indulgentia" (which intimate to the Roman Catholic what the visit promises) suggest, than what he that believes most naturally feels in standing where these his elder brethren in such circumstances "confessed Christ before men;" for surely rebuke because of our little faith, and the most solemn call to abound in faith, are the most natural self-application of the associations with such a spot; not "plena indulgentia," but rather " summa diligentia." What I most felt was the difference between w^hat is most wonderful and greatest in the history of humanity as seen by sight and seen by faith. There in the Colosseum, while sight saw the mighty emjjerors of the mightiest people putting forth all their might in works, whose ruins fill men still with wonder, faith saw the far greater might of faith in those rulers of their own selves, who were bringing every thought into subjection to Christ; mightier than the rulers of the world, in that they were achieving the most glorious victory over the world and its rulers, yea and its ruler. I for a time could not get over the pain of the association with the most fearful form of man's inhumanity to man that we have in visiting the Colosseum ; but then I came to realize that there, where man had been seen in his worst estate, there also had he been seen in his best estate ; and the " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do " of their Lord seen repeated in the hearts of the sufferers, in accents that, inaudible to their murderers, still entered into the ears of the great Father, awakening an acknowledg- ment and giving a joy, mightier I believe in their influence on the dealing of God with men, than even the awful divine 1843-48. HE PREACHES IN ROME. 197 wrath which [was due to] the cruelty that gave occasion to such a participation in the mind of Christ. I have seen much and learned much in these fourteen days. . . Dearest Donald has done all that could be done to give me the full benefit of this visit ; and Mr. Erskine has also contributed not a little. A very great and unlooked-for interest has been added to my stay here by my having had three opportunities of preaching ; the two Sundays and one Wednesday. The meetings, though not congregations in the ordinary sense of the word, were considerable ; and not only fresh ground, but in some respect choice ground j that is to say, people likely to benefit, — among them several English clergymen. To Mrs. Campbell. Bellagio, Lake of Como, Sunday, 21st June, 1846. Como is beautifully situated on a little bay at the end of the lake, which is narrow, and takes a turn so near it that you do not see much of it from the town. The hills rise abruptly all round from the plain which lies between them and the town, and is rich with vineyards and other culture. They are wooded very much (in many cases up to their tops), and where the trees cease they have a beautiful green sward of grass. V/ith us at the same height it would be all heather. The character of the scene reminds me of three places, none of which is very like it, but which have among them, so to speak, its elements. These places are Inver- aray, Dunkeld, and Crieff. Yesterday, I went out alone at seven in the morning, to see the Cathedral, which the Guide Book said came third of the Gothic buildings of Italy — that is, after the Duomo at Milan, and the Certosa of Pavia. It may be next to them, but it is at a very great distance that it follows. It is, however, a fine building, being all of marble, and having a good deal of sculpture. 198 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. The sculpture is, however, very inferior to that in these two other beautiful churches. Como is much narrower than the Lake Maggiore, and the hills rise more abruptly from the water side, and to a great height; I suppose, from 1,500 to 3,000 feet. . . . Here and there at different heights there are villages; the larger ones being on the water edge, but some a great way up ; every village having its own church with its steeple or campanile ; while between these villages, and also at different heights (as between the Ardenconnel gate and the Ardencaple Inn^), are villas thickly sprinkled. Many of these are very large, belonging to noblemen. The lower part of the sloping bank of the lake, and up as far as it is vineyard, the ground is formed into terraces, whether these be vineyard or villa gardens ; and this kind of shore we passed along for two hours in a pretty fast steamer. The climate here is so fine that these villas have all the finest fruits and flowers of the south in profusion, though we see the snow on the mountains only a day's journey away. . . . Though I have never seen anything so beautiful, I do not feel that I think less but rather more than I did of our own Highland lakes, which come nearer it than I could have expected. Grander lakes, and in that sense finer, I shall see in Switzerland. Most beautiful as this lake is as a con- tinued stretch of beautiful banks, there is no one single spot, I think, to equal Lago Maggiore, as seen from Isola Bella ; and the Isola Bella itself, though some quarrel with its stiff look, pleased me. This Isola Bella was originally just a slaty rock, to which earth was taken, and a succession of terraces built up, narrowing and narrowing, — ten stories in all. ... Near this island are two others; one just covered with houses to the water edge all round, with a church and tower ^At Row. 1843-48. LAKE OF COMO. 199 (ending in a spire) in its centre. Tlie pure white of the walls and brown of the tile roofs, with the memiing which the church gave to this group of human dwellings, made this little island, as it seemed to rest on the bosom of the glassy lake, a beautiful addition to the scene ; while, on the shore beyond, at the opening of the glen leading up to the Simplon pass, was one of their many smiling villages, with its church and campanile, and bells of most sweet sound. They deal largely in bells in these countries, having them in abundance, and using them a great deal ; and, while at Rome and in the towns their noise was quite troublesome, sounding among these mountains at different distances from you, and of different sizes themselves, — their tolling reverberated and prolonged, yet softened, — their effect was very fine, and seemed to make one music with the notes of singing birds, and the cries of birds of prey, and the splashing of oars, and all other sounds. The most striking difference after all between these lakes and our Highland lakes or lochs, is the effect of these villages with their churches and campaniles. I counted eight on one slope of the bank of Lago Maggiore, in a space not longer than from Faslane to Row ; while on the shore was a little town larger than Oban. How does the country have such a population? The vine and the olive and the mulberry give the explanation. I am finishing this on Monday morning. We were to have crossed early to avoid the heat. But the rain, — the first we have seen for many a day, — has hindered us. To his Sister. Bellagio, Lake of Como, 22nd June, 1846. . . . What I still feel most taught, by the sight of other lands and their people is — what I felt so strongly when I first visited the Continent — the largeness of this hujnan family of which I am one, and that God is the Father of the 200 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. spirits of all flesh. Men in one place, when you look through the thin veil of nationality, are seen so like men in another place — nay, individuals met abroad so recal indi- viduals known at home, that the partition of language is met Avith surprise; as if one were going into a room to join the company of another, and were unexpectedly impeded by a glass door, whose transparency had prevented him from seeing it until he attempted to go in. With the continuance of this glass door in my own case I am continually re- proaching myself; though I fear it must continue, and that I am literally too old to learn. All I can do is to see to it that, so far as depends on me, my boy shall not find himself similarly placed when he becomes a man. How rapidly would the race improve were the son always to start with full benefit of the experience of the father ! Some measure of that benefit there is on the whole manifest. Herein is the progress of the race; but what is it to what it might be? . . . ROSNEATH, 13th August, 1846. . . . You see that after all we have come to Rosneath, not Dunoon. We occupy a house which Mr. Wylie's family occupied during July. Mr. Story's being at the manse this summer was a consideration, and Mrs. Smith's^ being at Ardtarman, and also my wish to preach occasionally at Helensburgh, which of course is much more easily accom- plished from this than from Dunoon. . . . We are about as much above the sea as Kilninver is, but as near as if at Kilninver it had come up to the public road below the house. We are immediately opposite to Blairvaddich, and see the Row from Fernicarry to Helensburgh. I preached at Helensburgh the night before last, and to a pretty good congregation ; but owing, I believe, to the very wet day, I had fewer hearers from the country part of the parish than I have had on former occasions. Christina Smith and Jane ^ Mrs. Smith of Jordanhill. 1843-48. ON THE GARELOCH. 201 Charlotte were there from Ardtarman. I have not seen Mrs. Smith yet ; but Mr. Smith and Archie were here last evening, and Mr. Smith told me she expected to be able to see me on Friday. I met Lady Janet on the other side, and she inquired very kindly for you. I have promised to see herj and my old friend Camilla (Mrs. Fox) is with her just now. Lord and Lady Lome are at the Castle here : Lady Lome is looking extremely well, and the little infant earl is most thriving. I cannot look at him without realizing the interest with which our beloved father would have looked at him. . . There are the most serious accounts of failure of the potato crop from all parts of the country, and most espe- cially from the Highlands — both mainland and islands. There are reports also of the appearance of analogous disease in other crops ; but these are, I trust, but the exag- gerations of fear and wonder. But as to what is undoubted, we know that the potatoes are more than bread the staff of life in the Highlands. If anything large and free is needed, I confess I would rather see the people in Sir R. Peel's hands . than in Lord John Russell's ; but I may be doing Lord John injustice. May they be led to consider what the hands are in which they really are ! To the Same; After the death of hey youngest child. Partick, I2th November, 1846. My own beloved Sister, — Could I place myself by your side, and mingle my tears with yours, I would thankfully do so ; and with more hope of helping you by my silent sym- pathy, being present with you, than I can have, being dis- tant, whatever I may be enabled to write. I believe it is the help to faith that is in it that makes the presence of living sympathy so precious. As it is said, " He that loveth 202 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen ? " so may it be said, he that is not comforted in the sympathy of the brother whom he sees, how can he be comforted in the sympathy of the compas- sionate High Priest, the Elder Brother, whom he sees not ? while, on the other hand, he who is giving the living sym- pathy of friends around him a believing welcome is therein the more enabled to realize in faith the outflowings for him in Jesus of the sympathies of the Eternal Love. I am thankful to think how much of such help to faith your sorrowing heart has at present in all around you ; and, while most truly mourners themselves, they will freely yield to you the place of chief mourner, and so, in your presence, feel that their call is less to be mourners than to be com- forters. Indeed their tender sense of your peculiar grief will be most soothing to you, — m.ore so than had they not their own grief to bear; and when the remembrance that they have will from time to time draw you out of yourself in attempts to comfort them, this bearing of each other's burdens, and fulfilling the law of Christ, will be such an experience of the life of love to you all as will make all faith in love more easy to you ; and, indeed, will in itself be felt such a sweet and profitable fruit of affliction as will go far to explain how afflictions should have such a place as they have in the school of Christ, which is the school of love. No doubt death is the wages of sin, and instruction in righteousness is the direct effect of all wise meditation on it; but the wisdom of our God is manifold, and that drawing to each other, and that oneness one with another which the members of a family experience so much more as bearing a common sorrow than as sharing a common joy, is not a small part of the good intended for us when we are made mourners. May you all abundantly reap this and all the good fruits of your sense of bereavement, the value of which fruits to your immortal spirits has reconciled the Father of 1843-48. REACTION AGAINST CALVINISM. 203 your spirits to inflicting what, viewed simply as sorrow, His love would have rather spared you. . . . Partick, 17th April, 1847. . . . I have had unusual difficulty in finding time for writing of late. The week before last, besides my visit to Edinburgh, I made a visit of some days at Seafield to Miss Gourlay and her young people, accompanied by D. ; and last week, besides Edinburgh I made a visit of some days to Polloc, Sir John Maxwell's, to meet Lord and Lady Arthur Lennox. The early part of this week I was at home, and fully calcu- lated on writing to you : but the three evenings of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, were occupied in conversation with persons, strangers to me, who have been latterly at- tending at our meetings, and had expressed the wish to con- verse with me in private ; for which manner of interruption to any reading or writing I could only feel very thankful. There has been of late a great breaking up of the Calvinism of this country, and not only a preaching of the universality of the atonement, but a reaction against Calvinism, which, like all reactions, has tended to an opposite error ; and more especially to much that is very superficial and even untrue on the subject of divine teaching and regeneration ; while the recognition of the universality of the atonement has been unaccompanied by any more spiritual insight into its nature.-^ The persons who have been coming to me had been under this new teaching, and had been coming to feel that it did not meet the deep wants of their being, and in some way had been led to come to our meetings ; and the response which they inwardly felt to what they heard caused them to hope, that now they were in the way of receiving what they needed. What it may grow to I know not ; but the people of whom they are a part are many, and doubtless they will be communicating their own experience to their friends ; so ^ Compare letter to Mr. Erskine of i8th June, 1847. 204 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. that in this way a door of usefulness may be opened to me beyond my expectations. I have of late been preaching only once on the Sundays. I was feeling the two services too much for my chest ; but this sense of weakness may, I trust, pass away with the spring. 7'o Miss Macnabb. Laurel Bank, Partick, i8th May, 1847. My dearest Mary, — Your long unacknowledged letter gave me much pleasure, which, mentally, I have often ac- knowledged since, in loving longing hopeful thoughts of you ; though until now I have not sat down to write to you. Latterly each day has had some association, as the anniver- sary of a day of this season last year, which has recalled you. Our lovely day at Sorrento has not yet arrived. How I look down from that balcony still ! and out over the expanse of blue sea, and up to the blue sky ; desiring for you that its meaning may be realized, as well as its image mirrored, in your mind ; for in the microcosm of your individual being should " fairer scenes arise, more beauteous shine " than even that most pure and bright and peaceful and glad aspect of nature. — Unconscious nature! to which we so ascribe # • • • our own consciousness, miagmmg that we gaze on that with- out which can only really exist within; yet which may be, as yet, within us even only as an ideal, — realized to conception by the help of the type without us, and admired as imagined ; but an ideal not yet fulfilled in the manner of our own being, to which properly belong, not only peacefulness and glad- ness, as realities and not metaphorical expressions, but purity and brightness also in their ultimate meaning. . . . How solemn it is to consider how destitute of the worship of God, how pervaded by creature worship, and chargeable with being in it God's unto themselves, so much of men's most refined enjoyment in nature is, — their enjoyment in 1843-48- RECOLLECTIONS OF ITALY. 205 sights and sounds of beauty, — in scenes like that on which our spirits fed at Sorrento, — in the sweetest and richest melodies and harmonies of music. Dear Mary, twelve months have passed over you since we were at Naples, nearly twelve since we parted at Lucerne. In that time the succession of circumstances, that made the ever-changing present of the passing days and hours, has been, in some way, and I trust a profitable way, exercising your mind and influencing your spiritual condition ; but this it shared with the memory of the past, as well as also with the hope of the future. When recalling the time we were together, in the way of seeking to make all that, in that time, I saw and knew for the first time, yield to me more of what of the meat which endureth unto eternal life was in it than at the moment it did, and finding it still fruitful in this way to myself, I think of you with the hope that it is thus with you also ; and, while I cannot feel that I fully improved all the opportunity of being helpful to you which I then had, I have a comfort in thinking that, with the memory of places and scenes themselves strongly attractive to feeling and meditation, and likely to be often recalled by circumstances — your reading and conversation — there are blended our readings of Scrip- ture together, and some conversations (though not many) in which I found utterance for somewhat of that which I know and prove of the love of God, and would thankfully help you abundantly to know and prove also. . . . You began your letter in London, though it was finished at the Elms, the quiet there being favourably con- trasted in your feeling with the bustle in town. But I trust you find the necessity for bustle in living in town not vicvitable. Actual quiet and seeming quiet are very different ; and it is marvellous how much, in outward circumstances, that would seem the most destructive of all quiet, an inward quiet and collectedness of spirit, and taking of things in calmness to 2o6 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. the light that burns in the inner sanctuary of the heart, may be attained. While, on the other hand, the quiet of quiet circumstances is too often a mere negative thing, — the ab- sence of the bustle of circumstances, not the presence of the peace of God. We here unite in love to you all, and also in longings to know more about you all. Our position on this hill, looking for no new visitors, excepting the new flowers whose times of blossoming successively arrive, is strikingly a contrast to yours at lo Hyde Park Street. It has been often felt as if God were nearer, and the steps between us and Him fewer, in the country than in the town. I do not so feel, for matt is much more the revelation of God than Jiature, even under all the disadvantage of the marring of God's image in him. However far he may be from what he should be, the sight of man suggests what he should be ; and that is what 6^1?^ is ; for it is the mind of Him who has said, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." If, as Gambold has said, it be 'by self-knowledge we reach to God,' the condition most favour- able to true self-knowledge is wise intercourse with man; that is, if (as its being wise implies) we keep our liberty, — the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and as " bought with a price be not the servants of men." 7b Mr. Erskine. Partick, 1 8th June, 1847. . . . How often, when remembering you, am I made to reflect with thankfulness on that unceasing remembrance of you in the heart of the Elder Brother, to which my occasional remembrance is but a faint and distant afjien. Still, however, if you were to judge — as you do not — of the degree in which I have sought to be with you, and to bft 1843-48. DEATH OF DR. CHALMERS. 207 helpful to you, in all your changes of outward circumstances, by my silence, you would err. I trust that you have been in measure realizing what you have helped many others to understand of the constant position of our spirits, as at the dividing of two roads, and have had much inward cause of thankfulness to Him who makes known the path of life, who is the path Himself. I have been more than usually with you in spirit of late, having ventured to attempt to teach my people on the subject of the atonement. As respects the extent of the atonement — its bearing on the whole human race — the Calvinism of Scotland seems breaking up fast ; but this in connection with teaching, which is not light but darkness as to its nature; and I feel that the word for this time, if it were so uttered as to command attention, is a word supply- ing this great want. Of course, it is not possible to be in error as to this without injury to the whole system of thought on the subject of salvation. I am not yet much taught on the other great aspect of grace — I mean its result. I have never heard from you what beyond the result itself, — I mean what of the process and history of its accomplishment, — you feel to be matter of faith to you. How affecting it is to see such a body as the Evangelical Alliance assuming the faith of the popular creed on this subject, as so of the nature of essentials in Chris- tiafiity as to have a place given to it in their '* basis of doctrine," when avowedly making the door into their alliance as wide as they could. I had the pleasure of hearing of you from John Duncan, who gives a good report of your appearance as to health ; but his comparison is with you before you went away, and not as I saw you at Rome. He is very thankful to have you back again. I am sure you would feel dear Dr. Chalmers' removal as a part of that emptying of the earth to you, of which you 2o8 MEMORIALS. chap. vi. have had so much conscious experience. And Vinet's removal also ; though I do not know to what extent you possessed him as something special to you. As I always find it, so now in Dr. Chalmers' death, I feel a void that I did not anticipate ; rather I should say, greater than any consciousness of his existence that I previously had. The bust^ arrived safe, and has been most satisfactory to Mary, as well as to myself; which, as she never saw you so stout, is all the more a testimony to its merit in that which is most essential. We hope, when by and by you are visiting your friends in the west, that you will accord to us what is due to the claim of a loving longing to see you, and affectionate welcome waiting you. I have been having several practical testi- monies to the value of your book on Election, and feel increasingly that the unreadableness is in the age, not in the book. To his Sister : After the death of his friend, Mrs. Sviith, yorda?thill. Partick, Wednesday, 27th October, 1847. My beloved Jane Mary, — I know you loved my dear dear Mrs. Smith, and that her sudden removal will affect you much. Besides your participation in one hope in Christ, and fellowship in the joys and sorrows that are common to all who live by that hope, your motherliness, and also some other elements of your natural character, qualified you for understanding and valuing her more than many could. Did I not realize, as I do, the peculiar right to all the prayerful sympathy which you can give, which your heart will accord to her bereaved family, I would feel that the measure of my own loss is such as to claim a place in your thoughts. I have indeed lost a most precious friend, 1 A bust of Mr. Erskine, by INIacdonald, sent from Rome by his brother. 1843-48- MRS. SMITH, yORDANHILL. 209 endeared to me by twenty-two years of steadfast and most faithful interest, and feel the blank which her removal has left exceedingly; while it has brought home to me, more than I remember any similar event to have done, the nature of the tenure by which I hold what of visible riches in this way remains to me. But I do not feel liberty to think of myself, far less to ask you to take a weight of me upon your spirit, so great seems the claim, as the need, of the husband and the children. I was with the family for about three hours to-day. I did not see much of Mr. Smith, as his brothers had just come to him, and they were occupied with the necessary arrangements of such a time. But I saw a good deal of all the rest, hearing what each had to contribute to the precious store of recollections of this last brief illness, — saying whatever came into my heart that I felt might mingle helpfully with their own thoughts and feelings, and praying with them before parting with them. It needed not recol- lections of her death-bed to enable us to give thanks at the remembrance of her ; but brief as the time was, and heavy as was the oppression of the disease, which did its work with such awful rapidity, her bereaved ones, who were privileged to be ministers to her last hours, have, — not looks only to treasure, or outcomings of the tone of her spirit ; though such reminiscences, combined with the knowledge of a previous walk with God sealing their meaning, are very valuable, and are often all that is granted, even in the case of eminent Christians, and these were here abundantly, — but, besides these were not a few words such as, even separated from the tone and look which it was their exceed- ing comfort to feel the power of, can to you and to me, when repeated to us, impart the lively sense of what her Lord and Saviour was doing for her spirit when heart and flesh were fainting and failing. What is past to her is still future to us. It is not for us to choose "by what death we shall glorify God." Let us have faith in Him, that in the VOL. I. o 2IO MEMORIALS. chap. vi. way of His ovsoi choosing He will enable us to glorify Him. Let us be encouraged to cherish such faith by our dear friend's example. . . . To the Same: Written after the abdication of Louis Philippe, who arrived in E7igland on March yd. Partick, 8th March, 1848. You are no doubt feeling the solemnity of this time, and bearing a part of the common burden, in addition to your own special burdens. I cannot say that the course of events surprises me ; yet neither do I feel as if I had been quite prepared for it : as, when any one for whose removal we have been looking is taken away, we find ourselves more or less unprepared for the change, though we had seemed to ourselves to have been making up our minds to it. In the whole course of my perusal of (now) fourteen volumes of Alison's history of the former revolution, and the wars that sprung out of it during the Empire, I had the constant feeling that it was rather a rehearsal of what was yet to be acted, than itself, with all its magnitude, the Drajtia. The rehearsal, however, it cannot have been ; for these thirty years of peace, in which men might have studied the former revolution, to take from it all the warnings it so abounded in, seem to have (in a general view, however numerous the individual exceptions) been altogether per- verted to the opposite of their gracious purpose ; and now men are found, not in France only, but throughout Europe, ready to risk all on those promises which then so miserably deceived those who trusted to them : so that, on a much larger scale, and with a much greater rending asunder of nations, will the present revolution develop itself Those who are looking for the immediate coming of the Lord, and winding up of this dispensation, will be making up 1 843-48. INTERPRE TA TION OF PROPHEC V. 211 their minds to the last and " the great tribulation ; " and those who believe that from participation in its horrors a chosen number will be exempted, will be fearfully hoping as to their being themselves of that number. I confess I have not the special comfort tliat may be connected either with the persuasion that this is the beginning of the end, or that I may hope, if some are now to be taken from the evil to come, that I may be accounted worthy of that distinction. That some coming tribulation will be the last, whether that now approaching or not, I of course believe, as I believe that this is but a passing dispensation ; and that the distinc- tion to which I have referred may then be found a part of the divine procedure, I see much in the Scriptures to favour; but when I think what tribulations have been, and, in their time, to the apprehension of the Christians entering into them, ///(? gfra/ tribuIatio?i prophesied of, I cannot feel any certainty (not being satisfied with the fixing of dates by the students of prophecy) that this may not pass over the world as former desolating judgments have done. While as to any distinctive favour, I can in some passages see clearly that, when he wrote them at least, Paul did not venture to judge his own self in this matter. What he ultimately had attained to when he said, " I have fought the good fight," &c., I know not. All /can cleave to is the grand law of the spiritual world, of the kingdom of God, that " all things work together for good to them that love God;" so en- couraging myself to go into the darkness abiding in the love of God, not knowing what is to be, but certainly concluding as to its result to my spirit thus minded, — even that that result shall be the good thus promised. My heart's prayer for you and yours is, that " the Lord may direct your hearts to the love of God and the patient waiting for Christ." CHAPTER VII. 1849— 1853. Publication of Christ the Bread of Life — Letters to Mr. D. Campbell, Miss Macnabb, Mr. Erskine, and others — Life of Dr. Chalmers — Scott's Appointment to Owen's College — Lord Ashley, Maurice, and Kingsley — Disraeli and Bentinck — Carlyle's Life of Sterling — Bunsen's Hippolytus — Maurice at King's College. The five years which are included in this chapter contain few incidents which need be here referred to. It was in the spring of 1851 that Mr. Campbell published his book on the Eucharist, Christ the Bread of Life — the first book which he prepared for the press. The public attention had been for some time occupied with the controversy with the Church of Rome ; and there was much popular denunciation of the Mass. It was characteristic of Mr. Campbell's habits of thought that, without indulging in any declamation against the Romish Church, he penetrated to the very heart of the controversy ; and showed that the root of the error, of which the Mass was the development, was present in many Protestant sects who thought themselves the farthest removed from Rome. He rested his rejection of Transub- stantiation, not on the ground that it contradicts the evi- dence of the bodily senses, but on the ground that it contradicts "a higher endo\vment with which God has endowed man; namely, that faculty of perception which 1849-53- " THE BREAD OF LIFE." 213 distinguishes him as a spiritual being— that in man which makes him capable of knowledge, not of nature only, but of Nature's God." There is a spiritual eye, he argued, which perceives spiritual realities — which sees that in Christ is presented to us the appropriate food of eternal life. Faith was, in truth, this spiritual vision, not the taking anything on trust in the dark; as, for instance, believing blindly in some change in the bread and wine. The spiritual apprehension of Christ as the food of the eternal life, was, he felt, the essence of Christianity. To fix the thoughts on Hiffi was the proper office of the Lord's Supper. As long as it was itself the object on which thought and interest were concentrated, so long it was misused ; and this misuse of the ordinance was as possible, if not as common, among Protestants as it was among Roman Catholics. It was hardly to be expected that a book which de- veloped this line of thought in a train of close argument, should obtain a wide popularity. It did not furnish a readily available weapon for warfare with Rome, but de- manded a higher standard of religion than the disputants commonly attained. But the book was read and pondered by many thoughtful men in England and Scotland, especially by many clergymen ; and those who studied it found in it the fruitful germs of many thoughts. In the summer of 1852 Mr. Campbell was for some weeks in London ; and Mr. Maurice, whom he had known for many years, made him acquainted with his brother-in- law, Archdeacon Hare. He was also introduced to Baron Bunsen by the Duke of Argyll ; and he had more than one long conversation with Mr. (now Cardinal) Manning. To Ms Brother. Laurel Bank, Partick, Saturday Night, loth Nov., 1849. My BELOVED Donald, — It is only since my return home 214 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. that I have been realizing that your long most pleasant visit to us has terminated, and also, that our parting on Thursday may have been much more a parting than I allowed myself to feel it to be at the time — thinking of the hour and a half that is all that separates Edinburgh and Glasgow. Although I still feel partings rather trying, and, to be reconciled to them, feel a good deal thrown upon the principle of the uses of adversity, I am more than I once would have been checked, in any tendency to repining, by the feeling that gratitude for the good gift enjoyed is the proper state of mind in which to regard the coming of the enjoyment to a close ; or rather, the change in the character of the enjoyment from that of a present to that of a remembered good. But, while thankful that thankfulness is the largest element in my present retro- spection, I cannot but feel that the house is not what for a season it was — a season, though brief, yet long enough to permit some of the power of habit to develop itself, and affect the present sense of blank. But what habit does habit will undo ; and the recollection of the visit will remain a pleasure free from the present alloy. . . . I shall miss you very much to-morrow, having for so many Sundays in succession had the great cause for thankfulness of seeing you among those to whom it was my privilege to be speaking the words of eternal life. . . , It is time to give up writing, and to retire to rest, it being Saturday night. 25th December, 1849. My beloved Donald, — With much loving interest do I wish for you and dearest Mary a good Christmas, and a happy — happy through being good. We have just been reading at worship, as we do always on this morning, the second chapter of Luke's Gospel, and dwelling upon the " good tidings of great joy " to all people, yet still so imper- 1849-53- CHRISTMAS WISHES. 215 fectly apprehended by any. Surely " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men," are words which as yet belong more to prophecy than to history. " The kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed." We have seen its first growth as that of a very small seed ; but it is to be developed into a very great tree, in the branches of which the fowls of the air will build their nests. You know Mr. Erskine's favourite idea of the microcosm that is in every man. We, I believe, look on the great world around us not only with more intelligence, but also with more hope, in proportion as we become acquainted with the little world within our own individual being. Our Lord says, "The kingdom of God is within you;" and within us we must first know it, if we would ever know it without us. The laws of that spiritual kingdom must be known as the laws under which our own spirits are, and be illustrated to us through our own consciousness as spirits under their operation, in order that when we speak of them in their universal bearing, it may not be as a blind man speaks of colours. This personal conscious experience of these laws en- ables us to see as it is the alienation of man from God, because that alienation has become matter of consciousness to ourselves. It also enables us to see the reconciling power that is revealed in Christ in connection with that alienation, and to believe it to be adequate as to others, because we find it to be adequate in our own case. And if the slowness of the process in ourselves, and its imperfect accomplishment, should, at first thought, rather seem to suggest doubt and fear as to the result than hope, when we consider our own experience more closely we find that it bears evidence of a long-suffering, persevering forgiveness on God's part, which we cannot realize without being filled with the hope that it is to triumph — that God is overcoming and will overcome evil by good in the little 2i6 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. world within us, according to the working of a spiritual power which is proved by its adequacy in our case to be suited to all. I am persuaded that the parable of the Pharisee and publican, spoken, as it is said to be, to those who " trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others," is intended to teach us that the only legitimate confidence for man in relation to God is founded on that will to save which is in God (and is revealed in the form man needs in Christ), and so is a confidence which no man can cherish in regard to himself without feeling that any other human being, seeing that in God which he is seeing, will immediately share in that con- fidence. Had the Pharisee, instead of being occupied with the thought of the good to which he had attained, been fixed in the contemplation of the Divine mercy of which he was the object, he could not have despised the publican, a partaker with him in that mercy, and for whose need that mercy was as adequate as it was for his own. This does not imply any confounding of moral distinc- tions. It was not needful that the Pharisee should have no consciousness of any religious progress that he had made, supposing him to have made any. Our Lord indeed seems to indicate a radical unsoundness in his religious state. But we may suppose a man who is conscious to a real process of deliverance from the power of sin, and who may justly judge that others, whom he knows, have not yet even commenced that process, thinking of himself and those others in relation to God ; and, while he realizes this important difference, still being so far from feeling any temptation to despise them, that his own experience of Christ's power to save only makes them more precious in his thoughts, and their case more hopeful to his ap- prehension ; inasmuch as that which is wrought in him is re- cognized by him as only a little out of that fulness which is in Christ, out of which it is his hope to receive more 1849-53- CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY. 217 and more ; and which fulness pertains as much to that other as to him, and is the measure of that other's value in the sight of God, as it is the measure of his own. But I did not take up pen with the purpose of running on in this way, but only of expressing my earnest desire that you both may have a good Christmas season through meditating on what you possess in Him who, by His birth, is your Saviour, Christ the Lord. Our family circumstances of sparing mercy have given us a special reason for thanksgiving this morning. . . . To Miss Macnabb : Written when his two eldest children Iiad scarlet fever. Partick, Monday, 31st December, 1849. . . . Dearest Mary, I need not say to you that this is a time of much proving of my faith to me. Do you know words which I have often quoted from Henry Dorney, "It is a profitable, sweet necessity to be forced upon the naked arm of Jehovah." I am thankful for the measure in which, in all special trials, I have been able to put my seal to his testimony. Yet do all these trials of faith as to our own individual concerns cast more or less reproach on the habitual state of the mind, in so far as the intensity of interest which they awaken contrasts with our limited sympathy in that dying daily which the apostle proved, and that bearing of the burdens of others of which he was such a high example. And yet I believe with many there is more to complain of in the nature than in the amount of their sympathy with others. I mean that it rather enters into their need as respects the meat which perisheth — i.e., all perishing interests — than comes under their burden in respect to that which endureth unto eternal life, or is a living sympathy with them in their conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil. And these 2i8 MEMORIALS. CHAP. VI I. last words do not express my meaning; for an interest in others that has reference to their salvation is more easy and common far than a coming under their burden in their actual working out of their own salvation. The former feeling is quite consistent with no small measure of legal judging; the latter is His mind who would not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. I shall go on with my letter some other time. Shortly after he wrote the above letter Mr. Campbell was attacked by the scarlet fever ; and for some time he was dan- gerously ill. To Miss Macnabb. Partick, 2 1st February, 1850, We are reading together the Life of Dr. Chalmers. . . . The materials have been full and valuable, and the editor's part I think well executed. You know, I think, that I knew Chalmers, and that I loved the man, independent of sharing in the admiration of his genius. His life therefore has a very deep interest to me. One thing I cannot but regret ; viz., that, as he never him- self got out of the forms of the Scotch systematic theology, so there has been nothing to hinder the Calvinism of his biographer from using his religious experience as a practical illustration of Calvinism. Indeed, it would need the taking of a liberty in separating the sjibstance of his recorded experi- ence from the intellectual form with which he himself has clothed it, which, had Dr. H. had the necessary light to perform such a task, the religious public would not have been able to bear, to have made the book what / would be satisfied to see it — what it is indeed, with the mental com- ment which I take the liberty of making myself The sufficiency of the Atonement, because declared to be sufficient and accepted as sufficient, seems to have been the 1849-53- LIFE OF CHALMERS. . 219 limit of his vision on that subject; while his peace was the blessed peace of a trust in the declared free grace of God, as opposed to a trust in the success of his endeavours to conform to the law of God. Up to a certain point these endeavours were an element in his comfort ; nor, though to his own apprehension they subsequently ceased to be so, did he ever feel but that comfort was unlawful to the spirit that did not seek conformity to the will of God. But the great change that he proved was — he came to seek holiness in the strength of the faith that he was freely pardoned and accepted in Christ, not in hope that he ttiould be conditionally. Inasmuch, however, as he did not see the relation between the ground of the forgiveness proclaimed in Christ, and the state of mind proposed to be produced by the knowledge of that forgiveness, he is continually left to be saved by the tenderness of his conscience alone from the error of being made less sensitive as to the evil of sin, or its danger, through his trust in the Atonement. Had he seen the efficiency and acceptableness of the Atonement in its nature, and its suitableness as a ground of peace in the nature of the peace which springs up in the knowledge and acceptance of it, he would have felt the Atonement itself the immediate and direct call to holiness, and testimony to the human spirit that there is no place for it but in the fellowship of that " condemnation of sin in the flesh " which is contained in the sacrifice of Christ, and is its essence. Do you know Mr. Erskine's book on Election ? If you do, and have at all entered into it, you will understand what I regard as the shortcoming or superficiality in Dr. Chalmers' apprehensions on this fundamental subject. What I mean by that separating between the substance of his faith and the form of his thoughts, which I could wish done for his readers, is that I see the essence of his peace to have been in his trust in God as opposed to trust in himself; 2 20 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. which was the fruit of his faith in the love manifested in Christ ; while he himself would have spoken of it rather as trust in that work by which that love was manifested — so speaking because that work did not utter to him the sim- plicity, and depth also, of its meaning. To his Brother. Partick, Sunday Evening, 17th March, 1850. My beloved Donald, — I have told my people that I do not expect to meet them till this day fortnight. I feel as giving a fortnight to you, and my heart is full of thankfulness in having it to give. That I would be thanking God for His goodness in the unproved invisible had He taken me hence, I believe ; while my part, as it is, is to give thanks for the goodness that is coming forth in the circumstances which are giving form to prolonged life on earth; and among these that my boy and I are spared to go to you is not the least. . . . Sth July, 1850. . . . While hoping as to poor that his position has involved him in responsibilities for what were not properly his own personal acts, I have been feeling much how very conventional business morality is, and how much is matter of degree and not of principle in the checks which men feel under. So that the voice which comes to me from the individual cases of exposure that from time to time occur, is very much what our Lord would have us hear in such catastrophes as the fall of the tower of Siloam, or the loss of the Orion :^ " Think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay: but except ye repent, ye sliall all likewise perish." In our ^ The Orion was wrecked near Portpatrick in June, 1850, and many lives were lost. 1849-53- COMMERCIAL MORALITY. 221 day the " nay " will command a ready assent : but the warning added, and the character with which it stamps such events as foreshadowings of judgment, will not readily be entered into. How widely different the unanticipated exposure of mismanagement in the discharge of a trust through a selfish bias is from what we call an accident, I, of course, do not forget; but as the latter speaks of the time "when all these things shall be dissolved," so does the former of the time when all that is hid shall be made known, and all that is secret shall be revealed. " How far was I prepared for the event had I been a passenger in the Orion ? " is not so remote a thought from " How would I have stood such an investigation as has been subjected to?" as at first it may seem. And though, doubtless, the circle to whom the one question gives cause to pause, be incomparably wider than the other, that other would, in the light of a purer morality, be felt a very wide one indeed. Nothing would be more unsuitably expressed than my feeling in regard to your intercourse with dear Mr. Erskine, were I to say, " I envy you that intercourse ; " as the thought of your having it is not only next to, but, in some sense, more to me than that of having it myself. But you will believe that a wishing cap which would have joined me to your company would have been a most welcome present. . . . To Miss Duncan. Invekcloy, Arran [July, 1S50]. . . . I wish to write to you, being here, as these mountains and deep glens do more especially recal you, when my spirit looks around among known spirits for sym- pathy and response. ... I was to have WTitten yester- day. But Walter Hood, whose guests we are, had planned an excursion to the west side of the island to the Ki?iz's Cove 2 22 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. — so named as Robert the Bruce's hiding place in evil days : and it was late for the post when we returned. . . . As I sit wTiting with open window, to give free ingress to the balmy air of this sweet quiet glen, there come in along with it Gaelic sounds of native voices, which, though the Gaelic is affected with rather a southern taint, have a power of causing the past to live again, to which my spirit is willingly subject. The stream whose "inver" gives name to the glen, is also not unlike what we dignified with the name of " the river " at Kilninver ; a walk along the banks recalling, more than any other similar walk has ever done, the walk towards Reray, after you leave the pubHc road at the cottage beyond Colin Fergusson's house. Another memory — rather a memory of memories — was most unexpectedly but powerfully brought around me yesterday, when I reached the western shore, and found that I was just exactly opposite to Glensaddell, the looking at which recalled the many reminiscences of happy days there, which my beloved father used sometimes to find pleasure in expressing to me, in that assurance of interest and sym- pathy with which he honored me; which I then felt so grateful, and which I can now so well understand. How discursive we are ! our range the past, the present (of time, not place only), and the future. When I was passing Monifieth the thought that our beloved Mr. Erskine would some day be there ^ — and then to me, if still on the earth, the earth would feel so different — came over me with a power which made this passing through a real trial of faith, greater than even solemn events sometimes are. . . . To Miss Macnabb. Partick, i8th September, 1850. . Two things at this moment have given me a more ^ Mr. Erskine was buried in Monifieth Churchyard in March, 1870. 1849-53- RUSKIN ON ART. 223 than usual sense of the obHgation to redeem the time. One is Mr. Scott's discourses here last Sunday, in which he brought before us, in succession, all the distinctive features of that teaching for which we were cast out (or at least deprived of the authority to teach which they had bestowed) by the Church of Scotland, about twenty years ago; treating the teaching as a whole as a develop- ment; and subjecting it to the test furnished by his text, viz., " In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any- thing, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love " (Gal. V. 6). That I had known these things for twenty years you can easily see to be a thought full of practical responsibility. The other thing to which I refer is my reading of a book which I have from Warriston, Ruskin's two first volumes on Art. While very little qualified by previous knowledge of his subject to judge of the success of his work (I mean success as an argument), and consciously brought by him into a region in which I have almost everything to learn, I read with sufficient intelligence and sympathy to realize more than I had ever done the obligations connected with the capacity of extracting " meat which endureth " from the works of God in nature with which He has endowed us. Truly all things work together for good in as far as we deal with them in love to God. How solemn the responsibihty which thus arises ! Let us be sober, and watch unto prayer, that we suffer not things to pass us by without imparting to us the good with which they were endowed by Him from whom they came to us. Let us be awakened to the guilt that our suffering such loss involves, as being suffered through lack of love to Him who has so endowed all things with good. Dear Mary, my heart is very full on this subject ; and so, being writing to you, I conjoin you with myself in my self- exhortation. 2 24 MEMORIALS. CHAP. vii. To Mr. a. J. Scott: On his appointment as Principal of Owen's College, Maftchester. Partick, 2ist October, 1850. My dear Friend, — I thank you for your letter. I can quite understand how m this case success is felt as coming under a load : and I would desire, as that may be, to come under it with you. Much is expected from you; while I believe that your own ideal will be your hardest taskmaster. I trust that, however short you may seem to yourself to come of what is conceivable, you will always have much of the comfort of being consciously accomplishing what is put within your reach. I can more easily conceive what you will attempt than how, in the existing condition of men's minds, you will set about it : but surely there is a right way of dealing with each variety of mental state, and to the single eye it will be visible, and to the true heart it will be hopeful. To have no anxieties would imply that I did not realize your position ; but still I am very thankful and very hopeful. To Mr. Erskine. Partick, Saturday, 26th October, 1850. My beloved and loving Friend, — I brought home last night your beautiful gift.^ You need not be told how great its value is to me, on account of all it records and ex- presses. To my eye it will always present you both, with more power and truth than any mere pictorial faithfulness could impart. To all others, also, who know you, the necessary accuracy of feature renders the likenesses valu- able ; while the expression they must modify and correct ^ Two large daguerreotypes of his brother and Mr. Erskine in one case. 1 849-53- THE HALF-CENTURY. 225 for themselves ; for neither likeness records characteristic or choice looks; and there is something in the expression of the eyes in my brother's, that never can have been even a passing look. But I am so glad to have them, in their combination, and as your gift, that I feel all criticism un- gracious. . . . . . . You are, I know, thankful for dear Scott's success ; while you will, I trust, seek to be found bearing his burden in this new position; the importance of which is, I can well believe, at least equalled by its difficulty. Give my kind regards to Mrs. Stirling. My wife would send such to you both as what she truly feels ; though she knows Mrs. Stirling only through me; and also that appreciation of her from one meeting, which her great instinctive feeling of character made wonderfully full and just. I do not ask for a letter, however much I desire one, knowing how little I can expect to repay such favours ; and yet I have at present the apology for asking a few lines, that I am longing to hear of Mrs. Paterson after her journey. To his Sister. Partick, Friday, 15th November, 1850. . . . I shall be desirous to attend Scott's lectures in Edinburgh in December (four), and as many more in January, on the history of literature, and the progress of mental philosophy, during the past half of this century. They are his portion of a series of lectures, recapitulating the half-century in the several departments of human interest; at least the departments sufficiently recognized as such, and so recognized as to be harmonious topics for popular lectures. How solemn and deep an interest the review of the religious history of the same period would have ! How difficult, at the same time, with reference VOL. I. p 226 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. either to the abihty of any individual to give it all, or of the mass of those interested in the subject to receive what would be the truth regarding it ! These fifty years ! my fifty years ! I have been marking in myself, since I have entered this my fifty-first year, a strange tendency to think of everything I learned long ago, as what I had learnt afty years ago — Latin verbs for example. " Lord, teach us to number our days, so as to apply our hearts unto wisdom ! " To Miss C. Macnabb. Partick, 5th December, 1850. . . . I am contemplating returning to Woodhouselee^ next week ; returning so soon to attend Mr. Scott's lectures, the first of which is on the loth. It will also be another meeting with this dear cousin,^ who, though of the generation to which I myself belong, has more of the former genera- tion, and of my beloved father as the highest type of that generation, than any one else known to me. Her feelings about the Highlands and the changes which have taken place interest me much. I might almost accommodate Othello's words to the occasion : " I love her for the sorrows she has felt." I do not know whether I may add, " She loves me because I share in them." I know Mr. Kingsley already a little through Scott. I shall act on your w^ish that I should read these writings of his as soon as I have opportunity. I lately met the benevolent and practical Lord Ashley; and felt the light in which he sees his fellow-labourers, Mr. Maurice and Mr. Kingsley (for such, I believe, they are in purpose, and I trust also may prove to be in effect), very instructive 1 His brother lived at Woodhouselee, near Edinburgh, during the years 1850-53. 2 Eliza, Lady D'Oyley. 1849-53- MAURICE AND KINGSLEY. 227 as to our mutual ignorance of each other. He marvelled to hear me mention Mr. IMaurice as a man of a catholic spirit ; and, in the attempt to realize a Christian Socialism, he could see nothing but Democracy. As to this last matter, I could not speak further than as one disposed to anticipate good from anything that commended itself to Mr. Maurice. ]\Irs. Rich mentioned Alton Locke to me. The distinction which Cowper recognized in using the words, " My benefactor, not my brother man," lias long been present to my mind, as that which our efforts to heal the wound of the social body must recognize in order to be successful. I once said so to dear Dr. Chalmers, whose heart immediately responded. On this distinction these men, Mr. Maurice and Mr. Kingsley, are desirous to act ; and I cannot but wish them God speed ; though I know not what measure of practical wisdom, and — not mere know- ledge of facts, but — -power to interpret facts they bring to the task. But I must not run on, however tempting the topics of your letter, seeing that what time I may at this moment (when it so happens that there are unusual demands on my pen) give to writing to you is called for rather by what you write of yourself, than what you write of others. . . . I too have dreamed; and my dreams have been beautiful — at least to myself, whose ideal was their original. But I am learning — and in measure have learned — "to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." If I can persuade you to do likewise my attempt at helping you will not have been unsuccessfiil. / 7iow dare not indulge myself in dreaming, because I know that our calling is to learn what is, not to consider what should be. But, in truth, I feel no temptation to dreaming, because I have light of truth enough to know that the Spirit of Truth is the Comforter which the spirit of man needs ; daily bless- ing God that, to be advanced to any measure of comfort, it is 2 28 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. only needed that I should be raised to a higher and still higher apprehension and realization of truth. It were, indeed, an awful thought, that something were conceivable better than what is ; while it is a thought full of peace and comfort, that what is is ever higher, better, more to be desired and rejoiced in, than my most exalted conception of it. . . Believe with me that there is a mutual adapted- ness between the truth of humanity and the truth of things ; and you will as I do expect, in regard to all the craving — the hollow voids — of humanity, that the Spirit of Truth will be the Comforter ; you will feel that the promise, " Hear and your soul shall live," is that which always suggests the right attitude of the heart ; setting you to seek knowledge of what is, rather than to please yourself with imaginings as to what you woitld should be. The force of the expression as used by you, " learn to do without happiness," I do not know. The direct pursuit of happiness is, I believe, as self-disappointing as it is low. But we shall not in experience feel called to do without happi- ness in studying God's choice for us, and seeking to be in harmony with the truth of our circumstances as ordered by Him, and seen in His light. I think you must see on what ground I put the obligation to cease from dreaming and seek sober knowledge of the truth of things ; that it is — that the truth of things, which is of God, is more suited to the truth of what we are — and, if we know ourselves, will know ■ourselves to be — than our imaginings. As to conclusions from what God has made us as to what is intended for us (I refer to your letter), of course they assume that it is something God has made us, and not something we have made ourselves, from which such conclusions are drawn : and this is an important distinction too often lost sight of But, even when that from which we conclude is God's work, we are not to conclude as to what is good for us from a part 1849-53- UNFULFILLED CAPACITIES. 229 of what we are; and certainly we are not to allow ourselves to have, so to speak, z. pet part of our "whole." In no case is every capacity a promise that it shall be filled with what di- rectly corresponds with it. Capacities as powers — how unde- veloped, not to say unfulfilled, are they ! Capacities of feeling and affection also. I speak of the actual and necessary history of men. God, by circumstances, singles out the capacities which from time to time he would have us to have the use of. It is our part to consider His selection, and how we shall best follow it up. How vain to dream of what the capacities He has not so selected could yield to us, when we ought to be seeing to it, that those He has selected are, in our experience, all that glory to Him, and rich good to us, which He has made them capable of being ! And do think how ignorant we are of our own capacities ! how unfit to judge what discipline will best secure to us the full benefit, so to speak, of being partakers in Humanity ! — the full benefit also of all that is individual in our own individuality. With the ordering of that discipline we have nothing to do : but we have to do with being in the proper condition not to frustrate the grace of God in His ordering of it. It is said of our Lord, " Though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered ; " and it is thus that the Gospel will fill us (as you ask if it will) ; viz., by the power of the spirit of sonship to learn obedience by suffering, and to receive, through and from all things, the good that is in them : and this, not through suppression or erasion of anything of our proper humanity, but in connec- tion with and because of the fulness and freeness of our human consciousness. For all the potential mood, as you speak, has too much attraction as compared with the present tense; because in the one we reign, ordering things as we list; in the other God reigns. Their preference the few express in forms of poetry and romance; the many in a grumbling that is 230 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. sufficiently prosaic. Jesus said, " I do nothing of myself; as I hear I judge." Do not doubt that in so speaking He is making known to us the path of life, walking in it before us. Believe that His words indicate the true and wise use of your humanity — that bestowal of it in which it will yield all its hidden riches. May you of your dreams say, as Paul of things for which doubtless much more might be said to excuse from the sacrifice, "What things were gain to me those I count loss for Christ." To his Brother. Partick, 17th January, 1851. . . . I have been busy with my writing. " I am not that I have been ; " that is clear. But though I get on very slowly, compared to what I would once have done, I hope I am succeeding in a readable utterance of my thoughts. I have finished Buxton's Life, and am very glad to have made his acquaintance. I have enjoyed no life so much since Arnold's. It also lets one into a circle of friends whose life among themselves was exceedingly healthful in its tone; much mutual confidence, and that confidence mutually justified. . . . Partick, 29th January, 1851. . . . I went last night to the grand meeting of the Athenaeum, at which the Duke of Argyll presided. The duty which devolved upon him was to open the business of the evening with an address, expected (at least so he under- stood the matter) to be both commendatory of the institution, and instructive as practical counsel to the members. I heard him with much enjoyment, which I felt would have been complete if I had had you with me. He spoke for 1849-53- THE DUKE OF ARGYLL. 231 an hour and a quarter, and throughout extremely well. He opened a wide field for himself by taking the statistics of their reading from the report of the library department, as furnishing a series of topics in the classification of books with reference to the number of volumes of each description read; and so he had only to select what to say out of a mass of matter that he must have had present to his mind. This, however, he did very happily and very effectively; and, what I valued most, he seemed really seeking to say what it would be fnost profitable to them to hear, and to be anxious to improve the opportunity of influencing, if he could, for good the multitude before him. A multitude indeed ! four thousand. The reception he met with was quite enthusiastic; I never saw anything like it. Considering the class of people who filled the hall, there was something to be thankful for in the feeling they expressed, not towards him only, but also to Lord Eglinton and to Alison, so identified with Conservatism and order. He is exceedingly liked manifestly. . . . To his Sister-in-Law , Mrs. D. Campbell. Partick, 20th March, 185 1. . . . I am very busy getting my little book through the press. It will have the opposite fault to the notes of my sermons printed long ago, being too condensed rather than too fully expanded. But condensation in what is to be read is the safer side. Mr. Erskine's approbation is a comfort and encourage- ment; but I know well how wide the distance is between the mind in which he heard it, and that in which the religious world will receive it. They have, however, enough, and more than enough, of the mere echo of their own minds from others. . . . 232 ' MEMORIALS. chap. vii. To Mrs. Macnabb : Written after a visit to the Highlands, "where he ftad gone to attend the funeral of his father 's Jimcsekeejier, Mrs. M'Fadyen, at Kilbrandon, near Kilninver. Partick, Wednesday, 9th April, 185 1. . . . What a course of years her removal has " re- touched"'^ to me ! The occasion of my being there added to the power of place in recalling the memory of the past : and as I passed up by Kilninver to Oban next day (I remained that night with the minister of Seil) every inch of the road seemed to have its own incident to present as a claim on my interest. Some of these incidents were of a very early date in my life; the days of the M'Farlanes I^ But of course Kilninver — dear Kilninver ! — absorbed all memory, all feeling, when I saw it again ; and so unchanged ! as it must ever be in its great features ; though there are changes and many, which gi-adually were realized. But the change was not among these. I remained some hours, dining with Mr. M'Vean, who was very attentive. . . . D. accompanied me to that solemn spot, where I had so intense a sense of bereavement ; some renewed measure of which revisiting it will always bring back. Of all my feel- ings the most solemn was that which the unchanged aspect of the scene awakened. Why did it look the same? why not in its less important elements change, being changed in its most important one? How deep in us is the instinct that we are more important than physical nature; that // relates to us. Is it that this feeling is done violence to — our lordship, as it were, gainsaid — when we pass away, and it abides the same, that makes us almost marvel that mountains and seas survive the eyes in whose light we saw them — whose enjoyment of them seemed to be the very design of their existence and beauty fulfilled ? 1 " Life is all retouched again." — Gambold. 2 The family of a former minister of Seil. 1849-53- KILNINVER REVISITED. 233 But another thought I feel more profitable and more true. It has been said that " the firm earth on which we tread is ever a type of the footing for the soles of our feet (as spirits), the sure standing place which as spirits we have in Him in whom we live and move and have our being." " As round about Jerusalem the mountains stand alway, the Lord his folk doth compass so : " the real scene of our past intercourse with the beloved departed was in the presence of God ; which also abides though they are departed ; and of this the unchanged aspect of nature may speak to us when we recall the past. The great encompassing presence then is the great encompassing presence now: which to realize is to expand our thought and feeling of presence, and to feel his presence with us still who, as well as we, is within that presence. I am writing too rapidly for clear expression; especially as the thoughts themselves that I would express are not very defined. . . . I got to Oban in the evening. Poor Duncan M'Fadyen was there to meet me. We went on board the steamer at three in the morning. She was so crowded that we had to remain on deck. It was not yet day when we passed the mouth of Loch Feochan. But the East over Kilninver, as we closed the entrance, was vindicating its claim to be the region of Hope. I thought of the beautiful words, " My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning." The Creator, and not the creature, is to us spiritually the East. Where should light arise for our spirits but there where our regards are directed when looking to God! To Mr. Erskine. Partick, 23rd May, 1851. Beloved Friend, — I was much the better of your former letter, and am of that received now. I have had some very comforting communications regarding my little book ; — 234 MEMORIALS. CHAP. VII. among them a letter from your friend Mr. James M'Kenzie, and one from Captain Stirling. Story and Wylie have both responded fully as much as I expected. I gave a copy to Paisley, who called here lately, and who spoke of your book (on Election) in a way that indicated very great progress in his mind since I had seen him. Of another class, Peter M 'Galium read it with deep interest, and set himself to help by prayer those who might be reading it. Mrs. M'Callum found it "not at all what she expected, but yet just what she needed." Others have been much disappointed. Others have felt the first reading disappointing ; but it has grown upon them as they read it a second and a third time. As to what I am called to attempt as the due following of it up, three things seem wanting to its completeness as a word in season. That which you refer to; that which I myself originally felt as to what that will is on which we are called to feed; and thirdly, what my brother felt in reading it; viz., a view of baptism in harmony with the view given of the Lord's Supper. I am revolving all these in my mind, and considering their relation to each other, and what would be the natural order of their presentation. As to Baptism, its relation to the Lord's Supper is, in the High Church view, that of the first reception of life to the subsequetit sustaining of it. Through the one ordinance it is given : through the other it is fed. And so the truth that would need to be set forth as thus related to the spiritual reality which is feeding upon Christ, is that which you have long ago recognized as ex- pressed by the words, " Christ in you." But, however simple the conception of life imparted through the ordinance of Baptism and fed through the ordinance of the Lord's Supper is — held as a physical mystery, and assumption of two great ununderstood facts — the relations of the human spirit to the Eternal life, and the distinction between what 1849-53- THE SACRAMENTS. 235 as to life feeding presupposes, and what it adds, are not easily definable by us. Neither is the manner of speech employed in Scripture favourable to the attempt. Birth seems related to life as its commencement ; and it is said *' born of the incorruptible seed of the word." But it is said also, " As new-bom babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." Again, as to the true source of certainty, and what that infallible teaching is whose place the Pope usurps, there is a corresponding difficulty of clear exposition, in respect of that certainty in the light which justifies obedience to it, and renders disobedience sin, and that further certainty which is found through obedience, and known only in obedience, according to the words, "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." Beloved brother, pray much for me. That greater nearness to us, and knowledge of us, the desire for which you kindly express, has its counterpart in us, you may believe, in our several measures. How much of what cannot be overtaken as we are hurried through Time may be compensated in Eternity, we know not. But let us watch and pray that the hope of such compensation may not render us less diligent in seeking to know and use what is now within our reach. To the Same: then in London. Partick, 20th January, 1852. . . . Are you seeing much of Mr. Maurice? With much sympathy in his aims, I have not the confidence that I would be thankful to have in the means which he is using. Yet, with the consciousness of having so long earnestly desired that men should dwell together as brethren, and of having done little or nothing towards such a result, I feel my mouth very much shut. 236 MEMORIALS. CHAP. VII. Paul worked from within. Are we to work from without? Are things so changed as that the weapons which he em- ployed are no longer equal to the work ? or have we become unable to use them ? With affectionate regard to all your dear party, in which my dear wife shares much with me, beloved friend, ever your affectionate brother, John M'L. Campbell. To his Brother. Partick, February 23rd, 1852, It was this day week that I ^vrote to you last. I felt much inclined to take up my pen again about the middle of the week after reading Disraeli's book. I am glad that I read it, as I feel that I had not been in my own thoughts doing justice either to Lord G. Bentinck or to "protection." I enter a good deal into the preference of an empirical to cosmopolitan policy ; at the same time that it is undeniable that competition is drawing out resources which had been lying dormant; but I think our varied colonies would have afforded a sufficient stimulus in this way had their interests been more considered, and the empire treated more as one whole having a common interest. Lord G. Bentinck has been certainly a most able as well as courage- ous man, and would, had he lived, have secured for the one side of these great questions a more perfect advocacy than it has been since his death receiving, or is likely to receive. Disraeli writes as one to whom the House of Commons is the highest arena of human conflict, and in whose estimation the being the "first member of parlia- ment," which is the distinctive excellence he ascribes to Peel, is very high praise. One can in almost every page of the book mark traces of the mental habit of cherishing, as the writer's own highest personal aim, the ambition of 1849-53- DISRAELI AND BENTINCK. 237 being there an effective speaker. I could not but feel that there was more of the Jciv than of the Christian (or, as he himself would say, more of the first than of the second part of the Jew's religion) in his sympathy with Lord George in so deliberately setting himself to the work of being avenged on Peel, as what remained to him as his vocation when his struggle for protection had ended in discomfiture. As to Peel, I do not think that the book has lowered him in my eyes. There seems, indeed, in the writer of the book himself something of a reaction, if it is right to read it in connection with his old attacks on Peel in Parliament. Another volume which I have read since my return home is Carlyle's Life of Sterling, having been determined so to do by Mr. Erskine's notice of it as what he assumes me to have read "with much admiration and much regret." There is certainly much that is very beautiful in it; and repeatedly in the course of reading it I have said to myself, " I wish that Donald could read it with enough of open- ness to its beauties to permit him to enjoy them." But on the whole I would say I closed the book, and mentally review it with much more regret than admiration. Indeed the sense of its probable influence for evil was so strong as to cause me not a little mental suffering, with the ac- companiment of some physical suffering also in the form of severe headache. To Mr. Erskine. Partick, 9th March, 1852. My dear Brother — We have just had a visit of a few days from dear John Duncan, by which I have been refreshed. I had G. Galloway, with some of the rest,^ down ^ That is, of his congregation in Glasgow. 238 MEMORIALS. CHAP. vii. one evening to meet him. He was much impressed by George's solemn earnest bearing. I had not read Carlyle's Life of Sterling when I received your letter. I have since. Mentally referring to your words, I repeatedly said to myself as I went along, " This awakens more admiration than regret 3 " but by the time I reached the close, regret far far exceeded admiration. It is very beautiful — most artistic. It has also the higher interest of making the man Carlyle more kno\Mi to me, and as a brother man. Yet for all this I have scarcely ever, if ever, read a book that has cost me so much pain. I remember your brief letter from Port-Glasgow, and feel its bearing on one element of this pain, viz., the fear of the evil that this book may work. You may remember the letter I refer to. " The Lord sitteth on the circle of the heavens. You are a grasshopper." I endeavoured to keep my feelings in harmony with the faith to which by these words you ex- horted. But within this limit there is room for much suffering (Ezekiel ix. 4). A triumph of mental might is here recorded ; and all the might ascribed to the vanquished only of course enhances the triumph of the vanquisher ; and were the purpose of the book to magnify that triumph, it could not have been constructed with more perfect adaptation to that end. That first letter of Sterling after reading Sartor Resartus — its free criticism, its unshrinking faithfulness, its going at once to the root of the matter — the question of a personal God ; all implying a mind awake to the character and position of the mind with which it has become acquainted, and to which it feels standing in a relation of antagonism, yet without fear, or much seeming cause to fear; then the series of conversa- tions, discussions, referred to and indirectly described as abounding in much logical acuteness and readiness on the one part, met on the other, you are taught to infer, more in the quiet still strength of truth and deep convictions 1849-53- CARLYLE'S ''LIFE OF STERLING." 239 than of mere able argument; these convictions seemingly gradually awakening an echo from the depths of the spirit of him in whose hearing they are uttered, which makes itself heard in spite of the noise of his own voluble speaking, slowly undermining rather than throwing down the structure of his thoughts; this process going on for years, until at last you have given to you, as the issue, that most touching and sad letter wTitten a few weeks before his death, in which the record of Carlyle's victory is given in the testimony of Sterling concerning his own obligations ! — all sealed by the utterance of Carlyle's own feelings on receiv- ing this letter (" The worship in the temple of immensity," to which he represents it as a call) — the reader being as it were permitted to know — invited if he can to sympathize — in the joy of the teacher who has received tokens that he has not laboured in vain ; — if, I say, the end contemplated had not been so much to set the disciple right with the world, as to commend the power and might of the teacher, and awaken the feeling that that power is the power of truth, and that the teacher is the conscious apostle of truth, nothing could be more perfect as the means to such an end. ^^ It would be unreasonable to complain of Carlyle's at- taining such an end while simply discharging a debt of friendship. Nay, such a result might be regarded as in some sense his due reward — would be such, assuming the truth to be with him; and though one would not feel it quite simple and straightforward to have proposed it to himself, while not professing to seek it, one would not see anything ^vrong in some measure of self-congratulation on finding such a result, as it were, spontaneously coming to pass. But with my convictions I must feel the power of the book to do harm commensurate with its power to give Carlyle this place in the mind of the reader of the book ; while there is an additional cause of pain to me in being constrained to think of Carlyle so much less as an enquirer 240 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. and seeker after truth than he had hitherto been in my thoughts. Besides, while I feel that Carlyle might have an allowable and healthful satisfaction in the thought that a true life of Sterling commended Carlyle, I cannot but feel that there is an unmistakable self-magnifying tone in the book, and that his joy over Sterling is a most painful, and, I would add, most instructive contrast to Paul's joy over Timothy. With most affectionate regard from us to all your dear party, your very affectionate brother, J. M'L. Campbell. 31st March, 1852. . . . I have been from time to time not a little cast down by the small measure of acceptance which my book has met with, in a land where so many know and love Him of whom it speaks. It would in one view be, doubt- less, a comfort to conclude with you, that this has in a great measure been owing to the style in which it is written : though, as to myself personally, and the hope of my being profitable to others through the press, considering how I laboured to be clear and pointed and explicit, and how many times I may say every page of it was re-written with this single object, this explanation is discouraging. That my extempore speaking has been felt clear, and my writing should now prove obscure, I suppose may be a natural result of the attempt at condensation by one accustomed to allow himself ample room. . . . Suggestions which have been made, have, in some cases, appeared to me to attempt clearness by leaving out subordinate thoughts, or leaving unexpressed shades of thought which have demanded expression from me, as needful to the due guardedness and absolute correctness of the statements made ; while as to the demand in other minds, it may be that they would 1849-53- LYELL'S ''PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY:' 241 be better omitted, and that their omission would be a gain, as leaving the statements more broad, and not the less substantially correct. To his Brother. [Partick, 1852.] . . . Ly ell's thick close printed small typed volume^ is formidable. But I mean to give him a fair hearing, and to endeavour to give its ///// taeight to what he has to say for his views. His speculations do not seem to touch the origin of man or the date of his first appearance on the earth ; and after all this is the important question. I do not certainly feel much sensitiveness on such subjects; fully assured that any apparent discrepancy between any real fact and the intimations of revelation can only be apparent, and sympathizing much in the confidence of the three faithful Israelites, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. There is to me something exceedingly large in the faith expressed in their alternative answer to Nebuchadnezzar : " We are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. Btit if not, be it known unto thee, king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." Our God is able to shed full light upon seeming contra- dictions ; but if He should not, let us not the less firmly hold what we know to be true in that light in which our deepest and highest consciousness of certainty is experi- enced. I say I do not feel much sensitiveness on this subject; but in the present state of our knowledge I confess 1 should be sorry to hear of human remains found in the earlier strata. I shall tell you what I feel about this volume when I have made acquaintance with it. . . . ^ Principles of Geology. VOL. I. Q 242 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. To Mrs. Campbell. 20 Eaton Square, 23rd June, 1852. . . . Yesterday, at Mrs. Craigie's, I spoke from the Twenty-third Psalm. There were nearly twice as many people as the former Tuesday. I felt as if for the first half- hour it was dry and skeletony, but for the last forty or forty- five minutes I felt it much richer and more living; and there was manifestly much interest awakened. Among my hearers was Mr. Ross, from Brighton, who is at present libelled by the Free Church for "false teaching" about the atonement. He remained to dine with us, and both there and on my way home I had a great deal of con- versation with him. He is a solemn, earnest, deep man, and his position, so like my own in 1830 and 183 1, gave him an intense interest to me. It is not, however, the extent, but the nature of atonement as to which he is considered to be in error. I believe he is as substantially right as I was in teaching universal pardon, though I am not quite sure that his language is not as liable to be misunderstood as mine was. To his Brother. 20 Eaton Square, Thursday, 24th June, 1852. . . . I have stepped in in passing from the extreme West (Lady Harris and Lady A. Lennox) to the East, where I am to dine with Mr. Maurice to meet Archdeacon Hare, and also be in time to go with Maurice before dinner to see the Temple Church; and stop a moment to answer yours which I have found waiting me. ... I went out early yesterday to a third meeting with Mr. Manning, with whom I was a third time for two hours and a-half. This was final for the present; but he took my address, saying he might be in Glasgow, and would come and see me : I fear, however, 1849-53- CHARLES KINGSLEY. 243 more from the hope of impressing than from being im- pressed. But whatever the result as to him, I am thankful for the opportunity of seeing all their case so nearly. To Mrs. Campbell. HiGHFiELD Park, 24th November, 1852. . . . I came up to write to you between twelve and one to-day, and was called down to see Mr. Kingsley, the author of Alton Locke. He waited lunch, and is only now away at three o'clock. ... I have enjoyed Mr. Kingsley's call very much, and I think him much improved since I saw him before. I have given him a copy of my book, having heard from his wife, on whom we called yesterday, that he was reading the Fragments^ and enjoying them very much. The weather continues dull and damp. I have never been able to get round the park, nor have I seen any of the beauty of the place, but the shrubbery before I went up to the funeral,^ and of course what one sees from the windows. To Mr. Erskine. Partick, 2nd February, 1853. My very dear Frjend, — I duly received your welcome gift, 2 and am making acquaintance with your revered friend, and adding to our common ground. I did not, however, begin at once on receiving the book, being then ^ Fragments of Truth : being the Exposition of Sei'eral Passages of Scripture. The third edition was published by Edmonston and Douglas in 1861. The volume consists of notes and recollections of Sermons and Expositions, most of vk'hich were by Mr. Campbell ; two were by Mr. Erskine, and two by Mr. Scott. ^ The funeral of the Duke of Wellington. * Bunsen's Signs of the Times. 244 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. still occupied with the volumes of Hippolytus which you left with me ; which I may say I have not only read but studied. I am unwilling to subject your poor eyes to reading much of my writing, but must say something (as briefly as I can) of what I feel as to Hippolytus. I am not at all satisfied with the way in which the ancient Liturgies are dealt with ; the witness which they bear as to the meaning of the worshippers using them, and their o^vn apprehension of what they were doing, being, I think, bent not a little to make it furnish an illustration of the writer's views of the two sacrifices — Christ's own and that of the Church; and, as a corollary, to explain the history and expose the error of the doctrine of Tran- substantiation. As to Transubstantiation, the language of the old Liturgies may very speciously be held by a Romanist to bear the same relation to that doctrine, which the language of the Ante-Nicene Church on the subject of the Divinity of Christ bears to the Nicene, and, still more, to the Athanasian Creed ; that is to say, the former in both cases seeming to assert as a fact something which the latter in both cases proceeds to define with amplification. I was indeed quite unprepared for such early and such general use of the prayer that God would send the Holy Spirit upon the bread and wine, and "make the bread the body and the wine the blood of Christ;" and you will remember the quota- tion from Justin Martyr of which Bunsen gives as the substance, " Christ was invested with flesh and blood through the word of God. Bread and wine become Christ's body and blood through the word of Christ. The partakers of the supper become spiritual members of Christ through the Communion." But you will remember how much there is (and with so much variety of expression, in different liturgies, and quotations, as to add force to the argument)? 1849-53- BUNSEN'S HIPPOLYTUS. 245 that would bear out a Romanist in saying, " Such language, though it does not assert, is quite able to cover the doctrine of transubstantiation." Bunsen, indeed, seems almost to feel it necessary to leave this an open question, making light of it as one that the Fathers would not have felt any call to take up ; and nearly saying to the Romanist, " Your error — at least your I'oot error — is not in what you conceive the elements to be, but in the use you make of them, in that you offer them to God as a propitiatory sacrifice, and make the offering of them thus the great interest of the service, instead of the offering up of themselves by the faithful as living sacrifices, which was the original interest of the com- munion as including a sacrificial offering, and gave it its sacrificial character." As to this, I feel that no one believing in any doctrine of the actual presence, or attaching any literality of meaning to the assertion that " the bread is made to be the body and the wine the blood of Christ, by the power of the Holy Ghost put forth on them," whether recognizing as warranted all the assertions of Transubstanti- ation or not, can make so little account of what is thus believed as Bunsen does, or can so separate between the presence of the elements on the altar and the sacrificial character of the service as he does, or can regard the self- devotion of the worshippers, and not that presence, as the ground of the use of such language as " altar," " sacrifice," &c. On the other hand, if the use of the language of "sacrifice" and "offering" could be clearly separated from the elements and the presentation of them, and fixed as unequivocally contemplating the offering of themselves by the worshippers, and their sacrifice of themselves, an argu- ment would seem to arise, not only against the importance of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, but against its credibility, or that of any doctrine of the actual presence, as what could not be real and yet be thus secondary : and doubtless such a conclusion is in effect suggested, and was contemplated. 246 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. But, though not constrained to do so by the faith of the Romanist (and though unwilhng to forego the use of any true argument against the doctrine of transubstantiation in whatever form held), I must recognize a distinct, immedi- ate, and, I would say, exclusive reference to the elements of bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ (what- ever these words were felt to mean), in the whole use of the language of sacrifice in these Liturgies. I have taken notes to enable me some day to go over the ground with you, but here will only refer to a passage in the general introduction to the Liturgies of the ancient Church (beginning near the foot of page 187, vol. IV.), to show how Bunsen's theory bends the language of the early Church to its own purpose. [After examining this passage he continues :] In the " Apology " he makes Hippolytus say, " If the Church had ever thought that in her act of sacrifice Christ was the victim offered up, she would have lost the sacrifice entrusted to her — her life, and the manifestation of her life, thankful devotion." Now, though in adding as he does, "To suppose that by such an act she performed a repetition of the sacrifice of Christ once and for ever consummated, is to misunder- stand her completely," he is putting the question into a form in which it would be as difficult to prove an affirmative from these Liturgies, as to prove Transubstantiation from the language in which the bread and wine are spoken of as the body and blood of Christ — yet, whatever they meant by their words, Christ clearly was to their minds the victim on the altar; and the sacrifice, the bloodless sacrifice offered by them ("we offer") "for the fathers and those who have fallen asleep in the faith," &:c. (for the Church universal, in short), was Christ, not themselves. These are the mental consciousnesses, or apprehensions of what they were doing, which I discern in these Liturgies : — 1849-53. EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 247 I St. A thankful recognition of an obligation to offer bread and wine, to be made to them the body and blood of the Lord, according to the institution. 2nd. A calling to remembrance the work of Christ, enu- merating its steps in detail; and this as their response to the words, " Do this in remembrance of me." 3rd. An offering of the body and blood of the Lord in prayer for the Church universal. 4th. A prayer for benefits to be received through par- ticipation in the body and the blood of the Lord, with much detail. All this as preparatory to the act of Communion, the special significance of which to their minds, and their ex- pectation of benefit through which, is to be gathered from these preparatory prayers. Now that the Church felt her calling to be that very thing which Bunsen means by "her self-sacrifice," is abundantly manifest from the language of these prayers ; but it seems to me as manifest that she did not contemplate either the offering of the bread and wine or the act itself of communion as the act of self-sacrifice, but as the means of strength for that self-sacrifice which she thought of as her calling at all times. The expressions, " To thee, O gracious Lord, we devote our whole lives and our hopes," occur in one of the prayers before partaking in the Communion, and Bunsen marks them by italics as, according to his view, "the prayer of sacrifice." But they are not the burden of the prayer in which they occur, which is for benefits to be received through the communion, and seem incidental, or rather the realization of that state of mind in which prayer may be offered in hope, and not at all a fixing a character on the whole service. . . . I would not venture to say what the feeling was with which they said, "We offer," in reference to the symbols 248 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. of Christ's body and blood, any more than I can venture to say what meaning they attached to the language which represents these symbols as the body and the blood of the Lord. But it appears to me that these symbols, in whatever sense identified with what they symbohzed, were offered as the offering of what they symbolized ; but an offering of it more near what Protestants mean when they say, "We plead Christ's merits," "we pray in the name of Christ," " we present Christ and his sacrifice as the ground of our prayers," than the Romish idea of an actual re- petition of the sacrifice by Christ. Let us so understand the language and the act, and we must just deal with it in the way in which we deal with praying in Christ's name. Bunsen says, "The Church does not offer Christ; she offers herself" I say she offers Christ in the same sense in which she prays in Christ's name. A superficial performance of the act, and a superficial pleading of the name, alike contemplate the acceptableness to the Father of the sacrifice of Christ, so to speak, histori- cally. But fully and spiritually entered into, Christ — the mind of Christ — is anew offered ; and to pray in the name of Christ is to pray in the spirit of Christ ; the acceptable- ness of the sacrifice of Christ being known, and acted upon, as an abiding revelation of the unchaiiging God. If I were to venture to speculate on Bunsen's theory, as to what it implies regarding his own state of mind, I would be inclined to think that he does not fully reahze that the sacrifice of Christ and that of the Church are one, as the life of Christ and the life of the Church is one. Many expressions, indeed, seem to imply that he sees this; and that, in so far as he distinguishes, he only brings out the distinction between the saviour and the saved. But what awakens most misgiving in me is his use of the word "thanksgiving." We are, according to him, to offer our lives a sacrifice in a way of thanksgiving for salvation. But 1849-53- MEANING OF THE ''OFFERING." 249 the dying to live, the dying to self to live to God, is not properly an expression of thankfulness for salvation. It is simply the form of receiving salvation. What is the meaning of saying, I am ill and one brings me health, and I accept health to show my thankfulness. Bunsen says, " Christ's sacrifice was made once for all, and not to be repeated." This is true in one view, but not to the effect to which he applies it. Paul says, "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." Could he not have said in the same sense that the death of Christ was renewed in him ? While, however, all spiritual occupation with the objective, ?^ in regard to the sacrifice of Christ, must itnply the subjective, and thus participation in the death of Christ tinderlie the confidence towards God with which that death is contem- plated, I have no doubt that occupation with the objective is more traceable in these Liturgies than realization of the connected subjective; which, as I have said, is rather asked for from God, than presented to God. Yet though a grace sought, and not a gift offered as on an altar, the idea of Bunsen seems just, that it was in proportion as conununion in the life of Christianity zvas less sojight that the sacrifice of the Mass developed itself: just, I believe, in the same way that the doctrine of the Cross has developed itself in the forms of substitution and imputation, in proportion as it ceased to be understood that salvation is the fellotv ship of the life of Christ. The faith in the virtue of the Mass, and the faith in imputation, are near akin, and equally remote from seeing the relation of means of salvation to salvation, as existing in the nature of things. I have, I have said, been quite unprepared for the lan- guage used regarding the bread and the wine in the com- munion. I have been also unprepared for the importance attached to the Communion as a mean of salvation, as — as it were — the special ordinance for partaking in Christ, and 250 MEMORIALS. CHAP. VIL as such in a way felt to be mysterious. Some early de^ parture from the simplicity that is in Christ is manifest. But to what extent this departure reached is not easily measured ; for one cannot say how far a deep sense of the spiritual realities contemplated, and a correspondingly deep experience of spiritual gain through occupation with them, may have imparted to the Lord's Supper all its mysterious interest, and all its practical quickening and strengthening power. What I have felt most precious in these records of that early time is the evidence they afford of a veneration, which, in the earliest, is not felt so much to be superstition as a Divine awe, almost what Dorney calls " solemn sweet rever- ence in the things of God." Subjective religion must attain to a very living meeting with Christ within us, as distinct from, though ///, ourselves, in order to reach in this way what is comparatively easy to objective religion. Beloved brother, I have not forgotten your eyes, though I may seem to have done so ; but habit is a mighty power. I shall send these two volumes east through my bookseller. I long to know the whole work. To his Sister. [1853.] . . . We have just had a visit from Saturday to Monday of dear Mr. Erskine. I had not seen him for a considerable time. He is well and cheerful and free — a well, welling up most refreshing living water. I would ask you if you have leisure for it, and sufficient freedom from engrossment in your spirit, to read Maurice's last volume, the Kings ajid Prophets of the Old Testamerit. It is the clearest and most practical of his books, and deals with prophecy in a way that makes it more a word for all time, and so for our time, than it is when studied with the single aim of anticipating the form and time of fulfilment. 1849-53- ARROCHAR. 251 Not that the one aspect is to engross in substitution of the other, but that the latter without the former is a body without a spirit. Tarbet on Loch Lomond, 29th June, 1S53. . . . I could not but say to Mary, when coming away with the three bo}'3 yesterday, how thankful we ought to be that not for health but in health I was taking them. We had a beautiful day for our first day yesterday; and the little fellows enjoyed the Loch-side and the brae-side exceedingly while we were whiling away the time till D. should join us (he having remained at Arrochar for his French lesson). Jamie drew upon Woodhouslee for comparisons of beauty, it being hitherto his highest ideal of the rural. I cannot say whether it is very unusual, as I may only not have seen other children so near ; but I am quite surprised to see the sense of the beautiful develope so early. To-day we have a regular West Highland day of rain. The little boys and I have been close prisoners, and D. has got his French lesson only at the expense of a ducking. To-morrow is the parish Sacramental Fast here, and both the Normans were to have been Mr. M'Farlane's assistants for that day. But it appears that the old Dr. is so unwell that he cannot come. I was to have met them, and now am to meet young Norman at the manse, as well as being in the church. Mr. M'Farlane you will not remember, but he remembers seeing you at Campbeltown at the M'Farlanes'. He is an old college friend of mine, and has on this first opportunity shown himself very kind. I am here in the house of one of Proudfoot's^ favourite parishioners, now an elder in the Free Church. He re- members being among my hearers when I preached in the open air once, passing to the Highlands after I left Row. 1 The former minister of Arrochar, a co-presbji;er of Mr. Campbell whea at Row. 252 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. His wife remembers sermons of mine heard in the Parish Church, which, of course, is going further back ; but of the individuals here who were in those days personally known to me, and in the way of seeking conversation with me when I came to Arrochar, none remain. It was last week, in coming up Loch Long, that I felt so much the power of place in reproducing the past very vividly, and of that past a part was this portion of your journey to Kilninver with Mary and Charlie ; but what I felt most was the remembrance of my first visit to the Manse of Arrochar, a few weeks after my induction to Row, when I met the INIiss Bains from Greenock for the first time ; one of whom was aftenvards the Mrs. Wilson of Bombay whose life has been published. She was then a young, fresh, spirited, ardent, romantic girl. How hidden our futures were to her and me ! How little promise of their differing from those of any of the other young persons of that party ! Her work is all finished. One would almost say — or fear — • that this might be said of mine also. But I did not walk in a premeditated path then, any more than I do now ; for all that came to me, and came upon me, as all that was by me or through me, arose in the simple way of meeting clear present demands of duty as they arose. . . I am finishing this letter on the ist of July, having joined young Norman at the quay here at ten yesterday, on his way from Glasgow to Arrochar, and walked across the isthmus with him ; being his hearer with great pleasure, and passing the day with him at the manse, and with his wife, who came up from their sea-bathing quarters at the mouth of Loch Long to meet him. . . To his Eldest Son. Laurel Bank, Partick, Monday, 22nd August, 1853. My dear Boy, — I found myself too tired last night to 1849-53- SUNDAY WORK AT ROW. 253 give you any account of yesterday's teaching ; and I fear it will be always so. I used, at Row, when my Sunday work was done, always to write before going to bed a short account of the day's sermons to my beloved father ; and the work to which this was added was at one time : a ride to Row (two miles) ; an hour in the Sunday School at Row • two hours' forenoon service, two afternoon ; a ride to Helensburgh (two miles) ; two hours in the Sunday School there ; a ride home to Shandon (four miles) : and even the school time was very much exhortation and exposition. JVow one service, of less than two hours, with no riding but two easy drives, leaves me more unable to write than so much work then did. Voila the difference between twenty- six and fifty-three. I must therefore make up my mind that these " notes," or " recollections " rather, shall be Monday morning not Sunday evening letters. My asking you to WTite yesterday is not to lead you to make Sunday a day for writing letters, unless there be some special reason. You know that I wish you to cherish a value for the Sunday, while I regard it rather for its spiritual uses and as a help to religion, than as a Sabbath, or day of rest in the Jeivish sense. I have said nothing to you about Theatres or Operas. I believe you know that I do not wish you to go to them. When you are a man you will, I trust, be safely left to your own judgment in such matters. In the meantime you will be contented with mine. I have not mentioned the subject to your uncle, but I think he will quite approve of what I now write. But do not think that I judge — or would have you to judge — others in these matters, as I know many religious people would have no hesitation in doing. Keep your own path, but do not in such matters judge others. Don't confound them with matters of pure right and wrong. 254 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. Saturday, 27th August, 1853. . . . I took up my pen having you before my mind's eye as between Boulogne and Paris. The sense of enlarge- ment of mental vision that I trace back to my first day on the other side of the Channel, is still a distinctly marked epoch in my conscious development. What I felt so much was felt as a member of the human family. I felt that I had never realized before the largeness of that family, or its diversity; yet also that I never so realized its unity, its being one family. A sense of brotherhood with all men pervaded me — more than even the faith of the Atonement had up to that time awakened. That faith had made me feel how precious all were to God ; but it had not so made me feel one of the large family of God's offspring, as the seeing a people of another tongue and the treading of a foreign soil did ; though no doubt my previous habit of seeing men in the light of the Cross of Christ had pre- pared me for experiencing such Catholic feelings, instead of thinking of Crecy, or Agincourt, or Waterloo. This you wall receive in Paris, and therefore what I write will not affect your first feelings, which will have been felt before you read it; but it may seal them or add to them as the case may be. To his Sister. [Probably November, 1853.] . . . I suppose dear Mr. Erskine will be feeling a good deal about the steps taken with Mr. Maurice. I did not know till to-day (when I got his letter to the Principal of King's College) what the point was as to which he has been thought an unsafe teacher. A point as to which the standards of his Church are silent, and as to which that Church, as a body of living men, does certainly hold a variety of opinion, is one on which he was entitled 1849-53- MAURICE AT KING'S COLLEGE. 255 to feel unfettered. But even if it had been otherwise, I would have regretted such haste to silence the foremost man of their Church, as I believe Maurice to be at this moment, and the only man who is attempting to deal with tlie mental difficulties of his generation in a free and fair spirit. For, as to the Oxford school, by shrinking back into the original Church and sheltering themselves among its traditions, they escape all the questions that agitate men's minds. And as to the Evangelical body, they also shrink behind traditions of a later day ; to them but tradi- tions, and what they are able easily to hold because of the prestige with which they come to them. For certainly on most fundamental points they are alike unauthorized by Scripture and repugnant to reason. I do not feel that I need to be conscious of a full harmony with Maurice in all even that is important in his system, in order to be justified in wishing that he should have a fair hearing, and that the Church should seek no other protection than what power there may be in her living members to expose error. Other protection than this the Church of England has long ceased to seek ; and when I had finished the perusal of this volume of Maurice, I just said, "I am thankful that there is a Church that will allow him thus freely to utter himself, though I am not satisfied with many things that his book contains." It remains to be seen how far this cause for thankfulness the Church of England will continue to present ; how far she will homologate or disown the act of the Principal and Council of King's College. As to the point at issue, I am relieved to see that this fuller bringing out of his state of mind (I refer to his letter), is more what I am able to go along with, than what I was left to conjecture of his views from the book itself; though perhaps I should not so feel, as what it amounts to is no more than that my own great difficulty continues to be -r 256 MEMORIALS. chap. vit. one to him, the difificulty connected with the freedo7?i of the will. It would be more a relief to find my difficulty removed. As to the meaning of the word Eternal, indeed, I do not agree with him, believing the idea of duration to be contained in it, and its converse to be temporal. " The things which are seen are temporal ; the things which are not seen are eternal." But this does not decide the question. To say that a state is eternal is not to say that those who pass into that state are to remain in it eternally. That may or may not be meant, and this must be determined otherwise. But "Eternal Life" is an eternal reality, apart from our participation in it ; and " Eternal Death " its negative. When our Lord says, "This is life eternal," I hear Him saying, " This is life, and a life which is eternal," and feel that He is commending what He speaks of because it is life, and because it is eternal, and not that He is explaining either the word " life," or the word " eternal." I quite agree with Mr. Maurice in what he brings out so pointedly (pp. 11, 12) from the first Epistle of John, in reply to Dr. J elf's saying that the word " eternal," when spoken with reference to man, applies to the future state. That very expression of Paul's which I have quoted, "the things which are seen are temporal ; the things which are not seen are eternal," presents not a contrast of present with future, but of two present existences in things seen and things not seen ; or, as the context shows, things of the outer man and things of the inner man. But the " Eternal Life " as what " was, and is, and shall be," is surely so spoken of, to make use of the ideas suggested by the words " was," " is," and " shall be " to help our conceptions. To speak of " a life " as what was, is, and shall be, is to speak of it with reference to dicration. To speak of it as "knowledge of God and of Christ," is to speak of it with reference to nature. What Mr. Maurice says (pp. 12, 13) of the meagreness of the idea conveyed 1849-53- ''ETERNAL LIFE." 257 by the word " endless," I think he says because he puts into the word " eternal," when connected with life, all that the word " life," and the explanation of the nature of the life spoken of, have conveyed to his mind. To tell me indeed that a state of existence is "endless," is to give me a very meagre idea, unless I am told what the nature^ of that state is ; and the nature of the state that is endless being made known, I may be engrossed more with its nature than its endlessness. But I feel that the nature of the state and its permanence are both important to me ; and that I am informed as to both ; and that Mr. Maurice is quite mistaken in saying, near the foot of page 12, that "the eternal life which Christ manifested, the eternal life which he has given, are spoken of without the least refer- ence to duration." To me to have discerned the life that was in Christ, and to have seen that life to be eternal, are two distinct steps ; of which it may be impossible to take the first without taking the second ; but as to which, separating them in conception, it would be very terrible to have taken the first and to be forbidden to take the second ; or, in other words, to become acquainted with the things that are not seen, and yet not to be justified in thinking of them as eternal. As to the moral tendency of Mr. Maurice's teaching on this subject, I cannot see that in identifying sin and death, holiness and life, he has done other than a great and needed service for our time. " Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption ; he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting." There is nothing arbi- trary and nothing of external infliction or reward here. I believe that the habitual and practical discernment in the seed-time of the identity between what we sow and what we reap, is what we need to be brought to see ; that a man should know, when he hopes for Heaven, that VOL. I. R 258 MEMORIALS. chap. vii. there is the same relation between what he is hoping for and what his will is now choosing, that the farmer knows ' to exist between the wheat that he holds in his hand as seed, and what he expects to reap in harvest. Does not the Evangelical world need to be taught this? Do not fall need it indeed — need to have conscience helped by such an outward voice; but with them is there not much theological hindrance to the free action of conscience ? When I first heard of Mr. Maurice's mouth being shut as a teacher in King's College, I felt the question painfully suggest itself, " Is it indeed to be to the end that any approach to the gift of prophet will be rejected?" To his Niece, Mrs. J. E. Paterson. Partick, 19th November, 1853. To-day my thoughts have been much at Linlathen, and with your dear James and yourself, thinking of you, as I trust, in the sight of Him who has given you to be parents, realizing the blessedness of seeing your babe in the light of that name into which she has been baptized. I am accustomed to read a deep sense of the rich portion which that name is for man in the faces of the parents to whose children I administer baptism. And truly it is a deep joy to a parent's heart, knowing that name as one's own portion for time and for eternity, to feel authorized to see in it also the portion and inheritance of the unconscious babe that is being baptized into that name. You may have heard dear Mr. Erskine speak (you may have felt mystically) of " the difference between comprehend- ing a truth, and being comprehended by it." How uncom- prehended on the part of your precious babe is that truth in which she is in this rite recognized as being comprehended. While as to the comprehending of it, how little in advance of her ignorance can you feel your own knowledge to be. 1849-53- LEARNING FROM CHILDREN. 259 Yet is it, dear young parents, somewhat in advance. So it is your part to lead, and what you know of that name to manifest to her; which, according as you live in its light and by its power, you will not fail to do. This to speak of now may seem premature and only by. anticipation suitable. I do not feel it to be so altogether, though as yet it can only be by loving looks and tones that you can minister the food of love to her young spirit ; but I know that for many a day your relation to her will be more that of learners than of teachers. I remember how, in the days of our D.'s infancy, the words of Wordsworth were illustrated to me, and became the fit expression of my own consciousness : " O dearest, deai-est boy ! this heart For better lore would seldom yearn, Could I but teach the hundredth part Of what from thee I leai-n. " And yet in truth your task as teachers now commences, is already commenced, and was entered upon in the first going out of your heart upon her. " Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks," the eye looks. What you are to her is of course determined by what you are ; and I have felt as a parent the task of " keeping my own heart Avith all diligence, because out of the heart are the issues of life," rendered additionally solemn and urgent because of the importance to those so near and so dear of what the manner of life should be that would flow forth, to me, and from me. 26o CHAPTER VII I. 1854— 1857. Mr. Campbell writes his Book on the Atonement — Letters Referring to its Publication — Letters from Arran — His Estimate of A. J. Scott — Letters to Mr. Erskine, Miss Duncan, and others — Ferrier's Metaphysics — Spiritualism — The Indian Mutiny. During the year 1854 Mr. Campbell wrote very few letters: all his energies were concentrated on his book on the Atonement. He had long desired to follow up his early teaching as to the universality of the Atonement by an exposition of that which he believed to be its nature and essence. The objections which had been urged against the doctrine that Christ had died for all men, proceeded on an assumption as to the nature and significance of Christ's sufferings which was, he felt, erroneous and misleading. Long years of meditation only deepened in his mind the convictions which, having been present in germ in his early teaching, received their full development and expression in his book on the Nature of the Atonement. That book is so well known that nothing need here be said in explanation of the view of the subject which is set forth in it. One sentence only will be quoted, which may be said to express the main thesis of the book : " It was the spiritual essence and nature of the sufferings of Christ, and 1854-57- ''NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT" 261 not that these sufferings were penal, which constituted their value as entering into the atonement made by the Son of God, when He put away sin by the sacrifice of Him- self" 1 Before proceeding to expound his own conclusions, he was at pains to make himself acquainted with the forms of thought on the subject which seemed to be most widely accepted in this country. The course of reading which was necessary for this purpose was undertaken in the winter of 1853-54; and he made very full notes and analyses of the works which are referred to in the course of the book. The month of June (1854) was spent at Moffat; and while there he wrote the substance of the chapter on the teaching of Luther. At this time his mind was so filled with his subject that the hours of rest were curtailed. He would often rise very early, to write down in his note-book thoughts which occurred to him, but which might pass from his memory if left unrecorded. In this employment hours sometimes passed without his being conscious of the lapse of time. His letters record the anxieties — the hopes and fears — with which he finished his book, and superintended its publication. By degrees the book made its way ; and his labour was rewarded by many testimonies to its usefulness, which, as time advanced, came from an ever - widening circle of readers. Nothing need here be said of the place which has been accorded to the Nature of the Atonement among the theological treatises of recent times. I will only quote some sentences, which were spoken after Mr. Campbell's death by Mr. R. H. Story of Rosneath. "All books," he said, " that contain what are called theories or doctrines of the Atonement, must at some point or other fail ; for they deal 1 Chapter V, 262 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. with that ' mystery of godliness,' which was itself the out- ward expression of a divine love which ' passes all under- standing ; ' but those who have, with the greatest reverence and keenest intelligence, studied the Christian doctrines that deal with the great question of man's reconciliation to God, through Jesus Christ, are the first to acknowledge that in Dr. Campbell's book on the Atonement — his chief book — they have met with the most coherent, the most comprehensive, and the most exalted of all expositions of the atoning work of our Lord. Nowhere else do you find a more perfect candour and charity in dealing with an opponent's theories, a more anxious searching into all the conditions of an argument, a more intuitive perception of the divine counsel, a more sustained flight of pure religious thought and feeling." ^ During the summer and autumn of 1857 Mr. Campbell's thoughts were much occupied with the Indian Mutiny. On public grounds he was deeply interested in the state of India; but the sorrows of that time were brought much nearer to him by the fact that one of the first victims of the Mutiny was his much-loved nephew, Campbell Macnabb. To Mr. Samuel Wilson. Laurel Bank, Partick, 6th August, 1854. My dear Friend, — I felt dear Elizabeth's letter a very grateful expression of confidence in my interest and sym- pathy ; of which confidence I desire to be not unworthy : although in this, as in all things, coming short of the ideal which God in His love has set before me. How full of hope for Eternity is the contemplation and pursuit of an ideal which we never reach ! How poor a prospect it ^ The jRisen Christ ; a Sermon, by R. H. Story. J. Maclehose : 1872. 1854-57- DOCTRINE OF PERFECTION. 263 would be if there was nothing higher conceived of in the path of goodness than that to which one has attained ! I remember a sermon of my beloved father's, of which th-e text was, " Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect ; " of which the leading idea was, the advantage of having so high a standard set before us, which, though beyond our reach, carried us further than anything really felt to be within our reach would : " as one shooting at the heavens would shoot higher than one shoot- ing at a fixed moderate height." It is now thirty-nine or forty years since I heard that sermon ; and I thus re- member it still. One of the things in the teaching of your old friends the Methodists which I remember feeling re- pelling long ago, (and it does not seem less but more so to me now), was their doctrine oi perfection. I felt that the man who could think of himself as having received perfec- tion could not have had the true ideal before his mind. To his Sister. Partick, 17th April, 1855. . . . I have been too much under your burden about all your dear ones not to be capable of a special joy in all your measures of comfort regarding them; and this pre- paredness for rejoicing in the joy of others is one part of the reward of bearing one another's burdens. May, as our hope is through God, our standard of desire for those we watch for and pray for be God's own standard ! I was long of hearing from our beloved brother, and then heard within three posts — first a long letter from Avignon, finished and posted at Marseilles, and then a few lines from Genoa after getting smoothly over that sea that was so rough to me, although I had hailed the sight of it when I first saw it, as associated with the "beloved Paul." A smooth sea between Marseilles and Genoa makes getting to Italy 264 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. feel a very easy matter ; while recollections such as I have connect with it a very different feeling. Donald sent me a French paper with the address of the Heads of the Greek Church to the Russian nation on the subject of the war, and especially in reference to the death of the Czar ; and I felt it very affecting to see how much conscience towards God, however " unknown," it indicates. Few things in history ever affected me more than the appeal to God on both sides at the Battle of Dunbar ; such appeal having a reality of meaning, both on Cromwell's side and that of the Coven- anters, that it can seldom have had. This is far from such a case ; but the tone of being the attacked and injured party, and so being cast upon the protection of the righteous Judge of all the earth, is not without truth, whatever the motives of the Czar may have been. To Mr. Erskine. [Rothesay], loth June, 1855. My beloved Friend, — I thank you in much love for your letter, and its help towards our brotherhood. I have been more than usually present with you in heart and thought since you have been in London at this time; feeling how near to the nature of snares are the privileges you are enjoying there; for they are privileges of a high order, however the call that they have in them to prove all things is peculiarly strong. It ought to be, and is, a great comfort in my thoughts about you that in the desires I cherish for my beloved brother I am consciously following God as a dear child. Of course it is spiritually rather than intellectually that I have this confidence; for I have a certainty as to fellowship with God in what I desire that you may be, that I cannot have in reference to my anxieties as to what you may come to think. I had hoped to have been with you long ere now, and to 1854-57- HE RE-WRITES HIS BOOK. 265 have shared to some extent both the profit and the peril of your present position. But my task has not been accom- pHshed as soon as I had hoped, nor is it yet accomphshed. I have re-written my book entirely since I saw you, and re-cast it, altering it greatly; and I have also added an entire new portion, viz., a comparison of contrast of the view presented with the view rejected. Many readers might be left to do this for themselves, but many will need to have it done to their hand. And now that it is done it seems to me a more important addition than I had antici- pated. I have just to conclude, but this I feel most difficult. I have also to divide it into chapters ; (this will not be difficult, as the train of thought naturally breaks itself into moderate parts) ; and to make out contents for these chapters — a kind of thing altogether new to me. . . . May I ask you to remember me with affectionate regard to Mr. Maurice. He had and has my sympathy in his recent bereavements. I am here for a little with the Duncans. ... I have been to-day to church, to the Free Church, and heard an earnest exhortation to faith in God ; as to the rightness of which attitude of spirit there would, I trust, be a measure of profitable response ; though there was little help towards the trust called for ministered. I had Peter M'Callum and Mrs. M'Callum and Mrs. Hood to pass a day with me here ; for a great part of which dear John Duncan and Miss Duncan were added to our party. I felt it simple and free and refreshing com- munion. . . . To the Same: After seeing Mr. D. MacmiUa>i with reference to the pjiblication of the "Nature of the Atonement." Torquay, 29th September, 1855. I am much pleased with Mr. Macmillan. He inspires quite the confidence that Mr. Maurice taught me to put 266 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. in him ; and I am, apart from what may be his eventual relation to my book, glad to have made his acquaintance, as esteeming it that of a true and earnest and devout man. As to the book, it is written, and will go forth as the Lord may order the matter ; and I am not doubtful of some measure of good resulting. But Mr. M. evidently feels that it is at once too deep and too serious to have a large circle of readers. I think he thinks that it has too much of a Scotch character impressed on it by its dealing so much in the opening with forms of thought more Scotch than English, or at least than belonging to the Church of England. You may have heard of the English bishop who replied to Dr. Chalmers' commendation of Jonathan Edwards as the greatest of theologians : " Edwards ? I never heard of his name." But let me stop. I do long to put it in your hands. I write in my OAvn room, but may unite with my o\ATi deepest love much love from my brother, who has, in our walks here, said how you would enjoy the scene, and how your presence would add to our enjoyment of it. To his Eldest Son. Delaware, Torquay, 30th September, 1855. . . . First, as to my preaching to-day : it was a con- siderable congregation, and not a difficult place to speak in ; but I took a large subject, that which I had at Helens- burgh, though confined to an hour and a half as to time, which I was not at Helensburgh. ... I was not a little affected to see Mr. Macmillan, who is not allowed to go out to church, and has not attempted it for a long time, there. I hope he has been refreshed, and will not be the worse of it. I was much relieved yesterday to find that he had not been the worse at night of my long stay with him on Friday. As to the root — or fibre of a root — of Calvinism 1854-57. THE SCOTCH CALVINISTS. 267 that is in him, instead of its making him draw back from my book, as I feared it might do, it seems to have made him value it all the more, as being so fair and kindly a way of dealing with the matter ; and he said : " If anything would help the Scotch Calvinists to come into a larger place, it would be such a book as this." . . . The feeling of his that I felt most discouraging — or rather saddening — was, that he thought it required on the part of readers a combination of seriousness and intelligence that would be found in comparatively few. However, if I am made helpful to these few it will be well ; and through them it will reach to others. . . . To one of his Children. Torquay, Sunday, 7th October, 1855. . . . I was at church this forenoon, and am to preach this evening. It was their Communion Sunday, being the first of the month, just as with ourselves ; and the minister asked me to wait and join them if I felt disposed. I did so, and the service was so like our own. I last sat at the Lord's Table in a strange church in Paris, in 1838 — when I was in a church in which also the first Sunday of the month was their communion day; and in which Mr. Erskine and I, though strangers, were welcomed to join. I trust, my dear child, you will yet understand the interest of the communion table — and so know the love of Christ, and what in love He has done for your salvation, that you will joyfully obey the command, " Do this in remembrance of me." I hope, now that my book is finished, and will leave me free to give myself more to you all, that I shall be helpful to you in many ways ; and among my parental thoughts in looking forward to the coming winter, my thoughts for you include an endeavour to know more of the religious state of your mind, in the hope of helping you to 268 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. true faith and true worship. My desire is to educate you well in all ways, as God gives me power to do ; but more especially to educate your spirit, training you to be a child of God in spirit and in truth. This higher education will not interfere with your other education at all — as my prayers for you all every morning before you go to your schools may teach you. On the contrary, all your lessons would have a new and higher interest to you if you once came to occupy yourself with them as a part of the will of your Father in Heaven. To Mr. Daniel Macmillan. Laurel Bank, Partick, 26th December, 1855. The last sheet of the proof was received and returned yesterday, Christmas day ; a solemn association with one of the most solemn moments in my life — the final passing from me of a thousand copies of this utterance of my faith on the subject of the Atonement, to receive no further emendation even to the extent of a comma. I have also given up the attempt to do anything in the way of pre- paring my reader's mind by a preface. And now let me wait the issue of this attempt to confess Christ, and hallow the Father's name, in Faith and Hope and Love. We have been having severe weather, and I have not been in Glasgow for some time, excepting to meet my people on Sunday. I have not got Mr. Birks' work, but shall the first day I am in. We have just had my old Row neighbours, Mr. Story of Rosneath and Mrs. Story, staying with us. Mr. Story, you remember, wrote the memoir of Isabella Campbell. I have not written to Mr. Erskine on the subject of such a "spiritual memoir" as you thought he might make edifying to the Church. I wait till I have the opportunity of talking it over with him. I always feel that his temptation is to underrate his own part. 1854-57- THREE ROW COMPANIONS. 269 I have hesitated about leaving Mr, Thomson's book^ in the Hst of works quoted ; the reference to it, you remember, is so sHght ; but have left it. I wish to send copies of my book to him and Dr. Jenkyn and Dr. Stroud. Dr. Payne, Dr. Pye Smith, and Dr. Wardlaw have gone hence. . . . To his Sister. Laurel Bank, Partick, 17th January, 1856. I am thankful for your feeling about the book. Ex- cepting from our brother, after he had got half through it, I have yet no expression of their feeling from any of the interested friends in whose hands I have been thinking of it as being. But you and he had it some little time before others. I shall gladly inscribe your copy when I have opportunity. You will, I know, feel thankful for the continu- ance of that character in my dealing with others in my book for which I was strengthened of old in the Row days. But, indeed, besides the general habit of my mind, to endeavour to realize in love the position of others, and to see what they held from their stand-point, that I may not do them injustice, on the present occasion it would have been un- pardo7iable in me to have dealt otherwise than tenderly, and, I may say, reverentially, with forms of thought so intimately associated with the Christian friends with whom I have had the deepest communion — as Isabella Campbell and William Johnstone — and with the most realized as Christian bene- factors among those who had slept in Jesus before I knew the Lord, and who were known to me only through the record of their lives ; as my three great Row companions, in the Row House where you saw me, and in the cottage at Shandon before then — Henry Martyn, David Brainerd, Henry Domey. ^ The Atoning Work of Christ, by William Thomson, M.A., now Archbishop of York. 270 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. I have read the volume over as it is now in your hands ; and with somewhat of different eyes, as, for the first time, without the temptation to wait to try to improve, as even, to a small extent, there was in correcting the press : and this was good employment for the pause, and the silence of my friends — and very healthful silence, I trust, as to the trial of my faith, in whichever way it is to be broken ; and doubtless it will be broken variously. I had ordered copies to be sent to the only two now alive of those whose views I discuss ; and from one of them, Dr. Stroud, I have a very civil letter of thanks, with the offer of a work of his on the Greek of the Four Gospels. Dr. Wardlaw has died since I began to NVTrite. Among those whose interest in it I have anticipated with hope was Archdeacon Hare, and he is gone hence. But, of all that are not, as to the visible world and communion of thought. He whom the date of this letter so tenderly, solemnly, and — I still feel — sadly, recals, is He whose reading of it would have had the intensest interest to my heart — our beloved father. How often when Mac- millan has spoken of the peculiarity of the style — while concluding that it was a part of the mind and thought — have my father's words, when I %vrote any paper for him, been recalled to me ! " It is very well, my dear, I am quite satisfied ; but your way of saying it is peculiar. You have your OAvn way of writing ; Fecit suo more." Partick, 23rd January, 1856. . . . I never expected my book to be read with the same ease that is experienced when it is not a question oi first principles, but only of illustration and commendation oi principles already received. I am now beginning to get letters from friends. There is a general agreement as to the need for thought and patient weighing, and slow reading and re-reading. But none seem to think that this implies either want of capacity in themselves, or a want of clear- 1854-57- READERS OF THE BOOK. 271 ness in the book either; but that it arises entirely from the newness of the ground over which they are taken. Here, among readers whom I have the opportunity of con- versing with, I find that those who have been long under my teaching divide themselves into two classes ; first, those who have been first awakened under my own ministry, and, second, those who were deeply awakened and earnest believers in Christ before they ever heard me teach. The former feel the earlier part of the book involving them in dis- criminations for the weighing of which they feel no call in themselves, and which they feel very difficult intellectually ; while they feel as if " getting out of a thicket into an open field" when they come, as they say, to my "own part of the book." The latter are deeply interested in the first part, and thankful for it, and for, as they say, " its patience and tenderness " towards those who occupy ground they once occupied themselves ; and who, they hope, will be greatly helped to come into a larger place. . . . I have no reason to expect, even in the most favourable view, a sudden popularity or wide circulation, but only a gradual getting into the hands of thinking earnest minds ; and of ministers feeling the responsibility of saying, " Thus saith the Lord," and awakening to the sense of the dimness and mistiness of their own conceptions as to what they are saying while carefully using the words of inspira- tion. That this is not an uncommon state of mind, I believe, and have indeed some cause to know. But my great hope is in God on the ground that it is truth — needed truth — seasonable truth. In feeling it necessary to re-read yourselves, you will naturally fear as to the issue where readers have no such help to persevering as you have in your interest in me, and knowledge that a " necessity laid upon me " and feeling of "woe's me if I speak not," has constrained me to this utterance of thoughts long and carefully weighed. And 272 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. of course this makes a great difference. But for some the consciousness of a need for more light will be enough to carry them on ; and others will feel their sympathy with what they easily understand, a call for weighing patiently what they don't easily understand. Too bad to inflict a long letter on you, already tasked with a difficult book ! With our united love to you both, with dearest Flora, your own loving and grateful brother, J, M'L. Campbell. To Mr. Erskine. Partick, 20th February, 1856. Very dear Friend, — I did, indeed, long to know what response my book found in you, although in writing it you were mentally present with me, not as one of whose sym- pathy I was uncertain, but rather as one on whose sympathy I could calculate. But your silence was beginning to awaken some misgiving until it was explained by what I learned from Mr. Duncan, and might indeed have antici- pated, viz., that you did not find that it did to have it read to you, and, of course, that your reading it with your own eyes was necessarily a work of time. One thought, indeed, has all along qualified my expecta- tion of your sympathy — that however much you might value its adaptation to the Scotch mind for the sake of the Scotch — if they will read it — neither the habit of your own mind, nor of the class of minds with which you have most sympathy, has been at all Scotch. But this did not hinder my looking for the response which you express while writing the chapters which you particularize, as well as what you have yet to read; the fifteenth chapter especially being one which I believed you would greatly welcome. The conclusion will, I think, have indicated sufficiently clearly to you the limits within which I have purposely kept ; and I think you will 1854-57- THE BOOK REVIEWED. 273 feel the desirableness of being first in the light as to the atonement, before taking up the questions that arise as to the history of our participation in it, either as individuals or as a race. I am thankful for the improved report of Mr. Maurice. I have just commenced his volume on Sacrifice., of which I have read the introductory answer to Dr. Candlish, and two chapters. The answer to Dr. Candlish is admirable, excepting in the one point of the assumption made as to the imputation contemplated by Candlish. This I think over-stated, I suppose over-conceived. I shall have become acquainted with the whole volume by the time we meet, for which I long. To Mr. D. Macmillan. Edinburgh, 12th March, 1856. ... I have allowed myself to be in your debt; but you will not need to be told the interest which your communica- tions have had to me, and how thankful I feel for being heard at all within the circle to which Mr. Martineau belongs. You will understand how my pleasure in any response to the superstructure must be qualified when it is not given in the light of that truth which is to my own mind the foundation which bears — and alone could bear — the weight of that superstructure. But I have realized in some measure the great diversity in the history of man's reception of God's teaching; and how one may descend by the path by which another has ascended. The Literary Churchman of the 8th has been forwarded to me from home. With some misconception there is much that I am thankful for ; and there is nothing to complain of. As to the " teaching of the Church," in the large sense of the words, I cannot doubt that such an acquaintance with the Fathers as some enjoy would have enabled me to VOL. I. s 2 74 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. engraft my book on the past with some advantages. But the end which I had in view was so purely by manifestation of the truth to commend myself to every man's conscience in the sight of God that, even had I had the necessary qualification in respect of reading, it would have interfered with the simplicity of my aim to have availed myself of it. As to the teaching of the Church, in the sense in which the writer must use the word in saying that I do not appear to be member of the Church, I do not know any book that is really valuable as illustrating the nature of the atonement excepting Mr. Maurice's book on the doctrine of Sacrifice, which was published after I had been some time writing, but which I have only now made myself acquainted with, having purposely postponed reading it. It is indeed a valuable gift to the Church. But I do not regret not having seen it until now ; as, however thankful I feel for it, I do not feel that it would have justified me in not writing : while, even as to what is common to both, it is an advantage that it should be presented to the Church as seen from stand-points so far different ; which advantage, whatever it may be, would have been not a little affected by the presence of his thoughts to my mind while writing. . . . To his Sister. Partick, 2ist March, 1856. . . . I have told David Ker of your being in Edin- burgh. There is none of the London Church with whom I have felt equal nearness. I am not surprised at 's not entering into the distinction between making atonement for sin and bearing the punishment due to sin, which is funda- mental in my book; for indeed, both as to the London Church and the Plymouth Brethren, their perfect resting in the common apprehension of the nature of the atonement has been the deepest ground of my conviction, that neither 1854-57- PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 275 has the one the benefit of a new and further revelation of the divine mind, nor have the others truly placed them- selves, with that freedom which they seem to themselves to exercise, under the teaching of the Holy Spirit in studying the revelation which we all receive. . . . Yesterday I was much interested in a young man, seemingly in confirmed consumption ; a very handsome guardsman, six feet two or three I suppose, not yet twenty. It is strange how this young man's very fine figure and countenance affected me. Why should it more than the stunted developments of our weavers? But there was a moral interest of simplicity and manUness, and I would say reverentialness also, about him, with the absence of that radicalism which, while I am always enabled to bear with it, and to look beyond it and inside of it, is still always painful to me. He is the nephew of Mrs. Galloway, the wife of Mr. Erskine's correspondent, for whom the visit was in- tended, but he was out. It was this George Galloway of whom Scott said, after being with me to see him, that he was " one of the nobles of nature." 6th May, 1856. . . . We have just had John Duncan with us. I am always refreshed by having him with me ; he so lives in the truth of things. I was thankful that his one Sunday with us I was able to preach, though it was but an exposition (of the thirteenth chapter- of ist Corinthians). I was, in illustrating the words, " Faith, Hope, Charity ; the greatest of these is Charity," greatly profited myself — not*' in showing that Charity was the greatest, but in realizing how great Faith and Hope are. Have you any prospect of being at Heidelberg? There is there a Dr. Ullman who writes a book, Reformers Before the Reformation, which I have lately read with much in- terest. I have desired much to put a copy of my book in 276 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. his hands. In one place he divides men as religious into two classes, making the Apostle Paul the type-man of the one class, and the Apostle John the type-man of the other class : the former characterized by the place given to Faith and objective religion ; the latter by the place given to Love and subjective religion. I do not feel that, as respects the two apostles, he is borne out by what we see them in their epistles ; but historically, and as he illustrates it by such references as to Luther and Thomas a Kempis, he certainly is. But in reading the passage to which I refer, and re- flecting upon the historical truth of the distinction, I felt strongly that it has been possible only because the nature of the atonement has not been truly conceived of; for in the light of the nature of the atonement the transition from objective to subjective religion, and back from subjective to objective, is necessary and constant. I have just been reading an answer to part at least of what is objected to in Mr. Jowett's book,^ by a Cambridge man, Mr. Davies, of St. Mark's, Whitechapel, which helps one to conceive of it much better than the review in the Quarterly did ; but I intend to read the book itself. It is a marvellous distinction of the Church of England that it permits the free utterance within its pale of such conflicting sentiments. I cannot but regard it as an advantage, as compared with the state of things in the Church of Scotland. , I am sure free discussion within the Church is better than the constant necessity to form a new sect if one has any new thought to utter. I feel very much at the thought of Mr. Maurice looking broken up. The review of Jowett cast me down very much when I read it in Edinburgh. But I endeavour to realize more that " the government is on His shoulders who is the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty 1 St. Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians, Galatians, Romans, J. Murray : 1855. 1854-57- CHEVALIER BUNS EN. 277 God, the Father of the everlasting age, the Prince of Peace." , . . How I would enjoy being with you, especially from Cologne to Frankfort ! Catacol, Loch Ranza, Arran, 12th June, 1856. My beloved Jane Mary, — Many, many thanks for your account of your day at Heidelberg. Besides what refers to my book on the Atonement, which I was so desirous should be known to the Chevalier Bunsen, as well as to Dr. Ullman (indeed I was still more interested in Bunsen's seeing it), I know now for the first time something as to his reception of the Bread of Life. His receiving you with the more kindness as being my sister would be almost as grateful to your sisterliness in the experience as to me in being told of it. I am also thankful that Bunsen should have had his copy from Mrs. Rich, as it is some token that I am yet a teacher to her mind. I have not yet had Maurice's pro- mised — or at least proposed — letter : and, though I saw Scott in Edinburgh, having gone for the day to meet him at Mr. Erskine's, he made no reference to my book ; while his words in writing had been very few, as not, at the time, able to enter on so large a subject; but they were the expression of the hope that God would acknowledge it. But that day the subject of our thoughts was his being a candidate for the Logic Chair, vacant by the death of Sir William Hamilton. The necessity for signing the Confession of Faith having been done away with, he is eligible; but there is a Free Church candidate and an Established Church candidate;^ and the philosophical interest in Edinburgh, on which he may most calculate, is divided. I never felt more tempted to repine at the obscurity of my own position ; believing ^ Professor Fraser and Professor Ferrier. The former was suc- cessful. 278 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. that I know the reality of his rehgion beyond what any of its outcomings which can be presented to the electors in a tangible fomi express : to which outcomings, so far as they go, had I place in their thoughts as one to whom the interests of truth are far dearer than even his friend, my testimony would have been an important supplement ; but as the case is it has not been worth the offering. ^ Beloved sister, you are much in our thoughts here. The thought of the enjoyment you would find in all the simple elements of our happiness, were enough to keep you more than usually before our minds; but this much the more because of the Kilninver features of the scene — the aspect of the land, the feel of the air, and even of the water. A point on our left looking seaward, on which I at present look out through the haze of a regular west country rain, is so like the point towards Barnicarry which occupies the same position to one looking out from our dear old Kilninver home, that the association actually more than reconciles me to the rain through which I see it, shedding light from the past to cheer the day's dullness ; had that been needed while there is so much of " the sunshine of the breast " enjoyed as the proper portion of their age by so many of our party ; and, if not that, a higher light gladdening us of maturer age. But the dulness of to-day is exceptional. We have had very beautiful weather ; and the sun has set over Cantyre as it used to do over Mull ; and the sea between has been, in like manner, changed into a sea of light. 'What adds to its power to recal the dear past is that the places opposite in Cantyre have all been to me familiar by name as mentioned by our beloved father in connection with his Cantyre days. How pleasantly my past as a son blends with my present as a father ! the present, and the workings of my own heart ^ Notwithstanding the feehng here expressed he afterwards wrote a testimonial in support of Mr. Scott's claims. See below, p. 280. 1854-57- AT CATACOL. 279 proper to it, shedding light back on my place then in that loving heart ; the past, and what he was to me, instructing me as to what the present calls me to. I sometimes strangely feel as if gratitude to my father should come out in being to my children what he was to me. But, go I back or forward, my thoughts move, my heart beats, within the circle of the one Eternal Love, which gave the past and gives the present, and now so abundantly is revealing its outcomings in both, in its own light. To his Niece, Mrs. Fuller Maitland. Catacol, Arran, 15th June, 1856. . . . We are here in a bay on the west coast of Arran, near the mountainous end of the island. The re- tirement is most perfect as respects the usual draw-back to our Firth of Clyde bathing quarters ; in which one is usually tempted to offend against brotherhood by regretting that other Glasgow people find them as near and as at- tractive as oneself. Here there is but this one house to be had in miles of coast — a good farm-house. This farm is the sum of many small holdings thrown into one \ the " holders " of these partly emigrating, and partly remaining as fishers, or as tradesmen — mechanics rather (a tailor, a shoemaker, &c.)— in a row of twelve slated cottages called *'the street," on the shore. The people of this island have a peculiar interest to me as having been the subject of a deep religious movement many years ago ; but many have emigrated, and many are dead ; and the movement has long ago subsided into a quiet and somewhat sad tone of mind ; the sense of the seriousness of existence, con- sequerrt on realizing the awful alternatives of the future, being combined with a practical feeling of powerlessness in ourselves in any way to determine our relation to these alternatives, while 7iot that sense of nothingness which casts 28o MEMORIALS. chap. viii. upon God. I had hoped to have studied their state of mind more nearly than the great difference between their GaeUc and mine permits. Their teacher (not an ordained minister, for the parish church is at the other end of the island, but a catechist) speaks as a man who has experi- enced what he would set their desires upon : as to which there is in his teaching what I would be thankful to beUeve that he and they realized; although I never heard the " invisible church " so set forth as a city all blesssedness within, yet surrounded by a wall not to be surmounted, and in which was no open gate. I should be glad to see Stansted in its present beauty; but I believe I have more enjoyment in the mental picture of you both enjoying it together on that ist of June,^ than I could derive from its beauty directly. We are very happy here ; the children rather obstreperously so. With our united love, your loving uncle, J. M'L, Campbell. The testimonial which he wrote in support of Mr. Scott's candidature, records his high estimate of his friend. It is as follows : — My friend Mr. Scott, Principal of Owen's College, Man- chester, being a candidate for the chair of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh, and having asked me for the expression of my estimate of his quali- fications, I cannot hesitate to comply with his request; however little I should have felt myself entitled to offer a testimonial with reference to such an appointment. Yet my consciousness of deep habitual interest in the progress of mental philosophy, and interest also in the character of the guidance under which our young men engage in its ^ The anniversary of their marriage. 1854-57. HIS ESTIMATE OF SCOTT. 281 pursuit, saves me from the feeling of being intermeddling with that to which I am a stranger ; and my acquaintance with Mr. Scott has been long and intimate. In the knowledge of the high and most discriminating testimony borne to Mr. Scott's intellectual endowments and varied attainments, and, more especially, to his capacity for mental philosophy, as a thinker and a teacher, by men ^ whose own place as belonging to the highest order of minds is fully recognized, it seems to me quite superfluous to add my testimony. He has indeed always, beyond any other man that I have known, impressed me with a sense of mental superiority ; and this, whether that superiority has been manifested in the facility with which he has grasped the thoughts of others, and placed himself in their point of vision, or in the power and insight characteristic of the independent action of his own mind. The use, too, which he has made of his high faculty has been as persevering and untiring as the faculty itself is great ; resulting in an intimate acquaintance with all the important forms of mental philosophy in the past and in the present, and in much matured and enlarged thought regarding these. With so great store to draw from, he has also as a lecturer a power of imparting to others what he knows which is quite his own, being characterized by the intense presence of his own spirit in what he is teaching. But what gives me most freedom and most satisfaction in thus adding my testimony to that of men more entitled to speak of philosophical faculty and philosophical attain- ment, is the conviction— derived from many years of free communion with him of the kind which most discovers to another the roots of a man's life, and the moving power in his actings — that, besides the craving of his own spirit for conscious harmony with truth, the great constraining influence under which Mr. Scott has applied his high talent ^ Amongst others, by Maurice, Carlyle, Bunsen, F. Newman, Erskine. 282 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. to the study of the human mind, has been love to God and love to man. This conviction justifies to myself my confident expectation that he will be found dealing' with all the deep problems of mental philosophy alike with due jealousy for the glory of God, and due tenderness for the perplexities incident to the inquiries of weak and erring men ; his hope as a teacher being sustained, as I believe his hope as a student has been, by faith in the dealing of God with the spirits of men, and in the will of God that in His light we should see light. John M'Leod Campbell. Catacol, Arran, i8th June, 1856. To Miss Duncan. Catacol, 20th June, 1856. . . . June is fast passing away ; and we — those of us who are included in the plan — look forward to our contem- plated visit to Parkhill in July. Here we are most happily placed, enjoying a retirement that I never expected to know in the Firth of Clyde. The weather with us, as elsewhere, is broken ; and our vicinity to these fine Arran mountains may cause us to have some extra showers. But the surface of the earth all around is sand with a thin coating of grass. So it soon dries up ; and the sunshine falls on hills all the greener (where green) from the frequent showers. In front we have the sound of Kilbrannon, about six or seven miles wide, Cantyre lying beyond it, over which the sun sets, shedding a flood of light on the waters, which sometimes illumines them from shore to shore. We stand on a flat of about sixty acres at the mouth of a glen, which recedes between sides formed of mountains with their ends towards the glen ; so as that one shows behind another until the glen is closed by the side of mountain that seems to lie 1854-57. ENJOYMENT IN A RR AN-. 283 across, and is called Beinn Tarsuinn, i.e., "the mountain that crosses ; " but in reality it divides the glen into two glens, which there diverge : the stream which carries off the waters gathered from all these sources having its estuary on the farther side of this plain. You have the elements of a choice west country sea-side for your imagination to form into a picture. . . , You may believe we often think how you would enjoy our finer days and sea-side walks, and the deep retiring glen behind, out of which we look on the sunlit sea and land (Cantyre is low as compared with the mountains on this side) as from a consciousness of inward depth of feeling one may look out on ordinary life, and when it smiles reflect its smile. Dear friend, this scene has many elements of interest to me. Air, land, and sea, are Kilninver. I fished sea fish from a small boat with a white fly, just as I used to do between forty and fifty years ago. I steered a Lochfine boat like that in which my beloved father and Donald and I went to see our kindred in the north in the year 1818. I had then learned to steer, and found " to steer " was in me still. Then near us are the scenes of those of the awaken- ing in Arran ; of which I had heard (without the capacity of knowing what was spoken of, but still remember to have heard, and indeed what I heard) when I was Johnny's age ; which was again brought to my mind, awakening much tliankfulness, when some old woman from Arran, after hear- ing me preach in Gaelic in Glasgow, when I was at Row, waited to shake hands with me — " the right hand of fellow- ship ; " which, latterly, I have wished to know more nearly after my occupation with Edwards and Brainerd and the Elder Calvinists. You will see how this scene is, as it were, a teacher, drawing forth things new and old from the depths of my own inner life, in its relation to " early and later days." 284 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. To Mrs. Fuller Maitland. Catacol, 26th June, 1856. . . . Your wish for a letter has been met; but I would gladly add another now, but cannot. I preached last Sunday at Glen Sannox, eight miles from this ; not feeling that I could refuse old Mrs. M'Kay, the widow of an old minister whose pulpit I had occupied when in this island fourteen years ago, and who died a few months ago, having shortly before completed the fiftieth year of his ministry. His chapel has been silent since. Latterly, though the only teacher in this district, he has had almost no " cJuirch^^ as they speak ; the great proportion of the " ?nembers" having some years ago emigrated to Canada. The "connection," however (Independents), are, I believe, proposing to occupy this station. He (Mr. M'Kay) has left the savour of a good name ; as an old man said to me, " His doctrine was good, and his example was good ; " and all who welcomed his services had them without refer- ence to sect. I could not refuse the request of this mother in Israel; although, not having preached in Gaelic for twelve years, I had some misgivings as to it. However, I found the language as nigh as the thought; and notwith- standing of a wet morning there were a good many present at the Gaelic service, and a full chapel at the English. I was thankful, as to the Gaelic hearers, that, though I can scarcely understand their Gaelic, they understood mine. One of the fishers here, who had come in to an exposition at our Sunday evening worship, expressed his interest in what he had heard by requesting us to allow him to give us a sail before he set out for the herring fishing. We gladly accepted his kindness, and I was much pleased with the fisher himself. My offering to pay him for his services would have been wrong : what he freely gave it 1854-57. A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET. 285 was right freely to receive : but I have written for a copy of Captain Vicars' Life, to leave with him if he returns before we leave ; or for him if he does not. To his Sister. Laurel Bank, July 3rd, 1856. . . . We have got home well, as to the health of our party; and have brought with us a large volume of pleasant and profitable recollections of "the wettest June that is remembered," having also a most beautiful day for the voyage up — as we had also had for the voyage down — and the sunset of the previous evening, which had sent us to our rest with the pleasant promise of the beautiful morrow with which we were favoured, having been the most beautiful that I have a distinct individual remembrance of as having deeply enjoyed : I mean richest in enjoyment to me, because of its perfect promise of what God will do in a higher region ; itself so perfect in its own lower region ; so perfect a bidding away of rain and storm and cloud, and all that, even in the form of beauty imparted to masses of misty vapours, speaks of what is passing away ; nothing left but the ILeaven itself in all tints of coloured light — related to the sun as the fitting atmosphere of a glorious presence, to which alone the spirit felt conscious. It felt like a symbol of " God's being all in all ; " though of course this is but one aspect of the condition of things, of which another is, that " the righteous shall shine as the stars in the kingdom of their Father." To Mr. Erskine. Partick, Tuesday, 12th August, 1856. Beloved Friend, — I made a long visit to dear George Galloway yesterday, and with much enjoyment and thank- 286 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. fulness : and you were so much in the thoughts and hearts of us both, and were so felt to be one with us as we were felt to be one with each other, that I am led to begin this day with a letter to you : which, indeed, I have this other call to do that I have finished the Signs of the Titnes, and have to thank you for the interest and, I trust, profit with which I have read this "word in season." I gave an account of it to George Galloway; and I felt thankful for the response which I felt to be in him to the call to prayer which I felt it to be. And, when praying with him before parting with him, I followed the special prayer for himself and his family, which his present circum- stances made it a part of true filial liberty in addressing the Father to offer, by prayer according to the need of the Church as we had been speaking of it, the deep sym- pathy in which he accompanied me showed how dear the interests of Zion are to his heart — how truly he has learned 'when he prays to say, Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come.' It surely is a thing in which greatly to rejoice to find a man with his life so in the balance — and with a wife and children so dear to him, to whom he is so precious, and still needful — so set free for the interests of the kvigdom of God. I have felt, too, in looking back on this solemn time, led to recal what we had been admitting to each other of the advantages of a prayer book, and have been realizing how much higher a preparation for simple and united prayer there is in having " drunk into the one spirit : " for I felt that the assurance of preparedness to sympathize had been a higher liberty, while something like what the office for visiting the sick may give an Episcopalian clergyman : and when, as I parted with him, this man of few words said, in his own deep-toned way, " I thank you very much for this visit," I felt a thankfulness on his behalf beyond what I have often known, that the opportunity of joining in a 1854-57- S/GJVS OF THE TIMES. 287 prayer which was so much for the common salvatmi should have been to him what came as near to his heart as ever I had seen prayer in which there was the most personal refer- ence of individual interest. I felt thankful for him, and, you will believe, felt very thankful as to myself for the privilege of being the occasion and instrument of so high a comfort to him. He is rather better. As to the Signs of the Times, I have more to say than I can attempt to write. As to the quotations from Stahl, I have a strong conviction that the state of his mind indicates his being under the teaching of the London Church, I suppose it has reached him through my late friend Carlyle. The hope for a Catholic Church in the future (which he seems to share with Thiersch, now in the London Church), is quite theirs. A mere attraction to Romanism would not accord with the measure of recognition given to Calvinism and Lutheranism. In so far as the Chevalier's hope, in view of so much that threatens evil and is working evil, is hope in God, I feel that I share in it ; and, also, as seeing humanity in Christ, in so far as it is faith in man ; but I do not feel that I know enough of the present working of the desire for freedom in the nations to judge how far it is worthy of being recognized as even a blind groping after the true freedom. And the despotism of the many is hostile to that development of personality of which he speaks, as well as that of an absolute state or an absolute church. But we are not to forget that the first is only a risk we run in seeking civiland religious liberty, while to take refuge in either of the latter two, is to give up the hope of civil and religious liberty alto- gether. What Stahl says of the circle within which the inheritance which the individual inherits in the Church is to be enjoyed, one may thankfully contrast with what the Apostle says as to 'all things being ours, Paul, ApoUos, Cephas.' How 288 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. shall a man persuade me that Paul is not a part of my spiritual wealth because I seek him not as myself within this circle, while I have the experience that his words are to me words of eternal life? If Christ is ours all is ours. What a different order it is to conclude that I am in the Church because I am abiding in Christ, from what it is to conclude, first, on historical and external grounds, that I- am in the Church, proceeding from this to the hope that I am in Christ ! I am not quite satisfied with the way in which the isolation which Stahl speaks of (p. 326) is got quit of by calling the congregation the Church. I am not isolated, nor can be, while I abide in Christ as to any " divine communications " or " special acts of grace," as to which being a member in a body is a ground of expectation in addition to having Christ as my Head ; for, indeed, the recognition of my own place as within a circle so externally defined as Stahl defines the Church, is as little necessary to the sense of brotherhood towards men as of sonship towards God. Therefore is it unnecessary to the hope of any blessing to be received by me as one of the Family. I shall try you no further with my difficult writing. . . . You will warm to the concluding quotation from Jacob Bohme, whom I know only as reflected in you. Beloved brother, yours ever, in the eternal life, John M'L. Campbell. To Mrs. Campbell. LiNLATHEN, 7th September, 1856. . . . I felt it a solemn thing, as to such a man as Mr. Erskine, to find his sister, Mrs. Stirling, in a letter to Mary, hoping that I would be with him while alone, " as no other would be the same comfort." Certainly there is no other from whom his right to expect comfort, to the utmost of the 1854-57. DESIRE FOR SYMPATHY. 289 ability to give it, can be greater. Perhaps no one on earth owes him such a debt of friendship, as certainly there was no other man who could have been to me what he was in my need. So that I feel a deep sense of God's goodness to me in my being here just now. To Mr. Erskine. Partick, 26th November, 1856. I am not satisfied in my silence to you, and I cannot break it satisfactorily by a letter. But as my brother has given up the thought of taking a run down to Edinburgh before moving south, there is nothing to determine me to go there immediately. [After referring to the death of Mr. Erskine's brother-in- law, Captain Paterson :] How little do we know what is added to these words, "He knows our frame," by the words, "was tempted in all points like as we are." "In that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted." How can we say how much, be- sides condescension to our weakness, and help to our faith, there is in the addition of His knowledge of us as man to His knowledge of us as God ! I have many things to speak of as to which I desire communion with you ; a communion which would be more or less a coming under burdens, whose pressure I feel sometimes heavy enough, and which I know you would help me, by your sympathy, to bear : although they are of the same nature with that which was weighing on me when you thought it well to remind me that the Lord sitteth on the circle of the heavens, and that I am a grasshopper. I had a long conversation with Mr. Kingsley when I was at High- field. Some time ago I had here a long conversation with Mr. Paisley, and another with an intelligent student whose progress to the ministry in one of the Presbyterian churches VOL. I. T 290 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. had been arrested by Mr. Maurice's teaching. I have also been again reading Mr. Jowett's book, and notices of the teachings at Oxford, intended either as an antidote to it, or at least a protest against it. What I feel there is so much overlooking of — or perhaps I should rather say inability to respond to — is the manifoldness of truth. Truly we know in part. But I will not attempt to illustrate my meaning. Besides what the antagonistic attitudes, which are the result of exclusive occupation with one aspect or one element of the truth, have been costing me, I have just at present been feeling painfully these two different forijis of, as appears to me, important error. First, I have just become acquainted with Mr. Ferrier's Institutes of Metaphysics ; and, after a careful and fair weighing of the high claims which they make, have come to the conclusion that they are a superstructure without a foundation. There are many secondary objections to matter which meets one in the course of the illustrations offered, and of the notice taken of other systems ; but the postulate, on which the whole pro- ceeds, being inadmissible, these are of comparatively little moment : neither, indeed, though just objections to the statements in reference to which they occur to the mind, are they at all flaws in the grand demonstration of the book; which is most marvellously wrought out, the well concatenated links of a chain, which could bear the great weight which he has attached to it, but that it hangs upon nothing. This free mode of speech sounds strange to my own ears, considering the slowness with which I venture to say that another thinker is wrong, merely because I can- not see as he does. My use of it may be the infection of Mr. Ferrier's own freedom in disposing of all that others have thought before him ; he being able to except even Plato only on the assumption that none of the commentators have understood him, and that Plato really darkly meant 1854-57- SPIRITUALISM IN AMERICA. 291 what he himself means, only that he had not expressed himself intelligibly. One, indeed, of the subordinate ob- jections to which I have referred, touches this attempt to claim Plato as to some extent his precursor. The other and very different region to which my mind has been taken, to be greatly grieved there, is the " Spiritual- ism," as the believers in it call it, which is taking such a place in the minds of so many in America. I have had numbers of the Christian Spiritualist and of the Spiritual Telegraph sent to me. They are both published at New York ; and while the advertisements which they contain are clear evidence of the extent to which this movement has spread, the articles, editorial and communicated, seem to me as clearly to evidence its evil working. I am astonished that the subject awakens so little interest in this country, even among those who have been most de- livered from the selfishness that says, " Am I my brother's keeper ? " No doubt we cannot dwell long on evils against which we feel utterly powerless. But it is not permitted to us so to feel as to evil while we are taught to pray, " Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name ; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven." I shall take these papers with me when I go to Edinburgh, and when you see them you will not think me a spiritual terrorist. But I am overtasking your poor eyes. Do you remember James Terras? He died last Sunday morning. I had been with him on Saturday; the last of many pleasant times with him since 1833. He and his wife and two sons I have now parted with in the light of Eternal Life. No remaining space for repentance lessens the joy in heaven over the sinner that repents ; nor should any hope, beyond what we see accomplished here, lessen our joy in those who we know shall not come into condemnation, because they have passed from death to life. 292 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. 29th November, 1856. My dear Friend — The accompanying letter from George Galloway is sent because of his wish expressed in its close ; but, apart from this, you will share in my pleasure in finding that he had so much feeling of brotherhood with James Terras : though you did not know enough of the latter to feel all the value of this as showing the life of love unchoked by speculations about itself. Terras, while a man of good intelligence, was a very simple believer, and felt no attrac- tion in speculation. I must make you partaker in the joy I had this day in hearing from his daughters how much their father and William Wilson, Mr. Wilson's nephew, were to each other. I have so often feared that my people had too little social life in the Eternal Life that I am thankful to find any two so much to each other as they have manifestly been. But in this case the subjective tendencies of the one, and the objective of the other, make their exceeding unity more remarkable, and more satisfactory. William Wilson is a very deep thinker, but a very simple, unpretending one; without seemingly the least suspicion that he is anything un- common. You will believe that I feel it a great comfort to have been used for the cherishing of true brotherhood, even in a few cases; an aspect of ministerial usefulness only second to that which also it presupposes — the cherishing of sonship towards the Father. I was thankful also to see the life of this dear man as it was reflected in the reminiscences of his children, while they at once vented and soothed their sorrow by going back on what he was ; the memory of which they treasure fondly; and it is a treasure. Oh ! with all its deep anxieties and peculiar trials, the life of a pastor is a high privilege ; and it seems to me as if, in my own case, what it has lost in extension it gains in intensity. How I desire that his Heavenly Father may prepare it in some form for my boy, and him for it ! 1854-57- GAELIC SONGS. 293 To Mrs. Fuller Maitland, 18th January, 1857, . . . We are having here just now a visit from Eliza D'Oyley, which we are all enjoying very much. To her my sympathy in her Highland interests, and my being able to enter into the plaintive expressions of her feelings — both in relation to Raasay and Dunvegan — in Gaelic, and with the pure Skye tone, both in the verse and the music, will be something ; nor am I unwilling that these chords in me should again vibrate, though not with the mastery over me which they would once have had — before the future had become more than the past in power to move me : not to speak of the disenchanting to which that part has been subjected. Our brief new-year holidays are over, and we are all at work again. D. and M. attend on Friday evenings a class which I have formed of the younger portion of my little flock, for special instruction suited to their age (they come down to me here). I have very pleasant associations with such work at Row long ago, but this is my first formal attempt in this way in Glasgow. I feel being placed face to face with a few young minds a great help to simplicity. To Mr. Erskine. 2 1 St Februaiy, 1857. . . . I was thinking of writing to you, but was hoping to see you; and, you know, I would always rather speak than write. I have been reading — and have finished it — Mr. Maurice's volume on the Gospel of St. John with much thankfulness and prevailing sympathy. I trust many will be helped by him to understand this Gospel; and that, in the light of this Gospel, they will understand Mr. Maurice better, and stand in awe beyond what they understand. 294 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. I am just beginning his former volume on The Unity of the Nav Testament. I omitted it in its order, but believe I shall read it with some advantage now. I am most desirous to do him and myself justice in respect of his system ; and hope, in keeping open to the impressions of his writings, and taking in their scope, not resting on special expressions, that I may succeed in this. I feel my value for him and my love to him increasing. I felt the brotherliness of his notice of my own book j ^ and was thankful for the measure of response which he expresses ; while seeing the important qualifications of that response which he indicates : as to which I would write to him did I not feel writing so difficult, and so unsatis- factory. I hope to speak freely to him when opportunity offers; though I do not feel the same freedom with him that I did with dear Irving. I desire to be saved from doing him injustice in this respect. Oh ! the deep peace of feeling that we do not make truth — that we have no paternity in relation to it. To his Sister. 26th March, 1857. . . . Charlotte is quite right in what she says in reference to the chapters in my book on the earlier and the modern forms of Calvinism. I also quite feel with her, that if I must hold either, I would feel more at home in the former. I do not know that I told you for your comfort (though I do not feel it wise to say much of such testimony), that the Principal ^ at St. Andrews, who is also ^ The notice here referred to was contained in one of the Notes appended to Maurice's book on the Gospel of St. John : Macmillan, 1857. The Note is the Ninth: "On the Doctrine of Atonement — Scotch and English Divinity." 2 Dr. Tulloch. 1854-57- BROTHERHOOD IN JOY. 295 Professor of Divinity, directed the attention of his class to niy book, adding two lectures to his lectures on the atonement, to comment on it. I have mislaid the letter that tells me of this ; but the terms of his commendation have been very strong. I receive this as a first fruit of my forgiving love to the Church of Scotland, under the power of which I approached my subject by so strictly Scotch a path, at the risk of being less interesting to English readers. To Mr. Macnabb. iSth April, 1857. Your sympathy and your congratulations^ are most wel- come to us ; and it is no small addition to our mercies at this time, to know that our anxiety has been so shared in, and that we have so much help in giving thanks. The feeling which caused the Psalmist to call on " the angels which excel in strength" to praise the Lord, one enters into in realizing a great cause for thanksgiving and praise, to which the heart feels its deepest response altogether inadequate and unworthy. The feebleness of the individual voice is less painfully felt when other voices are heard in unison of praise. Indeed in many ways there is peculiar comfort in realizing that others thank God on our behalf. Brotherhood in our joy, being indeed believed, has as deep a sense of brotherhood as brotherhood in our sorrow. It is also a comfort, and a certain kind of relief, to think that to those to whom we have been a burden, we have become a subject of pleasant thought. And could I give you a vision of this home at this moment I would, I know, be showing you a set of happy faces, bright with the hue and the sense of returned health, that would make you all very glad. We are just about to go up to Bothwell for six weeks. 1 Some of his children were then recovering from scarlet fever. 296 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. To Mr. Erskine. Partick, 1st May, 1857. My dear Friend, — I am just come in from inquiring for a family the mother in which — having six young children of her own — I last saw nursing as if it were her own the child of a neighbour, who Avas attacked with scarlet fever when his own mother was dying. There was here no claim either but that of simple neighbourhood. "You see, there was nobody to see to them if I did not." I was interested deeply by this practical sisterliness, and anxious as to the true neighbour's own family; and I find that none of them has taken the fever. The motherless child — for the mother died — has also got well through, and is now under the care of a grandmother. In the same coffin with the mother I had seen two twins, a few weeks old, placed one on each side; Avhile the husband and father, a sea-faring man, was away, and still ignorant that this child in fever was all that remained to him. He came home, how- ever, in time to take his dead to the Highlands, taking his remaining child to his mother. When, in reply to an expression of thanks for my attention to the family from one who was doing so much more herself, I said, " I feel very thankful to you," she seemed quite unprepared for this acknowledgment. Then her eyes filled, and she said, " I have known too much trouble not to feel for others." Surely there are revelations and developments of humanity, through mutual aid and mutual sympathy, that are most precious for their own sakes, and that a sorrowless world would never have known. . . . To his Sister. Laurel Bank, 2nd June, 1857. . . . We walked several times in the park at Hamilton 1854-57- MACLEOD AND TULLOCH. 297 Palace, and I found myself sometimes at points which caused me to say, " Now, standing here, and looking down, you have some idea of Highfield." I never saw the bursting forth of the hidden life in trees so beautiful, or felt it so teaching. " It doth not yet appear what we shall be." What a development awaits that Highest Life to which we are conscious when abiding in Christ ; we know the sap of the vine circulating in us — the Hope of Glory ! You will believe that not Highfield only, but also our seeing together Strathfieldsay, gave a tone to my comments to Mary on the beauties before us : but you were perhaps most *' the spirit of the spot " when a quiet walk along a hedge on the way to the Roman arch took me back to the walk between the two dykes and along "the Hedge Park,"^ and your holiday time at home from school. This was indeed a most lovely walk, to which, " to a stranger to my heart," that which it recalled could not bear a comparison, though to me so enhanced was its interest by the com- parison. I saw young Norman yesterday — for the first time since before our fever time. He is looking well, and has been much better since his sharp attack some time ago. He spoke with great admiration of the moral courage manifested by Principal Tulloch, the Professor of Divinity at St. Andrews, in noticing my book as he did to his class. He thinks him "a noble fellow." To one of his Children. Highfield Park, 14th July, 1S57. . . . Your aunt is very sorrowful,^ but your love and sympathy are welcome ; for sorrow welcomes all true sym- pathy flowing from love. Your sweet cousins are sad and quiet, but not repming; and letters still flow in from all 1 At Kilninver. - See page 262. 298 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. quarters with testimonies to him who has been taken from them, which are a sweet and soothing confirmation to the estimate of his preciousness which is in their own hearts. The amount of this is quite extraordinary, and the comfort it affords is seasonable, and safe, if not rested in. But the everlasting consolation is not to come through any echo from other hearts to the voice of their own hearts as to the preciousness of their brother, but from their making the removal of this brother the occasion for a deeper meditation on His preciousness who is the true brother of each of us, and the perfect brother, and who became our brother that He might be our Saviour, Oh, my child, seek a true and living acquaintance with this true brother. He loved you, and gave Himself for you. He suffered for you, the just for the unjust. , . . My child, you and I may so know Jesus as well as our brethren the Holy Apostles of the Lord did while they continued to walk on earth, believing in Him, whom they had known as the Man of Sorrows, as now the Lord of Glory, in that glory which he had with the Father before the world was. Oh ! may you know your Saviour at the right hand of the Majesty on High, and also present in your inner being, speaking to you, bidding you as a lamb of His flock to hear His voice, inviting you to do all things in His name ; that is to say, to do what He teaches you to do in the strength which He Himself gives you, and in the comfort of His tender love, the comfort that is in feeling His love, the comfort that is in letting your own heart be filled with that love as love to others. To Mrs. Campbell. HiGHFiELD Park, ist August, 1857. . . . Our letters are most comforting as to our own immediate living bond with that land; but the details 1854-57- THE INDIAN MUTINY. 299 which the mail has brought are most awful ; and, as usual, far worse than the telegraph prepared us for. It told of mutinies spreading ; but it said nothing of massacres spread- ing also. It is impossible to read the details with my sister and James, who say, " That is such an one ; that is such another's only son," &c., without feeling almost as Indians feel : though, even without this, the tale, if realized at all, brings the terrible sense of what has been endured there, and what so many are enduring here this day; some having their worst fears realized, others still kept in painful sus- pense, their dear ones only reported "missing," not "dead;" while, no doubt, some are called to give thanks for most merciful escapes. Oh ! may they be all taught of God, that they may meet what they are called to meet in His light ! To Mr. Duncan. Partick, 30th September, 1857. . . . How moderate do all ordinary demands on our faith, for feeling ourselves complete in Christ — for " taking joyfully the spoiling of our goods, knowing in ourselves that we have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance " — sink into nothingness in the thought of the fearful trials of faith in these Indian horrors ! How does such a word as *' Love ye your enemies," heard as addressed to these sufferers, and to us in oneness with them, rise to that height which makes it suggest the words, " With men this is im- possible." With men it is impossible, " but not with God." Let us pray for our brethren that their faith fail not. Some- times, also, the words, " Fear not those who kill the- body, and after that have no more that they can do," receive a meaning beyopd what I ever before have realized ; as well as that alternative, being " cast into Hell," which is repre- sented as so incomparably worse, and which, therefore, be- 300 MEMORIALS. chap, viil comes more terrible as that which is thus comparatively as nothing is presented to us in such hideous forms. I am sure you are thankful that there is at last a national movement contemplated in the way of humiliation and prayer. How strange that the dealing of God with nations should have ever been limited to the Jew in the thoughts of any readers of the Old Testament, seeing that the prophets were so often charged with '■'■ burdens " pertaining to other nations. As to India, there are many aspects in which it must be a teaching, and in reference to which light is needed; but there is no aspect of it that has this character so much to me as the rebuke it contains to our rest in the ordinary thin crust of social peace, under which such volcanic ele- ments are ever present. To Miss Duncan : Then staying in Germany. Partick, 15th October, 1857. . . . I am but too well qualified for entering into your feelings in living among a people whose speech is altogether unintelligible to you, as yours to them; making you, as the Apostle speaks, mutually barbarians to one an- other. I used to feel it very trying ; and the more I saw them to be of like passions with myself, the more unnatural did it seem that we could not meet though together in bodily presence. Surely the confusion of tongues was a judgment, and not the normal state of man. . . . Proportionate buildings conceal their own large dimen- sions. It was only when I thought there was room for York Minster under the roof of the Choir of Cologne that I realized its great height. I thought the group of pillars very fine. I think I enjoyed their symmetry fully as much as the colours of the painted windows. Your im- 1854-57- THE RHINE. 301 pressions from the scenery of the Rhine and the "vine- clad hills " accords with what it looked to me coming down the river on my way home; but I certainly did enjoy it in going up, seeing it quite through Byron's eyes, and allow- ing its " chiefless castles " recall to me a fancy past, which clothed the scene with a deep sad hiwiaii interest, which more than made up for its tameness as an aspect of nature. Remember, also, that you have seen Niagara ! . . . Coblentz I do not know, having just passed on. The most marked feature of the scene, Ehrenbreitstein, I re- member more as included in a very beautiful picture of Turner's. Dear Mary^ was the companion of my way going up the Rhine. Her freshness, the renewing of the young feelings with which I had originally read Childe Harold, while the stanzas that had filled my mind with pictures, then came back to me amid the scenes they had pictured ; and a misty haze, which elevated into indefinite largeness the Drachenfels, and all the higher points, and magnified the "ruined towers;" all conspired to make the Rhine to me more than you will feel justified by your vision of it. When I saw it out of looks, it was after a hot summer ; when in its beauty, it was the first fine weather after a wet summer. But what call have I to be the apologist of the Rhine ? You will believe that I have been much absorbed in these details of horror from India. I have felt much, and thought much, and set myself to hear the Lord's voice in this awful judgment; and yet I feel as if I most im- perfectly realized what has thus engrossed me so much, and were yet but half-awakened to it. Men will hear from it what they " have ears to hear," and no more. This is so as to all teaching. But the minds of men have been kept so long fixed upon the course of these events, that we may hope something of what they teach has been under- ^ His niece. 302 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. stood by many. Alas ! of hundreds we may feel that the *' handwriting on the wall " has been seen too much through tears to be legible to them. The human aspect of things has been so fitted to detain us with itself, either as awaken- ing horror, or as drawing forth our deepest sympathies, that the aspect of it as a doing of the Lord has been less regarded ; and then, when turned to, it has been felt so mysterious that a simple dumb faith " that the Judge of all the Earth does right," has seemed all that we could reach. Through my brother and sister I am almost half an Indian, and feel myself much more en rapport with those who have lived in India than is common beyond their own circle : but it seems to me that, apart from this, I would have had my attention riveted on a dealing of God with men which brings out the difference between the divine and the human estimate of what that is in which man^s life consisteth, beyond anything that we have known. You will, I know, find it soothing and calming to let the feelings which the details from India awaken, form them- selves into prayers, and will believe that, in praying for all involved in them, as doing or as suffering, you are meeting the will of God in making these details known to you. What I have most felt in this view has been the difficulty of passing through such things in the right mind towards those at whose hands the suffering is endured — the difficulty of a true and hearty response to the command of Love, " Love your enemies." We ought to bear in this the burden of those who are having their faith that God is love, and that we are called to follow God as dear children walking in love, so tried. Our dear boys, James and Donald Macnabb, are in the Punjaub, which you see always reported as quiet, though this is but comparatively, and through the energy of Sir John Lawrence, put forth not without considerable risk to those by whom he acts ; of whom they are two, trusted as much as any of their i8s4-57. INTEREST IN INDIA. 303 standing. . . . My sister will have had her mind taken ofif her own sorrow in meeting the demand which India as a whole has been making on her heart and thoughts. But Campbell's death has opened a fountain of tears which will long flow. I hope my long visit has been some real comfort to her; abiding comfort, I mean; temporary comfort it certainly was. ... I have been constantly at home since my return from England, excepting a few days at Helensburgh to see the Wilsons and the M'Callums. . . . Dear, dear friend, the Lord bless thee and keep thee, and cause his face to shine upon you and give you peace. To his Brother-in-Law, Mr. Neil Campbell. 8th December, 1857. It is now more than a year since I was at your house ; when I found you better than you had been, but still in a very uncertain state of health. Since then you have been stronger a good deal, but now again you are very ill. Dear Neil, we all feel much at hearing of this. We would be thankful if our gracious God should see it good to check the course of your ailment again, and spare you to your dear wife and friends : but you will believe that what is nearest our hearts is, that you should be prepared, whatever way our Heavenly Father may determine. You are young, and have been successful in that calling which you chose for yourself; and you have been successful also in acquiring respect and esteem in the minds of the strangers among whom your lot has been cast, as well as giving satisfaction to your friends. But, however pleasant such thoughts as these may be, it is in another direction that we turn in considering the anxious state in which you are, and the question of your preparedness for the great change that may be near. I was thankful for the opportunity of speaking to you 304 MEMORIALS. chap. viii. and of praying with you ; but I did not, and do not, know what you have been taught by the Spirit of God working in your heart, to understand of the love of Christ — how far you know Him as your own Saviour who loved you and gave Himself for you. Your present circumstances will try your faith ; and when you commune with your own heart the degree in which you are seeing Christ as " the resurrection and the life" will be plain to you in the sight of God. You will know now if you are understanding the meaning of " redeeming love." " Herein God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for _ us." To know the love of God as a love that reaches us in \ our sins, and presents to us the free forgiveness of our sins in the blood of Christ, is the short and direct path to peace ; in life, and in death : and there is no other path for any ^man. Dear Neil, there is no other path. No other for you, no other for me, no other. Unless the forgiveness that the death of Christ for my sins shows me to be in God for me, draws me to God, and gives me confidence to trust my soul to Him, I do not understand the Gospel, If I ask for anything more I do not understand the Gospel. If I am trusting to anything besides I do not understand the Gospel. Although I should live a thousand years of Christian useful- ness, I would die looking to the Cross of Christ as I did at first — as simply as I would ask one to do so who never looked to that Cross before. If, then, you are looking to it, look steadfastly to it, and look simply to it, and let the love of God draw your heart to Him with cords of love. Look steadfastly at the Cross of Christ, and freely; and yield your heart to all the comfort of it and all the hope ; and remember that all true believers have just one and the same anchor for their souls, and no other, young or old in the Christian life, those who have longest trusted and those just beginning to trust. Dear Neil, if your heart tells you that you have not trusted as you feel that you should have 1854-57. THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 305 done, trust the more simply and entirely now. If you understand how Christ loves, you will not be tempted to delay committing your soul to Him, nor tempted to look back on the past. You will trust Him now, because He is now bidding you to do so, and you will not do Him the injustice of doubting His present love. I feel it a great comfort to know that the love that Christ has to you is the very love to which I am myself trusting ; and therefore, that if I am right in trusting to it myself, I am right in encouraging you to trust in it also. Look to God, and pray to God, who loves you, and wishes you to love Him, asking Him to enable you to understand His love. Fix your thoughts on Christ dying for your sijis, and receive the teaching of the Spirit of God in your heart, enabling you to understand that blessed sight. I am attempting to be some comfort to you by a letter, as I am not near enough to see you and speak to you. You know how truly your sister unites with me in all I feel. VOL. I. 3o6 CHAPTER IX. 1858— 1860. Death of Mr, Campbell's Brother — Illness in London — He is obliged to give up Preaching— Letters to Mr. A. Macmillan, Mr. Duncan, Mr. Maurice, and others — -Mansel's Bajnpton Lectto'es — Death of Mr. Story — The Bishop of Brechin on the Eucharist — Death of Mr. Macnabb — Visit to England — Retrospect. In January, 1858, Mr. Campbell's only brother died in London after one day's illness.* They had parted in Scot- land only a few days before ; and the blow came very suddenly on Mr. Campbell ; for he heard on the same day of his brother's illness and of his death. He started at once for London ; and the sudden shock, followed by the journey, brought on an attack of illness, which prevented him from being present at the funeral. Many weeks passed before he was well enough to return to Scotland; and, meanwhile, he stayed at the house of his friend, Dr. G. M. Scott, whose care and kindness on this occasion he always remembered with the warmest gratitude. The foregoing correspondence has very imperfectly re- corded the constant interchange of thought and feeling which passed between Mr. Campbell and his brother. While he was engaged upon his book on the Atonement, his brother was almost his only correspondent; and he explained to him, as he went along, the form which his thoughts were 1858-60. HE GIVES UP PREACHING. 307 taking, and the argument of his book : but these letters have not been preserved. Enough, however, has been given to show how much the brothers were to one another ; and some of the letters which follow tell how keenly Mr. Campbell felt his brother's death. After his return home, in the spring, he resumed his work in Glasgow ; although his strength was scarcely equal to the exertion of preaching. For about a year he tried to go on, being very unwilling to believe that his preaching days were over. At last, however, this conclusion was forced upon him by the injurious effect which the Sunday's Avork had on his health; and, in April, 1859, he said farewell to his people, and gave up that pastoral charge over them which had lasted for about twenty-six years. Although he felt this parting much, he had the comfort of knowing that his work had not been in vain ; and he re- ceived from his people an expression of their affection and gratitude. A presentation was made to him, which con- sisted of a purse of money and a portrait of himself for Mrs. Campbell. At the same time he received an address, which was signed, in the name of the congregation, by Mr. Walter Hood and Mr. John M'Lay. "We feel it right," they said, " in the present circumstances, to give expression of our sympathy in what we have witnessed of the great and prolonged effort you have made to minister to us, when your bodily strength was so unequal to it. And when you have now felt it right to give up the charge you took over us as a Pastor, it affords us great comfort to know that we yet possess in you a Brother sharing with us in the tribula- tion through which we must all pass in entering the King- dom of God. When we consider with what unwearied interest you have so long devoted yourself in manifold ways for our benefit, we feel we are your debtors in the highest sense that human beings can stand in that relation to each other." 3o8 MEMORIALS. chap. IX. To Mrs. Macnabb. London, 9th March, 1858. My beloved Sister, — I have stood at our brother's grave ! I knew that it was there I stood. In the depth of my heart there was the sad deep feehng of what had come to be. But I 'thought no thoughts. I gave no feelings vent. It seemed to me as if that large broad stone, with no letters carved on it, cold, hard, blank, was the emblem of myself at that moment, as I repeated inwardly the solemn words, *'I stand at my brother's grave." Yet underneath was my love to him, as he underneath that stone : and to that love these words, " my brother's grave," have been as a text on which it has been enlarging ever since; and on which it will continue to enlarge. Yes, my sister, I stood at our brother's grave — a few stunned minutes; the cold obliged me to hasten away, and Dr. Scott's care (he accompanied me). His body lies there. His spirit is with God. To his Eldest Son. Parkhill, 2nd June, 1858. . . . The first morning I was waiting the sounding of the gong, and reading in a large-typed psalm book, which I found in my room, where it happened to be open, when some verses, the sweetness and worship of which I had known many years ago, drew my eye; and at that moment the morning song of the blackbird filled my ear ; and a sense of their unity, and of the fitness of the sound as an accompaniment of the thought, and of the unity of God of whom were both, filled me, and blessedly linked the past with the present ; that song of the bird and that psalm having been the same years ago, and being the same always : Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for 1858-60. LIFE IN THE UNCHANGEABLE. 309 ever. In Him we have Eternal Life. Let us abide in Him, and live in the unchangeable, and reach to it amid and through all changes ; and in the midst of all changes welcome all that witnesses for the unchangeable. I am thankful that you are entering into Mr. Erskine's book on Election. It will help you to realize that "life is sacred all." But it is a slow gradual process to learn truly to connect the outward forms of life with that inward choice, that sowing to the spirit, to which we are called. Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God even the Father by Him. To Mrs. Macnabb. Ardintallan, Loch Feochan, 12th June, 1858. The soiree on Tuesday evening was most successful.^ Young Norman's speech was very beautiful, very artistic too, using the word in its highest sense. A very good speech by John Morven has not been reported. We hope to get to him on Friday. I look forward with interest to this visit to Fiunary^ after an interval of more than thirty years. This is a most quiet, beautiful retreat, and the open pages of Kilninver over opposite to me, while written over with records of the dear past, I am able to read with more of tJiankful solemnity than keen sadness. My day there with our beloved brother, the last written page; that day in which we walked together over all the ground which our father's footprints had made sacred, resting for a little at each of his resting-places, and when at our father's grave the deep deep fountain of his sorrow was allowed to gush forth freely ; a moment to be ever treasured in my heart ; ^ The occasion was the close of the ministry of Dr. Macleod, senior. ^ The Manse of Morven. See Memoir of Dr. Macleod, Chap. II. 3IO MEMORIALS. chap. ix. that sad sweet day of ■which he said, "we shall remember this day, John," now attracts to itself more than ever of my attention, for its memory is now more than ever cherished. But I must stop. The boys are waiting, and the hour fixed on with Donald M'Dougall, Drimnamucladh, to come for us with his boat, to take us to fish at the old banks, is come. To Miss Duncan. Ardintallan, 14th June, 1858. I am here opposite to Kibiinver, which is as an open scroll spread out before me, inscribed with many records : some parts of it written over and over again — yet without confusion, but all clearly legible ; much of it bearing pictures, jife-like portraits, really tableaux viva?its to the undying love of the heart that imparts its own vitality to what it looks on. Dates there are from my fourth and fifth years down ; persons — myself and others — seen at different ages at once, like the older pictures so common in Italy, which present a history all on one piece of canvas (or more frequently wood). I read these records and gaze on these pictures until — as Gambold speaks of what that occupation seems to foreshadow — "life is all retouched again;" and many thoughts gather into the words — "When all thy mercies, O my God ! My rising soul surveys, Transported with the view, I'm lost In wonder, love, and praise." As to Ardintallan itself, it is a most delightful retreat. That I am so much in Kilninver, yet not sleeping or waking in it, is a softening and subduing of the feelings which on former occasions were too much for me. The most trying thing in this present " coming home," as the country people all address me as having done, is my con- 1858-60. ON LOCH FEOCHAN. 311 strained silence. Yesterday a man drove us to Oban, who was not old enough to remember my Oban Sundays, but who said that all the people were wondering if I would preach, and saying how thankful they would be for one sermon. It was very trying not to be at liberty to attempt to meet this feeling. You know that among the portrait-pictures, on which my mind's eye rests in looking over, are your own and dearest John's ; some there are in one group with my beloved Father, some with only myself. I desire to be saved from that recalling of the past which is a " seeking of the living among the dead," and to know that only which accords with the faith, " All live to God." To his Second Son. Keswick, 5th August, 1858. I am writing at the drawing-room window of this delight- fully-situated cottage, looking out on the scene which the drawing up of my window blind first revealed to me this morning, my room being just below this ; and I am now fulfilling the purpose which that glorious vision suggested of a letter to you — one of my creditors, and the one of those to whom I have paid nothing who would look on this scene with the most open eye. Dervventwater lies below (as a jewel set in mountains) at some distance; the fore-ground a waving plain, partly grass, partly trees — a village — a country church — and the town of Keswick with its spire — all disposed beautifully on it. But beautiful as the fore- ground is, the eye is irresistibly drawn to the water, and the embosoming mountains beyond it. These mountains open in glens, or rather carries, like huge craters of extinct volcanoes, with the side of the cup towards this broken away. Then the clouds keep flitting, fitfully intercepting the sunshine; now overhanging some deep glen so that it is 312 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. but an undefined dark recess ; now filling, or rather suffering the sun to fill, the same glen with light — bringing out its beautiful details, and throwing a well-defined shadow of the one side of it on the other, as we sometimes saw in the Catacol glen, and reminding me of the explanation given of the spots in the moon, viz., that they are shadows of mountains. This appearance, however, was rather what I saw at seven o'clock than what I see now that the sun is high in the sky. I do not deal in comparisons, at least of things differing in kind, and so won't compare Denventwater to Loch Lomond. There would have been more scope for such comparison as to Windermere; but I was there under dense rain, and it but partially cleared up as I left. We are just going out to drive round the lake. What more I shall see I do not know ; but I have seen this morning enough to recompense my digression from the direct road, had there not been friends in the case at all. To his Youngest Daughter. Edinburgh, August 17, 1858. My darling, a birthday is a great day if we consider that the life which begins in our birth never ends. I have felt in looking at a child like Bruce looking at the fountain of the Nile. But the child's childhood is the beginning of a stream of life far more wonderful. Returning birthdays are like milestones down the bank of the stream, and this tenth milestone marks, it would seem, a rivulet already with a brisk and lively flow ; glancing in the sunshine, reflecting also fuchsias and other lovely flowers from its glassy surface — at least Robina's letter would say as much. Oh ! may it flow brightly and purely on and on — till its waters reflect brighter flowers than those this world affords — flowers of Paradise. 1858-60. HANSEL'S BAMPTON LECTURES. 313 To Mr. a. Macmillan. 65 West Regent Street, Glasgow, 29th January, 1859. As to the slow circulation of my book, I knew from the first that to be fully welcomed it would need to meet an union of awakened conscience and philosophic thought which must be exceptional, for it is not usual to find the demand of an awakened conscience and the demand of philosophic thought co-ordinate in men's actual conscious- ness. Faith is commended to both. But, as we find men, there is little anxiety as to the philosophy of religion felt when conscience is deeply awakened : and, on the other hand, the contemplation of religion as a philosophy is in itself unfavourable to the hearing of the personal appeal of conscience. Yet it is true that nothing should give peace in conscience which will not bear the light of a true philo- sophy ; as neither can a true philosophy ever refuse its own high place to conscience. I have read Mansel's Bampton Lectures, and with care. What they attempt has the highest interest; and the time calls loudly for some help to thinking minds such as they promise. With this feeling I took up the volume, most willing to find in it the word in season for our generation ; but, of course, feeling that the greatness of the claim ad- vanced made the obligation to prove that claim all the greater. I have been reluctantly forced to rest in the con- clusion that this attempt to trace and mark the limits of religious thought is a failure. It is clearly meant to be a sequel to Butler's Analogy, and, accordingly, I see the National, in proposing to answer it, begins with the attempt to dispose of Butler himself in the first instance. A broad distinction between Butler's work and Mansel's is this : Butler recognizes no difficulties in nature or providence, i.e.^ in Natural Religion, but such as readily present themselves 314 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. to all who think at all on the subject. Mansel deals with difficulties which are entirely products of metaphysical thought, and have no existence to the common sense and common feeling of mankind. Still, if these difficulties are the product of a true metaphysic, and therefore real diffi- culties, they are not to be ignored. But there is this other point of contrast : Butler attempts no more than to reconcile us to mysteries which may prove temporary, and probably will do so ; but which, whether temporary or not, leave untouched our consciousness of the certain knozaledge of God; that consciousness which renders all mysteries but trials of faith, not underminings of it. Mansel would reconcile us to a necessary and eternal incapacity of knowledge, and that as to the knowledge which we are wont to regard as the very breath of life of our spirits. Therefore, although, if the difficulties with which he deals were real, no consequences which they involve would justify us in shutting our eyes upon them, their nature, and his recognition of them, make it to be the case that the only comfort possible after reading his book, and seeing to what it amounts, is, that it is not true ; for he defends faith on grounds which make faith impossible. I felt my deepest repulsion to Jowett's thinking to be that, followed out, it leads to the conclusion that we never can know that we know God, which is in truth saying that we can never know Him. The same dark and dismal goal of thought is placed before one in Mansel's book ; where we discover it, not as an undertone of feeling, but as a recognized necessity, looked fully in the face; though looked fully in the face by one of God's intelligent offspring I do not feel that it ever can be. But Mr. Mansel seems to himself to be looking this necessity full in the face; and one must have something more than the feeling that the necessity alleged to exist is very terrible to enable one peacefully to dispose of its claim to reality ; just as no sense of pain at the 1858-60. ANSWER TO MANSEL. 315 thought of annihilation is enough to sustain the hope of immortaHty. I beheve that there is a fallacy in the meta- physical analysis of thought which has issued in the recog- nition of the difficulties with which Mr. Mansel deals as real facts in the constitution of the mind of man ; and this I would not be ashamed to hold, even had I no theory of the assumed fallacy to justify me. What did suggest itself as such a theory I afterwards found adopted, in nearly the form it had taken in my own mind, in the article in the National to which I have referred above; viz., that the Infinite and the Absolute are thought of with a quantitative meaning which belongs to matter and not to mind. But I am not going to attempt a metaphysical answer. I do not feel such an answer what Mr. Mansel is entitled to ask from one taking the higher ground that "without faith it is impossible to please God." The divine demand for faith being addressed to all, its reasonableness can in no respect turn on the ability of the individual man to analyse a metaphysical argument; and in such a matter it is best to take ground which all can occupy. My answer, then, is this : — My God makes a demand on me which knowledge of His character — true and certain knowledge — alone can enable me to meet. Mr. Mansel thinks that what he calls a regulative know- ledge may and should content us ; that we err in demanding a speculative knowledge. The desire of a speculative know- ledge within limits which will commend themselves to reason, may, I think, be held to be reasonable in an intelligent being to whom God has made Himself to be a necessary object of thought. But, admitting that a regulative knowledge is man's great need, what amount of knowledge, or kind of knowledge, or rather, reality of knowledge of God is ade- quate for my practical guidance if the path in which I am to walk is love to God — if the law under which I find myself be, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 3i6 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. thy heart and mind and strength"? Clearly knowledge of God as He is; nothing short of this. Such knowledge will meet my need; that is to say, if God be one to be loved when known. But, though one to be loved when known, while He remains unknown love must be suspended. The heart cannot truly bestow itself on a mere possible loveliness. As to this necessity for a true and certain knowledge of God in order to justify as reasonable the demands which He makes on man, it manifestly makes no difference whether we contemplate that which is called for as love or as faith. "They that know thy name will put their trust in thee." Therefore have I said that this book, in- tended to persuade to faith, does so by a process of thinking which, if conclusive, would render faith impossible ; leaving the name of faith to be given to what would be but a leap in the dark. I was already saddened by having such thoughts as I have now expressed suggested to me by Mr. Mansel's reasonings, when your letter saying "that a large and in- fluential class of religious people are delighted with it," came to deepen the feeling. He that knows the love which passes knowledge (Ephes. iii. 19) has in himself the answer to all questions as to the ability of the finite to know the infinite. I am as certain that I know what I say, and say what I shall never unlearn, when I say, "God is love," as when I say, " God is." This book may find more favour with religious people than with philosophers. But this is only because it seems to place itself between them and danger, on a side from which they vaguely anticipate peril to our faith, of a kind which, as unskilled in metaphysics, they feel themselves not qualified to deal with. Yet is it as religious men that they ought to be alive to its evil. How would they have received it whose habitual consciousness thus uttered itself, 1858-60. CLOSE OF HIS MINISTRY. 317 *' We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true ; and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." For in- deed what place is there for entertaining claims of the Son as the revealer of the Father if the Father cannot be known? And this thought is felt to be weighty just in proportion as faith in the incarnation underlies the faith that the true and absolute knowledge of God is of the essence of that life of sonship which we have in the Son of God. Paul at Athens found an altar with this inscription, " To the Unknown God," and took advantage of it as some preparation for receiving his teaching, because he could say, " Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." But an altar " to the unknowable God, " what preparation for hearing his message would Paul have found in that ? To Mrs. J. E. Paterson. Glasgow, April, 1859. The idea of hastening up to London induced me to im- part to my people a few weeks sooner than I had intended, the conclusion at which I had arrived of the necessity of my discontinuing to occupy the place of a teacher and pastor in relation to them, which I have been permitted to occupy so long; and the Sunday before last I made this communication ; and last Sunday I sat with them once more at the table of the Lord, and then bade them farewell. Not indeed as assuming that I would never again meet them to offer some word of exhortation or instruction ; for I felt that I may hope, after a time, to be equal to occa- sional ministrations of this kind; but certainly with no expectation of ever again attempting regular ministerial worL 3i8 MEMORIALS. chap ix. There is much to make me regret that I did not take this step on my return home from England at this time last year. But there is one reconciling consideration, viz., that I could not then have been so certain of the necessity for it. At least I had not certain light. Whether I ought to have had is another question. Of course I have felt much, but not more, I believe, than was right in itself: only a greater amount of the element of joy in the Lord, and more of that realization of that Love for which I have been a witness to them, and within the ordering of which this trial, as all trials, should be seen to have its place, would have carried me better through it. The way in which they have received this trial has on the whole been comforting and helpful ; and, as evi- dencing that our time together has not been lost, gave the promise that their future will be the better of that past. To Mr. Duncan. Partick, 13th September, 1859. . . . I do not know if you are aware of the Hood's anxiety for some time back about their only son John. He has indeed for years been in a very uncertain state of health ; but for many weeks certainly — and now I may say months — he has been wasting away. His poor mother has for the last month attended on him night after night, and you may conceive the centering of anxious interest on him from all their hearts. Mary and I used to tremble for the effect on them all of that issue which seemed so surely coming ; and knowing his mother's yearning for some token of the quickening in him of the higher life before he should be taken from her, we often said that some such token was the only thing that would be able to bear her up. Well, this has been granted, and in large measure. I was seeing him from time to time, and feeling, as his poor 1858-60. A DEATH-BED. 319 mother did, that he took what was spoken to him too easily, and with a hopefuhiess as to his soul, which seemed just a form of that same hopefulness of nature which made him always say he was " nicely," when others saw him so far from well. . . . Last Saturday his mother took courage to speak more freely to him of what was in her heart, and he welcomed her doing so. It now appears that the night before he had understood, from what the Doctor said, that he was thought in danger, and had set himself steadfastly to seek the Lord : so his mother's words found more prepared ground than she was aware of. When they once came to free speaking he expressed his difficulties; and so, when I called in the evening, Mrs. Hood said to Johnny, " Mr. Campbell is here ; perhaps he could explain things to you which I cannot ; would you like to see him ? " He replied, " Yes," and I was taken in. I spoke a while to him, and then prayed with him. I was struck and encouraged by the tone and look with which he thanked me. . . . This was Saturday evening. On Sunday after breakfast I was walking in the garden, and Walter came to me, and had the gladdening tidings for me that, after a night of considerable mental working, Johnny had in the morning come to see and rejoice in the love of God, and was pouring out his heart in a way that was astonishing them. [After mentionmg many details with reference to his last days :] His joy seems to be the love of Jesus, which he feels filling him to overflowing. His tenderness to them all is very touching. To his mother he said this morning, " Mother, you know God spared not His only son, but gave Him for us : now He asks you to give to Him your only son. You must not be sorrowful." Indeed she is not sorrowing, but is full of joy. Three years ago when he was ill she said to me, " If only I saw his mind opened to the love of Christ, I would be satisfied; and I have 320 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. some 'hope in me that I shall see this before he is taken away." Last week his fast- waning strength, with no sign as yet, was trying her much. Dearest Miss Duncan will have the help of her personal interest in Mrs. Hood in entering into the great comfort of this letter, and in helping us all to give thanks. To his Eldest Daughter : Then at school in Efigland. Laurel Bank, Partick, i6th October, 1859. . . . As to the most important aspect of the lapse of time, I feel that I know more of my own weakness and of my God's long-suffering mercy; and this is all I can say. The trial of my enforced silence continues. But I seek by prayer to help those who are preaching that love of God to which I was so long permitted and enabled to bear testimony. And sometimes I have opportunity of ex- position, the result of which, as I am enabled to use it, may be important. But while seeking to second, as I may say, the prayer for the "hallowing of the Father's name, the coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will," my great comfort is in feeling myself a part of that mighty tide of faith and hope and love, which, though such drops as we individually are be small, is wide and deep, and ever swelling — and will ultimately prevail to the full answer of that prayer. My child, you are now in the way of a more frequent utter- ance in word of that prayer than heretofore, although latterly it has been always a part of our family worship. Seek to be animated by that spirit of adoption of which it is the natural language, and let the habitual deepest longing of your heart be what its words express. I do not know that I have said to you how much pleasure I have in your learning by heart all these beautiful 1858-60, DEATH OF MR. STORY. 321 collects. I always feel them a part of the Church's riches which Presbyterians have blindly cast from them. To Mrs. Story : After her husband's death. Parkhill, 24th November, 1859. My dear, dear Mrs. Story,— What shall I say but that " Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." May the blessedness of your beloved prevail over all other thoughts, though it cannot shut them out. I will not speak of lesser sorrows, my own or those of others, who feel this removal a blank that will remain such until we also are taken hence : but if we are to be com- forted by the soothing memory of what we knew him, your deeper sorrow will be comforted by that deeper knowledge of his faith and hope and love which, living so much nearer him, you have received and will now gratefully cherish. To the Rev. Dr. Wylie. Parkhill, Arbroath, 25th November, 1859. . . . It was a trial to be denied the sad comfort of taking a part, according to my love to him, in laying his dear remains in the grave. ... I am here with dear friends who valued him much, though they had not seen much of him ; and I have from them that sympathy which is grateful. But I constantly check myself when I find myself dwelling on the change to me that the friend of so many years — and, I may say, of all my religious life ; all my life, at least, which had its character determined by religion — has gone on a little before in the path through death to life ; I check myself, I say, when I think of the change to the chief mourners of the loss of his sweet presence. My heart's cry for them — above all for dearest Mrs. Story — is that the presence which nothing can take from us may be more VOL. I. X y 322 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. and more revealed to her spirit, and be more and more a conscious element in her circumstances ; until it reduce all other circumstances to their due proportion of comparative subordination, however important in themselves. To his Daughter. Glasgow, i i th December, 1859. Another week has been added to the past : and Sunday again calls me to my distant child, to be present with her in spirit, and feed love by uttering love. The event to me of this last week has been my visit, from Thursday to Saturday, to the dear Manse of Rosneath. It was sad, and sweet also ; for his memory is most sweet to me, the memory of thirty-four years of unbroken kind- ness, which was always living and free in its outflowing; while ever, from time to time, as anything arose which made my need of it greater, its flow was more abundant ; and many such opportunities of proving the depth and fulness of the fountain of his love there have been in that time. It was a great trial to me not to be at his funeral : but it has been all well ordered, and these two days have been much more to the mourners at the manse than my presence at the grave : no presence at which would have made much difference but that of Robert himself had he been in time. . . . This was not granted, but he has come. Having him with her is most sustaining and comforting to dear Mrs. Story, who is bearing her grief beautifully. No doubt the years in which her hold of him has been known to be so slender have been years of preparation for this time; and his own peaceful waiting, helping her also to wait, has rendered that acquiescence easier in actual experience which she must have been trying to attain to in anticipation. l8s8-6o. RECOLLECTIONS OF MR. STORY. 323 He was spared much suffering at the last, falhng quietly asleep, in Jesus I most fully believe ; and in death a beautiful expression possessed his face which those who saw it will never forget. That look I saw not, but how many looks of his do I treasure, and tones of voice, and pres- sures of the hand, not to be from him again ; nor in their kind from any other; for his love was most individual and by itself, as indeed that of every deep-hearted dear one is. Dear child, has my letter done what it was to do ? Is it a feeding of love by the utterance of love ? I think so, though not immediately of my love to you, but of my love to dear, dear Mr. Story. But it has been a con- scious movement of my love to you to pour all this into your ear. To Mrs. Fuller Maitland. 20th December, 1859. . . . As to the Idylls of the King, I accept very much what you say of them : nor do I wonder at your fervid words about the closing one ; in relation to which, doubt- less, the others are to be read. But I must object to Vivien; and, in spite of the marvellous artistic power which it mani- fests, I cannot but wish it unwritten. The theory that the purpose of the poet is to present Love in several forms, and necessitated the introduction of this evil form, does not satisfy me, even apart from higher considerations; seeing that this is not a form of love at all; neither even cheats itself into the belief that it is love. But I would rather take the higher ground that it is not enough that a picture be true to nature to justify its being presented to our attention. The topics which it may be dramatically correct to put into the mouth of Vivien are not therefore suited to our ears ; nor has all his art sufficed to overcome the inherent difficul- ties of what is attempted. 324 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. To Mrs. Macnabb. Glasgow, 23rd December, 1859. How much has Saddell's death recalled our beloved father's interest in him ! And now these words from her who knew him most nearly, and which are manifestly not chosen for their sound, but because they best express her knowledge, "true, kind, noble heart," recal our beloved brother, expressing a likeness so far higher in its interest than that likeness in looks of which many have taken notice. Beloved brother ! How do all the finest points in his character rise higher and higher, and shine purer and purer, as life with him recedes in the distance, and minute and altogether subordinate traits, which yet at the time greatly influenced the comfort of that life, subside almost into nothingness ! This letter will be put into your hands on Christmas morning. They both, our father and our brother, were always mindful of the call to the expression of kindly wishes which has been rightly felt to belong to the season which brings to remembrance the "good will towards men" in the light of which we say, " If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." To Mr. Duncan. 120 Mains Street, Glasgow, 21st January, i860. My very dear Friend, — I said I would write again with reference to the- Bishop of Brechin's charge, and will now do so ; though, not having any new principle to which to ask your attention, but only to recal that with which you have long ago felt full sjnnpathy, as it is brought out in my little book, Christ the Bread of Life. As to the historical argument, as he must start so late as 1858-60. THE BISHOP OF BRECHIN. 325 the end of the third and beginning of tlie fourth century, I confess that I cannot lay much weight upon a general consent then: unless on the Romish principle of an in- fallible keeping of the Church ; which, of course, would give equal weight to such a consent at any later time. Apart from such assumed divine keeping, three hundred years are quite enough for the development of reverence into superstition, and of superstition into doctrinal error. At the same time, except in a few cases in which an actual identifying of the bread and wine with the body and blood of Christ seems to be insisted on pointedly, the greater number of the quotations prove nothing as to the faith which they expressed ; for they need not be understood as asserting more than the words, " This is my body," " This is my blood." Any one who can read these words of our Lord as figurative, can read them (the quotations made) in the same way : and if we are not at liberty to read these words of our Lord as figurative, we must stop at them, and dare go no further. It is only, however, as affecting the question, " How early did important error come in ? " that the meaning of the language of these quotations has interest. We know that in time the extreme of transubstantiation was reached ] and, though the full formal assertion of that doc- trine is comparatively recent, the state of mind that has full satisfaction only in transubstantiation can be traced very far back. But the difficulty, " Is this language to be under- stood literally or figuratively ? " attends one in weighing all these Communion Services of the early Churches ; just (as I have said) as it meets us at the threshold in the record of the original institution. As to this difficulty, it has occurred to me, in reading the Bishop's argument, that the extreme doctrine of transub- stantiation alone fills up the word "literal." Such a presence in the bread and in the wine as the Bishop con- tends for, would not make it to be literally true that the 326 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. bread is the body or the wine is the blood. To say the bread is the body because the body is present in it, would be to use a figure and not to speak literally ; just as to say the bread is the body because it represents the body, is to use a figure. This, however, is only an argumentum ad hominem: and if it were to have its logical weight with the Bishop, would but drive him to receiving transubstantiation as the only fully consistent creed. As to myself, the ordinary understanding among Protestants of the words, " This is my body," seems to me so natural — so much what would be inevitably suggested when they were first heard — that what I have in reference to the Bishop's charge called a " difficulty " is no difficulty at all. The real difficulty is to understand how the feelings proper to the Christian consciousness in the life of faith, viz., " that in living by the faith of the Son of God we are eating His flesh and drinking His blood " — how these feelings ever came to be transferred from the living of that life to the use of an ordinance, which has its end and virtue in being the symbol of that life, and a constant witness for its nature? And here I feel that though, the consciousness proper to the life of faith being kept pure and lively, such a transference as this would have been impossible, still it was the very experience of the awfulness of the true life of faith that, by transferring — as it would naturally do — some of its own awfulness to the ordinance which symbolized it, led to the use of language in regard to that ordinance which, having at first its real reference to that which the ordinance symbolized, came in time to be referred to the ordinance itself. It being felt to be an awful thing to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God, it was felt an awful thing to testify, by such an act as the Communion, that this was the manner of the conscious life of the communicants. Also, as what was an act of remembrance was, in being so, a refreshing of the remembrance declared, the faith which 1 858-60. RE VERENCE BECOMING SUPERSTITION. 3 2 7 sustained the new life would be peculiarly vivid in this testifying in the Communion ; and the comfort of that faith would then be peculiarly proved : which experience would also add attraction to the ordinance. But, as life declined, a true reverence would degenerate into a superstition ; and, so to speak, the faith, which filled the ordinance with life, dying, the ordinance would be sought unto as if the life were in it : and then the stiperstitioiis awe with which it would be engaged in would pass for life. How far the sense of awe, and comfort also, in the assumption that one has received into him divine food, may, in inexperience of what it is truly to feed on Christ, be mistaken for that feeding, who can limit ? The bread and wine which testify that Christ is our life, will have their true interest to us when we realize — and in the measure in •which we realize — that which they testify, and know it and live by it as the truth of things to us at all moments, abiding in Christ as branches in the vine. And what will impart to the ordinance its true interest, will save us from approaching it with a false interest : for how shall we come to the bread and the wine expecting to find Him who is our life enclosed in them, if we know Him as in us already, our nbiding life; in the power of which we can alone receive the bread and wine aright ; as in that power alone are we able in all other ways to " show forth the Lord's death," " presenting our- selves living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God ; " which is that true perpetuating of the sacrifice of Christ assumed to be offered by the Church in the Eucharist. To his Daughter. Glasgow, 12th February, i860. You will to-day have more quiet for meditation on the death of your loving and beloved uncle ^ than your working * Mr, Macnabb. 328 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. days would allow : and Highfield, and your aunt, and your cousins going to-day without their loved revered head to that church to which they had so often accompanied him as a family, who, thanks be to God, never more felt them- selves a family than in the House of God — -you will be present to it all. May you also share in the comfort that I trust is there proved in realizing the oneness of their employment who worship tuithoiit the veil, with what his is worshipping within the veil, according as the whole family in heaven and on earth is named of the Lord Jesus. I do trust this thought may have come to them to cheer them. Nothing so counteracts the feeling of separation and distance, as the thought of being engaged in the same employment; the song of praise above and the song of praise below being but parts of one song. I have just been writing to Aunt Mary, who will be feeling a great deal, for he ever showed her much tender kindness. How natural kindness was to him ! I never knew any one to whom it was more so. 2 1st February, i860. I trust that the prospect of confirmation will be a pro- fitable searching of heart, and that you will take account of what you know of Him who loved you and gave Himself for you, and be quickened to seek to know Him daily more and more. I believe the self-examination and proving of oneself, as to the heart's devotedness to the Saviour, to which the expectation of confirmation is felt to be a call, is often the occasion of most needed self-knowledge, and also of much searching into the grace of our God, in the light of which alone is a true knowledge of ourselves possible : and many date their first deep feelings from this season. I always made their first Communion with my young people practically what confirmation is in the English Church to those who view it aright. 1858-60. CONFIRMATION. 329 What I am most interested in is the preparation of heart to which, in waiting on God, and yielding to the drawings of the Holy Spirit, you may have attained, as to which I trust it may be consciously something. Though here what you say as to progress in knowledge revealing ignorance is more deeply felt than in any other matter. For the first damn of a true sense of redeeming love is more felt as a painful consciousness of our great insensibility to that love than as even a faint response to it. But what a thought it is, that it is the very greatness and free undeserved character of the love of Christ that is humbling us and rebuking us ! When love is heard inviting more trust, more love, the encouragement to trust, to love, goes beyond the rebuke that our love is so little, and we take heart to confide in the love that is saying " Give me thine heart," expecting that it will impart itself to us and enable us to give the response of love which it desires. For indeed it must be with the blessed purpose to enable us to love Him that our God bids us love Him ; for He knows that no love but what He Himself quickens in us can love Him. Therefore always feel the call to love a gracious promise of strength to love, and marvel not at your own deadness, but trust in Him who quickeneth the dead. God giving us the adoption of children is sending forth the spirit of His Son into our hearts, enabling us to cry " Abba Father." We are called to " work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, because God is working in us to will and to do of His good pleasure." " If we, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto our children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him." I am choosing my. words and my quotations from the Word of God, under the influence of the fear that you may be more discouraged by your own weakness than en- 33° MEMORIALS. chap. ix. couraged by the help you have in God. Do not forget your weakness, but at the same time glorify God by trusting Him out of weakness to make you strong. To Rev. F. D. Maurice. Blythswood Square, i8th March, i860. My dear Mr. Maurice, — It is a little more than six weeks since I wrote some pages of a letter to you. I was interrupted by the intelligence (by telegraph) first of the alarming illness, and next day of the death of my brother-in- law, Mr. Macnabb. You may have noticed the intimation of his death in the Times ; and would read it with some special interest : though your acquaintance with him was not near enough to enable you to estimate his great value to those whose lives were more closely blended with his. To me he has been a very true brother ever since he came to stand to me in that relation. You may not be hearing of her otherwise, and will be glad to know that my beloved sister is very graciously sustained under this affliction, which I trust she is bearing as one in some measure in the secret of the Love which is dealing with her. I have been, you will believe, regarding with very deep, and, indeed, painful interest the course of your discussion with Mr. Mansel. I thank you for your kindness in sending me your own two volumes. As to what amount of feeling has been manifested on either side, I trust that others will see as I myself do the great difference between being jealous for the ultimate rest of the soul — that rest which our Lord's words, " Come unto me and I will give you rest," must be understood to contemplate, connected as they are with the words which immediately precede them, " Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him " — the difference be- 1858-60. MAURICE AND xM ANSEL. 331 tween this and smarting under the sense of assumed per s07ial injury. The marvel, indeed, to me is that any amount of personal sensitiveness should have made it possible for Mr. Mansel so to misconceive your first volume ; or to think of you as set upon tvriting him down, right or wrong ; instead of referring any warmth you manifested to the fact, so ap- parent, that the point at issue was to you a matter of life and death. As Paul says, " If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain," so would we say, " If the Son reveal not the Father, then is our preaching vain, and the faith of those who receive our words is also vain." But we must remember that, as doubt cast upon the certainty of our knowledge of God touches us, so also the assertion of the possibility of such certainty, and of man's calling to attain to it, touches the feeling of rest — though unsound rest — which is found in the assumption that such certainty is unattainable, while it is not yet attained : while we ought to be able better to understand such a position than those occupying it to understand ours. Nevertheless, I confess that Mr. Mansel's misconception of your first volume has been beyond what I would have thought pos- sible: though I did fear that he would not be taught through it, or easily see that in truth it was no less his interest than yours that he should be proved in the wrong. I am going up to my sister — which I was not able to do at the first — and may hope to see you while in the south. Believe me, yours most truly, John M'L. Campbell. To Mrs. Campbell. [Stanstead, Easter Day, 8th April, i860.] . . . I received the bread and wine beside our girl, kneeling side by side. I had much comfort in the service, 332 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. and thought it more excellent than ever I had done when reading it, or present without partaking. We had a very good sermon from the text, " Because I live ye shall live also." Not that there was not much lacking ; but what was said was true, and seemed to be felt. The day has been fine, though threatening. Twenty-two years ago, just about this time, I took the Communion at the Tait-bout Church in Paris. There we stood, but, just as to-day, the minister gave the bread and the wine out of his own hand to each. I remember what a comfort I felt it on that occasion. I think it was the first Sunday of May.^ To the Same: Written on his sixtieth birth-day. HiGHFiELD Park, 4th May, i860. . . . I do not know whether it was the thought of the day that made me so wakeful from its first dawn, but so it was ; and the three twenties that make up the sixty came before me in all their exceeding contrast : first the babe passing through so many stages, which, except the first few years, I can so distinctly recal, into the young man of twenty, done with school and college, and just ready for licence so soon as he would be twenty-one. Then the preacher— the Row minister — the deposed — the home missionary — the man of broken health — the Husband — the Father — all in the next twenty. Then the less diversified life of the last twenty, including so many home anxieties; and the first deep sorrows through death — my father, my brother, my brother-in-law — including also the writing and publishing of my book ; and, finally, the closing of my min- istry. This is what is most readily recalled of the outward events, the scaffolding. What the inward course and progress * It was the first Sunday in June, 1838. See letter to Mr. Macnabb, given at page 1 50. 1858-60. A RETROSPECT. 333 ot the building up — the living temple, the inner man renewing after the image of Christ — has been, it is more difficult to speak of. " I judge not mine own self; but I am not therefore justified. He that judgeth me is the Lord." . . . Feeling so much stronger, and looking so much renewed (though I know that the look is beyond the truth), I have in looking forward been venturing to anticipate more usefulness through the press : and if the Lord permit this to me. He will order all that concerns it in the same love in which he has ever dealt with me. Oh ! how truly and deeply do I, in all things, justifyHim and acknowledge His faithfulness ! How truly and deeply also do I confess my own shortcoming in all things ! " His mercy endureth for ever." To his Eldest Son. Cambridge, 21st May, i860. . . . I have seen a good deal of Mr. Lightfoot ; that is to say, we had an hour's walk and talk in the forenoon. I also dined with him in hall, but this gave no opportunity of special conversation. This place is in exquisite beauty. Saturday was the closing day of their boating. ... It was quite a gala day. I went on Sunday forenoon to Trinity Chapel, and heard some good pointed practical admonition from Professor Thomson. In the afternoon I went to the University Church, and heard Archdeacon M'Kenzie (of Africa). I liked the look of the undergraduates in chapel, and also as I saw them on Saturday evening. They had not even in the gaiety of that evening any boisterous air. This lovely weather, after the recent rains, makes every- thing beautiful ; and both the fresh verdure of the avenues, and rich blossom of the fruit trees and lilacs, with the deep green of the grass and pure blue of the sky, and the colleges seen interruptedly through openings, all render the river- 334 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. side of Cambridge most beautiful. I leave early to-morrow — to pass some hours at Stanstead, and go to London in the evening. To the Satne: Written after a visit to Harrow. HiGHFiELD Park, 4th June, i860. . . . Mr. Butler gave me the impression of a pure devotedness of life to a high calling; the school as a school, and the scholars as his flock, seeming to engage him wholly, while his sixth form boys are having instruction from him as a part of their work with him. He told me that he is at present reading the first epistle of John with them — in Greek of course, but not at all merely as Greek. This young man has made an impression of humility and sim- plicity and unselfish devotedness on me, that I never received from any other. . . . Mr. Brodrick preached here yesterday a very good sermon on prayer. He and I have divided the duty in the house ; he taking the evening and I the morning. ... It seems to me that the system at the English Universities cultivates a simple, natural, and clear style of teaching, though Mr. Maurice is a marked exception. . . . To his Second Son. HiGHFiELD Park, 2nd June, i860. I am terribly in debt to you ; and besides I wished to offer you some words of counsel on your accession — if not to a throne — at least to a place of headship in being selected to be captain of your cricket club. For small a sovereignty as this may seem, it will call for the elements of rule, that you may occupy your position aright. The first of these elements is self-rule ; for he who would command others must exercise self-command. The next element is fairness, 1858-60. AT HIGHFIELD. 335 in which I do not think that you will be wanting : at least if you are it will be to your greater condemnation, seeing that you are always so impatient of anything in another that looks to you like unfairness. . . . I wish the two John M'Leod Campbells could exchange places for an hour; or rather, what would be better, be together an hour there, and then an hour here. This place is in such beauty, and the flowering shrubs, in especial, rich in blossom. We have also, in addition to the sight of so much beauty, such rich music of birds — the thrush, blackbird, and nightingale ; the last almost new to me, and so far more beautiful and varied than these others that stand highest with us in Scotland. . . . We have Canon Brodrick of Wells and his wife and daughter here, and in James' absence I have to be as landlord. A very pleasant task, as he is a nice man. To Mrs. Campbell. St. Martin's Vicarage, Leicester, 8th July, i860. We left London at 11.30 yesterday, and arrived here at 2.20; and met a most kind and cordial welcome from the dear young minister and his young wife. . . I en- joyed the evening with him, and Mrs. Vaughan was very kind to our child. . . . Three p.m. — I was in Church in the forenoon, and heard a very good discourse from Mr. Vaughan. I afterwards went with Mr. V. to call on old Mrs. Vaughan, who was a friend of Mr. Irving's, and much interested in speaking of him. I remember well how much Mr. Irving spoke of her husband, the father of all these Vaughans, when I first became acquainted with him. This is the fourth Vaughan in succession in this vicarage. It is a very nice old house, quite close to the fine old church, which is a cathedral in form, if not in name. . . . 336 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. This pleasant visit is a very pleasant fruit of the book ; and so has also much kindness both at Cambridge and Harrow been. . . . To the Rev. D. J. Vaughan. Partick, 30th July, i860. . . . I am very glad to have accomplished a visit to you ; although our interchange of thought was less than we could desire : for surely it is a time in which they that fear the Lord need the relief of speaking one to another ; and must desire such mutual help. I send by the book post the two volumes^ of my Row teaching of which I spoke. You have become acquainted with me first in a volume that expresses my more matured thought, and is also the carefully weighed expression of it. But it may interest you to read these " notes " of extempore preaching ; and I trust you may feel so much sympathy with their substance as to be able to get over what may need . indulgence in their form ; and, what is more difficult, what may need indulgence from you as (it may be) having come to different conclusions as to the interpretation of some portions of Scripture ; some of which, indeed, I myself feel that I have had to re-consider. ^ These two volumes of Sert7ions and Lectures by the Rev. J. M. Campbell have long been out of print. They were published by Mr. R. B. Lusk at Greenock ; the third edition of Vol. I. in 1832, and Vol. II. in the same year. I take this opportunity of saying how much Mr. Campbell felt indebted to Mr. Lusk for the interest which he took in making the "Row teaching" known to the public ; and especially for his care in compiling the volume entitled The Whole Proceedings in the Case of the Rev. J. M. Campbell, which has been already referred to at page 68. Mr. Campbell always retained a great regard for Mr. Lusk, and corresponded with him after he went to Auckland, New Zealand, where he now lives. 1858-60. A NIGHT AT SEA. 337 To Mrs. Campbell. Steamer Leopard, Belfast Quay, Half-past Five a.m., 2nd August, i860. . . . We have had a veiy fair passage, and no motion, or scarcely any but the shaking from the working of the engine. ... I went on deck till ten : and got into conversation with one of the sailors, who asked me " If 1 had been once at Row ? " It was a beautiful night. The wind, which all day was east, had come to the north-west by the time I went up. The northern sky was opened up, and very beautiful ; while a few dense dark clouds rested still on the Cowal Hills, and some whitish ones on Goatfell. When I got on deck we were just passing the larger Cumbrae, and exactly opposite to the brae on the edge of which we sat so often with our boy- — then our only child — looking over to the sunset over Arran. That was twenty years ago. ... I hoped, from the tone in which he put his question as to who I was, and from the way in which he spoke of Archy White and Cursty,^ and Kate White, that the Row man was serious ; and this he may be ; but he has not yet found religion a happiness, for he felt as if he had too much to do to be able to occupy his mind much with it. While the north-west was beautiful from the light and hues left by the sun which had set, the south-east was bright with a glorious full moon — now in clear sky, now for a little veiled with a thin mist, or wrapped and hid in the skirt of a dense cloud. When not clouded it shed a flood of light on the water, which was but slightly moved by the wind. How I could have wished that you were beside me to share the exceeding beauty of the night, though I thought you would perhaps warn me not to be tempted by ^ The aged inmates of the last house of his first day's visiting, men- tioned above, p. 21, VOL. L Y 338 MEMORIALS. chap. ix. it to expose myself too long ; and about ten I came down stairs. . . . What a mercy such a quiet passing from land to land is ! While the night was so quiet I thought of the Orion, and said, "Thou only makest us to dwell in safety." The visit to St. Martin's Vicarage, Leicester, which has been mentioned above, was the first of several pleasant visits, and the beginning of a friendship which Mr. Campbell greatly valued. I am glad to be able to insert at this point a letter which Canon Vaughan has kindly written to me, with reference to his intercourse with my father during the later years of his life : — - St. Martin's Vicarage, Leicester, April 8th, 1877. Dear Campbell, — ^You have asked me to endeavour to convey to others the impression which your father made upon me, as one of many clergymen of the Church ot England who will be for ever grateful to him for what they learned from him. I came to know him, in the first instance, through his book on the Atonement. It fell into my hands soon after its publication, and exactly met my wants at the time. In the year i860 he came to stay with me at Leicester for two or three days ; and from that time onwards we corresponded, and occasionally met, until the time of his death. His last visit to me at Leicester was in June, 1868. I remember perfectly well, after an interval of nearly seventeen years, my first sight of him : and the impression which he then made was only deepened, without being in the least degree altered, by all my subsequent intercourse with him. It was not his great intellectual ability that struck me 1858-60. LETTER FROM MR. VAUGHAN. 339 first. His firm and wide intellectual grasp of things im- ^ pressed me only by degrees. The first impression was of transparent simplicity, candour, and goodness — a nature most truthful and lovable and trustworthy. I rerhember perfectly on that first visit, as always afterwards, how careful he was to do full justice to views not exactly in accordance with his own, and to re-state in the morning his own state- ments of the previous evening, where they seemed to him to want any correction or development. And never once did I trace in him the slightest wish for victory in argu- ment, or for the triumph of anything but simple truth and right. As years went on, and new difficulties of theological thought arose, I was increasingly impressed by his power of meeting and sympathizing with the thoughts of men much younger than himself, and thus of helping them in a way in which it is rarely given to the men of an older generation to help those of a younger. This rare power of his was due to his singular combination of moral and intellectual gifts — on the one hand, the faculty of seeing where the real difficulty lay, and of appreciating and grasping it ; and, on the other hand, the absolute candour and simplicity of mind, which made him entirely pervious to light, from whatever quarter it might come; and, interfused with these, a most winning frankness and gentleness and sympathy, to which it was impossible to refuse confidence. Those who knew him will, I think, at once acknowledge the truth of what I have said. And, to those v/ho never had the happiness of knowing him, I should despair of con- veying the perfectly unique impression which he made upon my mind — the impression of mingled grace and truth, of a moral and intellectual excellence, each admirable by itself, and never in any other human character, that I have made acquaintance with, combined in such perfect proportion. I count it one of my greatest privileges to have known him 340 MEMORIALS. chap, ix. and to Have been honoured with his friendship; and I earnestly hope that the letters which you are editing will be the means of bringing many others to the knowledge of a character so tmly noble and saintly and eminently Christ- like. ■ Believe me, dear Campbell, yours very truly, D. J. Vaughan. End of Vol. I. PRINTED r.Y ROIiERT MACLEHOSE. GLASGOW. >v DATE DUE S ii>i>'^'^ ■ t 1 p H 1 w- m ■ H H 1 ^H a '2^m E P 1 1 1 1 mn # i CAVLOnO PRINTED INU.S. A. ^^ ^, ^c^ .^^fe^ .3ft ~^^^ ^^> ^>^^ %^ 'f',"«'°" T-heolo5,c ?™i"">r,-Sp.„ L,|j^^^ M2r.-sll i ■ i i m .ill! 1 «; ■ 1 i ■a I