tihvary of t:he trheolojfcal ^eminarjo PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY •ds PURCHASED BY THE MRS. ROBERT LENOX KENNEDY /-I TT TT Tl /-I TT. TI ILdniZVIlLlZ^IBIT XT rw I.A y22b .H338 T56 1882 Thomson, Andrew, 1814-1901 Life of Principal Harper APR 22 1960 LIFE OF V^,,,,,,,^^ PEINCIPAL HARPER, D.D. BY THE , / EEV. ANDREW THOMSON, D.D. F.E.S.E. EDINBURGH. ' Cxiyus mtafidgor, ejus verba tonitrua.' Second Edition. EDINBUEGH: ANDEEW ELLIOT, 17 PEINCES STEEET. 188 2. PREFACE. IN preparing this volume, we were keenly alive to the confidence shown us by the family of the late Principal Harper, in committing to our hands the important work of writing the story of his life. We felt that we were warranted in claiming to possess at least one qualification for this willing service, in the long friendship and mutual confidence which had existed between us and the honoured subject of the memoir. When, a few Aveeks before he was called up to his 'Father's house,' we preached to his congregation, at his own request, on the sixtieth anniversary of his ordination to the Christian ministry, we could look back, along with him, upon nearly half a century of intercourse and warm and unbroken affection. The constant labours of a city pastorate, which could not be interrupted or even greatly diminished, must be accepted as at once explaining and justifying the fact that The Life has not appeared somewhat earlier ; though modern biography, it is probable, has suffered quite as frequently from hasty as from tardy publication. We may be too near events and persons to think of them Avisely and without bias or exagge- ration. And moderate delay gives a writer the better opportunity of assuring himself regarding the accuracy of what he narrates. The remarkable qualifications which distinguished iv PREFACE. Principal Harper as a minister of religion and a Professor of Theology, in addition to the excellences of his character which shone so brightly in the more private walks of life, ought to be sufficient of them- selves to render his biography, if written with a fair measure of success, both interesting and eminently suggestive. But beyond this, his work and influence as a Christian citizen and man of affairs, who helped to originate, direct, and help forward to triumph great public movements with which political and social as well as religious progress was identified, ought greatly to enhance the value of such a memoir. In regard to that branch of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland of which he was a member and a minister, it may be affirmed, in a modified degree, that he was so closely associated with all its most important public acts, during a long series of years, that the narrative of his life becomes, at various points, also the history of his Church. We are persuaded that, according to the measure in which the facts of his life are known, they will justify the high encomium of one of the most eminent of our Scottish judges, that Principal Harper ' has left the inheritance of a great and honoured name to his family and country.' It soon became evident that the amount of Dr Harper's epistolary correspondence, which it was de- sirable to publish, could not conveniently or suitably be intermingled in the various chapters of the memoir. It was therefore resolved to present his letters in an Appendix, arranging them as nearly as possible in their chronological order. Not only because of the instruction and Christian consolation with which they abound, but also as bringing into special prominence the affectionate side of his nature, and gleaming at PREFACE. times with a playful humour, which in him was not only natural but irrepressible, they possess a unique interest and value. And there is a beautiful fitness in the fact that the last letter in the series, which was written not long before ' his right hand forgot its cunning,' was addressed to a beloved child. We have grateful pleasure in acknowledging our obligation to many ministers, formerly admiring students of Dr Harper, for the interesting recollec- tions with which they have furnished us respecting his work as Professor, especially to Dr Blair of Dun- blane, Dr Grosart of Blackburn, Mr Angus of Arbroath, Mr Howat of Liverpool, and Mr Buchanan, late of Greyfriars' Church, Glasgow. We are in- debted to Mr Morris, librarian of the United Presby- terian College, for ready access to ecclesiastical documents, and to E. Erskine Harper, Esq., Advo- cate, for supplying us with much valuable material, and intrusting to our confidence many family docu- ments. And not least gratefully do we own the kindness of Dr George Jeffrey of Glasgow, and Rev. William Gillies, of the Religious Tract and Book Society of Scotland, for the many useful hints wdth which they favoured us when the book was passing through the press. PEEFACE TO SECOND EDITION. The sale of the First Edition of the Life of Principal Harper in a few months, the favourable and kindly notices of the public press, as well as the wish ex- pressed by many for a reprint of the book, have led to the issue of this second and cheaper edition. The few corrections that have been suggested have been gratefully considered, and accepted as far as they commended themselves to the Author's judgment. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND BOYHOOD (1795-1813). PAGE Genealogy — The Laird of Cambusnethan — Leighton — Lawyer and Ecclesiastic — Times of the Covenant — Fine and Imprisonment — Edinburgh Castle — School — French Officer — Juvenile Rhymes — Scenery around Lanark — ' Boy the Father to the Man ' — Touching Interview — Conversion — Glasgow University — Home- sickness — The Return — Professor Jardine — Medical Studies in University of Edinburgh, ...... 1 CHAPTER IL STUDENT LIFE AT SELKIRK (1813-1818). Professor Lawson — Reception of Young Novitiate at Selkirk — Curri- culum of study and Manner of Instruction — Mingled Influence of the Professor's Gifts and Personal Character — Owned by People as well as Students — Lingering Fragrance — Traditional Estimate justified — Scenery of Yarrow and Ettrick — Half- Holiday Rambles — Evenings with old Selkirk Students — Re- miniscences — Extract from Letter by Thomas Carlyle, . . 9 CHAPTER II L PROBATION AND ORDINATION (1818-1820). Non-Professional Reading — Advantages — The Probationer— On the Road — Tlie Pony — Pleasant Life — Welcomes — Adventures — The Solway Firth — Fall of Stonebyres — Dreaminess — Craigleith CONTENTS. PJlGB Quarry — Calls — Unexpected Arrest and Delay — Mental Doubts and Struggles — Liglit and Peace — Ordination and Settlement at Leith, ........ 16 CHAPTER IV. IN THE STUDY. Leith Past and Present — Early Rising — Doddridge — Preparation of Discourses— Choice of Texts — Courses of General Study — System — Habits — Common-Place Books — Conversation Harvests — Science and Literature — Favourite Books — Edinburgh Jlevieu' — Influence — Experience reflected in Counsels to others— Extracts, 24 CHAPTER V. IN THE PULPIT. Public Estimate — An Appreciating Hearer — Irving — Prophecy about Carlyle — Elements of Power — Thinking before Writing — Quali- ties of Style — Countenance — Fervour of Delivery — Themes — Sketch by a Stranger — Revival Meeting — A Reminiscence — Various Effects of Ministry— The Three Farm Servants — Preach- ing to the Times — Too little of this — Bible Classes— Fruits — Contemporaries, , . . . . . .36 CHAPTER VI. PASTORAL AND EVANGELISTIC WORK. Whately's Remark — Annual amount of Pastoral Visitation — District Catechizing — Why Obsolete — Ministry incomplete without Pas- tor's Visits — How best to do it — Extracts — Highways and Hedges — Restalrig Gardens — Tlie Old Harboixr — Mistake about Street Preaching — Newhaven — In Perils — Break-neck Corner — Singing of the Fisherwomen— Gratitude — Marriage of Fisher- men's daughters, . . . . . . .49 CHAPTER VIL IN THE FAMILY. Marriage— Equally yoked— Births and Baptisms— Special Prayers- Diary— Education by Influence— Extract— Evening Readings- CONTENTS. PAGE The Father in the Sick-room — Sunny Sabbaths— Key-note for the Day— The Younger Children — The Catechism — Birth-day Anniversaries — Letter to a Daughter — ' Res Angustse Domi ' — His Father in the Synod — Removal of Parents to Edinburgh — ' Nourisher of their Old Age ' — Son's Portraits of Parents, . 58 CHAPTER VIII. THE EDITORIAL CHAIR AND THE AFOCRTPHA (1820-1830). Public Institutions of Leith — Platform Advocacy — Ordination Ser- mon — Extracts — Theological Magazine — Editor and his Staff — Curious Agreement — Apocrypha Controversy — Origin — Dr Andrew Thomson — Reminiscences — New Phase — Anglicanus — Mr Harper enters the Lists — Death of Dr Thomson — Universal Sorrow — Manly Tribute — Estimate of Results — National Bible Society — ' Signs of the Times ' — Extract — Anecdote, . . 72 CHAPTERIX. REFORM — CONTROVERSIES — FRUITS (1830-1840). The Refomi Bill— Lord Murray— The Pastor and Politics— The Asiatic Cholera — Scenes at Musselburgh — Alarm in Leith — Fast Sermon — Extracts — Dr Marshall and Civil Establishments of Re- ligion — Voluntary Controversy — Church Extension Movement — Dr Chalmers — Dissenters ignored — Irritation — Lecture by Mr Harper — Deputations to London — Notices of Eminent Statesmen — Voluntary Lectures in England — Dr Tattershall — Extracts^ Disruption — Dr Belfrage, . . . . . .91 CHAPTER X. REVIVALS— WAR AND PEACE— UNION (1840-1850). Moderatorship — Deputy to Ireland — Signs of Revival — Welcome — Scenes — Discouragements — The Garden — Mental Alteratives — Agitation against Corn Laws — Active Sympathy — Public Ques- tions — Chair of Pastoral Theology — Honorary Degree — Atone- ment Controversy — Dr Heugh — Irenicum — Statement by Dr Harper- Libel — Welcome Peace — Chair of Systematic Theology — Movement for Union with Relief Church — Advocated- Con- summated — Tanfield Hall — Speech — Evangelical A'Uiance, - 11 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. COMMEMORATIONS AND DEPUTATIONS (1840-1850). C'ommemoration of Westminster Assembly of Divines— Importance — Dr Chalmers — Speech — Essay by Dr Harper — Use and Abuse of Creeds and Confessions— Deputation to Prussia— John Ronge — Holy Coat of Treves— Blossoms without Fruit- Free Church of Canton de Vaud— Estimate, . . . . .131 CHAPTER XII. THE PROFESSOR. Working with a Will— Two Chairs in one— Use of Paul's Pastoral Epistles— Own Experience— Exegesis of 1 Tim. iii. 6 -Systematic Theology— Range of Topics— Marrow of Modern Divinity- Old Truths in New Lights— Structure and Style of Lectures— Criti- cisms of Students' Discourses — Special Value — Times for Faith- ful Wounds — Specimens — Christian Jew — The Professor at Home — Reminiscences by Old Students^Transatlantic Estimate . 148 CHAPTER XIII. CHURCH AND NATIONAL LIFE (1850-1860). United Presbyterian Magazine— Seasonable Gift— Leith Hospital — Sunmiary of Principles — Hymns and Hymn-Rooks — A Picture — University Tests — Retrospect— National Education— Action- Lord Young's Bill— Controversy with Lord Advocate— Two Pro- fessors, ........ 164 CHAPTER XIV. HOME WORK AND FOREIGN TRAVEL (1860-1870). Moderator— Tricentenary of Reformation— Extracts— Cardross Case —Proposal for Hall Reform— Deputation to Holland— House of Dutch Farmer — Scene — A Colleague — Family Bereavement — a Sou greatly beloved — Travels in Italy — Ascent of Vesuvius — Re- moval to Lanarkshire — Return to Loith Mount — Jubilee— Golden Wedding— Letter to Children, . . . .183 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. NEGOTIATIONS FOR UNION (1862-1873). PAGB Sir George Sinclair — Important Declaration by Elders and Laymen — Influences tending to Union — Overtures in United Presbyterian Synod — Union Committee appointed — Similar Committees in Free Assembly, Reformed and English Presbyterian Synods — Interest widens and deepens — First Meeting of Joint-Committee — Departed Worthies — What, and how great are the Points of Difference ? — Can there be Union ? — Hopeful Progress — Difiicul- ties arise in Free Church — Agitation — Negotiations suspended — Motion and Speech of Dr Harper in Synod of 1873 — Last Meeting of Joint-Committee — the Scene — Negotiations not Fruitless- Possible Future, . . . . . . .207 CHAPTER XVI. CLOSING TEARS (1873-1879). Reconstruction of Divinity Hall — The first Principal — New Honorary Degree — Death of Professor Eadie— Proposed Revision of Sub- ordinate Standards — Committee — Joint-Conveners — Declaratory Act- -Premonitions — Sudden Stroke -Last Sad Week — Ebbs and Flows of Hope — The End — The Funeral — Monuments — Summary Estimate, ........ 227 Appendix, ........ 261 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 1795-1813. Genealogy — The Laird of Cambusnethan — Leighton — Lawyer and Eccle- siastic — Times of the Covenant — Fine and Imprisonment — Edinburgh Castle — School — French Officer — Juvenile Ehymes — Scenery around Lanark — 'Boy the Father to the Man' — Touching Interview — Con- version — Glasgow Univei-sity —Home-Sickness — The Return — Professor Jardine — Medical Studies in University of Edinbiu-gh. JAMES HAEPER was born at Lanark, June 23, 1795. He was the younger son of Rev. Alex, Harper, minister of the Associate or Burgher Congre- gation in that beautifully-situated county town. His mother was Janet Gilchrist, daughter of James Gil- christ, Esq. of Gilfoot, in the neighbourhood of Lanark, a property on the banks of the Clyde in the parish of Carluke, still in possession of the family. It deserves to be noticed that one of his ancestors, by the father's side, was Sir John Harper, Advocate, Sheriff of Lanarkshire in the reign of Charles II., and proprietor of the lands of Cambusnethan and Craig- crook. He was the friend and frequent associate of the meditative and saintly Archbishop Leighton, whose A LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. country house of Garion Tower, being not far from the Sherift's residence at Cambusnethan House, gave the lawyer and the ecclesiastic easy opportunities of inter- course. But those were trying times in Lanarkshire. Persecution had waxed hot against the Covenanters who abounded in that part of the country, and both the Archbishop and the Sheriff were sincerely averse to the work of carrying out the arbitrary decrees of the Government against the sufferers. Leighton escaped from the perplexity and trouble by being allowed to return to his old home in the College of Edinburgh where he had formerly been Principal, and, not long after, by his retiring to a sister's house in Essex, where he spent his closing years in preparation for the heavenly kingdom. But though no act of direct assistance to the ' men of the Covenant ' could be proved against the Sheriff, his wife had been more demonstrative in her sym- pathies, and, on the suspicion of connivance with treasonable practices, as we learn from Wodrow, he was imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. He remained in the Castle prison for several months, and was only at length liberated, under a bond of £10,000 sterling, ' to answer, when called, to the premises, or any other crime laid to his charge.' We doubt whether the subject of this memoir could ever have been brought to regard this passage in the history of his ancestor as a blot on the family escutcheon. At an early age, the boy was sent to school during the summer months in the small retired village of Cartland. His mother was wont to describe him as at this time a fair, ruddy, chubby, cheerful, and happy boy — fond of whistling. He was transferred to the Grammar School of Lanark, in which all the BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. common branches of education, as well as Latin and Greek, were taught. The lessons of the school were energetically assisted and supplemented by his father at home ; while the whole course was by and by pleasantly diversified by the instructions of a French officer who came to board in the family, and who delighted to instruct his ready pupil in the French language, as well as to train him in the art of fencing. There was a large tree in his father's garden at Mans- field, some of whose branches the little student con- trived to weave into a seat which was raised some distance above the ground, and in this leafy retreat he conned his lessons from day to day. In the later years of his boyhood he often attempted some verses in rhyme, ' lisping in numbers, for the numbers came.' There was a kind of self-education in all this which was by no means valueless. But in after years the juvenile rhymes were all placed by him in the mouth of a rabbit-hole and burned. A wise act of cremation, it is likely ; but we are not so sure of his wisdom in committing at intervals to the flames so many precious sheaves of the writings of his vigorous manhood and his green old age. Another important branch of the youth's education was meanwhile being carried on, in which nature was his only teacher, laying open to him some of the most picturesque pages of its great book in the scenery around Lanark. In the smiling orchards which, in summer and autumn, turned the valley of the Clyde, for many a mile round, into one great garden ; in the famous waterfalls, the sound of which favouring winds bore to his home at Mansfield ; and in the lovely glen of the Cartland Crags, his soul drank in high delight ; and as he rambled alone, the shadows of many a LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. problem already began to rise dimly before his mind, to be anxiously and earnestly grappled with in later years. ' Lo ! where the stripling, wrapt in wonder, roves Beneath the precipice o'erhung with pine, And sees on high amidst the encircHng groves From cliff to cliif the foaming torrents shine ; While waters, woods, and winds in concert join, And echo swells the chorus to the skies.' In the few scattered recollections and impressions which it is now possible to gather regarding the growth of his character, it is not difficult to trace the early buddings of some of those qualities which became mature and prominent in him in later life. His veneration for his parents was not of that passive kind which we find in so many children, but glowed with all the fervour of a passion ; and it found ample exercise in later years. Among his companions, his delicate sense of honour and manly integrity, com- manded their respect, while his moral courage, mingled with gentleness and unwillingness to give offence, won their love. If a boy wished to do a mean thing, he would take care not to do it in young Harper's pre- sence. There was a manly forbearance in the boy that made him, Avithout knowing it, a peacemaker. We are confirmed in this impression by an incident which took place only a few years ago in Glasgow. Having heard of a gentleman being still alive who had been his playfellow more than sixty years before on the school- green at Lanark, he got his address and sought him out. He was shown into a room, and a few minutes afterwards, a gentleman entered bearing the marks of great age. The two stood looking at each other with- out recognition, when Principal Harper simply said, ' James Harper.' Instantly the old gentleman grasped BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. him warmly by the hand, and said with emotion, ' Jamie Harper, the boy who never made a quarrel ! ' The question has often been asked in reference to one who afterwards rose to such a position of eminence and usefulness, at what period and in what circumstances did young Harper come under that supreme influence of religious principle and motive which the Scriptures describe by the name of conver- sion ? Various gathered hints have led us to conclude that this great change took place in his boyhood ; but in his case, as in that of thousands regarding whose personal Christianity there cannot be any doubt, it is impossible to determine, with even an approach to precision, ' the happy day that fixed his choice.' Dates are of little consequence where we have fruits. In the case of children who have lived in the atmo- sphere of a Christian home, there is an influence which often brings them at an early age ' near to the kingdom of heaven,' but it is no more possible to determine the actual moment of decision than to tell the very instant at which the first ray of light streaked the heavens at sunrise. ' There are differences of administration, but the same Lord.' The wind bloweth not only where, but Uow it listeth. One child in a family may be awakened from sleep by a thunder-peal, and another by a mother's kiss. One of the holiest and wisest of the Puritans, Philip Henry, declared, after his own curiously quaint manner, that he ' could not tell the precise time at which the match was made and the knot was tied.' We are strengthened in these impressions regarding the boy's early religious decision, by the glowing terms in which, throughout his man- hood, and most of all in his old age, he was accustomed to speak of the singular happiness of his boyhood and youth. With our recollection of James Montgomery's LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. words, that ' youth is the poetry of old age,' we can scarcely doubt that the golden mist in which he ever beheld his earlier years, contained in it the supreme element of a loving heart at peace with God ; though this does not exclude other elements which brightened his recollections, and made it possible for him, even to the last, to taste anew his earlier joys. In one of his latest letters, written to a daughter from the old family home at Lanark, after he had passed his seventieth year, he writes : ' We drove to Orchard by' way of Cartland, a small retired village where I went to school one summer. I recognised some old fir-trees where the youngsters of old had their playground, and it so happened that the children now attending school there, were enjoying their play-hour as I passed, so that my recollections of boyhood were thereby rendered more vivid.' By the time that our somewhat precocious youth had reached the age of twelve, the Grammar School at Lanark appears to have well-nigh exhausted upon him its rather limited resources, and it became a serious question at home, What was next to be done with the lad ? His active mind must receive employment somewhere ; and it was at length resolved to enter him as a student in the University of Glasgow. It proved to be a premature step, though probably no harm came out of it. Borne away from his native town where he knew every one, and where every countenance smiled upon him, into a great sea of strange faces where no one cared for him, he was seized, during the winter, with a measure of home- sickness that made work impossible, and even his young life a burden to him. As time moved on, and his longing sadness did not pass away, he at length summoned couraofe to inform his father of his condi- BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. tion. With a considerateness that was characteristic of the lad, the letter was written in Latin, to secure that his father might be his only confidant. But it gushed with such a filial tenderness, and revealed such a weariness of spirit in the lonely boy, that the father's resolution was promptly taken. Early next morning the pony was saddled, and the good minister was on his way to Glasgow, a distance of twenty-eight miles, to bring the student home. On the way back the father and the son walked and rode by turns, and the house was brighter again when James was back. The home education was renewed, a miscellaneous lot of books was read, the old scenes of beauty and grandeur were revisited, study went on in his awakening mind even when there was no book in his hand ; and in the following winter he returned to Glasgow with an invigorated body, and with braced resolution to pursue his University studies in right earnest. He continued a student at this time-honoured University during three sessions, from 1810 to 1813, passing through the course of classical and philo- sophical study which the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland require of their students previous to their formal entrance on the study of theology. Beyond the fact that his diligence, application, and opening gifts made him a favourite with his professors, and that he was loved by his fellow-students, with many of whom he formed lifelong friendships that mellowed with years, we have been able to glean almost nothing of his college life. Of one of his professors he was accustomed to speak, in common with thousands who had sat at his feet, with admiring gratitude. This was George Jardine, the Professor of Logic, a man who united in himself the possession of knowledge with a remarkable power of conveying it ; who knew how to LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. stimulate thought in young minds, and to send away his pupils daily with the feeling that the last hour's training had made them intellectually stronger and wiser; and whose mingled dignity and affection drew forth towards him from the occupants of his crowded benches the veneration of children to a father. To the last he cherished fond recollections of his Alma Mater and his student days in Glasgow. ' On his last visit to us,' writes a son-in-law, ' he expressed a wish to see again the old University buildings, his student lodgings, and the road to Lanark which he had so often paced ; and it was touching to observe the deep and somewhat pensive interest with which he viewed the old scenes.' In the winter of 1813 he passed to the University of Edinburgh, where, in addition to the study of Natural Philosophy which was required by his Church, he stepped beyond the prescribed curriculum, and became an eager student, during two sessions, in the important medical classes of Chemistry, Anatomy, Surgery, and the Practice of Medicine, attracted by the names of such renowned teachers as Playfair, Gregory, and Hope. In after life, he always put high value on these supplementary studies. They enlarged his mind, widened his sympathies, enriched and diversified his intellectual stores, and helped him to make other spheres of knowledge, besides those supplied by sacred learning, ' pay tithes to the priest- hood.' But that they did not indicate any hesitation of choice between the profession of the Christian minister and that of the physician, is evident from the fact that he had already entered, at the Divinity Hall of his Church at Selkirk, on his course of theological study. This last-named fact now turns our thoughts to Selkirk. CHAPTER IL STUDENT LIFE AT SELKIRK. 1813-1818. Professor Lawson— Reception of Young Noviciate at Selkirk— Curriculum of Study and Manner of Instruction — Mingled Influence of the Professor's Gifts and Personal Character— Owned by People as well as Students— Lingering Fragrance— Traditional Estimate justified— Scenery of Yarrow and Ettrick — Half -Holiday Rambles— Evenings with old Selkirk Students— Reminiscences— Extract from Letter by Thomas Carlyle. ME, HARPER entered as a student of theology in the Theological Hall of the Associate or Burgher Synod, at Selkirk, in the autumn of 1813. The venerable Dr Lawson, who had been appointed Professor of Theology to that branch of the Secession Synod in 1787, though becoming old, was still doing his loved work with an efficiency that had been increased by ripening graces and long experience. It was an important step in our student's life, for it indicated that he had now set his face deliberately and stedfastly to preparation for the Christian ministry. Mr Harper's father had sat at the feet of the same professor in the earher years of his professorship, and it was with mingled feelings that he now welcomed the promising son from the manse of the Lanark minister. ' Mr James,' he said, ' I must be getting an old man now, when my own students are sending sons to me.' LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. For a period of thirty-three years, Dr Lawson was the Synod's only Professor of Theology, and the cur- riculum of study extended over five years, with a session of nine weeks in each year during the two autumn months of August and September. In those busy months, the students listened to lectures on Doctrinal and Practical Theology, read critically large portions of the Scriptures in the original languages, with which the professor intermingled his invaluable exegetical comments. And all this was varied by the delivery in rotation of prescribed discourses and exer- cises by the students, which was followed by the pro- fessor's shrewd and kindly criticisms. Probably the instances have been very few in which more real and thorough work was done in such short annual sessions as those at Selkirk, more especially as the professor never thought of stopping at the end of a scrimp hour, if his topic for the day seemed to need further expansion. Sometimes, indeed, when the sand- glass had been turned a second time, the students Avere still listening with unbroken interest to the old man's words of sanctified wisdom. Still it must be acknow- ledged that the system was defective, both in the narrow range of its subjects and in the too short annual period allowed each year for intellectual drill and discipline. And the fact that, during an entire generation, Dr Lawson gave to his Church a suc- cession of ministers of solid and sustained excellence, proves to what an extent the deficiencies of a system are sometimes compensated by the rare gifts and qualifications, as well as by the personal character and influence of the man who administers it. The Selkirk professor was such a man. Over the whole of that region which is watered by the Tweed, the STUDENT LIFE A T SELKIRK. Ettrick, and the Yarrow, the names of Boston of Ettrickj and Dr Lawson of Selkirk, have left a sweet savour the fragrance of which has not yet departed. Their forms of religious thought and their very- phraseology may still be traced in many a Christian household, even to the third and fourth generations. We question whether any theological tutor, since the days of the perhaps too gentle Doddridge, ever drew around himself so much of the veneration and love of his students, as did this simple and homely man with his unique, though noiseless power. Even students who came to Selkirk with the strong belief that the traditional estimate they had heard of him was exaggerated, were not long in catching the enthusiasm and reflecting it. His transparent simplicity and singleness of aim, which shone out in everything that he said and did, contributed much to produce this reverent regard. There was not one inch of unreality about him. Then the genial charity which took always the kindliest view of things, which was slow to believe evil and made ready allowance for the exuberance of youth, evoked the generous sympathy and appreciation of the succession of yoimg men that sat at his feet. And his pupils soon discovered that he was ' a far abler and more learned man than he seemed ; ' while his utter want of self-consciousness added a new and irresistible charm to his character, and transformed the professor into the sage. His saintly spirit led men to pronounce his name with something of the veneration with which we are accus- tomed to speak of the Christian fathers of primitive times. No class of men was insensible to the influence of his holy character and ' unbought grace.' When 12 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. Prince Leopold, the future King of Belgium, accom- panied by Sir Walter Scott, paid a transient visit to Selkirk, he acknowledged that the one happy allusion of Dr Lawson to his great ancestor, the Elector of Saxony, and to his connection with the Reformation, had more touched his heart than all the elaborate addresses and piled-up epithets of public bodies and municipal corporations. But rough and reckless men were equally ready to venerate simplicity and goodness as they saw it in him. We have heard it related that when a company of carters, more than twenty in number, were approaching Selkirk with twice as many waggons of coals for the winter use of the town, and they saw the old minister coming in the opposite direction, they immediately loosed their horses, and retiring into a recess on the roadside, asked him to pause and pray with them. The request was doubly welcome as coming from such men. In the impromptu prayer which followed, he rose above himself, for it seemed ' to have been given him in that hour what he should speak.' Like the great preacher of the Jud?ean wilderness in not very dissimilar circumstances, he did not spare their class sins, but prayed that they might ever be kept from ' taking the name of the Lord their God in vain,' and that they might always remember that it was written in His Word that ' a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.' As the qualities we have named revealed themselves to our student, they awakened his unbounded admira- tion and enhanced his delight in the man and the place. And if anything could have added to these attractions of Selkirk, it was the unrivalled pastoral scenery of the Yarrow and the Ettrick, of which that little country town, standing on its breezy uplands, STUDENT LIFE AT SELKIRK. 13 was the centre ; and in the midst of which every Saturday, as it came round with its half-holiday, allowed him and his fellow-students to wander at will. Nature was, in fact, another class-room to those who knew how to use it, and the old professor did not like those discourses of his students less which were redolent of the wild flowers rather than of the lamp. It was something to live in the very scenes from which, with their historic legends and their simple beauty, Scott had already begun to draw some of his inspiration, and which were, not long after- wards, to attract Wordsworth twice into Scotland from his poet's home in E,ydal, It was a treat of no common kind in earlier days to sit with a number of old Selkirk students, after they were far advanced in the ministry, and to mark how they kindled into enthusiasm as they spoke of their old professor, — dilating on his outward appearance in his spare form and ruddy countenance, his brown wig overlapping his ample forehead, and his shep- herd's plaid wrapped round his shoulders, which, like the garments of the Israelites in the wilderness, seemed never to grow old. Others would bring forth their budget of anecdotes and racy sayings, which, though often repeated, never grew stale, and many of which still circulate upon men's lips like proverbs ; while all would testify of the life benefit which they had derived from the man of God. One of Mr Harper's fellow-students, now beyond his eightieth year, writing from Portland, in the United States, thus conveys his impressions regarding him when they attended together at the Selkirk Hall : — ' I recall the form of your father, his sparkling eye, and the affec- tionate intonations of his voice. Being in course of 14 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. preparation as a student with a view to missionary work in Russia, your father, on this account, perhaps, showed me more than usual attention, and I had then and still feel a reverence for him such as his whole demeanour necessarily excited.' ^ Of all the educational influences that helped most to mould and develope our student's mind and cha- racter, next to those of his Lanark home, those of the Selkirk professor were the greatest ; and his Selkirk impressions and reminiscences continued to operate with undiminished influence to the end of his days, though it would be difficult to determine whether the power of the professor or of the man was the greater. We remember the hearty and grateful appreciation with which, a few years since, he read for the first time Mr Carlyle's genial and masterly life-portrait of the professor, and saw how readily, in listening to his mother's recollections of him at Ecclefechan, he had recognised in the old Selkirk sage one of Scotland's great men : ' It seems to me I gather from your narrative and from his own letters, a perfectly credible account of Dr Lawson's character, course of life, and labour in the world ; and the reflection rises in me that there was not in the British Island a more completely genuine, pious-minded, diligent, and faithful man. Altogether original, too ; peculiar to Scotland, and, so far as I can guess, unique even there and then. England will never know him out of any book, or at least it would take the genius of a Shakespeare to make him known by that method ; but if England did, it might much and wholesomely astonish her. Seen in his intrinsic character, no simple-minded more ' Letter from Rev. J. Carrutliers to E. E. Harpei:, Esq., Advocate. STUDENT LIFE AT SELKIRK. 15 perfect lover of wisdom do I know of in that genera- tion. ' Professor Lawson, you may believe, was a great name in my boy-circle, never spoken of but with reverence and thankfulness by those I loved best. ' In a dim but singularly conclusive way, I can still remember seeing him and hearing him preach (though of that latter, except the fact of it, I retain nothing) ; but of the figure, face, tone, dress, I have a vivid im- pression (perhaps about my twelfth year, that is, in summer of 1807-08). It seems to me he had a better face than in your frontispiece, more strength, sagacity, shrewdness, simplicity, a broader jaw, more hair of his own (I don't remember any wig) — alto- gether a most superlative steel-grey Scottish peasant (and Scottish Socrates of the period) — really, as I now perceive, more like the twin-brother of that Athenian Socrates who Avent about supreme in Athens in wooden shoes, than any man I have ever ocularly seen.' ^ 1 Letter to Rev. John Macfarlane, LL.D., late of Clapham. CHAPTER III. PEOBATION AND ORDINATION. 1818-1820. Non- Professional Reading — Advantages — The Probationer — On the Road — The Pony — Pleasant Life — Welcomes — Adventures — The Solway Firth — Fall of Stonebyres — Dreaminess — Craigleith Quarry — Calls — Unexpected Arrest and Delay — Mental Doubts and Struggles — Light and Peace — Ordination and Settlement at North Leith. THE long recesses of nearly ten months that inter- vened between the autumn sessions at Selkirk, when not partly occupied by attendance on winter classes in Edinburgh, were spent by our student in the old home at Lanark, where he enjoyed the care and companionship of his father, and owned the healthful stimulus of his Selkirk training. And while theology had now become, more than ever, his principal study, he wisely indulged himself in a good deal of miscel- laneous reading, mastering the systems of the leading metaphysicians, dipping deeply into history and books of travel, and storing his mind with the treasures of our best English classics. No doubt in all this he followed strong intellectual tastes, and gratified wide sympathies. But he was acting wisely even for his future ministry ; for there are valuable acquirements which, if not made before entering on the busy life of a modern pastor, are not likely to be made in any sufficient measure afterwards, and the want of which PROBATION AND ORDINATION. 17 compels him to go ' halting all his days.' There is no profession in whioh a full stock of intellectual capital is more needed than that of a modern minister in a large town or city. He ought, before he enters on his charge, to have ' much goods laid up in store for many years.' If not, he will be likely to fare like the soldier who goes into the battle-field with only a few rounds of cartridge. He must soon either fall or fly. With his weekly preparation of discourses for the pulpit, and the endless details of pastoral work, much of which cannot even be delayed ; with his constant exposure to interruptions, reasonable and unreasonable, not to speak of the letter-writing which almost every postman's rap forces upon him, the wonder is not so much that some fail, as that so many succeed. On 3d April, 1818, Mr Harper was cordially licensed by his native presbytery, and sent forth to preach the Gospel. He had previously undergone, according to the custom of the Presbyterian Churches, a series of sifting examinations in Dogmatic Theology and Christian Casuistry, some of which were conducted in Latin ; he had translated passages in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, and delivered, memoriter, lectures, sermons, homilies, exegeses, and other exer- cises with learned names, and had acquitted himself so much to the satisfaction of the grave and reverend presbyters, that many kindly prophecies ' went before ' regarding him, which were eventually to be much more than fulfilled. The young soldier of the Cross received his formal commission with a mingled sense of honour and responsibility. This gave him weekly opportunities of ministering in preaching stations, or in vacant charges that were in search of a minister. The life of a Scottish licentiate or probationer was B 1 8 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. very different sixty years ago, from what it is in our time. Railways were still unknown, and even stage- coaches were only common on the more frequented roads. The usual and almost necessary equipment for the young preacher was to have a pony, and to become, as Mr Harper was accustomed laughingly to say, with allusion to the Church militant, ' one of the Church's mounted cavalry.' The distance which he was oblisfed to travel from one church or station to another was often very considerable. But it - must have been a pleasant thing for a young man of one and twenty, or thereabouts, who delighted in fresh air, and in such scenes of sublimity and beauty as those in which Scotland abounds, to move along, with abund- ance of time on his hands, through sunny glens, by the side of limpid trouting streams, or on lonely mountain paths, assured of a kindly welcome at his journey's end ; for in those old Seceder families by whom he was entertained, the preacher was welcome for the sake of his message, and there was abundance of ' straw and provender for the beast' because of his master. Strange .stories are told of preachers who carried their library with them, and made their pony groan by loading him, in front and behind, with volumes of Henry's Gomi- 'mentary, or Caryl On Job ; but such pedants as these were usually veterans who had been long on the road. Our young preacher enjoyed this wandering life while it lasted, up to the full bent of his nature, and was often gladdened by the warm religious life which he discovered under many a rough exterior in the families with whom he dwelt, and which did so much to enhance the hospitality. His brief and pleasant season of probation was chequered by not a few adventures, and he was accus- PROBATION AND ORDINATION. 19 tomed, in his later days, to tell of some that might have ended fatally. Their effect was to foster in him, through frequent recollection, a sense of dependence on God. Every one knows to what a great distance the waters of the Solway Firth recede at ebb tide, what a vast stretch of sand remains uncovered, and with what startling rapidity the tide, when it has once turned, again fills the channel. Scottish song and fiction, as well as unwritten legend, have made this fact familiar. The young preacher, averse to a long oircuitous route, and wishing to cross the Solway sands on his pony's back from some point in Scotland to the Cumberland coast, and seeing the many miles of sand that stretched southward out of sight, flattered himself that he might surely venture across without the least danger of being overtaken. Following in the course of a man who was driving a cart, he was already a good way over, when he saw the tide advancing with alarming speed, and crested with foam. On it came, the sand becoming soft and treacherous, and tlie pooy beginning to stumble and sink. The old man in the cart, seeing his danger, called to him to leap from his horse into his cart, which was already swimming, hold- ing the bridle in his hands. They reached the shore with a straining effort, which a few moments more of delay would have made vain. On another occasion, he was crossing the Clyde on his pony, a little distance above the famous fall of Stonebyres. Supposing himself to be beyond the power of the current, and not dreaming of danger, he became aware at length that he had come within the suction of the stream, and that, in another minute at the utmost, the ' astounding flood ' would carry him to an awful death. Turning the face of the animal up LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. the stream, and urging it onward, lie succeeded, with a desperate struggle, in reaching the opposite bank. He used to mention, when repeating the story of this ' hair-breadth ' deliverance, his noticing at the time how the intelligent animal trembled, as if it had become fully aware, as well as himself, of its imminent danger. It would almost appear that, at this period, he was rather given to moods of dreaminess. The pony, how- ever, does not figure in the next adventure. He was passing by the famous Craigleith Quarry, in the neigh- bourhood of Edinburgh, reading a book. A man who had been stationed near at hand, to warn passers-by of a coming explosion, had given the wonted signal. But the absorbed student neither heard the warning nor saw the man ; and a large mass of rock soon after falling at his feet, was the first indication to him of the great danger to which he had been exposed. The incident made a deep impression on his mind; and in later years, he never afterwards passed the place without remembering his hazard and deliverance with renewed feelings of devout gratitude. This wandering life, during which trial was being made of the young preacher's gifts, and which could only be pleasant for a brief period, did not long con- tinue. Before midsummer was past, more than one congregation had begun to look to him with longing eyes. In the month of May 1818, he received a call to the pastorate of the Associate Congregation of Stonehouse, in his native presbytery ; and, while measures were proceeding for his settlement there, a new congi'egation, which had recently been formed in North Leith, in the Presbytery of Edinburgh, addressed to him an invitation to become their first PR OB A TION AND ORDINA TION. 2 1 minister. According to the practice in those times, the two competing calls were laid on the table of the Supreme Court of his Church, that it might decide between the contending claims, and choose for him his place. The Synod did not meet, however, until 2d September of the same year. Meanwhile difficulties and obstacles of a formidable kind had arisen in the young licentiate's own mind. It was intimated in a letter which Dr Peddie had been authorised by him to read to the Synod, that it was ' Mr Harper's de- liberate and fixed resolution to accept of no fixed charge.' The Synod appears to have been much surprised by this sudden arrest on progress ; but those who inti- mately knew the man in his later days, will be able to guess at the explanation with considerable likeli- hood of accuracy. He had now to look in the face the grave responsibilities to be undertaken by him in his ordination to the Christian ministry. But one purpose was immoveably fixed in his mind, that he would bind himself to preach nothing but what he believed ; and that if he could not deliberately and ex anirao accept the faith of his Church, he would not Qfo forward to be ordained as one of its ministers. He therefore proceeded to question himself upon the grounds of his belief, going down to the very founda- tions, and reviewing his convictions on the Divine origin of Christianity itself. And temporary doubts appear to have disturbed his mind, and to have made action impossible until they were dispelled. One to whom he once spoke respecting a crisis in his mental history, which we believe to have been this of which we are now writing, informs us that his struggles with doubt were more like the result of direct temptation 22 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. than of ordinary inquiry. He became sad and silent, and almost abstracted from the outer world ; even his bodily health suffered from the inward conflict. His state resembled the experience described in some passages of Bunyan's autobiography, and afterwards reflected in his great allegory. ' Like his Lord, he had to be led into the wilderness and learn the truth of Luther's saying as to the threefold qualification of the minister — Tneditatio, oratio, tentatio. He read with incredible eagerness works like Grotius On the Truth of the Christian Religion, and the famous article of Chalmers, just launched amidst breathless interest, on Christianity. But the enemy departed, and the student, stronger in faith for the trial, could go forth to publish the Gospel of the kingdom. He never regarded doubt as strength ; but he knew what it was to have been compassed with it as infirmity. Hence he could have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that were out of the way.' ^ But even when this temporary ' eclipse of faith ' had passed away for ever, there remained, and indeed had partly grown out of these very experiences, an almost overwhelming sense of the difficulties and responsibilities of the pastoral office, which made him shrink from submitting himself to the ' laying on of hands.' The liigh intellectual standard which, from the beginning, he wished to reach in his pulpit minis- trations, may have had something to do with this, but much more the thought of the burden which must be borne for life by one who had undertaken ' the care of souls.' Through anxious days and sleepless nights the cry of his heart was, ' Who is sufficient for these things ? ' The Synod, however, believing that his ^ Funeral sermon by Dr Cairns. PROBATION AND ORDINATION. 23 hesitation was born not of indifference but of self- diffidence, and confident that 'to the upright light would arise in darkness,' did not allow his letter to stay their progress. Preferring the claims of the congregation in North Leith, they appointed the Presbytery of Edinburgh to take all regular steps for his ordination over that church, so soon as his diffi- culties were removed. But it was not until the 2d of February in the following year, 1819, that Mr Harper went forward with trembling steps, and bowed his head to the laying on of hands. His venerable father, from Lanark, preached on the occasion from those solemn words to which the son's full heart responded, ' Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God which He hath purchased with His own blood' (Acts xx. 28). If the yoke of the Christian pastorate has seldom been assumed with greater diffidence and humility, it has as rarely been borne for so long a period and with such ever-increasing efficiency and honour. The con- gregation at North Leith, which had worshipped in an old deserted parish church since 181G when it was organised, entered with high hope on a new place of worship, containing above a thousand sittings, early in 1820. But it was still in its feeble infancy, the call to Mr Harper, which now lies before us in its ' sear and yellow leaf,' having been signed by only 138 persons. He had therefore not only to minister to a congregation, but to make one. We are now to see in the use of what measures he did this, and with what success. CHAPTER IV. IN THE STUDY. Leith Past and Present — Early Rising — Doddridge — Preparation. of Dis- courses — Choice of Texts — Courses of General Study — System — Habits — Commonplace Books — Conversation-Harvests — Science and Litera- ture — Favourite Books — Edinburgh Review — Influence — Experience reflected in Counsels to Others — Extracts. fTlHE Leith of the present day has almost ceased to -■- be distinguishable from Edinburgh. A stranger looking down from the Calton Hill, would find it impossible to determine where the beautiful capital ends and the busy seaport begins. But sixty years ago, when Mr Harper entered on his ministry in Leitli, the two places scarcely touched at any point. Gardens and nurseries, and old family mansions in enclosed parks, where the sheep grazed peacefully, intervened. Leith Walk, the connecting link between city and sea- port, had still its long unbroken hedge-rows in many places on either side, and the ' Half-way House ' was a familiar and welcome resting-place. Not many years earlier, it was no very rare experience for footpads to track the steps and lighten the purses of travellers hastening to catch the early boat to Burntisland or Pettycur, and the few streets in North Leith 'straddled their way in irregular lines in front and in rear, very much in the style of a Portuguese or Spanish town of the present day.' But things had already changed very much for the better before our young minister IN THE STUDY. 25 entered on his pastorate, in the midst of a population that more than once doubled itself before his work was ended. He was accustomed to be in his study every morn- ing at six o'clock, kindling his own fire, in respect to which he was accustomed playfully to boast, that he was ' quite an expert in the art of fire-raising ; ' and the first two hours were spent in devotional exercises and reading the Scriptures, his Hebrew Bible and his Greek New Testament being always open at his side. Many an artisan passing in the cold winter mornings to his work, knew by the lighted window that the earnest student was at his labours before him. This practice was continued without interruption for a period of more than sixty years, when at length ' the keepers of the house began to tremble.' It will be remembered that Doddridge pursued a similar custom ; and we have his own strong testimony that, practically, it added ten years to his life, putting it in his power to do an amount of work as an author, which must other- wise have been left undone ; and that one outcome of it was his valuable Family Expositor, the whole of which was written in the silent morning hours. To much of Mr Harper's success as a Christian minister, and of his influence and usefulness as a public man, we have the key in this one life habit. It gave him opportunity for secret prayer and calm reading and meditation when his faculties had been freshened by the night's rest, and when he knew that for two precious hours he was fenced round and secured from those interruptions against which no minister in a large town is safe in later hours of the day. And it afforded him leisure to sketch the programme of his day's duties, accounting for the fact which many noticed but could not explain. 26 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. that while he was always one of the busiest workers, he never seemed driven, or in haste, A large portion of every week was conscientiously devoted to the preparation of discourses for his Sabbath ministr}^; for he held it as a sacred conviction that no minister serves his flock as he might, who does not give them the best sermon that his powers of com- position, and of careful adaptation to their case, will enable him to produce. His texts for the following Sabbath were usually selected, and his course of thought planned and sketched, on the previous Sabbath evening, in order that he might have ample time to ruminate on his subject during the intervening days, gathering material and illustration alike from nature and art, in company and solitude, and not least in pastoral intercourse with his people. His constant aim was to have his written preparations finished on the Friday evening, in order to secure the Saturday not only for physical rest, but for bringing his mind into full sympathy with the Divine messages and lessons which he was to bear to his pulpit on the Lord's day. He sought to enter his pulpit, not from the heat and hurry of composition, but with his mind unruffled and settled as the high priest's robes. He did not believe that the proper frame for preaching and presiding in the Avorship of the Church, could be put on, as a thing of course, along with his gON\Ti and bands. But all the while, during every week, he was pursuing separate courses of study in Theology and Biblical Exegesis, appreciating the more, the longer he lived, the maxim of Dr Ai'nold, that the mind which is constantly giving out, needs, like the running lake, to be constantly receiving. His custom was to select an important subject for study, and to treat it exhaust- IN THE STUDY. 27 ively. The results of Lis reading and meditation were recorded and preserved in a condensed form, in a succession of portable common-place books written in shorthand, one of which he always canied about with him. One topic after another was in this way matured and mastered, and a reference to one of these books, w^hich were carefully indexed, refreshed his memory and gave him back in a few minutes the results of the reading of many days or weeks. We have before us a page of one of these manuscript books, which evidently contains the gathered fruits of weeks of investigation in reference to the opinions of the early Christian fathers on the Divinity of Christ. The whole of these condensed jottings, which range over a very wide and varied field, if printed, would fill at least a dozen octavo volumes. In another set of books, he was accustomed to note the comments of eminent biblical scholars, especially those of foreign Universities and Churches, on important or difficult passages of Scripture, occasionally intermingling with these an independent exegesis of his own. The foUo^'ing specimens are selected from a few of his note-books : — Church History. Century I. — The Sabians, a sect who professed to be disciples of John Baptist, setting him before Jesus Christ. Agreed in many points with the Gnostics. Particularly con- cerning this sect, see Micha?lis' Introduction. Cextcry II. — Irenneus' account of LXX. translation as quoted by Eusebius, lib. v. cap. S. Care and fidelity of the primitive Christians in tran- scribing sacred books. Irem^us' solemn adjuration on this subject, Euseb. lib. v. cap. 13. Early Unitarians, not only the Ebionites of the second century, but Artemon, Theodotus, etc. An early work against them. 28 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. quoted by Eusebius, I'eplies to their pretensions, and shows that the apostolical and primitive faith of the Church was according to Trinitarian views, by affii'ming that the writings of Justin, Miltiades, Tatian, and Clement repeatedly declare that Christ is God. Same work accuses these heretics of abridging the tone of Scripture and of corrupting it in many places, Euseb. lib. V, cap. 27. EXEGETICAL NoTES. 1 Cor. III. 22. — ' lill are yoiirs,' belong to you, as they minister to your good. You belong to Christ, as He hath bought you with a jmce. Christ is God's, as the Mediator or medium through whom all things are made yours. It is as being Christ's that all things are made yours. I'CoR. VIII. 7. — The heathen worship idols as the shrines of Deity, ' ivitk conscience of the idol.' This probably describes a belief or acknowledgment of some spirit- power residing in the idol to whom the worship is jjaid, and to whom the person would feel committed by sitting at meat in the idol's temple. This view appears to be confirmed by ver. G. It is the one God and one Lord of whom the pei'sons spoken of had not the knowledge. Does not this plainly imply that the ' conscience of the idol ' was a lingering belief that it was the shrine of some invisible power ? 2 Cor. XI. 17-28.— Paul defends himself against the charge of being a pretender and a fool. If any of you consider me in this character, then give me the indulgence which I claim, while I plead for myself in this capacity. What I am going to say in the way of confident boasting, is in this character ; not Kara Kvpiov, as a servant of Christ, but in the assumed character of a fool (ver. 16), as indeed on the carnal ground of which many boast, I may glory also (ver. 18). In seeking this indulgence, I ask no more than you extend to others who are fools and pretenders indeed, ver. 20. Then follows a description of these men, skilfully put so as to expose the folly of the Corinthians in becoming their dupes. I speak in relation to the reproach thrown on me, as if I were a IN THE STUDY. 29 weak and witless person, unable to make good my claims ; but in whatsoever thing any is bold, hear what I can say for myself on the same, and on better grounds. In vers. 21, 22, he reminds them that he speaks in the character which his enemies imputed to him, and which, for the sake of argument, he for the moment assumes, to show them that, on their own principles, his claims were beyond theirs. In the latter part he shows that, as a servant of Christ, his claims were also superior in respect of the labours which he underwent and was still enduring. Gal. II. 20. — ' Dead to the laio ' in the previous verse, explained by ' crucified with Christ ' in this. Nevertheless I live, because living unto God. Christ is the author and sustenance of this life by His Word and Spirit ; and the principle and practice of it is exiDlained thus : The life which I now live in the flesh I live because He lives, I live as He lives. I am under another power, I have entered on a new existence, and all this through my union to Christ and participation in His benefits. Nor was Mr Harper's knowledge always gathered from books. He sought to make conversation tribu- tary. Whenever he met with a man who was reputed as a master in some particular subject, he took eager advantage of his opportunity ; and with apt questions, assuming the posture of a disciple, enriched himself from the stores which were readily laid open to so acute a questioner. But woe to the man who, in such circumstances, was discovered to be pretentious and superficial, as sometimes happened. The humiliation was terrible, to have the poverty discovered and the reputed wealth shown to be all in the windows, and the extemporized pupil revealed as knowing a gi^eat deal more on the very ' speciality,' than the master. In much the same exhaustive manner in which our minister studied theological questions, did he give him- 30 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. self to the study of some of the popular sciences, such as astronomy, geology, and physiology, endeavouring to keep pace, as far as possible, with the rapid march of modern discovery, and sometimes presenting the results of this, or of the reading of some instructive book of travels, in week-day lectures to his people, Avhose interests were always near to his heart. In our own rich English literature, though no stranger to the great books of any of its great periods^ he was particularly at home with the best writers of the age of Queen Anne, familiarity with whose writings no doubt helped to give to his style that classic purity and elegance, as well as Saxon energy, which were its marked qualities. Tlie Spectator was a life com- panion ; and, belonging to a following age, Cowper's poems, and yet more his letters, which, with their simplicity, felicity, playful humour, and sweet reflection of pure and placid domestic life, were associated with his early recollections, and held him to the last, spell- bound. He liked the old wine of our literature, though he was very far indeed from despising the new. No modern publication was waited for by him with greater expectation, or read with keener zest in his younger ministry, than the earlier numbers of the Edinburgh Revieiv. Not that he had any sympathy with its sneers at Methodism, or with its slighting references to missions to the heathen and kindred subjects ; but that he enjoyed its hearty aspirations after liberty, the extraordinary vigour and freshness of many of its papers, its tremendous castigations of dull and stagnant common -place, and its fearless exposures of official corruption and exclusivencss in high places. The Edinburgh Review did much to make him a con- IN THE STUDY. '3, firmed Liberal in politics for life. We remember his telling us, not many years since, in proof of his enthusiasm in this direction, of his having obtained, in the first years of his ministry, the privilege of reading the proof-sheets of the Revieiu as it was passing through the press. Still, it was theology and the preparation of his weekly discourses for his pulpit that engrossed by far the greater part of every week; and of the spirit in which these congenial labours and studies were pursued, we cannot present a more accurate description than is to be found in his counsels to his students in this very matter, after he had become a Professor of Theology. His advices to them had, many a time before, been addressed to himself in his self- communings and often-renewed resolutions. How the sense of ^jeace tuith God helps the student and the minister. — ' Among the influences calculated, if not to distract the attention, certainly to depress the inquirer, may be mentioned as none of the least, the unquietness and the despondency of being more fearful than believing respecting our state before God. I assume that the case is one in which the individual has made this matter the subject of earnest considera- tion. What means your profession of faith in the Gospel — your profession of following Christ your profession of giving yourselves to the study of Divine truth for the benefit of others, if these things do not imply that the care of your own salvation has been a matter of concern with you ? If this concern has ended happily, if you have found joy and peace in beheving, then remark the cheering and healthful mfluence of such tranquillity on the studies in which you are to be engaged. You are in the joyful circum- stances of one who has got a burden off his mind. 32 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. Thus freed, the mind acquires its firmest tone. So far as itself is concerned, its most momentous business is in a sense settled. Its prospect is bright. It enjoys the sunshine and the light of God's favour. Whatever stimulus therefore can be found in present joy and in the prospect of a far higher blessedness, animates you in your course. There is in it the pleasantness of an employment in which you feel at home, and to the accomplishment of which you can apply your mind with tlie uninterrupted bent of its faculties. ' This does not imply tliat, having found good hope through grace, you may withdraw your attention from personal improvement and give yourselves up wholly to care for the things of others. In the calm and undivided contemplation of Divine things, when you study for others, you study for yourselves. The same truth instructs both. The clear views of the objects of faith which qualify for impressing the conscience of a hearer, are not lost to him who holds that truth up to view. It has been performing its office in his own mind, before he brings it out of his treasure for liis brother's good. And the advantage which he has when his heart is at rest in the faith of the Gospel, is, that whether for others' good or his own, he can engross himself with such topics in the peaceful con- templation of them, which another cannot do whose soul is yet groping in the twilight and is harassed with many fears.' Connection hctxoecn doing the ivill of God and. knowing the mind of God. — ' Thus the tone of mind which is acquired in a state of grace, constitutes a relish for the things known, and a thirst for a fuller apprehension of them. It is here that, in a peculiar sense, we see the effect of that congeniality which has IN THE STUDY. 33 been remarked upon in other departments of study and of action. Without this congeniality no man can excel. The mind in a state of alienation from truth, or of forced allegiance to study, wants ability to learn. It is but partially the eyes are open. The under- standing is sluggish and lacks discernment. The memory retains not what is given. All this is owing to mental aversion. But where there is relish there is mental capacity. Taste is power. The faculties acquire an edge when in a state of pleasurable activity. He " that is spiritual judgeth all things." Receiving the Spirit of God, he knows the things that are freely given to him of God. ' Now, to every child of God the Spirit is given in that state and disposition of mind which the believer cultivates. Possessed of this divinely implanted faculty, to what measures of attainment may not the student of sacred mysteries aspire ! The capacity with which he is now endowed surmounts many obstacles to a spiritual understanding of things, and creates none to its own discouragement and hindrance. A mind otherwise disposed is an impediment to itself It finds, or makes endless obstructions to successful inquiry. Pride of understanding, popular errors, a captious intellect, worldly-mindedness, and sensual pro- pensities are all so many sources from which the mind, in an unsubdued and ungracious moral condition, draws objections to the truth and raises diflaculties in search- ing after it. To say that the spiritual mind is not liable to such difficulties, at least in their prevailing- form, is just to say that he who learns of the Spirit is spiritual. ' How pleasant, then, to find among self-evident truths, that a pious student of the Divine Word pos- c 34 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. sesses in the frame of liis mind a facility of progress — a faculty to excel. The affinities and sympathies of the mind are so many active forces which assail the barriers of depraved reason — appetite, habit, sophistry ; and in the vigour with which it clears them away, it indicates a preparedness and disposition — a positive power for pursuing researches into the field of sacred knowledge with perseverance and success. " If any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." Limited as is the view he can take, he is not by this cast down or discouraged. There is the gratification of sanctified taste in what he does know, and there is the pleasure of acquisition in learning more ; yea, and there is the pleasure of exalted efforts to widen the boundaries of discovery. He would look into these things now, rejoicing to believe that though here " he knows but in part, he shall hereafter know even as he is known." Every additional view of Divine things is delightful to him as a glimpse of the glory that shall in due season be revealed. How different this sentiment of holy aspiration from the cold indifference that would say, Let these things alone for the present, as we shall by and by know all about them with so much less trouble ? This is the frigid apathy of unbelief, not meek sub- mission to unavoidable disadvantages. Far from this is the zeal of the believing spirit as it glows with delight in the things themselves, rejoices in strenuous effort to see them more clearly, while according to promise he looks for the perfect day. And what he looks for, he even now in some measure attains, for the frame of mind — the moral capacity — which I speak of, has a present earnest in the promise annexed to it, of receiving enlarged discoveries.' ^ ^ MS. Lecture to Students. IN THE STUDY. 35 How much Divine philosophy there is in these elevating sentences ! Were ministers of the Gospel in general rising to their grand apostolic level, we should speedily witness over all the Churches ' times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.' b CHAPTER V. TN THE PULPIT. Public Estimate — An Appreciating Hearer — Irving — Prophecy about Carlyle — Elements of Power — Thinking before Writing — Qualities of Style — Countenance — Fervour of Delivery — Themes — Sketch by a Stranger — Revival Meeting — A Reminiscence — Various Effects of Ministry — The Three Farm-Servants— Preaching to the Times — Too little of this — Bible Classes — Fruits — Contemporaries. THE people of Leith soon began to discover that a preacher had come among them of no common gifts and promise. He adopted, from the first, a high standard of preparation for the pulpit, and although he never rose to his ideal, he came greatly nearer to it than if he had been easily satisfied. It is at once the penalty and the advantage of high excellence, that it is severely and sensitively critical on its own work. We suppose that many a common sign-board painter is better pleased with his large brush and his coarse performances, than Landseer or Millais have ever been with their greatest masterpieces. Our young minister thought much before he wrote or spoke, and therefore one effect of his discourses was to make others think. The consequence was that, within a few years after his settlement in North Leith, he had many hearers besides his own members, not a few of whom found their way to his church through many a street and lane from a gi'eat distance, some even from remote parts of Edinburgh. Among these IN THE PULPIT. 2,7 was one who, being resident in Edinbui'gh for a winter, was frequently found among Mr Harper's forenoon hearers, and who was destined in due time to occupy a foremost place among pulpit orators, and to draw towards him in London many of England's greatest statesmen and men of letters, — Edward Irving, When Mr Irving was asked to explain what were the quali- ties in the young Leith minister which so powerfully attracted him, his answer was that Mr Harper's manner of preaching approached nearer to the con- ception he had formed of the sijeeches of the ancient Greek orators, than anything else that he had ever heard. A life friendship between the two men was the consequence of all this, which was renewed by Mr Harper's visits to Mr Irving as often as public duty called him up to London. On one of those visits, a third person was present, whose countenance once seen it was not easy to forget, who was introduced to Mr Harper as Thomas Carlyle, but who soon after left the apartment. ' That man,' said Irving, immediately after his withdrawal, ' will leave his deep mark upon the thinking of his age.' We must look to the union of various elements, for the explanation of Mr Harper's power and sustained eminence as a preacher. He never handled any sub- ject in the pulpit which he only took up at random, or had only half studied. He delayed speaking on it until he had mastered it. His reverence for Divine truth, and his respect for his people and for himself secured this. And his hearers were not slow to dis- cover the fact, and, in their turn, to venerate a preacher who lighted the temple lamps with the pure beaten oil. Then, with an extraordinary measure of natura/ perspicacity and vigour of thought, he was able to 38 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. present a truth, or an aspect of truth, with correspond- ing clearness of statement — shaking it free, as it were, from all misconception or exaggeration, and causing it to shine before his hearers with such a luminousness as made them feel that they understood it better than they had ever done before. He had the art of rapidly breaking through the shell, and getting at the kernel of a Divine lesson. We have been struck, moreover, with his power of freshening and giving novelty and interest to what seemed, when it was announced, to be a hackneyed topic. Aaron's rod budded in his hand. This effect, no doubt, arose from his power of vigorous and inde- pendent thought. The character of his style also con- tributed much to the effect of his preaching. It was never misty, inflated, or feeble, the outcome of that ' nebular taste,' as Whately calls it, ' which prefers gorgeous dimness to vulgar daylight.' It had a vigour and muscle about it that sometimes reminded you of South or Barrow. It abounded in epigrammatic sen- tences, and in felicitous strokes and sayings with hooks that laid hold of the memory, so that they could not soon be forgotten. And it cannot be doubted that his finely chiselled countenance, which a sculptor would have coveted for a model, enhanced the effect of his address ; for, in his case, there was a beautiful harmony between the outward frame and the ' inform- ing spirit.' Tholuck, who had once seen him, often spoke afterwards in admiration of his appearance. When in middle life especially, many passages in his sermons were delivered with a fire and fervour that carried his audience by storm. It reminded us of an old Professor's description of rhetoric as ' logic boiling hot.' And, unquestionably, a great additional IN THE PULPIT. 39 momentum was given to his preaching by the convic- tion which his hearers had of his fearless honesty. They knew well that there was not a sin, nor a folly, nor an act of moral cowardice or unworthy compromise, which he would spare from his searching and some- times scathing words. And yet the man who sent his hearers home, not only admiring but impressed, would often return to write in his shorthand diary most severe and depreciating criticisms on himself. Perhaps the delight of his hearers would have been enhanced yet more, had he sometimes given the rein more freely to his imagination, and allowed more of that tenderness to reveal itself in his sermons of which there was so deep a fountain in his heart. In these notices we have mainly referred to Mr Harper's natural gifts, but, after all, the great secret of his remarkable pulpit power lay behind, in the Divine grandeur of his themes. His favourite themes were the grand old Gospel texts with the rich old Gospel brought out of them, as in the days of the Erskines, but with all the clearness and force which a trained theologian of our own age could bring to bear on them, and with all the weight of a century more of their proved fitness to bless the souls of men. At the same time, no part of the Divine Word was neglected, and there was not wanting such variety of thought as devout and anxious research could add, through cultivating outlying tracts of the boundless territory of Scripture, and bringing their fruits into the common store. The following descriptive sketch of the Leith minister, given by an observant stranger, will help to supply some minuter features that have not been introduced into our greneral estimate : — 40 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. ' Our preacher's pulpit appearances are excellent models of propriety. He puts on no clerical airs, but occupies himself with his work. His prayers are truly savoury, and give expression to the deepest yearnings of the human soul. During singing, he keeps the psalm-book in his hand, and joins devoutly in the exercise. In preaching, he stands erect, and indicates the earnestness of his mind by significant gesture. The manner of the preacher is also particu- larly emphatic. He places such force on certain words that a new and full meaning appears where none appeared before. He is evidently a man utterly free from all ostentation, and one who cares very little for men's judgment, because He whom he owns as judge is the Lord. It is said that, in the earlier part of his ministry, he was so impressed with the magnitude of the work of the pastoral office that he had thoughts of relinquishing it. Such were the earlier views of the man who has lived to occupy with honour one of the highest posts in the influential Church of which he is a minister and professor. What a contrast to the juvenile conceit too often seen in the puljjit, as well as in the pew, — conceit not followed with honour but defeat. We doubt whether the United Presbyterian Church has a professor more efficient than Dr Harper. Without pretence, without ostentation, he conveys to the minds and hearts of the students lessons which they never can forget. He is well instructed in the various branches of theological literature which come under his department, and he has ready access to the minds and to the affections of the pupils. They find in him no imperious master, no dogmatizing theolo- gian, no austere and distant teacher, but a friend and counsellor — one on whose judgment they can rely, on IN THE PULPIT. 41 whose kindness they can count, and in whose piety they can place impHcit confidence. ' Dr Harper possesses altogether a masculine mind, capable of exploring the heights and depths of any department of study. As a matter of course, he is thoroughly versed in theology, for he could not be superficial on any subject to which he chose to turn his attention. It had been said that great heights are hazardous to weak heads ; but he can calmly overlook precipices which would make hundreds of his brethren giddy, and cause them to totter and fall. Pretty and fine-spun sentiments are as foreign to his mind as birds of paradise are to Caledonia, While power is his first characteristic, proportion and symmetry are always apparent in his effusions, which make them as pleasing to the imagination as they are satisfactory to the judg- ment. Great heroes are represented as accomplishing their achievements without the visible manifestation of effort or great exertion, and this is in a high degree characteristic of the preacher. Ere he utters a word, the hearer, from his outward aspect, expects much ; and when he commences to give forth his full and vigorous tones of voice, expectations are confirmed, and the ease and dignity with which he accomplishes his task, completely satisfy all of his claims to more than ordinary respect. ' He appears to be somewhat above the ordinary stature, about fifty years of age, and apparently] of sound and vigorous constitution. His brow is large — almost entirely divested of its natural covering — and the expression pleasing, and indicative of decision, though not what could be regarded as stern. His appearance is, in every sense, manly and dignified ; and while his physical aspect commands respect, his LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. demeaneur and disposition increase it. On first seeing him with his back turned, he reminded us of another distinguished professor, Dr Wardlaw, only his locks are not yet so snowy.' ^ Another extract supplies us with an interesting reminiscence, which carries us back through fully forty years : — ' In many hearts,' says his worthy successor in the Principalship, ' such an appeal must be ringing, as it still rings in mine, when, so far as I know, I saw and heard the minister for the first time at an eveninsj meeting of what was then called a revival series, in Rose Street Church, to which, as a student, I had gone in the winter of 1838 or 1839. His text was Gal. ii. 16, " Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law : for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified ; " and after he had clearly explained justification, the peroration illustrated the prodigious energy with which, in his prime, he could apply the truth. He repeated the text piecemeal, and after the first statement of the false way of justification as con- trasted with the true, he said, "There it is ; renounce it ;" and so of the second statement, " Again, I say renounce it ! " and when he came to the third clause, " For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified," with an electric energy which prostrated the whole audience, he added the burst of supreme vehemence, " There it is yet a third time ; renounce it at once and for ever." Would to God that such preaching, a preaching naturally, as in his case, filled with Gospel duty as well as privilege, may never fail ' 0«)-.S'co«is/tCte'f72/j edited by John Smith, A.M., Authorof .S'acrerf Bioijrapliy. IN THE PULPIT. 43 in our denomination ! Without it, we deserve not to stand ; with it, through grace, we cannot fall.' ^ When persons propose to estimate the fruits of such a ministry, and, as it were, to sum up the total, they attempt an impossibility. It is not thus that we can deal with the facts of the spiritual world, or measure 'the unseen.' Two things are certain — first, that we should almost immeasurably under-estimate the results of a faithful Christian ministry, were we to look merely at acknowledged or discovered instances in which the whole character and current of a man's life are changed for the better in a single day, and he becomes in many important respects the opposite of his former self As happened in the case of the subject of this memoir, so does it happen in the case of many of the young who have sat from their childhood under systematic Chris- tian instruction and influence ; while there is a radical inward change, the exact moment of decision is un- known to the subject of it, as well as for a time im- perceptible to others. We must add to these more gradual and silent but momentous issues, the restraint which an earnest ministry is constantly exercising upon those who are not Christians, and on whom the Gospel does not exert its supreme influence. General society gains immensely in this way, by the power which comes forth from a pulpit in which the doctrine and the law of Christ are proclaimed by men who are meanwhile living what they preach. Then, it must be remembered that conversion is not completed salvation. The work of the minister goes far beyond that of the mere evangelist. It is not done when he has brought his disciple through the wicket-gate and up to the shining cross ; he must be led up hills of difficulty, through valleys of humiliation, past the seductions and perils of Vanity Fair, and to the broad ^ Funeral sermon by Dr Cairns. 44 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. river on the other side of which he shall be received and crowned by the angels. At the same time, it is ever an occasion of special joy to a minister of Christ, when he sees his preaching- made effectual in unmistakeable instances of repentance, and when the change which it produces in individual hearts is like the brier turned into the myrtle tree, or as a passing from death into life. Our preacher was not without many such tokens of blessing to cheer him in his arduous work, and out of many acknow- ledgments of this in letters glowing with gratitude, some of which are now before us, we introduce one remarkable and well-authenticated narrative. Three men who were farm servants living in a bothy near the village of Arniston, beyond Dalkeith, resolved that they would walk in to Leith on a certain Sabbath morning, the distance being six or seven miles, for the purpose of amusing themselves, and gratifying their curiosity among the ships in the docks. They were lads utterly destitute even of the semblance of religion, and morally debased ; their favourite reading being books which scoffed at Christianity and supplied apolo- gies for a vicious life. At length, becoming wearied with wandering among the vessels and spelling out their names, and stumbling over ropes and anchors, they passed into some of the neighbouring streets, and soon found themselves standing before Mr Harper's church, as the people were crowding in for the after- noon service. One of their number proposed that they should enter and hear what the minister had to say; another objected ; but after a little discussion they all agreed to follow the stream, and were soon seated together listening to the fervent preacher. Their attention was arrested and riveted, and before the sermon was ended, the cry of the publican was on their IN THE PULPIT. 45 lips, 'God be merciful to me a sinner.' The bow drawn at a venture, guided by an unseen hand, had sent home an arrow to each heart, and the same truth that wounded, had healed. The men returned in the evening to their rude bothy at Arniston self-condemned, and yet hoping for the mercy of God through Christ. One of the first things they did was, like the Ephesian magicians of old, to take their bad books and commit them to the flames. The future lives of all the three proved the Divine reality of the change which the Gospel from the lips of the preacher, blessed by the Holy Spirit, had wrought upon them. For many a year afterwards, they walked in regularly from Arniston to North Leith to attend on the ministry of their spiritual father. Fourteen miles of travel on foot, even in wintry weather, were not grudged for the sake of the benefit that awaited them. They all died before their minister, and are now in the world of happy recognitions, part of his 'glory and joy.' Our preacher was one of those who, in the sense in which Paley meant it, ' preached to the times.' He saw a revelation in passing providences, and tried to interpret it and turn it to the spiritual profit of his people. One of his children naively remarked that he ' liked to hear his father preach, after a great fire.' Disdaining all sensationalism in the pulpit, and risino- far above the region of mere political factions, he was not slow, when occasion called for it, to brino- the con- duct of public men and parties to the standard of a moral system which condemned falsehood and dis- honesty equally in political as in common life, and which had regard to a Ruler above who ' loved right- eousness and hated iniquity.' He sometimes spoke as if the ministers of religion had, in this matter, abdi- 46 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. cated part of tlieir mission, and handed it over to the public press. At all events, he would have liked to see in the modern pulpit less of tameness and reticence on the moral aspect of great public questions, legisla- tion rebuked by it when its obvious tendency was to sanction rapacious aggression, or to lower the tone of the public conscience, and its^ censorship ready with denunciations of proved and flagrant evil. Mr Harper had his pulpit in the class-room as well as in the sanctuary ; and in the narrower sphere of his Bible classes for adults of both sexes, his ministry was greatly effective. He anxiously watched the period when the blossom either forms into fruit or falls away, and therefore laboured hard in this department, preparing and printing judiciously varied courses of lessons for each session ; and ' a cloud of witnesses ' gathered out of two generations, could testify that the minister's class had been their 'valley of decision.' We introduce the programme of an early course of conversational lectures to his Young Men's Class, which presents a fine example of solidity, system, and edifying variety in the subjects of instruction : — Young Men's Class. Fvogranvme. I. History ok Eevealed Religion. 1. Old Testament Dispensation. Promise — Prophecy — Tyi)o. 2. New Testament Dispensation. Fulfilment. II. Historical View of False Religions. 1. Heathenism in Old Testament Times. 2. Modern Paganism — with Illustrations. 3. Pantheism. 4. Buddhism — with lUustiatious. 5. Mahometanism. IN THE PULPIT. 47 III. Doctrines of Eevealed Religion. 1. Divine Attributes. 2. Trinity. 3. Man's Fourfold State. IV. Practical Religion. 1. Right use of the Scriptures. 2. Sabbath Duties. 3. Secret Prayer. 4. Acknowledgment of Providences. 5. Illustrations by Example. 6. Relative Duties of the Young. V. Scriptural Exposition — Select Passages. In this way did the faithful }3reacher fulfil his ministry for a longer period than the majority of men live, scarcely showing any change even to the end, except that, with somewhat diminished force, it became mellowed and sweetened by richer experience and fatherly benignity. This chapter would be incomplete, v/ere we to omit a reference to some of our preacher's contemporaries in the pulpits of Leith. Among the ministers who were advanced in life when Mr Harper entered on his pulpit labours, there were especially two who had gained a reputation as authors as well as preachers, — Dr Colquhoun of St John's Chapel of Ease, whose treatise On Lavj and Gospel still holds an honoured place on the book-shelves of our older ministers ; and Mr Culbertson of the Antiburgher Church, St Andrew's Place, whose elaborate Lectures on the Revelation of John are marked by learning, ingenuity, accuracy, sober-mindedness, and, most of all, by an elevated devotion. At a later period, after the easy-going and respectable pastorate of Dr Ireland, Dr James Buchanan became minister of the Estab- lished Church in North Leith, and Mr Harper found 48 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. ill him one who, in the most important qualities, was likeminded with himself. It would be difficult to say whether Dr Buchanan's power as a preacher, or his popularity as an author, or his saintly character, con- tributed most to that beneficent influence which he wielded for many years over a large community. But there were two brethren in the pastorate of the same denomination with himself, and who were not many years his junior, with whom Mr Harper maintained a life-long friendship and fellowship, — Dr Hmavt, a man of natural majesty, manliness, and chivalrous friend- ships, finding his chief joy in his ministry, shrinking from polemics, not from want of courage, but from dislike to the irritations and alienations which are too often engendered by the collisions of opinion, rich in racy anecdote and shrewd remark ; and Francis Muir, whom Mr Harper himself described ' as a man of sound judgment, an earnest practical teacher, a diligent pastor, exemplary in all the relations of life, a public- spirited citizen, who had made up his mind on most of the public questions of the day, and spoke and acted as his sense of duty dictated ; but whose downright honesty and genuine good nature were such, that he never lost a friend or made an enemy by the plainness of speech with which he expressed his convictions.' The two brethren formed, along with himself, a trio of intimate and united fellow-workers in the same field of ministerial labour. ' Two are taken,' wrote Mr Harper nearly half a century after the beginning of their intimacy, ' and the oldest is left, to find a melancholy solace in recording the cherished remem- brances of an unbroken brotherly fellowship, for a space little short of fifty years.' ^ ' Memoir of Dr Smart, prefixed to a volume of liis Discourses. CHAPTER VI. PASTORAL AND EVANGELISTIC WORK. Whatoly's Remark — Annual amount of Pastoral Visitation — District Cate- chizing — Wliy Obsolete — Ministry incomplete without Pastor's Visits — How best to do it — Extracts— Highways and Hedges — Restalrig Gardens — The Old Harbour — Mistake about Street Preaching — New- haven — In Perils — Break-neck Corner — Singing of the Fisherwomen — Gratitude — Marriage of Fishermen's Daughters. ARCHBISHOP WHATELY has somewhere re- marked, that when clergymen are endowed wifh the gift of eloquence, and when the exercise of this valuable gift is in large request, there is some danger of their being tempted to neglect the quieter duties of their office, such as those connected with pastoral visitation. The eloquent minister whose life- story we are now relating, at no part of his busy life yielded to this temptation. When the membership of his church had increased to above eight hundred, exclusive of the children, he made a point of visiting every family once in the year ; and he succeeded in his purpose. On every such visit, besides engaging in prayer with the assembled household, and addressing them in a short pastoral exhortation, there was a ' reading up ' of the family history ; and this last was by no means the least benefit of his visit. For the hearts of the people were relieved by telling their cares and sorrows, and the prosperous incidents in their family as well, to one who, they knew, would be ready with his symj)athy alike in their griefs and joys ; and D 50 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. the right direction would be given to their thoughts and feelings regarding both, when all was gathered up into the pastor's prayer. The moods of mind and currents of thought which his visits revealed to him among his people, were many a time like the finger of Providence laid on the texts on which it was most seasonable for him to preach, and this was felt to compensate for the time which was thereby withdrawn from study. In addition to this systematic ' going from house to house/ a monthly visit to the widows of his flock, and frequent calls at homes of sickness and affliction, occu- pied a large and, in his case, perhaps, an undue pro- portion of the time of every week. In the earlier period of his ministry, there Avas added to all this spiritual oversight, the practice of pastoral examina- tions, in which, according to the directions of the First Book of Discipline, the members of particular sections of the congregation were gathered into the church, or some other convenient place, and catechized on some prescribed subject in theology. In those days, the Westminster Confession of Faith with the Cate- chisms Larger and Shorter, were anxiously conned by the members for many weeks before the expected diet of catechizing, and the memory was refreshed and stored with Scripture proofs. And there were ' stal- wart ' theologians among the people, who delighted in these exercises, following the pastor from place to place, not only because it afforded them an oppor- tunity of increasing their doctrinal knowledge, but, perhaps in the case of some, of 'giving an airing,' in the presence of others, to what they already knew. But the practice gradually fell into desuetude, — chiefly through the growing aversion of tlie people in general PASTORAL AND EVANGELISTIC WORK. 51 to such a fiery ordeal. Its abandonment has not been all gain, for it has diminished the number of those men of strong doctrinal fibre, of whom Hugh Miller wrote admiringly. But probably the increase of Sabbath schools, and the almost universal existence of classes for adults, into which the senior scholars in the Sabbath schools are drafted, are giving to the Church many of the advantages of the old system without its drawbacks. The primary importance which Mr Harper attached to systematic pastoral visitation, as well as his judg- ment on what pastoral visitation ought to be, may be gathered from the following well-weighed sentences addressed to his students after he had become a Pro- fessor of Theology : — Necessity of Pastoral Visitation. ' Judging from experience, I would say that no man who neglects this duty, can adequately fulfil the in- junction to "take heed to the flock." It is necessary to come into personal intercourse with our people if we Avould know them as we ought. Without such intercourse, it is very possible to make ourselves acquainted with those particulars which are required to fill up a schedule of statistics. But surely this is the least part of the observation that is meant when we are commanded to take heed to the flock, in the capacity of overseers who are appointed to watch for their souls. What know we of the moral statistics, if we never come into contact, mind with mind, and heart with heart ? Without this, how shall we know who give evidence of the " new man ;" who are walking as members of the household of faith ; what progress men make in their training for eternity, what are their 52 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. exercises of soul and conscience in their conflict with the world, and in their walk witli God ? how shall we know what hope, consolation, and sympathy, to ad- minister to their case, — what of these things can we know if we meet our people only in the mass ; if, instead of dividing to each his portion of meat, we deal it out wholesale ; if we watch for their souls with an observation of the features which they possess in common, instead of addressing ourselves to the charac- teristic varieties of each ? ' Vinet, replying to certain excuses for the neglect of this duty, notices absence of taste. This, however, says he, is not a question of taste, but of duty. If taste for this part of our ministry is lacking, what kind of taste for other parts have we ? If we have not a vocation to attend to the individual souls of our flock, we have not a vocation to the ministry. Hovj to do it. ' Let a pastor set out on his circuit rounds of visita- tion, with a full and distinct impression of the nature and intent of the duty. In doing his work he must consider well what it is that requires to be done. His visit to a. house in the course of pastoral ministration possesses a religious character. Civilities will pass between him and the people, but this is not his object ; and neither forms of ceremony nor salutations of good- will and respect, must be allowed to interfere with the sacred business which the pastor has in hand, nor inconveniently to delay its performance. To discharge it with deliberation and with a seriousness suited to its nature, general conversation should be shunned as far as is consistent with affability and with due respect to PASTORAL AND EVANGELISTIC WORK. 53 the feelings of the people. I say due, res2Ject, for it would happen at times that if individuals had all their own way, the time which the minister had to spare would be consumed in miscellaneous conversation. The pastor, then, must be at his work betimes. If inclined, and it is very proper he should be, to gratify his people by calls for conversation, and he can find leisure for this, let him take another opportunity. If he spend unnecessarily a portion of liis visiting day in general talk, though it should not degenerate into frivolity, nor lend countenance to it in others, still he is occupying the time that is meant for another jjurpose, and is thus forestalling the opportunities which other families have a right to claim. From this the pastor would be preserved, were he addressing himself to the business of a visitation day with a sense of its sacredness, and with a purpose that as he feels it to be serious work, others shall feel it too. The minister on his visi- tation is as truly on his way to preach Christ to his fellow-men, as if he were on his way to the pulpit. He goes without any great note of preparation, he goes to a fireside audience, he goes to speak of the things of Christ in an easy and familiar manner ; but he goes not the less in his Master's service, and commissioned to deliver His message, and bound to exercise the same fidelity and diligence as in more public circumstances, and at more solemn times. "Wist ye not that I must be about my Master's business?" is language which he should feel the force of himself, and which others should read in his bearing and deportment when he is on his way to commend his Master from house to house. Style of Address. ' Not that the address which a minister is called on to deliver on such occasions, is to partake of the 54 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. elaborateness or the formality of public discourse. Nothing could be more out of place than a doctrinal discussion, for example, or the critical analysis of a text, when a minister is thus entering into the houses and privacies of his people. If instruction in a didactic form is given, it should be briefly, and in a very easy, simple style. It is chiefly practical instruction which it should be the pastor's aim at such j^times to com- municate. The personal and relative duties of religion are the main things to be insisted on. How a man ought to conduct himself as a professor of the faith of Christ ; what should be his deportment in his con- nection with others ; what religion demands of its sub- jects in domestic and in civil society, as well as in the fellowship of the Church ; what husbands and wives, parents and children, young and old, masters and servants, kindred and neighbours, owe to one another by the law of God and the spirit of the Gospel, are topics which, being always seasonable, we cannot too urgently enforce.' ^ Mr Harper was not content with receiving those that came to attend on his ministry. Especially in the first quarter of a century of his pastorate, he made systematic efforts, by open-air preaching and otherwise, to reach those who were living outside of all Christian instruction and influence. Many ministers who are efficient in the regular services of the pulpit, and successful in building up a church, are almost powerless when taken out of their usual sphere, and sent forth as evangelists into the lanes and alleys, the highways and hedges; but the Leith pastor united in himself both gifts. Taking his stand, on the evening of a summer or autumn Sabbath ^ MS. Lecture to Students. PASTORAL AND EVANGELISTIC WORK. 55 day, on an elevated place near the entrance to the old Restalrig Tea Gardens, he would do his best to arrest the attention of the stream of pleasure-seekers, while his presence acted as a check upon excesses within. A more favourite resort for his evangelistic work was some frequented place on the harbour quay at Leith, where, planting himself on a fish box or a barrel of large dimensions, with his old precentor or an elder to conduct the psalmody, he discoursed to a motley multitude,' — in the midst of which there might have been seen turned to him the rough and weather-beaten countenance of many a sailor, unable, before the service was ended, to conceal his interest and emotion. The increasing solemnity and seriousness of the audience showed how the message was telling, and many a sincere 'God bless you,' at the end, from the dispersing crowd, proved that his labour had not been in vain. These addresses were not usually written, but they were carefully premeditated, and the kinds of illustra- tion anxiously adapted to the character of his expected hearers. His success in these evangelistic efforts, proved that a man does not need to be coarse, or eccentric, or extravagant, in order to command the attention of any audience. Better, indeed, to break the rules of grammar in every sentence, than to be coldly formal, or to use pedantic and unintelligible words. But let a preacher's words be the language of popular speech ; let him thoroughly understand his subject, and be in sympathy with it, and in earnest, and he will not be without appreciating hearers even on the streets. The rudest expect to be treated with respect, and affected coarse- ness and seeming condescension in an educated man, are sure to offend them. The best street preacher 56 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. we ever heard spoke in good Saxon English without a flaw, and he never failed to gather crowds around him. But the most important of all his spheres of evangel- ism remains to be noticed. This was Newhaven, a large and well-known fishing village a mile and a half to the west of Leith, with a large colony of fishermen, whose wives and daughters in their picturesque dress, and with their musical calls ringing through its streets and squares, are familiar to every inhabitant and visitor of the northern metropolis. At the period referred to, this populous village was without any place of worship, and though it was nominally within the parochial boundaries of Leith, it did not enjoy much pastoral supervision. We believe Mr Harper was the first to institute a regular Sabbath evening service in its school-house, and generally he was himself the preacher. The most direct road to it lay along the sea-shore. Many can yet remember one jjlace on the road, appropriately called ' Break-neck corner,' where the sea had made so great inroads that limbs had been broken, and even lives lost, in the hazardous experiment of passing it. Nothing daunted by this, or by winter frosts or storms, the eager minister, carrying in his hand a little lantern, set off on many a discouraging and scowling night for the New- haven school-house. The fishermen, with their wives, alive to his kindness, and soon learning highly to appreciate his services, crowded the school-house. The emotional temperament of the people, as well as the splendid voices of the women, made the psalm-singing delightful. The frequent accidents among the fishermen in their perilous toils, called especially for a pastor's consoling words and ministries ; and they were not withheld. And the gratitude of the fishermen for these PASTORAL AND EVANGELISTIC WORK. 57 gratuitous ministrations showed itself in many forms ; sometimes in their coming all the way from their New- haven homes to his house in Leith, that he might perform the rite at the marriage of their daughters. These were grand gala days in the busy fishing village. Every kinsman and kinswoman, out to the remotest links of cousinhood, was invited to come and grace the ceremony. Old stage-coaches, hired and furbished up for the occasion, crowded inside and out with female friends, blossoming with ribbons of brightest colours, were driven through North and South Leith to the minister's house at Hermitage Place, on the remoter side of the Links. Only a small fragment of the party could obtain entrance to the house, but the others waited with good-humoured patience until the ceremony was ended, and then all returned with double speed to leave the young fisherman and his glad wife at their new home. The present Free Church at Newhaven is one of the many fruits of this fervid evangelism. The riper fruits are above. CHAPTER VII. IN THE FAMILY. Marriage — Equally yoked — Births and Baptisms — Special Prayers — Diary — Education by Influence — Extract — Evening Readings — The Father in the Sick-room — Sunny Sabbaths — Key-note for the Day — The Younger Children— The Catechism — Birth-day Anniversaries— Letter to a Daughter — ' Res Angustse Domi ' — His Father in the Synod — Removal of Parents to Edinburgh — ' Nourisher of their Old Age' — Sod's Portraits of Parents. ON November 22, 1820, Mr Harper was married to Miss Barbara Peddie, daughter of Dr James Peddie, minister of the Associate Congregation, Bristo Street, Edinburgh. They were both, therefore, ' chil- dren of the manse,' the young wife coming out of one of those ' patrician ' families of the Secession whose name has been familiar and honoured in the Church for fully three generations, and whom worldly prosperity has not tempted to despise or desert the old roof-tree of their denomination. Scarcely did even John Newton write and speak more strongly of the helpmeet which his wife had been to him, than did Mr Harper of her who lived to be the companion of his pilgrimage for more than fifty- eight years, and who still survives in an honoured widowhood. Fifteen children, seven sons and eight daughters, were the fruit of this happy and unusually prolonged union, thirteen of whom remain; and many years before his death, groups of grandchildren vied with their parents in their efforts to honour him whom IN THE FAMILY. 59 they saw every one respect, and whom they had early learned to love and venerate. Mr Harper was, in a degree very pronounced, a family man. Those who looked upon his finely-chiselled countenance, and marked the calm that usually rested on it, sometimes perhaps misread his character. And those who had opportunities of noticing him only in his acts of rigid conscientiousness, or of hearing him denouncing, in terms of severity, practices that were wicked, or base, or mean, thus observing him only on one side of his character, were apt to suspect him of a sternness that was utterly alien from his nature ; for public men are often so misjudged. The truth is, that he was a man of singularly strong affections, and, with a native dignity which never deserted him, sought much of his happiness in his home, unconsciously producing, by his own geniality and tenderness, much of the sunshine that he found in it. Whenever a child was born, one of his earliest acts was, in the privacy of his study, to thank God for the new gift, and in a special service of prayer to dedicate the little one to the Lord. He could not even record the fact in his diary without the grateful notice over- flowing anew in prayer. We introduce a few extracts, some of which will also show how his love descended to his grandchildren in apparently undiminished stream, and how ready he was to sorrow in the sorrows of both generations : — ' August 2d. — Birth of a son at 5 A.M. . . Dedi- cated the child to God in prayer. ' Sept. 8th — Lord's day. — Baptism of my infant in the afternoon, Dr Peddie officiating. Fervent prayer, during the sermon, that God would bless the child and receive him into covenant with Himself. Gave him 6o LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. up and all my other children by name, to their heavenly Father. O God, accept my dedication of them and of myself to Thee ! 'Dec. 8f/i — Lord's day. — Children well behaved. my God, preserve them from evil, especially from the evil of sin ! ' In other years. — ' Separate and private conversation on personal religion along with prayer, with each of my children, in the evening. God, draw their hearts to Thee ! Oh, make them Thine ! Let none of them be wanting in the day when Thou makest up Thy jewels. This is all my desire. ' Birth of a daughter in the morning. Committed the child to God in prayer. ' Baptism of child, and earnest dedication to God of my children by name, in mental prayer. O Lord, accept this family offering ! ' A leaves for London. Solemn prayer with all the children the night previous. 'Jan. 16th. — Death of my dear grandchild W. R. Remarkable evidences of early piety. Sad stroke to his afflicted parents, but mingled with strong con- solation. Jan. 21st. — Another of J.'s lambs — E. — cut off by the same fell disease, diphtheria, and great apprehension for the other children. Father and mother in the deep waters. What need of divine help, and call for sympathy of friends ! ' Feb. M. — Death of darling G. A lovely child for sweetness of expression and disposition. Willing to go to be with Jesus. What desolation in that happy home ! The Lord support J. and J. under this over- whelming calamity. Their letters are beautiful speci- mens of hearts bowed down with their successive IN THE FAMILY. 6i bereavements, and comforted by the thought that their lambs are in the arms of the Good Shepherd.' In the spirit of those solemn acts of consecration renewed in baptism, described in the earlier extracts, Mr Harper ' commanded his children and his house- hold after him.' As their young minds expanded, he did not satisfy himself with endeavouring to awaken in them a mere vague religious sentiment, but sought to convey to them clear and definite conceptions of divine truths, along with their scriptural evidence, believing that it was only out of these seeds of God lodged and living in their hearts, that divine affections and holy fruits could grow. Nor did he deem it sufficient to set before his children a life of personal consistency ; he endeavoured to make them feel that the whole family government under which they lived, was regulated by Christian maxims and precepts. And few fathers or ministers ever showed a finer skill in weavino- the family history into the family prayers, and in recog- nising the sky of a paternal providence ever bending over them, and dropping its blessings. The depth of his convictions on this subject is seen in two paragraphs, which we extract from a pastoral address to his congregation : — ' In no department of life more than in the family circle, is it incumbent on you to prove the sincerity and to exemplify the decision of your Christian cha- racter. It is there that the man of God has least excuse for neglecting, and the strongest motives for observing, all the duties of his religious profession. By precept and example, by pious conversation and by earnest prayer, it becomes him to " walk within his house with a perfect heart," that his deportment may diffuse around him those sacred influences which will 62 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. make him a blessing to the dearest objects of his affection, by promoting their well-being not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. . . . * The favourable influence of family prayer on all the plans you may pursue for domestic improvement and happiness, it is scarcely possible to overrate. Whether we view it as to its effect in disposing the young to obedience and docility, or whether we take into account the sacredness and authority which it throws around the parental character, its influence must be greater than it is easy to calculate, in strengthening the parent's hold on the reverence and love of his children. Those lips which, in the hearing of the young, are in daily communication with God, are surely the best adapted to convey with authority and tenderness the words of truth and piety ; while the tone of feeling which such exercises may well be expected to generate in the hearts of the young, must ever prove the best security for filial duty and for the interchange of brotherly and sisterly affection.' ^ Those were particularly happy hours, especially for the older members of the family, when, after the even- ing lamp was lighted, the father came forth from his study with some book of history, or travel, or biography in his hand, and, grouping them around him, read to them aloud for hours, intermingling his own comments and explanations, and welcoming with tender encour- agement and interest their questions and remarks. * Fii-eside enjoyments, home-born happiness, Added hours Of social converse and instructive ease, And gathering, at shortest notice, in one gi'oup, The family dispersed, and fixing thought. Not less dispersed l^y daylight and its cares. ' 1 Pastoral address on the duty of family prayer, designed chiefly for the members of his congregation. IN THE FAMILY. 63 And on no occasions did the self-denying affection of the husband and father come out more amiably and intensely, than in times of family sickness. When the labours of the study could not be suspended, he added to these, with unweaiying and cheerful readiness, the charge of helping and nursing the sufferers. Far into the midnight hours, to relieve the anxious and over- burdened mother, he would carry about a sick and wakeful child in his arms. In his diary we meet with such brief notices as the following : ' Up all night, leeching.' At such times he found the benefit of his medical studies at the University, which made him ready and expert in the mixing and administering medicines. It is recorded of the well-known Mr Scott the commentator, that large portions of his Commen- tary were written by him when he was engaged with one foot in rocking his child's cradle. When the North Leith Congregation heard their minister pouring forth on a following Sabbath his fervid eloquence in polished sentences, they little imagined that such sermons had sometimes been excogitated when he was pacing a sick-room at midnight with a child in his arms, and that they were afterwards written with an infant on his knees. The Sabbath was a specially busy and happy day in the home at North Leith. Those who speak without knowledge of the gloominess of our Scottish homes on the Lord's day, would have found their mistake corrected, by spending a sunny Sabbath in Bennington Lodge, or Leith Mount. The children were not only taught and trained to observe it throughout as a sacred day, but also with the intelligent recollection that, as it was the glad memorial of our Lord's resurrection, it was to be a day of holy joy. The father looked upon 64 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. it, and he taught his family to look upon it, as the original Sabbath of the creation ' baptised into Christ.' Its law was administered not by the frequent utterance of mere prohibitions and restraints, but by keeping before their minds both the glorious facts which the day commemorated, and the glorious rest for which it was meant to prepare. The keynote for the day was struck by one of the children repeating those words in Isaiah Iviii. 13, 14, 'If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable ; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speak- ing thine own words : then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord ; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heri- tage of Jacob thy father : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.' This was followed by the reading of a chapter, in one of the Gospels, which gives a narrative of our Redeemer's resurrection, after which the hymn was invariably sung by the whole bright family circle — ' Blest morning ! whose first dawning rays Beheld the Son of God Arise, triumphant, from the grave, And leave His dark abode.' The younger children, to the number of five or six, usually walked with the father to the church, the youngest, as the more privileged, holding the father's hand ; for while, like the good Puritan commentator, he would not ' over-drive the lambs,' he attached im- portance to their being trained to the habit of regular attendance on public worship, even where there could not, in every instance, be intelligent hearing ; and good care was taken that, while in his discourses there IN THE FAMILY. 65 should be ' strong meat for those who were of full age,' there should also be ' milk for the babes.' He did not, however, think, as some appear to do, that ' a feast to which children are invited needs to be all crumbs.' Then the Sabbath evening catechizings gave oj)por- tunity for simplifying and explaining what had been beyond the children's comprehension. In this way, the Sabbath evenings of one whole winter were employed in conversations and catechizings, on the subject of ' gospel-sanctification.' And we have heard members of the family declare, with all the emphasis and pathos of tears, that even in their earliest days, they had never found those home Sabbaths to be a weariness, but a delight. Many facts proved how intense and constant was Mr Harper's desire for the highest good of his child- ren. When the anniversary of a birthday came round, or when one of them was about to leave home, his custom was to take them aside, converse and pray with them. We have been favoured with the sight of some of his letters to members of his family, and we cannot remember an instance in which, before the letter ended, he did not introduce a reference to the ' kingdom of God and His righteousness,' which they ought first to seek. The following extract from a letter written to a daughter, from Windsor where he was on a visit, illustrates this, in common with some other features of his character — • Windsor, June 28. ' My Dear , I was much delighted with your letter, and will now, in reply, tell you some of the more remarkable things which I have seen since coming here. You know that this is one of the resi- dences of Royalty. The Queen is not here at present ; 66 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. but there is one advantage arising from this, that visitors are sometimes admitted to the private apart- ments of the palace. A procured an order for admission, and so we went yesterday. Everything is very grand — walls, roofs, sofas, chairs, loaded with gildings of the richest description. There is a long passage called the corridor, where are portraits of Kings and Queens of England and of other great people, together with various curiosities. Among these is a small clock of beautiful workmanship, which Hemy VIII. gave to Anne Boleyn, whose head he afterwards cut off. Another is an ebony cabinet with a great deal of beautiful carving, a present from Cardinal Wolsey to the same Henry. One of the Cardinal's worst faults was pandering to the caprices and passions of his royal master, and Henry repaid him by casting him down from his high estate, so that, both in giving and in getting, Henry showed that a man may be a king and yet very much a brute. ' It is very different now in Windsor, and in the other palaces of our Queen ; but, after all, I do not doubt but that there is often more happiness in humble life than there is amidst all the grandeur of royal residences. But that home is the most blessed and that heart the happiest, where God is feared and where He desires to dwell. All such are made kings unto God, which is a nobler distinction and a richer inheritance than to wear an earthly crown. ' . . . There is a revival here as in other places. It is what we all need, and the way to obtain it is to ask it of God, who has promised His Spirit to quicken and to renew us. Hoping that you "think of" these things, and praying that God may bless you, — I am, my dear , your affectionate father, ' James Harper.' IN THE FA MIL Y. 67 And yet with what wisdom did his earnestness seek to gain its end. When on his visit to his daughter's summer residence at Dalnaglar Castle, he delighted to unbend, and, playing with his grandchildren at bows and arrows, to live his own child-life over again in theirs. But advantage was sure to be taken at some favouring moment for a cheerful reference, though it might only be in a word, to ' One above all others,' who loved children. We touch upon a tender and almost sacred subject, and therefore we shall do little more than touch on it, when we say that the income of Mr Harper was at no time in adequate proportion to the number and the wants of his family. Those who believed that a family of fourteen children could be fed, and clothed, and educated, — as the children of a Christian minister, in a large town and in the neighbourhood of a larger city, ought to be — on an income which was long in reaching, and which never exceeded, £300 a year, must almost have had the faith of miracles. What must have been the stern economy, the daily self- denials, the frequent mortifications, the noble industry, and the skilful housewifery necessary to ' make ends meet' at the close of a year. Was this penance, which might have been prevented, good for either body or soul? 'It was very sure not.' The cares which grow out of the pastorate, where the minister is at all awake to his tremendous responsibilites, are heavy enough, in all conscience, without this. No doubt the chief sufferer from it was too magnani- mous to complain. We have heard him say with a smile, behind which there was some sadness, when he heard a fellow-minister murmuring at some petty diffi- culties, ' Oh, that is nothing ! Think of twenty-eight 68 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. little feet coming pattering down my stairs every morning, and a regular meal mob at the bottom of it' But could we have followed him to his study and to his diary, we should perhaps have found him writing some such sentence as this, which more than once occurs in it, ' Much depressed in spirit, particularly on account of financial difficulties.' . , . It is a common saying that affection descends rather than ascends, by which it is meant that the love of the parent to his child is usually stronger than that of the child to the parent. It is not easy thus to weigh human affections in balances, or to compare them. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that the elements in the affection are considerably different in the two cases. But from the days of Virgil's hero downwards, there have always been men in whom filial veneration was not exceeded by parental love. The subject of our memoir was one of these. Both his parents lived to a ripe old age, and the honour with which he regarded them was worthy of the days of the patriarchs. He surrounded their persons with a sentiment of sacredness, and watched over them, especially in the last years of their life, with all the tenderness of woman. After his father had become old in his ministry at Lanark, serious disturbances arose in his congregation, which ultimately found their way, by appeal, to the Synod of his Church, The old minister was blamed by some in the Syond, for what they regarded as unyielding stubbornness in a matter of conscience. Nothing could be more natural than that his son, then a comparatively young minister in Leith, should step forth in the Synod in defence of one whose troubles drew forth all his sympathy, and whose immoveable firmness in what he regarded as duty, IN THE FAMILY, 69 increased his veneration for the old man with his hoary head. Some coarsely objected to the son's being allowed to speak in a case in which it was scarcely possible that affection should not blind or bias the judgment. The objection stirred up everything that was noble and generous in his nature. ' Sir,' he said, addressing the Moderator, 'I should not deserve to stand on God's green earth, did I remain silent when I believed my father to be wronged.' And this was ■followed by a speech of such masterly argument and noble sentiment, mingled with flashes of withering scorn towards those who had sought to interdict his words, as carried the Synod by storm, and drew forth many prophecies of his future power and eminence. After forty years of a laborious ministry, when he had seen his congregation recover from its divisions and troubles, the old Lanark minister and his wife removed to Edinburgh to spend their last days ; where their son, rejoicing to have them near him, became, more than ever, the ' restorer of their life and the nourisher of their old age.' Their frailties, of course, increased with advancing years, and their dutiful son's busy days in Leith, were many times followed by long nights of watching by their bedsides in Edinburgh. He seemed unwilling that any hands should raise them up, or minister to them, but his own. And ' they were worthy for whom he did it.' In a biographical notice of his father, which appeared some years after his death, he thus gives scope to his affection, and records his filial impressions and recol- lections of both parents. Of his father he writes : ' He took the utmost pleasure in perusing the Scriptures in the original languages. Biblical researches of this kind were, to 70 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. the last, his sweetest solace. In times of outward vexation and disquiet, it was inexpressibly interesting to witness him in his hours of retirement, with the sacred originals before him, absorbed in the study of their structure and contents, and finding in the exercise a calm and sacred enjoyment, of which no affliction could deprive him, — which no molestation could disturb. ' To every part of Mr Harper's official conduct a value was imparted by the character of the individual, stamped as it was by personal religion of the most decided and devoted kind. This marked him from his juvenile years. To the importance of vital godliness in the ministerial character he was tremblingly alive. In his own deportment, it showed itself in the pro- foundest veneration for things sacred, and in the fearless reproof of every approach, on the part of others, to levity in the concerns of religion. His veneration for the word of God has been noticed, his veneration for the Sabbath was equally characteristic ; in the phrase of the world he was a precisian, and that of the " straitest sect." In his personal deportment, and in all domestic arrangements, there was an exclusion of everything secular in word and action, and an entire dedication of the day to sacred exercises, of which it has never been our lot to witness another such example. ' Mr Harper's natural feelings were ardent and generous. Of the warmth of his domestic affections it is impossible for one who was himself the object of these, to speak witliout fond and melting remembrances. Nothing can be conceived more tender, gentle, and indulgent. Nor were his benevolent regards confined to his own immediate circle. He was eminently the IN THE FAMILY. 71 friend of the poor and helpless, A tale of distress he was seldom able to resist, and many were the instances in which the kindness of his heart betrayed him into almost childish credulity. His resentments, if such his sense of wrong might be called, were defensive, and never vindictive ; he might repel an injury, but was incapable of requiting it by acts of retaliation. In his intercourse with his brethren and with others, his conduct was marked by a delicate and dignified abstinence from all interference with matters which did not belong to him ; though, perhaps for this reason, he felt and expressed himself the more strongly when he found his own way crossed by pique and impertinence, by sneaking selfishness and sanctimonious intrigue. ' Mr Harper predeceased by two years his partner, Mrs Janet Gilchrist, one whose estimable qualities as a wife and a mother claim no common testimony of affection and respect. She was indeed one whose domestic duties were her chief worldly care, and whose higher enjoyments were found in a life of devotion. The sacred influences of religion being united in her character with the natural graces of a singularly calm and happy temper, made her an example at all times, and most of all in affliction, of incomparable patience, meekness, and equanimity. Long-continued affliction wrought in her a sanctified weanedness from the love of life ; the faith of the Gospel gave her victory over the fear of death ; and now, amidst the tender regrets and affectionate remembrances of those whom she blessed by her prayers and example, she rests in hope.' CHAPTER VIII. THE EDITORIAL CHAIR AND THE APOCRYPHA. 1820-1830. Public Institutions of Leith — Platform Advocacy — Ordination Sermon — Extracts — Theological Magazine — Editor and his Staff — Curious Agree- ment — Apocrypha Controversy — Origin — Dr Andrew Thomson — Re- miniscences — New Phase — Anglicanus — Mr Har^^er enters the Lists — Death of Dr Thomson — Universal Sorrow — Manly Ti'ibute — Estimate of Results — National Bible Society — ' Signs of the Times ' — Extract — Anecdote. IT was a divine command to the captive Hebrews in Babylon, to seek the good of the city in wliich they dwelt. In harmony with this, the public spirit and the Christian patriotism of Mr Harper soon led him to identify himself with the religions and benevo- lent institutions of Leith, and to give these the benefit of his powerful advocacy. Some of them in fact sprang into existence as the effect of his representations and appeals, and he was associated in the direction and management of many of them during the whole jieriod of his ministry. It does not always happen that the man who is admired in the pulpit is equally acceptable on the platform of the public meeting; the two spheres are different, and the special gifts needed in the two cases are not the same ; but in him they appeared in happy combination. He was one of those public speakers for whose appearance even impatient hearers were glad to wait, well assured that he would freshen THE EDITORIAL CHAIR AND THE APOCRYPHA, -j^ dulness and restore flagging interest. When a Society had secured him as a speaker at its annual meeting, it knew itself to be safe against empty benches. It was mainly, however, when subjects of wide and national interest were stirring the heart of the whole kingdom, that he was seen in his full strength and might as a platform speaker. His sentences were not the mere utterances of a cold rhetoric got up for the occasion, but the outpourings of a heart intensely on fire with its subject, and which must speak. Give him some act of baseness to hold up to public scorn, or some course of corruption to expose, aud how he would fling about his barbed epigrams, and kindle with an indignation that carried the sympathy even of the stolid. And still more, when his subject was one that appealed to the more noble and generous parts of our nature, he literally revelled in his theme. We have many a time heard the tradition that his speeches in pleading for the abolition of slavery in our West Indian Colonies, were remarkable for such- fearless denunciation and fervid eloquence. His interest in this sacred cause was inherited from his father in his younger days at Mansfield, where the little family exchequer had more than once been inconveniently drained ^in order to help on the coming triumph of humanity and right, which, in the manner in which it was accomplished, blessed the emancipator as much as the slave. Three years after his entrance on his public ministry, Mr Harper preached on occasion of the ordination of a ' missionary minister ' to Van Diemen's Land, and at the request of his co-presbyters and the general public who had crowded the place of worship, the sermon was immediately after published. The text was L Cor. 74 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. iii. 1 3, ' For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.' He prosecuted his subject under a very natural arrangement, namely, by considering Jesus Christ as the foundation of the Church, and pointing out the exclusive character of which this foundation is possessed. The two valuable extracts which we introduce from his first published sermon, show how soon he had reached that maturity and discrimination of thought, and perspicuity and vigour of statement, by which his whole ministry con- tinued to be distinguished : — Tlie Text explained. 'When Paul speaks of a foundation, he supposes, of course, a superstructure ; and his allusion, as appears from the context, is to the House, or Temple of God. The metaphor which the apostle employs is beautifully adapted to the character of the Church, as a society constituted agreeably to the appointment of God, regulated by the laws which divine wisdom has estab- lished, and adorned by the graces of the Holy Spirit. The purposes to which this noble structure is devoted, are worthy of its author, and illustrative of its name. It is indeed the Temple of God. There His name is recorded ; His praises continually celebrated ; and the holy beauties of His image reflected with genuine lustre. The stones of which this building is composed are "lively stones;" and the sacrifices which are daily presented are " living sacrifices ; " — figures which ex- pressively denote the sincere, the willing, and active nature of the religious service which the Christian renders to the object of bis worship. The labours of Paul had reared such a structure at Corinth ; and, like THE EDITORIAL CHAIR AND THE APOCRYPHA. 75 a wise master-builder, he had "laid a good foundation." But though the foundation was sound and stable, it was possible that future ministers of the temple might employ improper and base materials in erecting the sacred edifice ; and, therefore, the solemn caution is given, "that if any man build on this foundation, wood, hay, or stubble, his work shall be burnt." The abuse of which the apostle had so many fears, and the appre- hension of which prompted such anxious precaution, was not the propagation of tenets inconsistent with the truths of the Gospel, — a common, but obviously mistaken view of the passage; — for it is evident that believers in Christ are the materials of which the spiritual house is formed, "Ye are God's building," — " Ye are the temple of God ;" and of consequence, the corruption against which the apostle's warning pro- vides, is admission into the Church, of persons manifestly unqualified for its pure and spiritual services. When individuals are in communion with the Church, whose principles are known to be erroneous, and their lives immoral, it becomes a patched and unseemly edifice — a mingling of "gold, and silver, and precious stones, with wood, hay, and stubble." Such a combination cannot last; it cannot endure the trial; and the "work- man" who has been, through design or negligence, instrumental in forming it, will have some " need to be ashamed," and surely cannot be very safe, when the fire of persecution, as lYiay be, shall waste his mock temple of wood and straw, and when the tempest of judgment, as Vfhust be, shall lay it in shivers at his feet.' Jesus Christ is the Foundation of the Church's Unity. ' And why then is the Church divided ? Whence the common spectacle of unnumbered parties, baptising 76 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, while they provoke one another with acrimonious railing, and pitch themselves in battle array, as if they were enlisted in opposite services, and had conflicting interests to defend. Is Christ divided ? Is the good foundation split ? And have the different sects found each a fragment on which to erect their banner and consolidate their hopes ? Or is there but one of the countless divisions of the Christian world the Church of the living God, and have all the rest some sand in their foundation, and some stuff m their superstructure, which the day of trial shall make manifest, and the fire of judgment burn ? In neither of these ways do we explain the diversity of professions and names, in consistency with the unity of the Church. But thus : — That all who hold the great and essential point that Jesus Christ is the only hope of the sinner, are to be viewed as building on the right foundation ; and so long as they concur most cordially in their adherence to the Saviour, and differ only in matters of inferior moment, they are not Churches " as of many " founda- tions, but the Church "as of one." Such divisions and sections may be regarded as so many compartments in the great edifice of the Church ; — they rest on a common basis, and therefore have not an opposite character, though they are called by a separate name. 'The true Church, then, is the mystical body of Christ — the elect of God in every country under heaven, and in whatever part of the visible Church they are found. This is precisely what every Christian ex- periences to be true, when the heats of party contention do not disorder his judgment, and blight the better feelings of his heart. When he contemplates seriously the religious aspect of the world, he acknowledges THE EDITORIAL CHAIR AND THE APOCRYPHA. 77 that there is a bond of union among all who trust in the righteousness of Christ, such as no secular con- nection and no party-badge can supply. Let any two persons, who are like-minded in the business of salva- tion, mutually elicit their sentiments, and how will their hearts leap within them to find that they are brethren, — that though they never met before, they are truly one, — having the same Rock for their con- fidence, and the same heaven for their home ! What would be felt between two individuals in the situation supposed, exists throughout the whole body of the redeemed, though lands and seas divide them. Who that has built for himself on the good foundation, can travel in fancy to burning India, or to the great Pacific, and observe the reclaimed heathen fixing his hopes on Jesus, without recognising a brother, and hailing the fraternal tie ? On this ground, all that call on the name of Jesus meet ; here they make a near and affectionate approach to one another, and, having this one foundation, they grow up one spiritual house to the glory and praise of God.' In January 1826, seven years after his ordination and settlement in Leith, a new and important trust Avas committed to the young minister's hands, by his appointment as editor of the Edinburgh Theological Magazine. It was a new religious periodical ; and though not formally or authoritatively, yet both in fact and by general public recognition, it was the organ of the United Secession Church. The two bodies, the Burgher and the Antiburgher, which, after seventy- three years of severance, had been happily re-united in 1822, had each possessed their separate periodical, both of them serials of solid excellence. The Christian 78 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. Repository, and The Christian Monitor. But at the Union, both were withdrawn from the scene, and four years after that event which brought with it unmixed good, the feeling became general that a magazine was needed for the Church, with its now doubled numbers and more than doubled strength, which should abound in articles fitted for general religious edification, discuss public questions that were of special interest to the denomination, and be the medium of ecclesiastical and missionary intelligence. The Theological Magazine, and the appointment of Mr Harper as its editor, were the outcome of all this. We have now before us the old faded Minute-book which contains the terms of agreement with the publisher, Mr John Lothian, who certainly was not chargeable with over-caution or grasping in his terms ; and also the names of the ministers with whom the undertaking originated, and who engaged each to make a quarterly contribution to the magazine, and to ' have it in the editor's hands in good time, with the view of having his portfolio always well supplied.' Nearly all the names are those of old Selkirk students ; not one of them remains ' unto this present,' — ' The flowers o' the Forest are a' wede away, ' but the memory of every one of them is still honoured and fragrant throughout their Church, and beyond it. John Mackerrow, Bridge of Teith ; Archibald Baird, Auchtermuchty ; James Anderson, Dunblane ; Andrew Elliot, Ford ; John Smart, Leith ; William Johnstone, Limekilns ; David Smith, Biggar ; William Nicol, Jedburgh ; John MacGilchrist, Edinburgh ; and Henry Angus, Aberdeen ; the ' fratres Theologici,' as they delighted to call themselves, were the staff of contri- THE EDITORIAL CHAIR AND THE APOCRYPHA. 79 butors who ' subscribed with their hands ' and engaged to rally around their gifted and energetic editor. Such men of eminence as Dr Heugh and Dr Belfrage of Falkirk, appear in later years as occasional writers. There was one resolution by which these worthy ' fratres ' unanimously agreed to bind themselves, which reads curiously in these days when pens are eager for employment, and, in the higher class even of religious magazines, every page is paid with gold. Wliile no security is provided for the payment of an article, ' any brother failing to send his paper before the expira- tion of each quarter of the year, shall pay as a penalty the sum of five shillings, and one shilling extra for each week he may be deficient, after the time appointed has expired.' The terrors of this law do not appear to have been sufficient to stimulate some laggard con- tributors, who, when the time for their communications had come, did not find that the opportunity or the inspiration had come with it ; in which case the fines were rigidly exacted and as honourably paid. But unknown contributors more than made up their lack of service, and, on the whole, the editor's work went on with gratifying acceptance and without an excess of care. It is interesting and suggestive to look into the earlier volumes of the Theological, now more than half a century old, and to mark the gradual changes that have come over the sentiment and practice of the Church during the interval. In an early number, Dr Marshall's famous sermon, with its ten articles of indictment, is reviewed, in which the first shot was fired at civil establishments of religion. In others, the question of temperance societies is timidly discussed, and the broader basis of total abstinence as timidly So LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. suggested ; improvements in psalmody are spoken of with an admission of their necessity, but also with a salutary hint here and there, that change is not always improvement ; and grave defences, which in these days would sound very unduly apologetic, are advanced in vindication of ministers who repeat the same sermon when preaching to different audiences ! The great German wave had not yet begun to roll over the Scottish Churches, and those questions, in which every book of revelation and every truth of Scripture are now passing through a second fire, had scarcely begun to agitate men's minds. There were little ripples upon the lake, and this was all. Ministers dwelt snugly in their quiet country manses, living frugally but with contentment, on slender stipends, and shedding good influences around them by their ministry and their lives. There was indeed a partial exception to this tran- quillity in the Apocrypha controversy, into which in its later stages Mr Harper was unwillingly drawn. This controversy, by which all Scotland was agitated for a series of years, originated, in its earlier form, in the divergence of the British and Foreign Bible Society from the terms of its original platform, in which it engaged to print, publish, sell, and circulate the Word of God in different languages, without note or comment. It was found that, in later years, its directors had allowed the Apocryphal books to be bound up and cir- culated along with certain of its editions of the Bible, especially on the continent of Europe ; thereby, to un- informed readers, confounding uninspired books Avith the canon of inspired Scripture. It was pleaded by the directors, in defence of this practice, when many began to lift up their voice against it, that they were only conforming to continental usages, and that unless the THE EDITORIAL CHAIR AND THE APOCR YPHA. 8 r Apocrypha were either intermingled with the Bible or appended to it, its sale would be seriously hindered. Supposing this statement to be admitted, it could not compensate for the compromise which it was used to defend. The general voice of the Scottish Churches demanded a return to the original constitution and position of the Society, even as a matter of good faith. The distinguished man who, beyond all others, had done most to awaken and extend this agitation, was Dr Andrew Thomson of St George's Church, Edinburgh, a man of great mental strength and overpowering eloquence, who had done much, along with Dr Chalmers, to make evangelical doctrine once more popular in the Established Church, especially among the higher classes ; — with few rivals and no equal in the debates of Church Courts, even when he measured arms with senators and judges, who had always shown himself to be on the popular side in the polity of his Church, and who, in one memorable speech which rings yet in the ears of old men, when pleading for immediate instead of gradual emancipation to our West Indian slaves, had turned an unfriendly audience, consisting of the ' flower and chivalry ' of Edinburgh life, from opposition to undivided and enthusiastic support. His agitation against the circulation of ' apocryphized' copies of the Scriptures, at length became national, so far as the Scottish Churches were concerned : multitudes in England joined in it and swelled the torrent, and even the directors of the great Society, becoming convinced that they had done wrong, publicly acknowledged their error, and pledged themselves to return to the circula- tion of the divine Word pure and simple. It cannot be doubted that, in addition to correcting and purifying the action of the British and Foreign Bible Society, F 82 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. the agitation, thus far at least, did much good in another form, by making the line broad and clear between the Scriptures and all other books, and once more presenting the Bible before the people of Scot- land, in its unique and rightful position of supreme authority in all matters of religious faith and practice. But Dr Thomson was not satisfied with this con- cession. He demanded as necessary to the restoration of public confidence, that the office-bearers of the Society who had been active in the case of the ' apocry- phized' Scriptures, should be censured and dismissed. In this new demand he failed to carry with him the universal sympathy. Many, who, like the Leith minister, had gone along with him up to this point, now renounced his leadership. The greater number of the ministers and members of the Dissenting Churches, satisfied with the confession of error made by the directors, believing in their good faith, and seeking the reformation of the great world-Society, but most averse to its destruction, proclaimed their restored confidence. The controversy became intense and embittered. The Christian Instructor, of which Dr Thomson was editor, became a powerful engine of monthly assault upon the London Society and its directors ; and its Scottish defenders and auxiliaries were specially exposed to the ' pelting of the pitiless storm.' Dr Thomson, carrying with him his great name and influence, held numerous public meetings all over Scotland, subjecting those who dared to oppose him, to his unsparing ridicule and withering invective. In many instances Auxiliary Societies were exploded by a single speech. The Edinburgh Bible Society grew out of this agitation. One of the most vivid recollections of our student days, is a speech which he delivered to an audience of THE EDITORIAL CHAIR AND THE APOCRYPHA. 83 four thousand, in one of the largest places of worship in Glasgow. For four hours, the densely-packed mul- titude sat or stood, listening with unflagging interest. The variety in his address was wonderful. Every quality was in it but tenderness — nervous argument, masculine eloquence, skilfully arranged facts, clever anecdote admirably told, playful humour, wit that never missed fire, with the more questionable ingredients of bold assertion and reckless personality. His aim seemed to be, that his opponent should not only be worsted but worried. One lady, with the well-remembered pseudonym of ' Anglicanus,' mingled much in the con- troversy, and, with her mastery of facts, clever satire, keen logic, and imperturbable calmness, made the word- warrior wince. And he found in Mr Harper another antagonist who, more than once, made him reel on the battle-ground, and whom he saw it would be dangerous to despise. A very temperate annual report of the Leith Auxiliary to the British and Foreign Bible Society, which Mr Harper, being its secretary, had written, and in which some things were said in defence of the London institution, was reviewed by Dr Thom- son as if a personal wrong had been inflicted on him. The reply that soon followed made the great contro- versialist feel that one had come on the field who did not fear him, and who did not need to fear him. Without one sentence of personality, and written in a high moral tone, it went on turning the sophisms of his practised assailant inside out, proving by document that some of his most telling assertions were not only exaggerated but groundless, and dealing out his hooked epigrams and clever defences with a dexterity and ease which made men begin to think that the wrestlers were, at length, equally matched. 84 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. The feeling of the veteran controversialist may be imagined to have resembled that of the practised knight in the days of chivalry, who had so often imseated his antagonists in the tournament," that he had come at length to look upon victory as almost a thing of course, but who now discovered that one had entered the lists, whose skill in fence and thrust made it necessary that he should look well to his armour. After an unwonted delay of three months, the repeatedly promised answer came, in which Dr Thomson acknowledged the proved inaccuracy of one of his severest charges, which had often been hurled with effect against the London directors. One passage in Mr Harper's answer, which soon followed, showed with what keen-sighted eagerness the two men sought for the slightest openings in each other's coat-of-mail. Dr Thomson had charged him with an unscholarly use of the word ' incorporate,' as applied to the mere joining together of the inspired and apocryphal books so as to form one volume, implying that the expression would only be appropriate when the Apocrypha was interspersed, but not when it was appended. To this Mr Harper replied, — ' Nor has Dr Thomson succeeded in showing the impropriety of the word in this application of it. We maintain that it expresses union as well as riiixture, joining together in one body as well as mingling in one mass, and the subject to which it is applied will determine the shade of acceptation. Dr Thomson, in another part of his ramble, has conducted us to the field of Waterloo to show his liking to " martial metaphor." We accompany him with pleasure, to teach him a lesson in the king's English . Will he tell us if the Brunswick troops on that memorable day were incorporated or not with the British army ? They were ; THE EDITORIAL CHAIR AND THE APOCRYPHA. 85 but, according to his interpretation of words, this could not take place unless every Black Brunswicker had been scattered through the English ranks like the books of an interspersed Apocrypha.' Had the combatants foreseen how near the angel of death, with his cold hand, was to one of them, they would probably both have written somewhat differently. In two weeks after the appearance of the last-quoted paper, Dr Thomson, on returning from a meeting of his Presbytery, in which he had spoken with his wonted mastery and vigour, fell on the step of his own door in Melville Street, and instantly expired. Imper- fections and angry words were forgiven and forgotten in the universal sorrow of all Scotland, at the death of one of her greatest sons. How were the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished ! In a review of some of the funeral sermons which were preached on the occasion, Mr Harper expressed in terms of generous appreciation his high estimate of the great gifts and eminent services of the departed ' prince in Israel,' placing him, where the voice of his country had already placed him, in the front rank in an age of great Scotchmen ; and adding in impressive words, which were the echoes of equally solemn thoughts, ' Let us not forget the lessons which Dr Thomson's death so impressively teaches us, that no greatness of talent, no activity of mind, no zeal for truth or victory, can exempt from descent to the grave. But the suddenness of it was the most impressive of all. There was no preceding sickness, no timeous warning. It was an immediate summons. He being dead, yet speaketh. A sound comes forth from his grave, and it ought to impress us as deeply as if we heard the tones of his well-known and powerful voice. " There- 86 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. fore, be ye also ready ; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." ' In merited rebuke of one of the preachers who had failed to interpret the providence, and even sought to use it to prolong the conflict, he added, 'We protest against this attempt to revive animosities which, we trust, are now buried in the grave, to kindle the torch of discord at the funeral pile, and intrude this unhallowed strife on the sacredness of a country's sorrow.' It illustrates, however, the injurious effects of such side-controversies as the Apocrypha conflict had latterh^ become, when they draw away men's thoughts from immediate and continuous duties, that, for twenty years after this controversy had ceased, comparatively little was done in Scotland in the great cause of Bible circulation. It is long before the crater of an extinct volcano shows any signs of vegetable life. But during the second twenty years that have intervened, Scot- land's divided energies and sectional societies have been united on a broad and unsectarian basis, under the banner of the National Bible Society of Scotland, which is already entitled to the third place among the Bible Societies of the world. Its income has quad- rupled. Its annual circulation has increased from 86,821 to 429,837 copies of the Word of God. Pre- viously to 18G1, the work of the Bible Societies of Scotland was almost wholly confined to home. Now, the Society's system of foreign colportage embraces every country in Europe, with the exception of two of the smaller States. Altogether, not fewer than 250 agents in 17 countries out of Scotland, are engaged in the service of the Society. And all these operations are conducted in unbroken harmony and co-operation with the great Society in London, which spreads its THE EDITORIAL CHAIR AND THE APOCRYPHA. 87 beneficent shadow, and drops its golden fruit over the world. While the Apocrypha controversy was hushing itself to rest, Mr Harper was induced to publish a sermon, which had awakened much interest when preached, on ' The Signs of the Times ' (Matt. xvi. 1-3). It had been composed, as he explained, solely with the view of applying the remarkable events and features of the times, to the purpose of impressing on his hearers the duty of habitually recognising a Divine providence in all changes and events, — a habit which he conceived to be essentially connected with the life and progress of personal religion. At the same time, he disclaimed a practice, into which many who write on the ' signs of the times ' have shown a tendency to fall. ' The place of wisdom,' he remarked, 'is sometimes usui-ped by presumptuous curiosity and wild fanaticism. There are those who set themselves forth to prophesy before they have learned to interpret, and who overlook or misreckon the signs of the present, in their eagerness to search into the secrets of the future. From such presumption and extravagance the meek, whom God guides in judgment, may hope to be graciously pro- tected.' The whole sermon, which is marked by keen observa- tion, abounds in fresh and vigorous thoughts arrayed in ' good words fitly spoken,' as is shown in the follow- ing extract : — ' The signs of the times are not unfrequently those events which men are most apt to overlook. There is on this subject a want of observation and discernment. Men are taken up with the pursuit of their own per- sonal and private interests. What nearly affects them- selves, or produces a manifest impression on the state LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. and interests of their time and country, will indeed, for a space, forcibly engage their attention ; but, en- grossed with the questions, " What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed ? " they sometimes fail to observe, at least to consider, the most instructive events that are passing around them. So hasty is the glance which they take of the aspect of the age, that they fail to catch its most distinguishing features. ' Besides, the signs of the times are often noiseless — they are unaccompanied with pomp and ostentation. They are not always those events that draw attention by the glare of their appearance, or fill the ear with the din of their approach. They are often found to consist in those changes of opinion which, as we have remarked, are silent and gradual ; — the spread of error, for example, which, like leaven, works its insidious way till the mass is fermented ; or the dissemination of truth, which, spreading from heart to heart, and from house to house, prepares the public mind for some rapid advance in wisdom and holiness. In public history, as in the lives of individuals, seemingly trivial occurrences often prove to be the germ of mighty changes and of great events. How often, when men look back on the way by which God has led them, may they remark how a circumstance apparently indifferent at the time of its occurrence, — a slight deviation, for instance, from one's intended path, a word advisedly or unadvisedly spoken, a trivial disappointment, or a meeting with a stranger, — has served as a pivot on which the whole machinery of their future being has been made to turn ! This applies to public events as well as to private history. Such events are often the most apt to be overlooked and the soonest to be for- THE EDITORIAL CHAIR AND THE APOCR YPHA. 89 gotten. Who heard of the birth of the babe of Bethlehem, beyond the circle of Mary's acquaintances and friends ? The world was too busy with other matters, to mind the virgin mother and her holy Child. Herod was parading amidst the splendours of his court, the priests were busy with intrigues of office, and the mass of the people were coming and going, and eating and drinking, in the dull monotony of vulgar life, broken now and then by a scarcity of corn, or the fall of a grandee, or a city riot. It was not till the Magi came from afar, following the beacon-star of the infant Emmanuel, that men's attention was drawn to an event which, of all the signs of the times, was the most magnificent, the most momentous. " This Child shall be set for the fall and the rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign to be spoken against." ' But there was one noticeable occasion on which Mr Harper received an urgent request to publish a sermon, with which it was impossible to comply. The inci- dents were interestinGf, and brought into view more than one feature of his character. On one of the days connected with a sacramental occasion in his church, a minister, living at a distance, had been engaged to preach; but when the hour for commencing public wor- ship arrived, he did not appear. Mr Harper entered the pulpit and began the devotional exercises ; but when these were nearly ended, there was still no sign of the oblivious brother. The anxious minister now re- solved to preach. A second psalm was sung, during which he selected a text, and marked a few jottings on a slip of paper. The sermon which followed was re- markable at once for connected thought, and eloquence sustained and increasing to its close. He appeared to have risen not only to his usual level, but above him- 90 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. self. On his descending from the pulpit into his vestry, he was met by a gentleman who entreated him to give him the use of his sermon, with a view to its immediate publication. The only answer was to hold out to him the slip of paper with the few lines of jottings on it. The gentleman was astonished. On his return home, Mrs Harper inquired of him when he had written the sermon, for she had never heard him preach better. He informed her that it had never been written. This led to the not unnatural question, 'Why should he spend so much time and toil in the prepara- tion of his sermons, when he had shown himself able to preach so well without preparation V His answer was, that while he had been divinely helped in a case of necessity, when there had been no time for preparation, and 'it had been given him in that hour what he should speak,' it would be jjresumptuous in him, were he to expect the same help when he had time to prepare. God might give aid to His servants to meet a necessity, which He would withhold from unfaithfulness or indol- ence. The answer was not more devout than wise and true. At the same time, his system of mental storage, to which we have already adverted, was no doubt turned by Providence to his advantage. There was something- suggestive in the answer of an eminent preacher, who had also been a diligent student, to the question which one put to him. How long time it had taken him to prepare a particular sermon which he had just heard him preach ? ' Twenty years ' — was the calm reply. CHAPTER IX. REFORM CONTROVERSIES FRUITS. 1830-1840. The Reform Bill — Lord Murray — ^The Pastor and Politics — ^The Asiatic Cholera — Scenes at Musselburgh — Alarm in Leith — Fast Sermon — Extracts — Dr Marshall and Civil Establishments of ReUgion — Volun- tary Controversy — Chiu'ch Extension Movement — Dr Chalmers — Dissenters ignored — Irritation — Lecture by Mr Harper — Deputations to London — Notices of Eminent Statesmen — Voluntary Lectures in England — Dr Tattershall — Extracts— Disruption — Dr Belfrage. IN the years 1831 and 1832, we find our Leith minister taking an active part in promoting that great national measure by which the political franchise was extended, and the vast middle class of the com- munity obtained a constitutional voice, through its representatives, in conducting the affairs of the com- monwealth ; we refer, of course, to the passing of the first Reform Bill. Up to that time, Leith, though one of the most important and populous seaports in Scot- land, had been without a representative in Parliament ; many other large and increasing towns had been similarly ' kept out in the cold ;' and at such a crisis, Mr Harper did not hesitate to step forth from his clerical retirement, and, in addressing crowded political meetings, to give the benefit of his moral influence and eloquence in helping on to triumph this beneficent revolution. Even when he saw Leith enfranchised along with the neighbouring towns of Musselburgh and 92 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. Portobello, he did not think his work fully done, but continued his unremitting efforts in endeavouring to secure the return of a thoroughly qualified Liberal member in the person of Mr John Archibald Murray, advocate, who soon afterwards became Lord Advocate of Scotland, and latterly, as Lord Murray, was raised to the position of one of the Judges of the Court of Session. The event made the senator and the pastor fast friends, and to the end of his life. Lord Murray, with the gratitude of a generous nature, delighted to acknowledge that he largely owed the honour of his election as the first member for Leith, to the spon- taneous zeal and imbought advocacy of the indepen- dent and incorruptible Secession minister. It is not improbable that the complaint may be raised here, as at some later occasions in our narrative, that Mr Harper must sometimes have given to politics the time and energy that were due to the higher claims of his sacred office. It may be well that we now dis- pose of this complaint once for all. He was one of the last men that could have been rightly charged with being ' a political parson.' His Christian principle, his spirituality of mind, and even his good taste and self- respect, kept him sensitively aloof from all the petty and peddling contests of political factions for small and selfish ends. But when the axe needed to be laid at the root of some great national corruption, or some widespread wrong to be redressed, or when legislative action was threatened that would have invaded the rights of conscience or endangered the principle of religious equality, he was not the man to be silent, or to shrink from being decried as an agitator because he exposed the wrong and denounced the wrong-doer. From the beginning of his public life, he ever con- REFORMS— CONTRO VERSIES—FR UITS. tended that, when a man become a Christian minister, he was not at liberty, either in theory or in practice, to renounce his rights, or to vacate his duties as a citizen. On the contrary, he held the conviction, and habitually acted on it, that his very position as a minister brought him under an additional obligation to carry his religion into his politics, though not to make his politics his religion, and bravely to discharge all the duties of a free citizen in a free country. An opposite course of action springs as frequently from cowardice or indolence, as from exaggerated notions of clerical decorum. It is accordingly pertinent to notice that, in the midst of all the political agitations and triumphs that were connected with the passing of the first Reform Bill, the heart of the faithful pastor never ceased to be turned to his congregation and to the general interests of religion in Leith. The Asiatic cholera, coming, like an angel of death, from India, had travelled over all the intervening continent, and in the neighbouring- town of Musselburgh, only six miles distant from Leith, was almost decimating the population. While the judgment fell the most heavily upon the intemperate and ill-fed classes, no class was wholly exempted from its stroke, sudden as the lightning and almost as sure. Residing in Musselburgh at the time, we can well remember those terrible weeks during which ' death's shafts flew thick,' The inhabitants felt like a people doomed. Members of the same family parted from each other to go to sleep, inwardly questioning, and even much doubting, whether they should all be found alive in the morning. Especially during the hours of midnight, there was something strangely impressi ve in hearing the dead cart, ' with its lantern dimly burning,' 94 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. as it passed our windows, again and again, on its way to the place of graves with its heaped load of scarcely coffined dead, and in listening to the melancholy tinkle of the little bell which summoned the smitten people to bring out the latest victims of the plague. Latterly there was no time to dig graves, but the unpainted coffins were huddled into a deep pit over which a green mound still rests without a monument. A loud laugh heard in the streets at such a time, would have sounded as a cruel indiscretion, and almost as a defiant mockery. Night after night, the churches were crowded with awe-struck petitioners acknowledging the resistless Hand and the merited chastisement, and praying that a merciful Heaven might at length command the sword of judgment to return into its scabbard. While Musselburgh was thus the centre of the deso- lation, the dismay was universal, and Leith, like many other places, had some droppings of the shower of death. It was quite the time for an earnest minister to seize the opportunity, and to stand forth as an interpreter of the dark providence ; for the rod is a revelation as well as the Word. This was done by Mr Harper in a sermon which so deeply impressed his susceptible audience, as to make them request its immediate publication. It was entitled, ' The Duty of Fasting viewed in relation to the Present Crisis,' and was founded on Joel ii. 1 5, ' Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly,' etc. While remarking that fasting is not an exercise obligatory at all times, as prayer is, but grows out of occasions of affliction which are intended to load to humiliation, penitent confession of sin, and prayer for forgiveness and deliverance ; and further noticing, Avith special emphasis, that this afflicting of the soul is the essence REFORMS— CONTRO VERSIES—FR UITS. 95 of fasting, — he proceeds to show, in a few well-weighed sentences, that bodily abstinence also enters into the scriptural conception of the duty. ' It is founded on the principle which we acknow- ledge and act on in every observance in which our object is the excitement and expression of sentiments of piety. It is, for instance, the same principle as that which prompts us to a reverential posture in acts of prayer. What man of ordinary intelligence ever thinks of ascribing any degree of virtue or of sacredness to the mere position he assumes in addressing his Creator ? His standing or kneeling in the presence of God, is not itself an act of worship ; but it is adopted as an outward expression of reverence befitting the nature of the service, and congenial to the feelings of those who are employed in it, and therefore calculated more powerfully to excite and strengthen a sentiment of piety in the suppliant's breast. In like manner, no enlightened worshipper imagines for a moment, that fasting in itself can possess a meritorious character, — can stand in place of spiritual service, — or can be in any respect acceptable to God, apart from the feelings which actuate the penitent as he afiiicts his body with abstinence and mourning. But such corporeal service is a most apt and forcible expression of the feelings of contrition and abasement which the suppliant professes to cherish. Humbling himself amid outward tokens of shame and sorrow, a conviction of sin and a feeling of penitence will enter more deeply into his own soul ; Avhile in reference to others, a striking testimony will thus be afforded to the debasing character of sin, which lays the offender low in the dust and smites the heart with fear and trouble. The formalist will no doubt satisfy himself with the mere outward observance ; he 96 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. will rend his garments, and lay a flattering unction to his heart ; under an aspect of sorrow, he will nourish a self-righteous spirit ; and will walk abroad a prouder man for his tears, and confessions, and fasting. But abuses of this kind are common to all religious observ- ances whatever. Which of them may not be turned to evil account by the ignorance or ostentation of a Pharisaical performer ? The danger of such misapplica- tion of fast-day observances, instead of casting discredit on the duty itself, should only serve the useful purpose of admonishing the worshipper to cultivate, with anxious care, that unfeigned contrition and that deep humility in which the essence of the duty consists. Turn ye even to me, saith the Lord, with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God.' After demonstrating, by a vivid and startling enu- meration of national sins, the seasonableness of this duty at the present crisis, and reminding his hearers that, although many of them might not have been ilirectly and personally involved in prevaiUng public delinquencies, they would not be held guiltless at the bar of God if they had not endeavoured, up to the measure of their ability, to restrain the outbreaking of depravity, and to reform the manners of the age, the eloquent preacher winds up his appeal in these charac- teristic words : — ' When we speak of the plague now spreading in our borders, in its connection with the sins of mankind, it is not out of place to remark that it was the demon of war which first spread the pestilence among the nations of Western Europe. In the late iniquitous war of Russia against Poland, the plague was found following REFORMS— CONTRO VERSIES— FRUITS. 97 in the rear of the invading army, and was spread by them over the country wherever they carried their devastations. Now in reference to this, is it pre- sumptuous or fanciful to add that its appearance in our country may remind us of one of the brightest and bloodiest pages of our national history ? When we think of our early connection with our East India possessions, — of the intrigues and rapacity, the misrule and oppression by which the connection was marked, — well may the recollection rush on our minds with startling effect, that this, the scene of English cupidity and crime, was the birthplace of the Cholera Morbus. In that distant land the destroying angel arose, and sweeping with electric speed along the provinces of the East, broke at length into the Western kingdoms of Europe, — passed the sea, — our last hope of protection from his ravages, — and setting his foot on our native shores, shook the land with fear and tremblinof.' Meanwhile, influences were at work which were to bring Mr Harper's remarkable gifts as a controversialist into action, and to place him in unsought prominence as a leader on public questions among the unendowed churches of Scotland. Dr Marshall's famous sermon against Civil EstabHshments of Religion, had fallen upon prepared minds among the ministers and members of his own and other Nonconformist Churches, and had, in fact, confirmed and formulated opinions which had long been spreading like leaven, everywhere outside the pale of the Established communion. The passing of the Reform Bill, moreover, as enfi-anchising the great middle class from which Dissenters were principally taken, had given them a new voice, and made them conscious of a new constitutional power ; while, in addition to the tendency to look into the roots and rights of things LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. which recent events, in other countries as well as in our own, had produced, it is almost unavoidable that free Churches, in proportion as they increase in strength and numbers, shall begin to question the justice, or rather to assert the wrong, of being obliged, either directly or indirectly, to pay in any degree for the support of other religious denominations, while cheer- fully bearing the burden of their own. In a free country, all institutions and arrangements that bear the look of exclusiveness or monopoly, are certain, at length, to raise burning questions that cannot be ex- tinguished. The consequence of all this was, that while Dr Marshall's sermon was, for a considerable time, treated with silence by the friends of civil establishments of religion, in the hope that the excite- ment produced by it would ere long die out, the policy did not succeed, the newspaper press did not shrink from the discussion, the interest deepened, and some of the ablest men in the Established Church, such as Dr Inglis, at length stood forth as its defenders. These were answered by Dr Marshall, in treatises that sometimes reminded one of the pungency of South and the Saxon energy of Swift ; and in the course of a few years such men as Dr Wardlaw, Dr Heugh, Dr Young of Perth, and, not least in action and controversial force, the subject of our memoir, were found mingling in the conflict. This is the historic point at which to notice these facts, because, on whatever side we may imagine the truth to be, those men were among the first sowers of seeds which have borne great fruits already, both in our colonies and in the United Kingdom, and, which the signs in the sky of providence appear to indicate, are likely to bear more of national interest, in years that are not far distant. REFORMS— CONTRO VERSIES— FRUITS. 99 In 1834, a new element was introduced into the agitation, which did much to widen its rancje and increase its intensity. This originated in a strong representation by the popular and evangelical section of the Established Church, that the church accommodation, especially in the larger towns and cities of Scotland, had fallen greatly short of the wants of the people ; and in a proposal to the Government founded on this, that the Church itself should proceed to erect hundreds of new places of worship, out of funds supplied by the voluntary contributions of its members, on condition that both the existing chapels of ease and these newly- erected churches should be adequately endowed by the State. And to give to the proposal every likelihood of success, the man of greatest eloquence, influence, reputation, and glowing earnestness, was chosen to lead the movement, in the person of Dr Chalmers. The Dissenting bodies were exasperated at this action. It was too much to expect that they should maintain their equanimity, when, at the very time that they were discussing the general question of the equity of ecclesiastical endowments, the endowed Church should approach the State with demands for new grants, which should come out of the common treasury into which all alike were required to pay. Moreover, it was soon discovered that the representa- tion of the spiritual wants of the people of Scotland, was founded on the number of persons who did not attend the churches, rather than on the want of ade- quate accommodation in the event of their attendance, and that the large supply of church accommodation which the Dissenting Churches had been providing, in constantly increasing ratio for more than a hundred years, was usually ignored, and the accommodation LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. and endowment sought to be supplied on a scale of magnitude which should practically supersede, and therefore, if possible, ruin them. The effect of all this was to arouse the spirit of Scottish Nonconformity to a sense of wrong and to resolute resistance, and to set on their defence even small congregations, in remote villages and rural dis- tricts, which had secured their independence and their popular rights by honest self-support. From 1834 to 1838, the whole land rang with the contention, and perhaps we are not mistaken in asserting that, of all the ministers who lent their energies to the movement on the side of the unendowed communities, there was no one more a,ctive than the subject of our memoir, more constant, or more trusted. We have now before us a huge pile of letters, full of information respecting the church accommodation supplied in many parts of Scotland, which put it in his power to speak with intelligence and authority. There is also a manuscript lecture in reply to the illustrious champion of increased endowments, whom he never ceased to admire and venerate, even on those occasions when he most differed from him in judg- ment, and was most opposed to him in action. It was indeed one of his honourable characteristics as a con- troversialist, that he did full justice to the mental gifts, and spoke generously of the motives of those with whom he was thrown into conflict. The chivalry of the old tournaments, which made the combatants praise each other before they measured arms, and reluctant to contend with men whose shields were tarnished, never died out in him. The lecture was first delivered by him to enthusiastic audiences in Edinburgh and Leith, and like an old 'Andrea REFORMS— CONTROVERSIES— FRUITS. Ferrara ' blade, sharp and strong, bears the signs of having done service in many other scenes. He thus speaks of Chalmers, — 'In the course of lectures lately delivered by Dr Chalmers in London, the following statement is ad- vanced : — " There are certain religionists who cannot find room in their contemplation, for the respective parts which belong to the agency of God, and the instrumentality of man, in the great work of providing for the religious education of the people. Such is the homage which these men of strong but unintelligent piety would render to the supremacy of that Being who determines all things. In the entireness of their dependence upon Him, they would themselves do nothing, — as if in things, sacred, and more especially the affairs of the Church upon earth, human skill and human activity w^ere alike uncalled for." This position is illustrated at considerable length, with all that exuberance of analogy, and epithet, and splendid iteration of the identical idea, which so peculiarly distinguish the eloquence of this great and illustrious man. But what shall we think of an argument which starts with a misstatement so glaring, and a miscon- ception of the views of his opponents so perfect and complete, as to make the difference between us to consist in the employment on their parts, and the rejection on ours, of suitable means and of human instrumentality ? Nor is it a passing thought drop- ping accidentally from the Doctor's pen, for it is followed up with a copious illustration in which the lecturer draws his analogies from husbandry and irri- gation, from the deserts of Africa and the overflowings of the Nile, to show that human instrumentality may, and ought to be, vigorously exerted, in conjunction LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. with the providence of God, if we Avould reap the blessings provided for us by the beneficial arrange- ments of nature. Meanwhile, the splendid picture brightens and spreads, till we are in danger of losing sight of the false points on which the exhibition turns, — forsfettinsf, amidst the obvious truth which claims our immediate acquiescence, the statement by which our views are misrepresented. Having fastened on certain religionists the charges of throwing aside human agency, he accuses us of such hostility to certain kinds of apparatus as to seek its total subversion. ... So far from undervaluing means, we attach such import- ance to them as to insist on preserving them pure and entire, and on employing those, and more besides, which the Author of all means has promised to sanc- tion. We surely may reject one class of means, with- out being justly chargeable with the absurdity of holding that human skill and activity are alike un- called for. It does not follow because we do not employ Dr Chalmers' favourite machinery, that we have none of our own. . . . We need not an eloquent man to tell us that aqueducts are good for conveying water, and that, if you would irrigate a parched field, you must not stop the channel that communicates with the adjacent stream. All this is true, and might even be to the purpose, were it not that the question to be settled is, not whether pipes are of use in carrying water, but whether pipes of impure metal and of crooked construction are the proper sort of pipes to employ. That analogies so inapplicable should impose on us as an argument on the point at issue, or even as a successful though brilliant illustration of his opening case, affords a very high proof of the capti- vating charms of genius and fancy. The reader is like REFORMS— CONTRO VERSIES— FRUITS. loi a spectator in a dioramic exhibition — everything seems real — the scene all around is so life-like and so lustrous. And yet, what is it? There is indeed motion, but it is motion in a circle. The figures, too, have outline, and colour, and high relief, but when you approach the canvas, you are left only to admire the skill of the artist in having got up so perfect a piece of pictorial illusion.' The substance of this lecture was repeated by Mr Harper, in various forms, in almost every part of Scot- land, as many a jotting in his too scanty diary makes evident. In addition to all this, he went up to London during two successive sessions of Parliament, to supply statesmen and influential members with information regarding the case of the aggrieved Scottish Dissenters, and to do everything that argument could accomplish to prevent the threatened wrong. On the first occasion, he proceeded as a deputy from his own Secession Synod ; and on the second, from the * Scottish Central Board of Dissenters,' an influential association which had re- cently been called into existence to guard the interests of religious equality and liberty, especially as these might be affected by legislative measures, and which, by the careful and elaborate collection and arrangement of statistics, wrought most efficiently, while it lasted, in the cause of the unendowed Churches. Those who knew Mr Harper in the prime of his manhood, have often borne enthusiastic testimony to his eminent quali- fications as a deputy. Even his fine intellectual countenance and his gentlemanly bearing, could not fail to bespeak the favour of educated men ; while his unfailing mastery of his subject, both in its principles and details, his power of stating his case in clear and I04 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. compact sentences in which there was seldom a super- fluous word, his avoidance, in this way, of that prosing which is sure to irritate men of busy lives, his skill and readiness of fence when assailed, his conscientious candour and freedom from exaggeration, commanded the respect even of those who differed from him, and rendered his services invaluable to whatever cause he espoused. On his second visit to the Metropolis, he was associated with Drs Wardlaw, Heugh, King, French, and several laymen of note in the Dissenting communities, and it is well known that these representatives did much to lessen the hopes of those who had set their hearts upon obtaining increased largesses out of the national funds. It is evident from his notes of interviews with eminent statesmen and others, involving a month's residence in London, that he was enabled to form a very defi- nite estimate of their character ; and we shall quote a few of those extemporized judgments, from his brief reminiscences : — ' O'Gonnell. — The whole deputation waited on Mr O'Connell, by appointment, at ten o'clock. Received us very kindly, and said he believed it was the first occasion on which a Catholic was president of a Presby- terian Synod. Had a long conversation with him, and endeavoured to impress him with our arguments against the proposed grant. He concurred with us in every particular. Gave him six copies of the Memorial, and two or three copies of the Central Board Statement, and left wich him our address, that we might furnish other copies, with any information which he might require after reading what we had left him. Before leaving him, he expressed the gratification he felt at our waiting on him, and considered that we had done him a great honour. REFORMS—CONTRO VERSIES—FRUITS. 105 ' Lord Broughmn. — You need not give me the facts of the case. I know all about it. Would be prepared to resist the proposed endowments. Very kindly and complimentary to Wardlaw. 'Horseman, — Clever and plausible defence of a small grant, as necessary to the good faith and consistency of Government. Strongly declared that nothing could be expected of Dissenters that would compromise their principles, but that they should not press hard upon the Liberal members of Parliament. Acknowledged in strong terms the power of the Dissenters, 'Lord W. Bentinck — In favour of the Establishment, which he thought we could not do without, for a length of time to come. Was a member of the Episcopal Establishment, and friendly to the Scottish ; but acknowledged the duty of the Liberal members to protect the interests of Dissent. Declared against a grant to Edinburgh and Glasgow, but in favour of it to the Highland districts. Would vote for nothing more. Reminded him that if he did not support the direct negative, he might find the Government measure not so moderate as the one he approved of. Would it not be better to take the sound and safe crround at once ? Would think of this. Very cordially invited me back again. 'Melbourne. — Heugh began by quoting the petition from the Glasgow (Established) Presbytery, in which they claim the superintendence of the whole population. Read him my table of statistics. King said of the Government measure of endowment, that there were two points w^hich we were pleased with, the refusal of anything from the public funds, and the exception of large towns from the grants that might be given. With this he was much gratified.' io6 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. We connect with this Mr Harper's brief notice of the Queen's levee, to which the deputies had been invited : — ' The passage lined with martial men. Presenta- tion of ticket. Armoury, a room with its battle pieces on the wall. An inner room with a greater number of paintings. Two doors right and left. By the latter, those admitted having right of enire. Queen standing with a chaplet of precious stones ; white dress bespangled about the breast with dia- monds, holding bouquet in her left hand. Those presented allowed to kiss hands. Leading members of Government on both sides, Melbourne, Durham, etc. Queen in upper end of room, with chair, and crown on back of it.' When the increased endowments were not obtained, and this special agitation ceased, the more general controversy continued. This was partly in conse- sequence of a course of lectures delivered in defence of Ecclesiastical Establishments by Dr Chalmers in London, that were marked by the eloquence and in- tensity of purpose which he brought to everything he handled, and drew around him a brilliant audience interspersed with peers and high ecclesiastics, who had begun to take alarm at the growing agitation. These were promptly replied to in a course of singularly able lectures, to which the picked men of English Noncon- formity and Scottish Dissent contributed, which were delivered in Liverpool and elsewhere, and helped much to carry the fire into England. Mr Harper delivered one of the lectures in this course, by which he drew upon himself the elaborate strictures of Dr Tattershall, an earnest clergyman of the Church of England, who does not appear to have looked well to his armour REFORMS—CONTRO VERSIES— FRUITS. 107 before he rushed into the battle. The subject of his lecture was ' The Voluntary Principle in relation to the Support of Keligion,' and he thus argues from the proved efficiency of the voluntary system in the ex- tension of religion, to the sufficiency of that system for its support : — ' The argument might be illustrated by reference to the circumstances of our native land. How often are we told that religion can neither be spread throughout our land nor preserved in the midst of us, but by the efficient instrumentality of an Established Church ? All the efforts towards this object which the anta- gonist system puts forth, are derided as impotent, and their effects as transitory. But surely it ought to be enough to put to shame this idle scorning, to inquire by what instrumentality — whether by favour of State countenance, or directly in spite of it — our country came to be evangelized at first ? Oh, what a fierce and withering light the fires of Smithfield throw upon the question ! Was it the capricious and brutal ar- rogance of the eighth Henry, or the despotic bigotry of Elizabeth, or the persecuting pedantry of James, that sent the Gospel throughout the borders of our land ? No ! but the efforts of those whom they threatened, and banished, and slew. This view is still more strikingly corroborated by the history of the Scottish Reformation. In the face of opposition from the ruling powers, the force of truth found its way to the understandings of men, and proved mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strongholds ; till Anti- christ, like another Dagon, fell by that invisible hand which works its wonders, not by weapons of man's de- vice, but by ways and means of its own appointing. In a word, it Avas as a Voluntary Church that the io8 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. Church accomplished its most laborious work, its hot- test warfare ; and it became a State Church after the work was well nigh done. The Voluntary Church laboured, and the State Church entered into her labours. As a Voluntary Church she was mighty to spread the truth, which we are told a State Church is alone able to preserve and maintain. As a Voluntary Church she accomplished the more difficult undertak- ing — a State Church, it is said, is alone competent to perform the less. It was without the " might and mastery " of State aggrandisement the battle was gained ; and yet we must bear to be told, that stripped of this might and mastery the Church would be power- less to retain what, unaided, she wrested from the hand of the enemy. Alas ! what a libel on the cause of truth — its evidence — its power — the truth of that Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth ? Would that we could learn to trust God more, and to estimate both human helps and human hindrances at their real value.' Adverting in his lecture to what is said in the articles of the two Established Churches of Britain, that the magistrate, in fixing on the true religion, is to confer with, and to be advised by, the Church, Mr Harper had asked. To which hand shall the magistrate turn for advice ? Whether shall he take counsel of an Episcopal Convocation, or of a Presbyterian Synod, etc. ? And to this Dr Tattershall had answered as follows: — ' Would any one have supposed that not a word of the kind is to be found, certainly not in the Articles of the Church of England ; nor, so far as I am aware, in any formularies of the Church of Scotland ; but that the whole is a pure invention of Mr Harper's fertile imagi- nation ? Does Mr H. consider this to be honest ? ' etc. etc. REFORMS— CONTRO VERSIES—FR UITS. 109 Here was an opportunity for a thrust and triumph which our nimble controversialist was not likely to let pass. ' Turn we now,' he says, ' from Dr Tattershall's heroics to the Book of Common Prayer, wherein the reader will find the Thirty-nine Articles, with the Royal Declaration prefixed, and in said declaration he will read as follows : — " Being by God's ordinance, according to our just title. Defender of the Faith, and supreme governor of the Church within these our dominions, we have, upon mature deliberation, and tvith the advice of so many of our bishops as might conveniently be called together, thought fit to make this declaration following :— That the articles of the Church of England do contain the true doctrine of the Church of England agreeable to God's Word, which we do therefore ratify and confirm," etc. " That out of our princely care that the churchmen may do the work which is proper unto them, the bishops and clergy from time to time, in convocation, upon their humble desire, shall have licence under our broad seal to deliberate of and to do all such things as, being rtiade ijlain by them and assented to by lis, shall concern the settled con- tinuance of the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England," etc. etc. 'We have here then,' continues Mr Harper, ' not only the duty of the civil magistrate set forth, but that in the most palpable form, namely, an example of its per- formance. What Dr Tattershall makes of this I cannot say ; but undoubtedly, in penning the extraordinary sentences above quoted, he must have lost either his wits or his prayer-book. 'After this, whatever he may say of the Scotch Church Confession can excite no surprise. The thirty-first chapter declares as follows : — " Magistrates may law- no LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. fully call a synod of ministers and other fit persons, to consult and advise with about matters of religion," etc. The duty of the magistrate, in conjunction with the representatives of the Church, is more fully explained in chapter twenty- third.' But meanwhile, events were about to transpire which were to place the whole subject of civil endowments of religion on a new position, and to bring the con- tending parties into an entirely changed relation to each other. The spiritual independence of the Church of Scotland in its Church Courts, having been denied to it by the civil power as the issue of its famous 'Ten Years' Conflict,' more than GOO of its ministers and congregations sought independence by abandoning en- dowments which, if continued, could only be held on the dishonourable condition of bondage. Thus was born the Free Church of Scotland in 1843, a year to be ever afterwards memorable by that event, in the religious and ecclesiastical history of our land. It confirmed and increased to an immeasurable extent, the faith of men in the conscientiousness of Christian ministers, and proved that the martyr-spirit had not died out of Scotland. It taught great principles by great facts, which, through their very magnitude, com- pelled men to look at them. It held up anew before the imiversal Church the principle of spiritual independence; and it set in motion a series of movements by which the power of a Christian people for the support and extension of Christianity and its ordinances, independently of all State aid, was to be illustrated on a scale of liberality, which had not been equalled since the Reformation. On these grounds, the Seceders generally hailed the Dis- ruption with joy. One of the first acts of Mr Harper and his congregation was to ofier the free use of his REFORMS— CONTRO VERSIES— FRUITS. 1 1 1 pulpit and his cliurcli to the disruptionists in North Leith, until their own place of worship was erected. Twenty families, who had not risen to the level of their minister and fellow-members, on this account withdrew from his ministry. But their conduct had no effect in shaking the resolution of the brave and public- spirited pastor. This chapter has been principally devoted to the narrative of ecclesiastical movements and controversies. We shall close it by a reference to the death of one whose friendship, while he lived, had for many years been the source to Mr Harper of much high and pure enjoyment. About the time when these agitations began, Dr John Belfrage, minister of Slateford, near Edinburgh, died. He was described by those who knew him best, as having belonged to a high order of human spirits. 'By nature of a powerful, ardent, com- prehensive, and acute mind, the affectionate part of his being was in fine harmony with his intellectual endow- ments. These natural gifts, cultivated by education and sanctified by divine influence, formed a character which it was impossible for' any rightly constituted mind to contemplate closely, without reverence and love.' While a devoted minister of Christ, he had received a complete medical education, and was fre- quently consulted by eminent physicians in Edinburgh, on medical cases of peculiar difficulty. The conse- quence was, that the manse at Slateford was a favourite resort of physicians and literary men, as well as of ministers of religion. PoUok, the author of the Course of Time, when dying of consumption, found a home in the manse, and, with an enthusiasm quickened by gratitude, wrote from it to his friends as ' from the gates of paradise.' Though this good physician and pastor was eighteen years the senior of his fellow-pres- LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. byter, the friendship between them was singularly appreciating and ardent. On the part of the younger man, it was marked by not a little of the veneration with which Timothy may be imagined to have regarded Paul. And an opportunity was afforded to Mr Harper of showing the thoughtful tenderness of his affection, in a manner that made the bonds of friendship closer than ever. Dr Belfrage had an only son, who, immediately after finishing an education in medicine, was obliged to remove to Chatham for the benefit of his health. At this time, the father's own health had begun seriously to fail. His son's illness having increased soon after reaching Chatham, the anxious father hastened south to meet him. He found the young man on his death-bed, and with all a physician's skill and a father's assiduous care, tended him to the end. But when death came, Dr Belfrage's strength was so much impaired, that he was unable to accompany the body of his son to Scot- land for burial. On hearing of his condition, Mr Harper at once offered to receive his son's body on its arrival at Leith, and to attend to all the sacred duties of interment. It was accordingly taken from the London trader, in which it had been brought by sea, to his house in Hermitage Place, from whence the funeral procession went, on the following day, to the beautiful churchyard of Colinton, where Dr Belfrage wished the remains of his son to be laid. It was a simple act of friendship characteristic of him who did it, and which the stricken father often mentioned afterwards with tears of gratitude ; for kind natures most appreciate kindness, and the father's heart had been 'bound up in the lad.' Four years later, Dr Belfrage, after a pro- tracted illness, died at Pothesay, and the same kind hand helped to lay his body in the grave at Colinton, where he had wished to rest beside his son. CHAPTER X. REVIVALS WAR AND PEACE UNION. 1840-1850. Moderatorship — Deputy to Ireland — Signs of Revival — Welcome — Scenes — Discouragements — The Garden — Mental Alternatives — Agitation against Corn Laws — Active Sympathy — Public Questions — Chair of Pastoral Theology — Honorary Degree — Atonement Controversy — Dr Heugh — Irenicum — Statement by Dr Harper — Libel — Welcome Peace — Chair of Systematic Theology — Movement for Union with Relief Church — Advocated — Consummated — Tanfield Hall — Speech — Evan- gelical Alliance. fjlHE decade extending from 1840 to 1850 was -■- perhaps the busiest and most eventful in Mr Harper's life. The measure of work which he com- pressed into this period of his ripened manhood, was enormous. The unceasing duties of his pulpit and his pastorate, never made light of or neglected, his active interest in whatever concerned the moral and sj^iritual good of Leith, his engrossment with meetings of the Church Courts and Committees of his denomination, his participation in great movements of national interest which seemed appropriate to him as a Chris- tian minister, besides new and honourable official duties which were laid upon him by his Church, make it difficult to understand how he was not either confounded by their multitude, or crushed by their magnitude. His every week would seem to have needed ten, instead of seven days, for the work that 114 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. was done in it. His habit of early rising, to which reference has already been made, accounts for much. Then his power of ordering and arranging his work, of packing every day so well as not to lose a moment; his further power of readily concentrating the whole energy of his mind on whatever was present duty; his superior mental gifts, which enabled him in many things to accomplish with ease, what multitudes would not have accomplished at all ; and underneath all this, his deep sense of responsibility to his Master in heaven for the best use of all his time and all his faculties, must go to solve the problem. And yet, in spite of what seemed a preponderating excess of occupation, instead of being mastered by his work, he seemed always to be master of it, and of himself. At the meeting of his Synod in June 1840, he was unanimously chosen as Moderator. The same Synod appointed him, along with Drs Beattie, Young, and King, a deputation to visit the Secession Churches in Ireland, which had refused to share in the Regmm Donum, to ascertain their state, to express the fraternal interest of their Scottish brethren, and to deliver discourses and addresses as opj)ortunities might open to them. In the interval between this appointment and the departure for Ulster, one shadow fell upon his spirit, as appears from the following brief entry in his diary : — ' July 21st. — Intelligence this morning of the death of my sister. How full of generous affection, especially to me ! Bitterness of my grief. Multitude of thoughts. Sense of bereavement.' The visit to Ireland was paid in September. The work of the deputation occupied nearly a month, and in a few years bore good fruit, in a union that has borne good fruits in its turn. The diary notice is characteristically REVIVALS— WAR AND PEACE— UNION. 115 brief, but suggestive. ' Oct. 8th. — Home from Ireland. Gratitude and joy.' About this time, an earnest and hopeful desire had shown itself, in many parts of Scotland, for a revival of religion in the Churches ; and signs of awakening- interest had not been wanting in Edinburgh and Leith. Mr Harper was among the first to recognise the cheering indications, and, with ministers and others likeminded, he hastened to throw himself into the movement. He knew the importance of bringing out the drooping flowers into the midst of the descending rain, to receive the blessing. The evangelistic spirit which had carried him forth to preach from extemporized pulpits on the sea-shore, and among the Leith docks, was once more in full and gladsome exercise. Such entries as the following occur, in rapid succession, in his diaries, in the earlier months of the following year : — 'Jan. 26th. — Sabbath evening. United prayer in my own church, in connection with revival. Prayer meeting each evening during the week, in the Ladies' School. Considerable impression. Feb. 2d — Prayer meeting on revival, in Mr Smart's, in the evening. Feb. 2th. — United prayer in Mr Muir's. Address. Feb. 1 6th. — Sabbath evening. Revival meeting in the Kirkgate. Address on "the Way of Salvation." March 1st. — Evening. Revival meeting in Mr Smart's. Addressed parents. Meeting intimated for every evening during the week, and in the afternoons at 1 o'clock. March Mh. — Evening. Revival meeting in Mr Cullen's. Gave appeal on "the Strait Gate." March 6th. — Meeting in Kirkgate. Addressed on "redeeming time." March 8th. — Sabbath evening. Final meeting in Kirkgate and Independent Chapel. Addressed both audiences on " The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you." ii6 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. Those were ' times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.' We retain a vivid remembrance of the deep earnestness and the glowing eloquence of Mr Harper's addresses, at the same period, to great audiences in Edinburgh, and the happy evenings, ' as the days of heaven upon earth,' spent by us afterwards in seeking to guide the steps of impressed inquirers, not a few of whom, as their future lives made manifest, had ' passed from death unto life.' But the blessing, thougli descending upon many places, never became general. It was arrested by two causes, — the extravagant doctrinal statements of some who became identified with the movement, and the indifference and timid caution of others who were the slaves of routine, ever ready to confound healthy excitement with wild en- thusiasm, and who had never learned that stagnation is more to be dreaded than the tempest. That Mr Harper's own portion of the vineyard shared with their pastor in the blessing, may be concluded from the following sentences in Dr Hough's diary, written a few months afterwards : — 'Last Sabbath, in Leith. Pleasant occasion. Not a little life in the Church, under the powerful ministry of dear brother Harper.' To us it has been pleasing to find in proximity to notices in his diary about his pastoral and evangelistic work, references to his moments of healthy relaxation, in his garden, such as the following : — 'Sept. ^d. — About this time, first observed grapes in the hot-house beginning to soften, the white first. Sept. ISth and 14i/i. — Pull most of the codling apples, and also a few of tlie late kind.' The indulgence of these natural tastes is invaluable, as an alternative to the mind of the busy mental worker. It relaxes the bow-string and saves it from breaking. Carey wrought all the longer REVIVALS— WAR AND PEACE—UNION. 117 at his great work, because he could pass at intervals from the midst of his lexicons and grammars, to watch the growth of the English daisy, whose seed had come out in a bagful of earth from England. And George Herbert was all the better a poet, and not the less a saint, and Ralph Erskine all the more eloquent and devout a preacher, because the one had his lute, and the other his violin, to which to turn at times from protracted meditation. There was no public movement outside of those which were strictly religious or ecclesiastical, that he espoused with so much enthusiasm, and to which he gave so large a share of his time and energy, as that, which had now begun to stir men's minds everywhere, for the abolition of the Corn Laws. He refused to admit that it was a mere question of politics, or even of political economy, but insisted that it belonged quite as much to the sphere of national morality ; that the whole Corn Law system was not only a blunder, but a course of unrighteousness, in which the food of the people was taxed, or raised to artificial prices, for the enriching of a class, and that, in proportion as population increased and intelligence became more diffused, the maintenance of such laws would be the maintenance of a chronic discontent which would endanger the peace of the community. It was quite the kind of subject which, appealing strongly to the moral sense, stirred his whole heart and soul, and made it difficult for him to be silent. Nor did he like the movement the less, because it brought into public notice and action a new school of great men, not moving in the old political grooves, but with high moral tones and aims, feeling that they had a mission which, because it was righteous, must certainly approve itself ii8 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. to Heaven^ and determiued that they would persevere until they conquered. For a succession of years, there was not a great Anti-Corn Law meeting or conference in Leith or Edinburgh, which did not receive the benefit of his counsel and fearless advocacy. At a large public meeting held in Leith, in 1845, for the purpose of petitioning Parliament to open the ports for the admission of grain and other provisions, free of duty, he defended his position in the following brave and manly sentences : — ' As a man, as a citizen, and above all, as a minister of the Gospel, I consider myself called upon to take part in the proceedings of this meeting. I feel that being here, I am not out of my place, but peculiarly in it ; for do I not read in Scripture, that " he that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him " ? ' Within the circle of his own denomination, there was no name, at this period, more prominent in all its prin- cipal committees Avhich had for their object the internal improvement and strengthening of its congregations. Nor was he less prominent and active in seeking to arouse his Church to action, for the putting down of ecclesiastical ^monopolies, or the prevention of new abuses, or the adaptation of old and useful institutions to changed circumstances and new exigencies. As con- vener of the Synod's Committee on Public Questions affecting the interests of the Church, he felt himself specially called upon to keep it awake and informed, and to follow its directions in all such matters. Among other matters of importance, we find him co-operating, for a series of years, with Dr Adam Thomson of Cold- stream, in his noble efforts for the abolition of the Bible monopoly, on repeated occasions moving the Synod to petition Parliament for the abolition of REVIVALS— WAR AND PEACE— UNION. 119 University Tests, again and again sounding the alarm against proposals to confer endowments on the Irish Roman Catholic Church, and, even at so early a period, obtaining the consent of his Synod or its Committee, to resolutions and petitions for bringing the parish schools of Scotland under a more popular management, raising the standard and widening the sphere of in- struction, and making them more nearly national in fact, as well as in name. It will be observed that all this public action was of one complexion, aiming at the abolition of ecclesiastical monopolies, and at the bringing about of religious equality, so that no man should suffer in his rights and immunities as a citizen simply because of his religious opinions and manner of worship. We pause to mention, at this point, that on occasion of the death of the venerable Professor Duncan, the Synod, at its meeting in May 1843, elected Mr Harper as his successor in the chair of Pastoral Theology. And in the same year, the honorary degree of Doctor in Divinity was conferred upon him, unsolicited, by the Senatus of Jefferson College, in the United States of America. He was fully ripe for this honour ; and had the whole Synod been asked for a plebiscite on the occasion, there would not have been one ' non 'placet.' But there were especially two movements vitally affecting the interests and the internal condition of his Church, which, beyond all others at this period, en- grossed the attention, and kept alive the anxiety, of the subject of our memoir. The former of these was the Atonement Controversy, which, from 1841 to 1845, in various forms agitated the Synod and disturbed the Church. It is neither our province nor our choice to LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. write the story of this memorable controversy, in its many changeful stages, or even to make reference to it beyond what is necessary for the purposes of our biography. The controversy had its immediate origin in the erroneous and persistent teaching of a young minister of much ability, unquestioned sincerity, and great fervour, that our Lord, in dying, bore no special relation to the elect, but was alike the substitute of the whole human race, — that His atonement was made, equally and in every sense, for all men, — that it secured no saving blessings to any, but solely removed all obstructions arising from the law and character of God to the salvation of mankind, thus rendering salvation possible to all without certainly securing it to any, etc. These and kindred views were condemned by the Synod in 1841, and Mr Morrison having refused, to the sincere regret of all, after repeated and earnest dealing with him, to acknowledge his error, ceased to be a minister in the Secession Church. The doctrine of the Secession Church in respect to the double reference of the death of Christ, had been clearly and temperately stated by Dr Heugh, in a speech at the same Synod in which these views were condemned. ' I believe,' he said, ' that Jesus Christ, in dying, sustained a relation to the elect which He did not sustain to others, as their head, their representative ; that Jesus Christ, in dying, intended to secure and did secure infallibly to all the elect, all saving blessings, and these blessings, in the eternal covenant were made sure by promise to the Son, as the recompense of the travail of His soul. I also firmly believe, and believe it to be the doctrine of the Bible and of our Standards, that the death of Christ has a relation to mankind, as it has a relation to the elect ; that as it has a special REVIVALS— WAR AND PEACE— UNION. 121 relation to the latter, it has a general relation to the former. And if it is asked, What is that general relation ? I answer that it is suited to all — that it is sufficient for all, but, above all, that it removes and is intended to remove all legal obstructions (by which is meant all obstructions arising from the character, the law, and the government of Jehovah) to the salvation of mankind ; so that, on the ground of this all-sufficient atonement, there might go forth a free exhibition of that atonement and all its blessings as the gift of God to mankind-sinners as such, as the gift of God, not in possession, but in exhibition ; as our Saviour said to the unbelieving multitudes to whom He discoursed of Himself, " I am the bread of life ;" " My Father giveth you the true Bread from heaven." ' It seemed reasonable to hope that the controversy would then have ceased. But at the Synodical meetings of the two following years, other ministers stood forward avowing their harmony of opinion with Mr Morrison on the tenets that had been condemned ; this ending also, on their declining to acknowledge their error, in their exclusion from the Church. The result, which has been so common in protracted theological controversies, followed. Men's feelings became heated by discussion. Extreme and unguarded language was used, which led to mutual misunderstanding and suspicion. Individuals showed a tendency to become one-sided, and to range themselves on the side of one or other aspect of the Atonement, though without denying either. Insinuations began to be hinted against the doctrinal soundness of the Professors under whom the defaulting ministers had been trained. The straining and labouring ship which, for more than a hundred years, had stood the battle and the breeze. LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. appeared to many onlookers as on the point of going to pieces. And yet there were not a few among the ablest ministers of the Church, who had never ceased to believe, in the midst of all the din and contention, that there was substantial harmony among the members of Synod, which candid explanation and the avoidance of dubious phrases would be sufficient to make evident ; or if there were any shades of difference, that they were only such as had always existed, and always been matter of forbearance among Calvinists. These men began to ask in increasing numbers, ' If there is heresy among us, where is it ? We never hear it in our pulpits. We never detect it in the published writings of our ministers.' The clear and candid statements and explanations made at the request of the Synod by Professors Balmer and Brown, showing how faithfully they had all the while been moving on the old lines, did much to dispel suspicion, and to encourage the hope of returning peace. At this favourable juncture Dr Heugh stepped for- ward, almost from his sick-chamber, to do the work of the peace-maker by his admirable Irenicum, in which, not by pleading for compromise, but by showing, with skilful discrimination of statement, the real harmony of doctrine, which, in spite of all the war of words, existed among his brethren, and contending for the right of ministers in the Church to present the Atonement of Christ in its general as well as in its special reference, he helped much to make the storm a calm. Up to this time, Dr Harper, while labouring much in the interests of truth and peace, in committees arising out of this controversy, had taken little part in the public debates; but in the May Synod of 1845, which followed the REVIVALS— WAR AND PEACE— UNION. 123 publication of his friend's Irenicum, he zealously supported him in his contention, declaring his con- viction, which protracted discussion had only served to strengthen, that the ministers of the Church just stood where their Secession fathers had stood from the first, and that the time had more than come w^hen the wearied Church should have rest. The following testimony from his lips, fell upon the Synod with a most assuring influence : — ' The calls to believe are not confined to the elect of God ; they are addressed to mankind indefinitely. Will it be doubted that the ground on which the offer is made to any, is that on which it is made to all ? Whatever obstacle is made to such offer is taken away, and is not this in virtue of the atonement of the Saviour ? To address the offer to all men, is now con- sistent with the honour of God's law and character ; what is the basis of this consistency, but the all-sufii- ciency and perfection of the work of the Saviour? . . . As it is in virtue of the perfect obedience and satis- faction of the Saviour that the oflfers of salvation are addressed to any and to all, we are accustomed to speak of the death of Christ as the foundation of the Gospel offer. Such language is no novelty in the Secession. It was common in the days of our fathers ; it was the language of the Bostons and Erskines, of Adam Gib in his Display, of John Brown of Hadding- ton in his Compendious Vieiu, of the Catechism, com- piled by the Erskines and Fisher, thus showing that the distinction was not regarded as a refinement or abstract speculation, but one to be taught from the pulpit and known among the households of our people. Assuredly, if any man deny the general as well as special relations of the Atonement, he does not in this 124 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. particular hold the language which has been long, I be- lieve all along, current in the churches of the Secession.' The issue of a libel which had been brought by Drs Marshall and Hay against Dr Brown, and from the charges of which he was not only acquitted on every count, but, in connection with this, received the unanimous expression of the Synod's confidence in the soundness of his teaching, brought the controversy to a close, and the ministers and elders went back to their homes with disburdened and thankful hearts. Notwithstanding the years of anxiety and harassing agitation of which this controversy was the occasion, no one was more convinced than Dr Harper, that the ordeal was salutary, and left behind it, like the retiring waters of the Nile, a residue of solid and permanent benefits. It compelled both ministers and people, more thoroughly to think out the whole subject of the Atonement and related subjects, and rendered them theologically stronger and better furnished. It checked in many, a spirit of speculation which med- dled rashly with the unrevealed, while it enlarged the spirit of forbearance and charity. And many a minister found himself standing on a firmer footing in proclaiming the free and universal invitations of the Gospel of Heaven's mercy to men, when he was brought to see more clearly, that this Gospel for the world rested immoveably on the basis of a divine propitiation, which, in so far as the removal of every legal obstruction between the sinner and salvation was concerned, was ' a propitiation for the sins of the whole world.' When you descended into the crater of this extinct controversy after a few years, you found its sides beginning to blossom with the fig-tree and the vine. REVIVALS— WAR AND PEACE— UNION. 125 A few months before this tempest of the Atone- ment Controversy had lashed itself to rest, the chair of Systematic Theology had become vacant, through the death of the amiable and accomplished Dr Balmer, who was taken up from the midst of the strife of tongues to the world of love and peace ; and it was agreed, at the Synod which witnessed the termination of the controversy, to request Professor Harper to consent to his transference to this important chair. At first, he very naturally showed a strong reluctance to the change, especially as it would entail upon him the preparation of a new and elaborate course of lectures, when his preparations for his chair of Pastoral Theology were scarcely finished. But when the con- sideration was strongly pressed upon him, by men who had held the most opposite positions in the recent conflict, that he was the man, beyond every other, who would carry with him the confidence of the whole Synod into this difiicult trust, he consented to the transference, yielding every question of personal ease to public duty; for the change not only withdrew him more than ever from his cherished domestic life, but required that, for many years to come, he should rise to his mental work ' a great while before it was day.' The happy termination of the Atonement Controversy helpedforward the consummation of another movement, in the union of the Secession and Relief Churches. Several years before the origination of this controversy, there had been indications of a desire for union on the part of both Churches, in the form of friendly 'Minutes,' conferences, and otherwise. But during the four years of agitation, while correspondence never entirely ceased, and even when the conflict was at the highest, the brethren of ' the Relief looked on with generous sym- 126 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. pathy, and continued to declare their unabated confi- dence in the doctrinal purity of the Secession Synod, the cause of union made little progress. It was impos- sible that the Seceders should, meanwhile, direct their thoughts to the question of incorporation with others, when they were seriously apprehensive of disintegration and disunion among themselves. But the moment that mutual confidence was restored among the brethren of the Secession, and not a living ember of the old fire remained, the movement for union between the two Churches became more general and earnest than ever. And no one was more active or eloquent in promoting it, than the subject of our memoir. Unable to espouse any cause by halves, he devoted his energies to it, with glowing intensity. He felt that the name of the good and brave Gillespie, in whose gentle breast there dwelt the soul of a martyr, would gracefully intertwine with those of the Erskines and the other Secession fathers. He saw how completely the two Churches were agreed as to the supreme rule of faith and obedience — the Word of God, — as to the symbol of their faith — the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, which both Churches received with the same modifications, — as to the ordinances of the Christian Church and the mode of their observance, — as to the form of Church government, the terms of communion, and the Church's entire independence of the secular power. He marked how similar they were in their historic origin, in their denominational sympathies, and in their denomina- tional mission, and he felt that the question to be answered was not, Is it possible to unite ? but, Would it not be sinful to remain separate ? By union their usefulness was likely not simply to be doubled, but multiplied. We find him, accordingly, at one time REVIVALS— IVAR AND PEACE—UNION. 127 addressing the Relief Synod, at another, replying to deputies from the sister Synod to his own, visitiuo- congregations for the purpose of dispelling prejudice or indifference, and taking an anxious and efficient part in preparing the Basis of Union, which should form the marriage contract, when the happy day of incorporation arrived. It took place, as the fruit of ripened conviction and unanimous desire, in Tanfield Hall, on May 13, 1847. The place in which the Free Church was born, was the scene in which, amid singing of psalms, prayers of solemn consecration, and the 'giving of the right hand of fellowship,' the Secession and Relief Churches were ' married in the Lord,' merging their old denominational names in the common designation of ' The United Presbyterian Church.' By previous appointment of their respec- tive Synods, Professor Lindsay of the Relief Church, and Professor Harper of the Secession, addressed the immense and deeply impressed assemblage. The last article in the Basis of Union acknowledged the duty of the united Church to promote the extension of the kingdom of God over the world, and, taking his hint from this article, Dr Harper spoke on the influence which Christian union was fitted to exert over mis- sionary enterprise, in one of the most compactly built and impressive orations that he ever uttered. We introduce a few sentences which reflect the argument and spirit of his address : — ' It is almost superfluous to advert to the utility of united movement in relation to the objects of the mis- sionary enterprise — the heathen themselves. What their condition and wants demand, is the Gospel in its utmost simplicity, — the Gospel in the mode of exhibi- tion and of statement which came from the lips of 128 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. inspired teachers, ere the sleight and cunning craftiness of men had multiplied errors, requiring a polemical form of propounding the truths of salvation. Where differences exist, they must be looked to and considered. Where errors prevail, they must be strenuously met by prompt exposure and solid refutation. And hence the necessity of maintaining a denominational standard as a witness for truth and for God. But why carry into foreio-n lands errors, whether of ancient or of modern growth, for the mere purpose of refuting them ? Why make converts from heathenism polemics, before the disputer of this world has appeared ? Why acquaint them with forms of error, which otherwise they might not know to exist ? Who does not see the impolicy of presenting the aspect of the Church wounded and marred with schisms, when men should be called on to behold her fair as the moon, clear as the sun, the very image and perfection of beauty ? But whether is this indiscretion most likely to be gUcirded against by a movement in mass, or by a movement of sections ? The question answers itself. Alas ! that the actual con- dition of the Church shovdd be such as to exemplify, on so contracted a scale, the concentration of forces, — union of effort against the depravities of mankind and the works of the devil. ' We have this day erected the standard of Union, recording our " Secession " from the evils of a corrupt ecclesiastical system, and our "Kelief" from the yoke of Erastian usurpation and ecclesiastical tyranny ; and above these, as comprehending both, and therefore better than either, we now, with glad hearts, and with confederate hands, write " Union " as the name and motto of our cause. Let it be an ensign to the people, REVIVALS— WAR AND PEACE— UNION. 129 proclaiming that Christ is our peace, — that it is as His we come together, and by His grace will keep together, knowing and testifying that God hath sent Him. Let it be our olive branch to sister Churches, bearing our proffer of cordial recognition to all who hold the Head, and our pledge of co-operation in matters of common agreement, and the expression of our hearts' desire that the circle of fraternal embrace may daily widen in our land, till the armies of the faith regain their pristine unity, and take the kingdom in the name of Him who goes forth conquering and to conquer.' In the course of his address, Dr Harper had strongly said that such a great sight as he had that day wit- nessed, almost seemed to suffice for the privilege of a lifetime. But there was one honoured head which he sadly missed from the circle of fathers by whom he saw himself surrounded, on that day of holy gladness. Not quite twelve months before, when the goal of union was already within sight, Dr Heugh, his ' inner friend,' with whom he had often ' taken sweet counsel,' had finished his course ; and on the funeral day, Dr Harper had addressed the great concourse of mourners in words ' worthy of the speaker, and in beautiful harmony with the occasion.' The joy of Dr Harper at the formation of the Evan- gelical Alliance a few months before, and of which he had been one of the original promoters, was scarcely less than his satisfaction at the accomplished union. For while the Alliance had not for its object the incorpora- tion of the Churches, its sublime aim was to express and manifest the essential unity of all true Christians, and to provide a broad platform on which, ' as on a delect- able mountain,' they could meet, and, in spite of their denominational distinctions, recognise and exercise that Christian brotherhood which is to be perpetuated and LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. perfected in the world of light and love. It was a noble enterprise to attempt, even though it should fail, and in drawing towards its standard the greatest and holiest men of all the living Churches, it did not fail. We note that during the period over which the narra- tive in this chapter extends, another blank was made in the inner circle of Dr Harper's friends. His father- in-law, the patriarchal Dr Peddie of Bristo Street Church, had died on 11th October 1845. He was a man who, because of his superior natural gifts, would have risen to distinction in any sphere. Not on account of any superficial attractions, but simply through the solid excellence of his ministry, he maintained his popu- larity as a preacher for more than fifty years. As an expositor of Scripture, he was almost without a rival, not because of any extraordinary learning, but through the sanctified wisdom and the rich Christian experience which he brought to the study of the sacred oracles. He always expressed his thoughts with force, often in sayings which had much of the point and pith of pro- verbs, sometimes with a quiet humour which, while not detracting from the seriousness of his utterances, gave a new zest and freshness to what he spoke. With strong attachment to his denomination, he exercised a large and genial charity to those who were beyond its pale. With much natural caution, he was never un- willing to welcome change when it seemed improvement. And when his body became old and infirm, he kept h is mind young through kindly sympathy with the moving world around him. 'In his last years,' said his son-in- law, ' the hand of the Supreme Disposer was seen gradually and gently loosening the ties that bind to earth, till he departed in peace, like one resting in the arms of his Saviour.' ^ ^ Funeral Sermon by Dr Harper. CHAPTER XI. COMMEMORATIONS AND DEPUTATIONS. 1840-1850. Commemoration of Westminster Assembly of Divines — Importance — Dr Chalmers- -Speech — Essay by Dr Harper — Use and Abuse of Creeds and Confessions— Deputation to Prussia — John Ronge — Holy Coat of Treves — Blossoms without Fruit — Free Church of Canton de Vaud — Estimate. IN the last chapter, we were mainly occupied in narrating the interesting movements Avhich extended over a series of years ; in this, we shall notice some events belonging to the same decade, in which the subject of our memoir took a prominent part. One of these was the Commemoration of the Bi- centenary of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, which, in the beginning of July 1643, exactly two centuries before, had commenced its deliberations in Henry the Seventh's Chapel ; soon after, ' when the weather grew cold, removing to the Jerusalem Cham- ber, a fair room in the Abbey of Westminster,' where its meetings were continued for seven years. Looking at it from the point of view of the historian alone, apart from other reasons, it may be safely affirmed that such an assembly not only warranted, but demanded such a commemoration. When we consider the num- ber, eminence, learning, eloquence, and piety of the 132 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. men, both divines and laymen, who composed that unique company, the importance of the service which they accomplished, especially in the preparation of the Confession of Faith, and of the Catechisms Larger and Shorter, their influence over political and ecclesiastical action at the time, and, through the Confession and Catechisms, over religious thought during the two intervening centuries ; when we further remember that those anxiously-prepared documents continue to be the symbolical books, or Subordinate Standards, of the great Presbyterian communities over the world, — we should not hesitate to ascribe to this extraordinary assembly, an importance scarcely surpassed by that of the famous Alliance at Smalcald, when the Augsburg Confession was framed and the banner of Protestantism unfurled; and quite equal to that of the Synod of Dort, which did such valiant battle with the old Arminianism. All the Presbyterian Churches in the British Isles, with one exception, were fitly represented by chosen men in the Bi-centenary Commemoration of the West- minster Assembly, which took place at Edinburgh as the acknowledged capital of Presbyterianisra, and in the already historic Canonmills Hall, on the 12th and 13th days of July 1843. On the second of those days, at the forenoon sederunt, Dr Harper read an essay, which j^roduced a deep impression upon a large and singularly intelligent assemblage. Dr Chalmers presided on the occasion, and gave utterance to a memorable passage, which, by its frankness, felicity, geniality, and quaint hnmonr, pro- duced such an electric effect upon his hearers, as we have seldom seen equalled in any meeting, whether delibera- tive or popular. And it had this additional value, that, having been spoken a few months after the memorable COMMEMORATIONS AND DEPUTATIONS. 133 Disruption, it indicated how experience had brought him to look with more kindliness and confidence on the voluntary method of ministerial support. ' Some years ago/ said he, ' we tried what Govern- ment would do in the way of an endowment for the religious instruction of the people, and, after many a weary and fruitless negotiation, got nothing for our pains. We have now made our appeal to the Christian public, and, in as few months as we have spent of years with the Government, we have obtained, at the hands of the people, the promise of towards three hundred thousand pounds. We are not going to be at all scholastic on the subject, or to speak of the distinction between Voluntaryism ah extra and Volun- taryism ah intra, however confident we are that, on the strength of this distinction, we could make out a full vindication of our whole argument. We call upon Voluntaryism to open all its fountainheads, even though it should land us in the predicament of the well-digger who succeeded so amply in his attempts to obtain water, that he made a narrow escape from drowning in the abundance of those streams which he himself had evoked from their hiding-places. Now, though my own theory should incur by it the sem- blance, nay, even if so be, the reality of a defeat and refutation, I for one should most heartily rejoice, if Voluntaryism, playing upon us in every direction, shall make such demonstrations of its exuberance and its power, as well nigh to submerge myself, and utterly to overwhelm my argument.' Dr Harper followed with an essay ' On the Uses and Value of Subordinate Standards,' or Confessions of Faith, in which he stated the true place of such creeds or human summaries, and warned his hearers against 134 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. possible forms of their abuse, with a wisdom of state- ment and a beauty of illustration which evoked the glowing admiration of the ' old man eloquent ' in the chair, with whom, only a few years before, he had measured arms in the great Church Extension Contro- versy. Some extracts will amply justify his approving words : — 1. General Principles on which Creeds are con- structed. ' Finding the Christian Church divided on points of faith, as well as on matters of government and order, the Assembly did, what every body of men must in some mode or other do, if they would know one another's minds, and found their visible unity on real agreement, — they took counsel together, they com- pared opinions, they discussed and explained points of doubtful disputation ; and, ascertaining that they were "joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment " with respect to what constitutes the essence and form of Christianity, they committed to writing the conclusions at which they had arrived, and gave them to the world, in the precise and tangible shape of digested summaries. The exhibition of truth thus emitted by the Assembly was the Confession of their Faith, — their avowal to one another, to the Churches, to the world, of the things which they believed con- cerning God, together with the scriptural grounds on which their faith rested. No summary of theirs was designed by its framers, or accepted by the Churches, as a guide that was, in any sense, to supersede the use of sacred Scripture — tlie only rule of faith and practice. COMMEMORA TIONS AND DEPUTA TIONS. 1 35 Their formularies were nothing more than an attempt to set forth in systematic order, and in words which all understood alike, and which all consented to, those principles which they unitedly professed as " the truth of the gospel." ' In framing and adopting a summary of belief, the utility of such documents is seen. The compilers and accepters of the document know one another's senti- ments on matters the most momentous that can engage the thoughts of a responsible being ; those of the same mind are made acquainted with one another as brethren in faith, and stand prepared, on the basis of a common creed, to associate in acts of fellowship ; while those who entertain different sentiments, or who have still their creed to choose, are furnished with the means of discovering, without difficulty and without ambiguity, the principles of any Church by which such doctrinal summary is received and adopted. 'Whatever gives definiteness to a statement of principles, must conduce to a good understanding among those who concur in it. If ingenuous in the profession which they make, there can be little doubt as to the sentiments which they really hold ; and if any one, having subscribed the doctrinal compact, afterwards recede from it, by espousing and propagat- ing views at variance with his federal profession, the exact and methodised form of a written summary will serve as an available test by which to discover the extent and tendency of doctrinal disagreement.' 2. Objection answered. If we have a Supreme Rule, ivhat need is there for any other ? ' If we have a supreme rule, an infallible test, in the sacred Scriptures, what need for any words of human 136 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. composition ? The answer is plainly this : That many of those who acknowledge the authority of Scriptiire, differ in their views of its meaning; and hence the mere declaration, " I receive the word of God as the rule of my faith," would leave you in a state of uncertainty with respect to the individual's opinions. Though there is one rule of faith, there are diversities of interpretation ; and whatever creates such diversity, creates a necessity for creeds and confessions. To use the words of an elegant writer •} " Criticism hath been applied to the Word of God, — not sober and candid criticism, by which many of its obscurities have been cleared and its doctrines set in a just and natural light, — but criticism lawless and daring, invested, if I may speak so, with a transubstantiating power, which com- mands away the substance and leaves the accidents, Christ is still God ; but this signifies only that He is a glorified man. His death was a propitiation and a sacrifice, but it did not expiate our guilt ! He is a Priest, the great High Priest of our profession, and yet He is no more a priest than any ordinary Christian who offers up prayers to the Father. We are justified hy faith, that is, we are justified hy works. Wliat purpose would it serve to accept from a Socinian an assent to these inspired declarations, when we know that he holds the very doctrines which they expressly condemn ? What purpose would it serve but to deceive ourselves with our eyes open, and to ruin the Church while we are fully apprized of the danger ? It is evident, therefore, that to preserve the purity of the truth, a subscription of the Bible will not sufiice," ' If, in the words of the author quoted, and on the 1 Dr Dick. COMMEMORA TIONS A ND DEP UTA TIONS. 1 37 grounds so well expressed, subscription to the Bible will not suffice, I grant at once that this must arise out of an imperfect and even sophisticated state of things. It ought to be entirely otherwise. Given to instruct us what to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man, the inspired volume, as the Supreme Standard, ought to supersede all subordinate standards. One of the duties which God requires of man is to tremble at His Word ; to do it homage, by receiving and obeying it without challenge, without reserve, without exception or qualification. Studied in this spirit of devout submission, would it not be found sufficient as well as supreme ? — sufficient to guide man into the right way, and to union with one another in the discovery and pursuit of it. Who shall doubt this, who believes that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit ? What is there wanting to the authority of holy writ, its per- spicuity, its fulness, its " profitableness for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, for thoroughly furnishing the man of God unto all good works " ? Imperfection is not in the rule, but in them who apply it. It is here the evil is to be sought and found. There is light from heaven, but man kindles his own taper, and so misses the way. 'We grant, then, that creeds and confessions arise out of a defective and degenerate state of the visible Church, not as a natural consequence, but as a needful and salutary corrective.' 3. Illustrative Case. ' Let us suppose — what in times of old might have happened — a presbyter from the banks of the Nile 138 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. making his appearance in some sequestered hamlet of Palestine or Syria, whither controversies — though they had long been raging elsewhere — had not yet found their way to disturb the faith of the village flock, and where no creeds existed, because none were called for. The stranger comes into intercourse with the native pastor, as primitive in his character and as incorrupt in his doctrine as he is obscure in his lot. They con- fess to each other that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, and forthwith embrace as brethren, partakers of a common hope, and followers of the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet a little while, and the Egyptian brother makes it known that a co- presbyter and familiar of his, Arius by name, had recently favoured the Alexandrian Church with highly rational views of the doctrine of Scripture respecting the person of Christ — that he is the first and greatest of created beings. *' Brother, what thinkest thou ? " The provincial stands aghast at the question. " What, Jesus the Saviour whom I have hitherto adored and confided in as my Lord and my God, in the rank of created beings ! " These truly are strange and fearful things that are brought to his ears. Alas ! not to his ears only. The new views of Alexandria spread like a swarm of locusts over the face of the land. Specula- tion and debate blight the fruits of piety, as hot winds make the vines to languish on the sunny slopes of Lebanon. Does the Palestine presbyter no%v take to his bosom and to his fellowship every man who calls Jesus Lord ? No. Wherefore? Is he turning bijjot in his old age ? Does his love wax cold ! Is he narrowing instead of extending his embrace of the brotherhood ? Talks he now of a creed ? What, is the good man losing sight of Scripture ? Does he COMMEMORA TIONS A ND DEP UTA TIONS. 1 39 lightly esteem the many summaries of doctiine that are expressed in Bible words ? Ah, no ! He prizes them, if possible, more than ever ; and it is because he does so, that now, when any one comes to him with a profession of the faith, he is careful to ascertain by due inquiry that the stranger not only uses inspired sounds, but that he uses them in their inspired sense. In a word, he frames a confession ; not to lord it over other men's faith, but to protect his own. If the con- fession, that for a time might be oral, be further sup- posed to have been afterwards reduced to a written form, what then ? Does it change the nature of a creed to extend its use ? ' 4. Some possible Abuses of Confessions. ' The uses and advantages of well-conceived and well-executed summaries are to my mind so obvious, that I confess mj^self more afraid of abuses of them by friends, than of objections to them by opponeuts. Of these, one of the most dangerous is, the employment of them as an authoritative test of truth and standard of religious opinion. What is this but old Popery, or young Puseyism creeping into a Church, under the disguise of a Protestant, perhaps a Presbyterian name? The existence of this evil may be detected among the holders of a creed, when they believe its articles rather because they find them in the Confession, than because they have found them in the Word of God. Is not this to make their faith stand in the wisdom of men ? When in the prosecution of religious inquiry we make the question, What saith the Confession ? to precede the question. What saith the Scripture ? we indulge the same ignoble and slavish spirit. What, indeed, is it I40 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. but to elevate into a rule of faith a composition which, with all its merits, is the work of man, designed not to be applied as a rule, but to declare how, in the judg- ment of the compilers, the rule of Scripture, when rightly applied, determines the point in question. To one who, for information, investigates any matter of faith, the use of a confession is important as that of a help to inquiry. On this subject nothing can be more explicit than the testimony of the Westminster Con- fession itself : " All Synods and Councils since the apostles' times, whether general or particular, may err and have erred ; therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice, but to be used as an help in both." 1 ' Further, it is not a use, but an abuse of confes- sions, — an example, not of their value, but of their perversion, — when men, in adopting a public creed, adhere to it in its general scope, or subscribe its pro- positions as articles of peace ; which they may hold in whole or in part without challenge, if they do it without public offence, — that is, if they do not dis- turb the Church by matters of private opinion, or of unsanctioned novelty. This undoubtedly is an evil to which written confessions are liable, but it is by no means peculiarly incident to them. If I mistake not, we have already seen reason to believe that it is an evil more likely to attach to the use of an unwritten creed or oral confession. If, however, there be men — and the experience of all ages shows there are such — who will subscribe articles of faith without believing, or but half believing them, then, certainly, with regard to these men, confessions are no longer pledges of good faith and symbols of unity, but are 1 Confession, chap. xxxi. sec. 4. COMMEMORA TIONS AND DEP UTA TIONS. 1 4 1 turned into a cloak of hypocrisy, under shelter of which the deceiver may deal perfidiously with con- science and with God. Sooner than that this doctrine concerning articles of peace should ever come to be understood in our Churches as a legitimate use of confessions, let decrees of councils, and creeds, and standards, from Nice to Westminster, of every age and however venerable, be torn to shreds, and scattered by the winds of heaven.' 5. Desirableness of occasional Revision. ' Would it not tend to obviate this evil, or at least to detect it when it occurs, were Churches on special occasions, when Providence appears in favour of the attempt, to exercise their Christian liberty in review- ing their subordinate standards ? Would not this be a salutary as well as a legitimate and safe example of the liberty which the Churches of Christ have in Him, — a liberty to manage their spiritual matters without extrinsic control, — a liberty which Christ's freemen prize as their celestial birthright, — a liberty for which, as a host of witnesses have in these days arisen to testify, it is worth sacrificing all the bounties which State favour can give ? In this, the Churches of Christ would leave not a shadow of foundation for the charge, that creeds become consecrated by use and time, and are placed too much on a level with canoni- cal writ as the Church's directory of faith and worship. The allegation would not have even the colour of plausibility, were Churches, in circumstances auspici- ous to the undertaking, to review with calm and solemnized minds their judgment of the standards — not in the spirit of men given to change, but of men 142 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. who know, and are forward to acknowledge, that no work of human prudence, learning, or piety is perfect so as to be unimprovable — such that nothing can without injury be added, nothing without sacrilege taken away, nothing in method arranged more simply, nothing in statement expressed more clearly, nothing in the application of truth brought to bear more directly on the aspect, and spirit, and state of the times. If unknown and unsuspected differences existed, such revisal would bring them to the sur- face, and show them in the light. Where conscien- tious scruples were entertained, they would be con- sidered in circumstances the most conducive to a satisfactory removal of them. Errors would be detected, and caught and thrown over the wall, before, like a root of bitterness, they had time to strike deep and to entrench themselves — not to be dislodged but by effort and disruption.' ' I beg you not to forget,' said Dr Chalmers at the close of the address, ' the most beautiful illustration which the speaker gave, and which conducts us at once to the whole principle, and origin, and practice of confessions in Christian Churches, — I mean the illustration of the Egyptian presbyter visiting a sequestered village in Palestine with the heresy of Arius. There was no practical need of a confession until the visitor appeared among the people of that village, when a different understanding arose amongst them upon the important subject of the person of Christ. It is perfectly plain that this difference of understanding cannot have been removed by a reitera- tion of passages of Scripture ; because the heretic pro- fesses to acquiesce in the statement of Scripture. It is perfectly plain that the only plan of getting at the COMMEMORATIONS AND DEPUTATIONS. 143 heretical understanding of these passages is, by some philosophic method, to meet the terms in which the heresy is propounded ; — in short, it is necessary that the passages of Scripture should be translated into philosophical language. None lamented the necessity of this more than the fathers of the Church — none lamented this more than Athanasius and Calvin ; but there is no other way of putting down misunderstand- ings and heresies. You will therefore see that the introduction of confessions and hirnian standards did not originate with the Church itself, but was forced upon it by those heretics who wandered from sound doctrine. I think the illustration is beautifully brought out, and completely embodies this senti- ment. . . . For myself, I can say that I have seen nothing which makes more palpable the real origin of confessions — which shows that confessions would not be necessary if there were more moral honesty among men on religious questions — than the essay which we have just heard read. I do hope, therefore, that Dr Hai'per will be induced to present his essay to the world in a more endur- ing form.' Dr Harper did another important service to his Church, in visits of inquiry which, at the instance of its Foreign Mission Committee, he paid to scenes of apparent religious awakening on the Continent of Europe, with Dr Eadie and Mr Alex. MacEwan of Helensburgh as his fellow-deputies. This took place in the spring of 1846. The first country visited was Prussia, which was at that time agitated by an extensive movement in resistance to the arro- gant assumptions of the Roman Catholic clergy, par- 144 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. ticularly in the matter of mixed marriages. This again had come to be aggravated by the superstitious veneration, if not worship, of the famous ' Holy Coat of Treves,' to which myriads went on long pilgrimages in the belief of its miraculous virtues, and which many among the Romish priesthood, not only tacitly sanctioned, but actively encouraged. Within the pale of that Church multitudes had arisen who were de- nouncing a tyranny that had become intolerable, and protesting against a form of superstition which seemed dictated by rapacity and had the look of imposture. John Rong^, a Roman Catholic priest, placed himself at the head of this agitation in its new form, and in the course of time was joined by John Czerski, also a priest of the Romish communion. In its earlier phases, so much was spoken by its acknowledged leaders on the rights of conscience and the authority of the Scriptures, and so many of the errors and cor- ruptions of that Church were not only condemned but professed to be renounced, there was so much, besides, of a Protestant and evangelical sound in the language used, that some in Germany, and multitudes outside of it, imagined that they saw in it hopeful signs of a religious revival, and the movement began to be spoken of and hailed as ' a new Reformation.' The timid and t-anguine alike stood ' wondering whereunto all this would grow.' It had become very desirable that qualified men should be sent forth, to examine, on the spot, into the nature and tendencies of this remarkable movement, and Dr Harper and his associates were commissioned for this purpose. He appears to have greatly enjoyed some parts of his journey. In a letter to one of his daughters, he speaks of himself as, after leaving Bonn, COMMEMORA TIONS A ND DEP UTA TIONS. 1 4 5 travelling by the Koyal Mail or Schnell-post, which Dr Eadie had insisted on interpreting as ' snail post,' because its average speed was only five miles an hour. In another letter, he records his satisfaction in passing through Wittemberg, the city of Luther. ' There we visited his cell, sat on his chair, stood at his tomb, and saw the church-door where he stuck up his famous theses against the doctrine of Indulgences.' The deputies sought information from every likely quarter, — from parties to the movement, from individuals of the free-thinking school, from ministers and members of the Protestant Churches, such as the well-known Dr Krummacher at Elberfeld, — so as to have before them ample and varied material for forming an im- partial and intelligent estimate of the state of things embraced in their mission of inquiry. The result was disappointment. The movement, however high-sounding and even evangelical in its words and phrases, was, in no proper sense, a Reforma- tion. If some of the errors of Romanism were re- nounced, it was only to exchange them for the icy negations of rationalism. Doubtless, in their societies there were some who had found their way to the * faith once delivered unto the saints,' and were re- joicing in a new and divine life, but in the case of the vast majority it was not so. To give an aspect of unity to the most discordant materials, the articles which formed the basis of their fellowship, were so vaguely expressed as to include all shades of senti- ment. ' Believing in Jesus our Saviour ' was a formula so designedly indefinite as to embrace every variety of opinion, from the faith of His divinity to the very lowest views of His person. ' Believing in the Holy Ghost ' was intended by many to declare 146 LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. nothing more than the 'existence of virtuous principles, and the communion of pious hearts.' The real foundation of this new alliance was indiscriminate latitude in matters of faith, and the virtual sinking of all doctrinal differences in a spurious and unprincipled charity. Such a society could no more cohere, or stand, than the prophetic image of iron and clay. The spirit that had formed such men as Luther, and that makes martyrs, was not there. If there was motion among the dry bones, there was no approaching resurrection. In writing from Berlin to his wife, we find Dr Harper saying, ' We have seen cause materially to change our opinion of the character and tendency of the movement. Ronge is an infidel. Czerski is a man of weak, and, which is worse, of doubtful cha- racter. The great body of the people adopt the errors of their leaders ; and the almost unanimous opinion entertained by the well-informed and the pious is that, instead of a new Reformation, it is a new phase of evil, and many do not scruple to say that it is a change from bad to worse.' The deputies were indeed sad at heart. But when, passing through Saxony into Switzerland, they entered the Canton de Vaud, they met with signs which re- freshed their hearts. Forty pastors, rather than sub- mit to become the abject tools of the Government, and to be controlled by it in the discipline and adminis- tration of their churches, cast away their endowments, and, having thus purchased liberty by sacrifice, formed themselves into a Free Church in their little canton, with the illustrious Vinet at their head. They were bravely enduring poverty, and standing their ground against the oppressions and unrighteous restrictions of the magistrates, and the hootings of the mob, happy COMMEMORATIONS AND DEPUTATIONS. 147 in the testimony of a good conscience, and in the approval of God. ' They are a remnant of witnesses to the truth,' said Dr Harper to his Synod, ' who have been awakened by healthful chastening, purified by fire, and who love the truth the more that they are called to suffer for it. We fervently commend the suffering brethren of Vaud to your affectionate remem- brance, to your letters of condolence, to your prayers, to your every expression of brotherhood and sym- pathy.' Such visits to weak and suffering foreign Churches, which have become common in later years, are one of the most beautiful and beneficent forms of ' fulfilling the law of Christ ; ' and, as in the case of a lost or wandering child restored to a family, have, in more than one instance, been the means of bringing back some hidden or forgotten Church into the loving circle of an evangelical Protestantism, CHAPTER XII. THE PROFESSOR. Working with a Will — Two Chairs in one — Use of Paul's Pastoral Epistles — Own Experience — Exegesis of 1 Tim. iii. 6 — Systematic Theology — Range of Topics — Marrow of Modern Divinity — Old Truths in New Lights— Structure and Style of Lectures — Criticisms of Students' Dis- courses — Special Value — Times for Faithful Wounds — Specimens — Christian Jew — The Professor at Home — Reminiscences by Old Students — Transatlantic Estimate. WE have seen that, at its first meeting after the happy union, the United Presbyterian Synod appointed Dr Harper its Professor of Systematic and Pastoral Theology. This seems the fittest time to introduce a general view of his work in this honourable sphere. It is a fact which, combined with others, helps to explain his acknowledged efificiency as a Professor, that he took to his work with a will ; for men seldom do well what they do unwillingly. It was his delight to look into the countenances of ingenuous and inquiring youths, to stimulate thought while helping to guide it, and to watch the widening knowledge and the maturing strength and piety of the young theologians who came under his special training, for a series of short autumn sessions. Many brief notes in his diaries bear abundant evidence of this ; and his family and nearer friends were accustomed to notice that, as the Hall session approached, his spirit became more joyous and his THE PROFESSOR. 149 countenance brighter. The autumn of the natural year, was the spring season to his heart. Until the more recent reconstruction and wise enlarge- ment of the Theological Hall or College, Dr Harper had virtually committed to him, what was properly the work of two chairs; and in the department of Pastoral Theology, one principal course of instruction consisted in a series of expositions on the two pastoral Epistles of Paul to Timothy. We have no doubt that in this he followed, consciously and of design, in the footsteps of his old Professor at Selkirk. And the conception was in itself a happy one. For in the practical directions for the pulpit and the pastorate, with which those Epistles abound, — in the warnings alike against error and temptation, — in the many suggestive hints on the subject of church government and church offices, — in the interesting glimpses that are given into the life of the early Christian Churches, — in the solemnity and grandeur of the motives by which it is sought to sus- tain and encourage the minister in his work, — and in the repeated occasions in which the young evangelist with his glowing fervour and his filial love, and the aged apostle with the prophecy of martyrdom already on his brow, are made to rise up before us, — we are favoured with a scheme of Pastoral Theology, and much more. The obvious danger to which a teacher is ex- posed in thus treating and adapting the Epistles, is to spend so much of his time in the mere exegesis of the paragraphs, as sometimes to lose sight of his proper work, and to give to his students a lesson in interpre- tation, when his more immediate design should be to guide them in managing the details of pastoral life. Perhaps it would be too much to affirm, that Dr Harper entirely succeeded, in every instance, in avoiding this ISO LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER. danger; but the happy conception was often as happily realized. In addition, he addressed to his students, at intervals, a course of lectures on the structure and composition of sermons, on preaching, pastoral visitation, visitation of the sick, and kindred topics, in which he gave them the benefit of his long experience in a successful and earnest ministry, and sought to adapt his instructions to the special circumstances of the age. Many of his students, after their entrance on the Christian ministry, have borne willing testimony to the benefit which they have derived from these addresses, when they have been brought face to face with the responsibilities of the Christian pastorate. They virtually stood, at the beginning of their ministry, enriched and armed by an experience of thirty years, which they could only have gained, in other circumstances, through a succession of mortifying mistakes and blunders. While recommend- ing, as he had so long exemplified, the adoption of a high standard of preaching, and insisting that the pulpit must ever be the ' preacher's throne,' there was one practical error against which he earnestly advised his students, that of restricting their cares and labours to the pulpit. He contended for the principle that inter- course with the people was essential to the proper ' shepherding ' of- a people, and to the full proof of a ministry ; and that the ideal of the relation between a Christian pastor and his people, was only reached, when every member of his flock was made to recognise in him a personal friend. We introduce a specimen of his instructions by exposition, which is also valuable on its own account : — ' Paul declares of a bishop, that care must be taken that he be ''not a novice, lest being lifted up with THE PROFESSOR. 151 pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil." M?5 I'so'^uroi/, /Va iJjr\ rvtpuhlg ug /ipifji,a B/jb^Trscrri rov diajSoXou, 1 Tim, iii. 6. ' In this verse, Paul specifies, in a negative form, a class of character whose unfitness for ofiice is obvious ipso facto, M viofuTov. The application of the word, figuratively, to the matter in hand, is plain enough. The neophyte, or novice, as here rendered, is a new convert, one newly planted in the garden of the Lord. Exposed to the peculiar trials of one who has just taken up the cross of Christ, and inexperienced in the fight of faith, by how much he is less able to confront the adver- sary, by so much is he liable to be assailed by the cruel mockings of the profane, the threats of worldly loss, and the importunities of the friends and associates of his previous career, to return to their society and its carnal delights. It is presumable, too, that the new convert may not be deeply grounded in the truths of the Gospel, and therefore not as yet fully skilled to defend his own position, or ripely furnished for the instruction of others. Such a one, then, must not be called to the office of a ruler, till his character has been more fully tried, and his qualifications for rule in the church more fully ascertained. Nor is it self-denial or persecution only that he has to fear for himself, and that others have to fear on his behalf. Grant that his condition outwardly is calm and safe, he has to watch over, and strive against, the spirit that is in him, in the risings of self-esteem, and in its amenableness to flattery and the praise of men. It may prove to be too giddy a height for him to be prematurely placed in a position of trust and prominence, and therefore let such prefer- ment be avoided, iVa iMri Tv