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FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON, D. D. 
 
 BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 
 1^ 
 
■V'- 
 
THE LIFE OF GEORGE MATHESON 
 
 D.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E. 
 

SEP 
 
 THE LIFE OF^' 
 
 // 
 •V 
 
 '^(Jil^ [ 
 
 GEORGE MATHESON 
 
 D.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E. 
 
 BY 
 
 D. MACMILLAN, M.A., D.D. 
 
 MINISTER OF KELVINHAUGH PARISH, GLASGOW 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 
 
 3 & .5 WEST EIGHTEENTH ST 
 
 1907 
 
Printed by 
 
 Morrison & Gibb Limited 
 
 Edinburgh 
 
TO 
 
 HIS SISTER 
 J. G. M. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I DESIRE to express, In a word, my Indebtedness to 
 
 the many friends who so readily responded to my 
 
 appeal for help in the preparation of this volume. 
 
 To Miss Matheson in particular I owe much. 
 
 She unreservedly placed in my hands the Literary 
 
 Remains of her brother and all the materials In her 
 
 possession that might aid me in my work. She 
 
 gave me, besides, much information regarding his 
 
 early life, and cleared up many points of doubt 
 
 and difficulty. My cordial thanks are also due to 
 
 the Rev. John Anderson, B.D., and the Rev. W. S. 
 
 Provand, M.A., for revising the proofs ; to the Rev. 
 
 R. S. V. Logie, M.A., for preparing the index ; 
 
 and to my friend, Dr. William Wallace, for 
 
 again placing his invaluable literary experience and 
 
 judgment at my service. 
 
 D. M. 
 
 October ii, 1907. 
 
 VII 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Early Years ...... i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 Student Days . . . . . • ^3 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Recess Studies . . . . . -52 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Probation . . . . . -To 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 Matheson of Innellan . . , . • ^7 
 
PACK 
 
 X CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 Authorship . . . . . .130 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Devotion and Poetry . . . . .166 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Last Years at Innellan . . . .198 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Edinburgh Ministry . . . .220 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ¥ 
 
 Pastoral and Literary . . . -250 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Dr. Matheson at Home .... 287 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 Last Years . . . . . '314 
 
 Index ....... 363 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 EARLY YEARS 
 
 George Matheson was born in Glasgow on 
 March 27, 1842. The Church of Scotland, of 
 which he was to be so distinguished a minister, 
 was on the eve of its greatest trial. The forces 
 which for the past ten years had been concentrat- 
 ing into opposing camps were now almost ready 
 for the conflict that was to break up the Church 
 into two bodies. A year after his birth the 
 Disruption took place. His parents kept by the 
 Church of their fathers, but the ecclesiastical 
 division and strife into which young Matheson was 
 born were not without their influence on him. 
 They touched him, however, in a manner greatly 
 different from that in which they affected most 
 men. In place of embittering they would seem to 
 have sweetened his temper. They set him in the 
 ecclesiastical sphere the problem which in theology 
 he all through endeavoured to solve. From the 
 very first the question faced him : How can oppos- 
 ing differences be reconciled? In the realm of 
 religious thought he did his best by his writings to 
 I 
 
2 EARLY YEARS 
 
 answer that question ; and though he took no part 
 in Church poHtics, his catholicity of spirit and 
 practice did more to soften the acerbity of ecclesi- 
 astical life, and to bring about a kindlier feeling 
 between different communions, than the active and 
 well-meant proposals of those who framed definite 
 schemes of union. True brotherhood does not 
 depend upon outward uniformity. The love of a 
 common ideal, which in reality is the true bond of 
 perfectness and peace, is independent of all external 
 barriers. It treats them in relation to Christian 
 fellowship as non-existent. 
 
 It was at 39 Abbotsford Place, on the south side 
 of the river Clyde, that Matheson was born. A 
 walk through the district tells of its former glory. 
 There still is the wide street with its blocks of 
 solid masonry, giving the houses an air of sub- 
 stantiality which time has not destroyed ; but 
 the ever extending city has laid its hand on the 
 once fashionable suburb, and by its smoke and 
 tread of busy commerce has reduced it to the type 
 of an artisan quarter. Its roomy dwellings still 
 command tenants who prefer comfort to external 
 appearance, but the rising merchants who fifty or 
 sixty years ago chose it as a quiet, airy, and 
 genteel locality, have long since migrated far beyond 
 its boundaries. It offered, however, a sufficiently 
 attractive residence for Matheson's parents at the 
 beginning of their married life. 
 
 George Matheson, the father, after whom his 
 eldest son was named, was a fine type of the 
 
EARLY YEARS 3 
 
 successful Glasgow merchant of two generations 
 ago ; shrewd, kindly, and God-fearing. He shared 
 to the full in the old ideals of Scottish religious 
 
 o 
 
 and social life, which wealth, in place of destroying, 
 fed and fostered. The Church, with its time- 
 honoured services and sanctities, was to him what 
 it had been to his fathers, and he found his 
 recreation in the kindly ministries with which it 
 leavened public life. The old beliefs still stood 
 unshaken ; and Church and State constituted to 
 him a time-honoured union on which the prosperity 
 of the country depended. His personality, after 
 the lapse of years, stands out clear and strong. 
 His memory is fondly cherished by the remaining 
 members of his family, and by many who knew him 
 through the intercourse of business and social life. 
 He was a native of Dornoch. When quite a 
 lad he was taken to Glasgow to be educated and 
 launched upon his career. Dr. Matheson used to 
 refer with pride to his Highland ancestry, and he 
 ever regarded this happy chance in his father's life 
 as the making of their fortunes. Had it not been 
 for his father's response to the voice which called 
 him thither, the land of promise, of intellectual and 
 spiritual conquest, might never have been his. 
 
 Dornoch has charms of its own. As a summer 
 resort it is full of attractions. Its golf course Is of 
 ancient renown. So far back as 1630 Sir Robert 
 Gordon wrote of it: "About this toun, alone the 
 seacoast, there are the fairest and largest llnkes or 
 green fields of any part of Scotland, fitt for archery. 
 
4 EARLY YEARS 
 
 goffing, ryding, and all other exercise ; they doe 
 surpasse the fields of Montrose or St. Andrews." 
 Professor Blackie, who wandered thither in 1881, 
 while having a characteristic fling at the town itself 
 as ''an old-fashioned, outlying, outlandish, grey 
 nest," speaks of it as " interesting, with a splendid 
 beach for sea-bathing, a fresh, breezy, and dry 
 atmosphere, and a golfing course second to none in 
 Scotland." It offered little inducement, however, to 
 ambitious youth. Cut off from the commercial life 
 of the country, and with few or no resources in 
 itself, Dornoch practically compelled its sons to 
 look elsewhere for success. Still it gave them 
 what the more populous and wealthy centres could 
 not bestow, and prepared them for those conquests 
 which were in store for many of them. The robust 
 health, the latent talent, the tireless energy and 
 ceaseless enterprise of the Glasgow merchant, are a 
 heritage from ancestors who ran on the ''braes" of 
 the Scottish Highlands and Lowlands. They were 
 denied the opportunities which their sons enjoy. 
 They received not the promise, some better thing 
 havine been reserved for those In whose life their 
 own is perfected. 
 
 The elder Matheson on coming to Glasgow 
 looked, to begin with, to the ministry as his future 
 career. This was natural. To country lads in 
 his day, who were fired by youthful ambition, the 
 Church seemed to be the only sphere in which 
 their talents could find scope. The two men of 
 importance in the parish were the laird and the 
 
EARLY YEARS 5 
 
 minister. The position of the one was beyond 
 them, but that of the other was within their reach. 
 The intellectual joys of such a calling also appealed 
 to them, apart altogether from the spiritual ideals 
 in which its true significance is found. Accordingly, 
 on leaving school he entered the University and 
 became a proficient Latin scholar ; but his career as 
 a student was of short duration. By the advice of 
 friends his course was diverted into business, and 
 after a time, along with Mr. William Wilson, after- 
 wards so well known as the genial and popular 
 ** Bailie Wilson " of Glasgow, he started the firm of 
 Wilson & Matheson in Glassford Street. The 
 business prospered exceedingly, and under his 
 second son, Mr. John Matheson, as its head, it 
 still continues to prove successful. Mr. Matheson's 
 early enthusiasms never left him. If he was not 
 to be a minister of the Kirk, he at any rate could be 
 an office-bearer in it. While he lived at Abbotsford 
 Place he attended St. David's Parish Church (the 
 Ramshorn), during the ministry of Dr. Paton. 
 When he removed to the West End of the city he 
 became one of the first promoters of Sandyford 
 Church, and he was deputed, along with a few 
 others, to hear the Rev. Mr. Macduff, then minister 
 of St. Madoes in Perthshire, who became the first 
 minister of Sandyford. Mr. Matheson continued 
 during the whole of Dr. Macduffs ministry to take 
 the deepest interest in church and parish, and he 
 proved himself a loyal supporter and friend. Dr. 
 Macduff on his deathbed dictated a letter (March 
 
6 EARLY YEARS 
 
 1 8, 1895) to Dr. Matheson, in which, among 
 other references quite pathetic in their nature, he 
 thus recalls his old office-bearer and friend : *' My 
 two strongholds in Sandyford, for genial kindness 
 and wise direction, were that dear, great-hearted 
 George Matheson of Glassford Street and James 
 Ritchie." 
 
 Dr. Matheson's parents were second-cousins. 
 His mother was the eldest daughter of Mr. John 
 Matheson of the Fereneze Print Works, Barrhead, 
 and her brothers were Mr. John Matheson, Junr., 
 of Messrs. William Stirling & Sons, Turkey Red 
 Dyers in the Vale of Leven, and Sir Donald 
 Matheson, K.C.B., of the United Turkey Red Co. 
 Ltd. She came of a talented family. Her brother 
 John was one of the foremost business men of 
 his day, full of enterprise and energy. He 
 possessed many of the qualities which afterwards 
 distinguished his brilliant nephew. Cultured and 
 versatile, a patron of art and literature, specially 
 fond of music, a capable public speaker, and an 
 author of considerable reputation, his sudden 
 death in the prime of life was a distinct loss to 
 his native city. Sir Donald was for many years 
 the head of the volunteer movement in the West 
 of Scotland. His services were repeatedly recog- 
 nised, his final reward being a knighthood in 1887. 
 The outside world might have said that Mrs. 
 Matheson's special gift was song. Music certainly 
 was the art she cultivated most ; as a pianist she 
 was striking and brilliant, but her talent was many 
 
EARLY YEARS 7 
 
 sided ; and If It was from his father Dr. Matheson 
 Inherited that sane view of worldly matters and 
 power of managing business affairs which frequently 
 surprised even Intimate friends, it was certainly 
 to his mother he was indebted for his gift of 
 imagination and spiritual insight. He was quite 
 aware of this himself. '' I was brought up on the 
 most traditional theology," he once remarked. 
 " My father held by the old paths ; my mother had 
 an inquiring mind, and doubtless much of my 
 speculative spirit comes from her." He thus united 
 in himself, and in a unique degree, the special 
 qualities of both his parents, and their joint 
 Influence on him accounts much for the man that 
 he afterwards came to be. Young Matheson had, 
 therefore, in the character and culture of his parents, 
 the most valuable asset with which a child can be 
 blest. He had also the advantage of a full family 
 life. The Mathesons were eight : five sons and 
 three daughters. George was the second eldest, 
 coming next to that sister with whom his life was 
 to be inseparably linked to the end. That touch of 
 nature which marked him all through was early 
 developed. It was fostered by his home environ- 
 ment, and ofrew throuoh the contact and conflict of 
 the domestic circle. 
 
 As a child he was inquiring and sensitive. 
 His nurse used to be annoyed by his stopping 
 her in her walk to ask, for instance, how masons 
 built houses. The memories of childhood lived 
 long in his mind. Towards the close of the remark- 
 
8 EARLY YEARS 
 
 able address which he delivered a few years before 
 his death, in proposing the Immortal Memory at 
 the Edinburgh Ninety Burns Club, he refers to 
 the following youthful recollection : "I remember 
 how in the days of my boyhood, in the midst of a 
 crowded street, the scene of bustle and traffic and 
 commerce, there lingered the trunk of an old tree. 
 There it stood ; amid the din and the roar and 
 the rattle, proclaiming the survival of the country 
 in the town, like the touch of a vanished hand 
 and the sound of a voice that is still." Another 
 memory of his boyhood flashed upon him once 
 when preaching a sermon in St. Bernard's to 
 children, the day after the Sunday-school trip. 
 The experience was one with which he would be 
 familiar after his family had removed to St. Vincent 
 Crescent in the West End of the city. The town 
 had evidently been making encroachments upon 
 Abbotsford Place, as one can gather from his 
 reference to the ''trunk of an old tree." In their 
 new abode they would be secure from the " din 
 and the roar and the rattle " of the city's commerce. 
 From the windows of their house there was an 
 unimpeded view of the upper reaches of the river ; 
 nothing intervening but green fields. In preaching 
 to the Sunday-school scholars on that occasion, 
 he chose as his subject " The children playing in 
 the streets of Jerusalem," and in the course of 
 his sermon he told them how, as a boy, he had 
 watched the different steamers on the Clyde. 
 To each steamer a name had been given by 
 
EARLY YEARS 9 
 
 the children of the Crescent, and one which was 
 always behind was christened "Sure to be Late." 
 He had also, like his favourite poet Burns, an 
 eye not only for natural objects but for the 
 dumb creation as well, and a heart that felt for 
 their suffering. 
 
 It will thus be seen that, in his early years, he 
 had the use of his eyesight ; not by any means 
 the full use, for at the age of eighteen months 
 his mother made the melancholy discovery that his 
 power of vision was impaired. The cause of the 
 defective sight was found to be inflammation at 
 the back of the eyes. Dr. Mackenzie, the leading 
 oculist in Glasgow at the time, was consulted, but 
 he could do nothing. He held out the hope, 
 however, that if the boy lived to be an old man he 
 might see well. Other specialists were consulted, 
 one of whom declared that he had a perfect 
 organ of vision ; but no operation was proposed, 
 and no means could be recommended by them 
 for effecting a cure. The fact of Dr. Matheson 
 having what appeared to be a perfect organ of 
 vision, struck more than the oculist referred to. 
 There were times when his friends thought that 
 he not only saw them, but saw through them. 
 This must have been Mr. Eric Mackay's experience, 
 for when visiting Dr. Matheson, along with his 
 foster-sister Marie Corelli, he suddenly paused in 
 the midst of his conversation and remarked, " You 
 have a penetrating eye, Dr. Matheson." 
 
 The failure of his eyesight was gradual. Dur- 
 
10 EARLY YEARS 
 
 ing the greater part of his school-life he was able 
 to see sufficiently well to read and to write, and 
 to acquire a competent knowledge of the Classics 
 and of French and German. He used powerful 
 glasses and availed himself of large type, and was 
 permitted at school to sit near a window with 
 a southern exposure so that he might get the 
 full benefit of the sunlight. But from the time 
 that he entered the University until the end he 
 was dependent upon others. There is indeed a 
 tradition of him, while in the Humanity Class, 
 construing at times from the pages of his own 
 book, but there were occasions when he was 
 unable to do so. A fellow-student remembers 
 young Matheson listening eagerly to a companion 
 reciting, at the door of the class-room, the lesson 
 for the day ; it was a chapter from Ramsay's 
 Roman Antiquities, It was only by having it 
 read to him that he could learn its contents. By 
 the time he entered the Logic Class his eyesight 
 for all practical purposes was gone ; he was then 
 in his eighteenth year. It never could be said 
 that he was totally blind ; he had his moments 
 of vision. Looking out from his windows at 
 Innellan Manse, across the Firth, he sometimes 
 caught a shadow of the steamers as they flitted 
 up and down. Walking along one of the main 
 streets of Glasgow, he at times could discern the 
 sign-boards above the shop doors and windows. 
 Indeed, it would almost seem as if Dr. Mackenzie's 
 prophecy was to become true, for in the autumn 
 
EARLY YEARS 11 
 
 in which he died, while driving in North Berwick 
 with his two sisters, opposite to whom he sat, 
 he remarked that the one had no veil while 
 the other wore a thick black one ; which was the 
 truth. A correspondent recalls the following 
 incident : — 
 
 During the summer of 1869 I was on a visit to my 
 father and mother at their seaside quarters at Innellan. 
 One day Mr. Matheson took afternoon tea with us. The 
 conversation turned on his great deprivation. My father, 
 who had snow-white whiskers, and who was seated near 
 him, asked, " Have you never lucid moments of sight, Mr. 
 Matheson ? " " Yes," he said ; " for instance, I observe that 
 you have very white whiskers." In the same connection 
 a lady related to me an incident which seemed to have 
 had rather a touch of romance about it. She was a young 
 widow, and a member of his church. One day she sailed 
 with him in the steamer to Glasgow, when it happened 
 that she wore a bright new brooch. They were standing 
 together in the cabin, the lady closer perhaps than she 
 would have ventured if her young minister had had his 
 eyesight. She was looking at his face with a yearning 
 sympathy, when a sudden flood of sunlight came through 
 the adjoining cabin window, illuminating them both. " I 
 
 think, Mrs. , you have got on a new brooch," said Mr. 
 
 Matheson. " And didn't I get a red face," said Mrs. . 
 
 The occasions, however, on which there were 
 such luminous breaks in the darkness that shrouded 
 him were few in number. It is possible that if 
 the medical knowledge of his day had been 
 equal to what it is in ours, the disease might 
 have been cured in its initial stages, and then 
 we would have had even a greater George 
 Matheson ; for those who knew him in his early 
 schooldays, before his defective eyesight grew 
 
12 EARLY YEARS 
 
 so bad as to make him dependent upon others, 
 were conscious of the splendid use he could have 
 made of the faculty of vision. It has, however, 
 been remarked that his loss of eyesight was in 
 a sense the making of him. This may be true, 
 if we reflect on the moral heroism which he dis- 
 played in rising superior to the physical calamity 
 which would have crushed most men, and mak- 
 ing it a stepping-stone to spiritual triumphs. I am 
 aware that those who speak thus are of opinion 
 that his natural defect threw him back upon 
 himself, compelled him to meditate upon Divine 
 things, and thereby enabled him to produce those 
 works which by their depth, insight, and suggest- 
 iveness have been the joy and comfort of many. 
 That touch of mysticism in his preaching and 
 writing, in which consisted much of their charm, 
 they hold, might have been wanting if Matheson 
 had been distracted by those sights which disturb 
 or absorb the thoughts of most men. There may 
 be a measure of truth in this, but only, after all, a 
 very limited measure. George Matheson was cast 
 by nature in the mould with which we are familiar, 
 and his education, environment, profession, and 
 impaired eyesight may each have had its share in 
 his spiritual and intellectual development ; but his 
 own personality was greater than them all, and they 
 and the other circumstances of his life were utilised 
 by it in forming and perfecting his character and 
 finishing his work. 
 
 Hearers of Dr. Matheson's preaching, readers 
 
EARLY YEARS 13 
 
 of his books, and even members of his congrega- 
 tion, seldom thought, perhaps, that there was a 
 time in his Hfe when the awful tragedy of the loss 
 of his eyesight all but overwhelmed him. He was 
 such an optimist, so buoyant and inspiring, that it 
 would not occur to them that he was blind, or that 
 there was an hour in his life when he all but 
 succumbed to the deep despondency into which his 
 threatened loss threw him. Yet there was such an 
 hour. He had as a boy the happiest of natures ; 
 he took unaffected delight in every pleasure that 
 was innocent ; he was companionable, and shared 
 the interests, the pastimes, and the joys of his 
 family and schoolfellows. He had a mind that 
 reached forward to the boundaries of knowledge, 
 a soul that yearned to be in touch with every- 
 thing divine and human ; he took a natural zest 
 in life, and was ambitious of probing its depths 
 to the full. And yet at the very opening of his 
 manhood the appalling fact faced him that he would 
 have to go through life maimed, crippled in that 
 very faculty by whose means the world of know- 
 ledge, in which from his earliest years he took 
 supreme delight, could be gained ; and debarred 
 from sharing in those human interests in which his 
 soul rejoiced. He felt more than a momentary 
 shock when he knew that a cure was impossible. 
 
 It was now that he entered upon the great 
 struggle of his life and encountered the trial which 
 tested his character to the utmost. It has always 
 seemed to me that there is more than a reminiscence 
 
14 EARLY YEARS 
 
 of this period in his study of the Book of Job. The 
 problem which this profound poem raises had a 
 singular attraction for him. It formed the subject 
 of the sermon which he preached before Queen 
 Victoria at Balmoral, and he dealt with it on 
 subsequent occasions in the pulpit and through the 
 press. It was the very problem which he himself, 
 in the first blush of eager manhood, had to solve, 
 not only theoretically but practically, by a veritable 
 agony and bloody sweat. Why should the innocent 
 have to suffer ? Why should a catastrophe alto- 
 gether unmerited befall him ? Why should his 
 career, through no fault of his, be blasted on its 
 very threshold ? Why should he be denied those 
 natural and intellectual joys for which he was so 
 well adapted ? These and similar questions that 
 test a man's faith recurred to him with overwhelm- 
 ing force at this time ; and his after life, from that 
 very moment to its close, was a proof that he 
 answered them in the only way by which peace is 
 possible. In the spirit of his Master he conquered 
 through submission. Thus early did he enter into 
 the very Holy of Holies, and discover the secret 
 of Christianity. 
 
 His education began at a very early period. A 
 tutor at first came in to teach him. Afterwards he 
 went to a school in Carlton Place, conducted by a 
 Miss Hutcheson, and then to Mr. Buchanan's in St. 
 Georore's Place. Somethino^ more than a tradition 
 remains of this pedagogue. Many men who after- 
 wards became famous passed, in their youth, 
 
EARLY YEARS 15 
 
 through his hands. He had considerable reputa- 
 tion as an educationist, and excelled as a teacher of 
 elocution. It is not at all unlikely that Matheson's 
 oratorical gifts received their first impetus from his 
 early schoolmaster. Buchanan, after retiring from 
 his profession, resided at Port Bannatyne in Bute. 
 He was in the habit of entertaining his friends with 
 a rehearsal of his triumphs in the teaching art, 
 boasting of the distinguished men whose early 
 genius he had inspired, and taking not a little 
 credit to himself for Matheson's gifts as a 
 preacher. 
 
 It was when George was about ten years of age 
 that the Mathesons removed to the West End of 
 the city. The district which they chose for their 
 residence was quite in the country. Those who 
 know Glasgow only as it now is can hardly believe 
 that St. Vincent Crescent could ever have been in 
 the country. It is now surrounded by docks, rail- 
 way lines, and public works. Like Abbotsford 
 Place, it has had to yield to the pressure of the 
 city's industry. The Mathesons took up their 
 abode first in No. 60 and afterwards in No. 30, 
 and it was in these two houses that the foundation 
 of their son's education was laid. They were 
 fortunate in having within an easy walking distance 
 one of the two best schools in the city. This was 
 the Glasgow Academy, recently erected. It was 
 at that time situated in Elmbank Street. After 
 the passing of the Scotch Education Bill it was 
 bought by the School Board, and to it the High 
 
16 EARLY YEARS 
 
 School was removed from Its old premises in John 
 Street, the Academy migrating westward to hand- 
 some new buildings across the Kelvin, in Hlllhead. 
 Young Matheson's first session in the Academy- 
 was in 1853 ; he remained in it altogether four 
 years, and his record was one of unbroken distinc- 
 tion. The close of his first year at the school saw 
 him Dux of his Class. He in addition gained the 
 prize for History and Religious Knowledge. His 
 second year at the Academy was his first in Latin. 
 On this occasion he won the second prize, and 
 carried off the prizes in History, Geography, and 
 English Composition. In his third session he 
 resumed his former place as Dux of his Class, 
 winning all the other special prizes, and in addition 
 the prize in Science. Had he completed his full 
 course he would no doubt have been in his last 
 year Dux of the School, but he left at the close of 
 the Session 1856-7, and never took the fifth Latin 
 Class, which at that time was the highest. One 
 of Dr. Matheson's old schoolfellows, Mr. James 
 Hotson of Glasgow, gives the following remin- 
 iscences of those far-off days : — 
 
 My first acquaintance with Dr. Matheson would be 
 about 1853, when my father's family removed to No. 31 
 St. Vincent Crescent. George Matheson and his next 
 brother attended the same school with some of us, — the 
 Glasgow Academy, — and my younger brother Hamilton 
 and myself came, after a time, to be in the same class 
 with him. It happened thus that we frequently walked 
 to and from school together. The usual route was along 
 Kent Road, then a real road, with deep hollows, called 
 "orchards," on both sides. There were orchards also 
 
EARLY YEARS 17 
 
 behind the Academy playground, so that when a football 
 happened to be kicked over the paling it frequently took 
 some time to recover it. There were at that time two 
 headmasters in Classics, Dr. M'Burney and Mr. Currie. 
 Matheson was at first under the former, but in 1856 he 
 changed to Mr. Currie's, under whom my brother and I 
 had been all along. Mr. Currie, to judge by his CcBsar 
 for Begijiners and Notes on Ho7'ace^ both used in his 
 classes, must have been a man of considerable scholar- 
 ship, but I cannot say he was much of a teacher. 
 He conducted the class usually after a sleepy sort of 
 fashion, alternating with periods when he made things 
 just a little too lively. Our principal other teachers 
 were Mr. Bell (English), Mr. Reid (Arithmetic and 
 Mathematics), Mr. Gow (Writing and Book-keeping), 
 and Mr. Finlay (French and German). I cannot 
 remember anything of Matheson's appearances in Mr. 
 Bell's or Mr. Reid's class. Both were pleasant men 
 generally, although at times they could be stern 
 enough. Mr. Gow was good-natured even to softness. 
 Matheson and I had a seat next each other, at a desk 
 facing a window, and the circumstance that, with such 
 light as he would thus get, he could practise a kind of 
 half- text, shows that at that period his eyesight was not 
 nearly so defective as it afterwards became. He and I 
 were then engrossed with Byron's " Corsair," and I regret 
 to say that I occasionally carried the book in my pocket 
 and read bits of it to him when we ought to have been 
 attending to our copy-books. Mr. Finlay was also 
 extremely good-natured. When he set us to recite a 
 portion of some amusing French Comedy, which he 
 frequently did, and laughed himself as heartily as any of 
 the boys, it seemed more like a dramatic entertainment 
 than a school lesson. I remember Matheson, James 
 Carlile, and my brother taking part in one of these 
 recitals. But our principal class was Mr. Currie's, in 
 which, besides Latin and Greek, we had lessons in History, 
 Geography, Religious Knowledge, and English Com- 
 position. Matheson from the first distinguished himself 
 in all these, but it was chiefly in English Composition 
 
18 EARLY YEARS 
 
 that he excelled. In this, however, he had a keen rival 
 in John Ronald, who had long been acknowledged first 
 in this department, and was bitterly jealous in conse- 
 quence. Matheson composed a poem " Bethany Tears," 
 and the boys subscribed and had it printed. It began 
 thus : 
 
 Once when the world in pomp and pride swept by, 
 And " Raise up Mammon " was its ruling cry. 
 When man in sin's embrace had fallen asleep, 
 The God-man Jesus was constrained to weep. 
 Time has flown on with wings of speed arrayed, 
 Empires have risen, flourished, and decayed ; 
 Great kings and warriors in oblivion lie. 
 But those embittering tears can never dry. 
 
 Without delay Ronald came out with a lampoon on 
 Matheson, commencing : 
 
 In sparkling Clutha's verdant vale, 
 A verdant Homer chants his tale, 
 
 which though not printed was quickly circulated through- 
 out the class. Towards the end of the session Matheson 
 wrote and recited another set of verses, the refrain of 
 which was : 
 
 Up, up and rejoice, the vacation is nigh, 
 
 which showed that his good spirits were not much 
 affected by Ronald's rivalry. Of the other leading boys in 
 his class, which numbered about eighty, I need scarcely say 
 anything. There was one, however, who afterwards highly 
 distinguished himself in the literary world as poet, 
 novelist, and playwright — I mean Robert Buchanan. He 
 made no figure to speak of in any of the classes. I 
 suppose he was too much occupied with Shakespere, 
 then his favourite author, to do justice to his lessons. 
 Although he also lived in St. Vincent Crescent, and must 
 frequently have walked to and from school with the 
 other Sandyford and Partick pupils, I don't think 
 Matheson and he ever got intimately acquainted. My 
 
EARLY YEARS 19 
 
 brother and I knew him quite well, and spent a good deal 
 of time in his company. The most remarkable feature in 
 his personal appearance was his enormous head. I could 
 give some reminiscences of him, but " that is another 
 story." Matheson at school was well liked and very 
 popular. He was always in good spirits and full of 
 laughter. 
 
 One at the first blush must feel surprise at the 
 high spirits of young Matheson and the success 
 of his schooldays. Credit him v^Ith the most 
 cheerful nature and the most brilliant talents that 
 ever a youth possessed, the portrait of him that 
 has thus been drawn by an old companion surely 
 calls for some explanation. This will be found in 
 his home life. No youth could be more happily 
 situated In this respect than he was. His parents, 
 on discovering his talents, gave him every en- 
 couragement, and having ample means at their 
 disposal were quite prepared to spare no expense 
 on his education. But the difficulty faced him how, 
 with the Increasing loss of eyesight, he could 
 acquire a knowledge of subjects which were 
 necessary for a scholastic career and continue 
 abreast of the progress demanded of any who 
 aspired to a University degree and a learned pro- 
 fession. It was when this need became apparent 
 that the members of his family rallied round him 
 and began to show that devotion to his Interests 
 which continued to the very end. The home of 
 the Mathesons at this period affords a picture of 
 a ''Scottish Interior," equal In beauty, on Its own 
 lines, to that which Burns gives in the " Cottar's 
 
20 EARLY YEARS 
 
 Saturday Night." We see the father and mother 
 with the other members of the family gathering 
 round the budding preacher, who at the early age 
 of seven improvised a church and congregation, 
 and standing on a chair which for the occasion was 
 dignified into a pulpit, and with a pair of paper 
 bands on his breast, astonished his hearers by 
 delivering sermons which showed an ability and 
 an eloquence far beyond his years. While still a 
 schoolboy he wrote a play with Theseus as its 
 hero. This play was frequently acted in his 
 mother's drawing-room ; his brothers and sisters 
 taking the leading parts, with a select number of 
 relatives and friends as auditors. 
 
 It was, however, in relation to his studies, and 
 the necessary preparation of them for school and 
 University, that the devotion of his family comes 
 into the boldest relief. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew 
 do not as a rule commend themselves to the minds 
 of women. It is only within recent years, after 
 the gates of the Universities were thrown open 
 to them, that the gentler sex began to show any 
 special interest in these subjects. Yet in this 
 ''Scottish Interior" we see two of Dr. Matheson's 
 young sisters labouring earnestly to acquire a know- 
 ledge of these languages, so that they might be able 
 to read them to their brother and thereby assist him 
 in his career. 
 
 It was at an even earlier staofe than this that 
 his eldest sister began to forge those links which 
 joined her in so close a union with her brother, 
 
EARLY YEARS 21 
 
 and which grew in strength as the years passed 
 by. It was she who taught him to read, and 
 she still remembers the childish delight with 
 which she one day announced to her mother that 
 George was able to spell. The interest of the 
 other members of the family might flag or vary, 
 but hers knew no change. She was in very truth 
 his alter ego, and it was touching to notice the 
 way in which he leaned upon her. Her sympathy 
 and companionship had become indispensable to 
 him, and the one great dread of his life was 
 that she might be taken first. It is impossible 
 to measure her literary labours, especially during 
 the earlier period of her brother s life. His college 
 exercises and essays are in her hand-writing. 
 It was she, too, who to his dictation wrote his 
 earlier sermons. It was not until he had entered 
 upon his ministerial career that the services of a 
 permanent secretary were secured, and she was in 
 a measure relieved. This, after all, was but giving 
 up one task to undertake another, for after he 
 became a parish minister, and his rising fame drew 
 crowds of admirers to his door, upon her largely 
 rested the burden of oruidine her brother throuo^h 
 the quicksands and pitfalls of congregational and 
 ^parochial life, and of tempering those social rela- 
 tions into which his position naturally drew him. 
 In a scrap-book, which dates from 1868, there is 
 to be found on its very first page a sonnet by the 
 Archbishop of Dublin on a " Brother and Sister" 
 who died at the same time. It was evidently 
 
22 EARLY YEARS 
 
 selected for preservation because of the singular 
 manner in which it expressed not only their affec- 
 tion but also their wish : 
 
 Men said who saw the tender love they bare 
 
 Each to the other, and their hearts so bound 
 
 And knit in one, that neither sought nor found 
 
 A nearer tie than that affection rare — 
 
 How with the sad survivor will it fare, 
 
 When death shall for a season have undone 
 
 The links of that close love ; and taking one 
 
 The other leaves to draw unwelcome air ? 
 
 And some perchance who loved them, would revolve. 
 
 Sadly the sadness which on one must fall, 
 
 The lonely left by that dividing day. 
 
 Vain fears ! for He who loved them best of all, 
 
 Mightier than we life's mysteries to solve,- 
 
 In one fire chariot bore them both away. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 Dr. Matheson's early Interest in intellectual pur- 
 suits clearly marked him out for a professional 
 career. His impaired eyesight, with every indica- 
 tion of its final loss, necessarily limited his choice. 
 His own inclinations pointed to the Bar. Indeed, 
 in after years, he used to declare that if he had 
 been without any physical impediment, this is the 
 profession he would have chosen. One can readily 
 understand the reasons which would weigh with 
 him in preferring such a choice. He possessed 
 in a marked degree the qualities necessary for 
 success in such a career. He had natural ability, 
 mental alertness, and the gift of speech. His 
 buoyancy of nature and indomitable perseverance 
 would have enabled him to surmount the prelimin- 
 ary drudgery, and to wait for his first great 
 opportunity. It may be profitless to forecast his 
 success in such a profession, but it is surely not 
 too much to say that, all things being equal, he 
 would have risen to eminence and become one 
 of the most distinguished advocates of his time. 
 
 23 
 
24 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 How striking a resemblance exists in this re- 
 spect between the opening years of his life and 
 those of Robertson of Brighton ? Robertson's / 
 early ambition was to be a soldier ; Matheson's, 
 a barrister. An unseen Hand intervened in both 
 cases and led them to the Church ; but as 
 Robertson's early pieties marked him out for the 
 career which he in the end was to follow, may we 
 not see in young Matheson, preaching, at the age 
 of seven, sermons to his family which caused them 
 to wonder, that his choice had already been made, 
 although at the time he was altogether unaware of 
 it. 
 
 The young scholar was singularly fortunate in 
 the place of his birth. He had at his door not only 
 one of the best schools which his native country 
 could provide, but a University whose roots were 
 deeply imbedded in the past, and whose steadily 
 growing fame gave an impetus to the student who 
 was ambitious of scholastic success. The Uni- 
 versity of Glasgow was founded in the Middle 
 Ages, when the city, of which it was afterwards to 
 be so distinguished an ornament, was little more 
 than a village. It was subjected to many vicissi- 
 tudes, especially in its early years ; and immediately 
 after the Reformation it had all but vanished. 
 New life was put into it by Andrew Melville, its 
 first great Principal, and from his day till our own 
 it has never, with the exception of one or two 
 pauses, looked back. It has within recent years 
 entered upon a period of hopeful expansion, and its 
 
STUDENT DAYS 25 
 
 future promises to be more than worthy of its past. 
 Since Matheson left the University, only forty years 
 ago, it has, however, undergone so many changes, 
 almost amounting to a revolution, that the young 
 student of to-day can have no idea of what his 
 Alma Mater was half a century ago. Her home 
 is now on Gilmorehlll ; it was then in the High 
 Street. The house in which she dwelt was be- 
 grimed with the city's smoke ; her new abode 
 shines resplendent. 
 
 The ancient College of Glasgow, as it appeared 
 to the men and women of the eighteenth or nine- 
 teenth century, is now a thing of the past. Every 
 stone of it has been carried away ; and with the 
 exception of the lodge at the main entrance to the 
 present University, and the stairway that leads 
 from the professors' court to the quadrangle, not a 
 vestige of it remains. In a few years very few 
 will be alive who studied in the old place, and it 
 will be difficult for future generations to believe 
 that the site of the present unsightly railway depot 
 was once dedicated to learning and to the Muses. 
 The old buildings, with which Matheson and his 
 contemporaries were so familiar, were begun early 
 in the seventeenth century, and a hundred years 
 elapsed before they were quite completed. 
 Glasgow was proud of them in their day, and Sir 
 Walter Scott writes in Rob Roy, with not a little 
 enthusiasm, of the ** old-fashioned buildings," "the 
 college yards," and ''the solitude of the place"; 
 " the grounds opening in a sort of wilderness, laid 
 
26 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 out in the Dutch taste with dipt hedges and one 
 or two statues." Other writers, from "Jupiter" 
 Carlyle to A. K. H. Boyd, have exercised their 
 gifts in describing the ancient University and 
 College life in Glasgow. Carlyle had not a very 
 sharp eye for externals ; he is for the most part 
 silent about the buildings themselves. He was 
 much more interested in the human beings that 
 inhabited them, or who, at any rate, found in them 
 the centre of their existence. Nothing that has 
 since been written can be at all compared to his 
 vivid sketches of Glasgow society and Collegiate 
 life in the year immediately preceding the 
 '45. Principal Campbell, Professors Leechman, 
 Hutcheson, and Simson, still live in the pages 
 of his famous Autobiogr^aphy. But it was the 
 Principal's daughter, " Miss Mally," who was the 
 chief personage, in the estimation of young 
 ** Jupiter," of all the brilliant set in which he 
 mingled. ''For on asking," he says, "my friend 
 James Edgar, afterwards a commissioner of the 
 Customs, for a letter of introduction to someone 
 of importance and influence, he gave me one to 
 Miss Mally Campbell, the daughter of the 
 Principal ; and when I seemed surprised at his 
 choice, he added that I would find her not only 
 more beautiful than any woman there, but more 
 sensible and friendly than all the professors put 
 together, and much more useful to me. This," he 
 adds, " I found to be literally true." 
 
 Lockhart, Scott's son-in-law, in Peter s Letters 
 
STUDENT DAYS 27 
 
 to his Kinsfolk, and Captain Hamilton, brother of 
 the famous Sir William, in Cyril Thornton, give 
 descriptions of the College and College life in their 
 day, but the account which affords the best idea of 
 the external appearance of the University buildings 
 as they existed in Matheson's time is A. K. H. B.'s, 
 who himself was a student of Glasgow University. 
 It will be found in his Leiszire Hours in Town, and 
 refers to the period when Matheson was still an 
 undergraduate : 
 
 The stranger in Glasgow who has paid a visit to the 
 noble cathedral, has probably, in returning from it, walked 
 down the High Street, a steep and filthy way of tall 
 houses, now abandoned to the poorest classes of the 
 community, where dirty women in mutches, each followed 
 by two or three squalid children, hold loud conversations 
 all day long; and the alleys leading from which pour 
 forth a flood of poverty, disease, and crime. On the left 
 hand of the High Street, where it becomes a shade more 
 respectable, a dark, low-browed building of three storeys 
 in height fronts the street for two or three hundred yards. 
 That is Glasgow College ; for here, as also at Edinburgh, 
 the University consists of a single College. The first 
 gateway at which we arrive opens into a dull-looking 
 court, inhabited by the professors, eight or ten of whom 
 have houses here. Farther down, a low archway, which 
 is the main entrance to the building, admits to two or 
 three quadrangles, occupied by the various class-rooms. 
 
 There is something impressive in the sudden transition 
 from one of the most crowded and noisy streets of the 
 city to the calm and stillness of the College courts. The 
 first court we enter is a small one, surrounded by 
 buildings of a dark and venerable aspect. An antique 
 staircase of massive stone leads to the Faculty Hall or 
 Senate House ; and a spire of considerable height sur- 
 mounts a vaulted archway leading to the second court. 
 This court is much larger than the one next the street, 
 
28 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 and with its turrets and winding staircases, narrow 
 windows and high-pitched roofs, would quite come up 
 to our ideas of academic architecture ; but unhappily, 
 some years since, one side of this venerable quadrangle 
 was pulled down, and a large building in the Grecian style 
 erected in its place, which, like a pert interloper, contrasts 
 most disagreeably with the remainder of the old monastic 
 pile. Passing out of this court by another vaulted 
 passage, we enter an open square, to the right of which is 
 the University library, and at some little distance an 
 elegant Doric temple which is greatly admired by those 
 who prefer Grecian to Gothic architecture. This is the 
 Hunterian Museum, and contains a valuable collection of 
 subjects in natural history and anatomy bequeathed by 
 the eminent surgeon whose name it bears. Beyond this 
 building the College gardens stretch away to a consider- 
 able distance. The ground is undulating — there are 
 many trees, and what was once a pleasant country stream 
 flows through the gardens ; but Glasgow factories and 
 Glasgow smoke have quite spoiled what must once have 
 been a delightful retreat from the dust and glare of the 
 city. The trees are now quite blackened, the stream 
 (named the Molendinar Burn) became so offensive that 
 it was found necessary to arch it over, and drifts of stifling 
 and noisome smoke trail slowly all day over the College 
 gardens. There are no evergreens nor flowers ; and the 
 students generally prefer to take their constitutional in the 
 purer air of the western outskirts of Glasgow. 
 
 The other changes that have taken place are 
 even more far-reaching than those which have 
 affected the external appearance and locality of 
 the University. In Matheson's day students of 
 all ages, from tv^elve to forty years, might be 
 found sitting on the same bench. No conditions 
 were exacted as to scholarship. Anyone who 
 could pay his fees was entitled to admittance, and 
 to all the advantages which the University could 
 
STUDENT DAYS 29 
 
 confer. It was a strange sight in those days, not 
 so very far distant, to see "the shepherd's son 
 from the banks of the Teviot take his place in the 
 class-room with the son of the Lord of Session, or 
 of the country squire, with nothing to mark his 
 social inferiority." This may still be found, but 
 it is the exception to see the greybeard sitting 
 side by side with the youth on whose chin the 
 incipient signs of manhood have not as yet begun 
 to appear. 
 
 There is a final change which deserves to be 
 noted in passing. The struggles which many a 
 Scottish lad, who determined to graduate at one 
 or other of the Universities of his native land, 
 had to face have become a national tradition. 
 Scott has immortalised them in his sketch of the 
 early career of Dominie Sampson. That their 
 son ''might wag his pow in a pulpit the poor 
 parents pinched and pared, rose early and lay 
 down late, ate dry bread and drank cold water." 
 Sampson himself, as the representative of a type, 
 is described as slinking "from College by the 
 most secret paths he could discover, and plunging 
 himself into his most miserable lodeine, where 
 for eighteen-pence a week he was allowed the 
 benefit of a straw mattress, and, if his landlady 
 was in good humour, permission to study his 
 task by her fire." There may be some exaggera- 
 tion in all this, but, making every allowance, a 
 fair proportion of Scottish students of the olden 
 time had to fight hard for the means which would 
 
30 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 enable them to keep body and soul together 
 while attending the University. Private teaching 
 in winter while the College was in Session, and 
 manual labour in summer during the Long Vaca- 
 tion, was the order of the day for many. The self- 
 sacrifice of the parents, and even of brothers and 
 sisters, gave a pathetic interest to the student's 
 struggle, and helped not a little to form that 
 special type of character for which Scotland is 
 famous. Many causes have arisen during the 
 last half century to change all this. The country 
 itself has increased vastly in wealth ; bursaries 
 and scholarships have been greatly multiplied ; 
 Mr. Carnegie has stepped in with his princely 
 benefaction to abolish class fees and to endow 
 research ; Societies and Churches are founding 
 hostels for the cheap and comfortable housing of 
 the students, so that learning, which in past days 
 a Scottish lad had to fight for, so to speak, with 
 the naked sword, is being now administered by a 
 silver spoon. What effect this may have on the 
 future of the national character time alone can 
 tell. 
 
 The Scottish University system in vogue in 
 Matheson's day, as will readily be seen, afforded 
 a good training for character. It was free, in- 
 dependent, and gave room for the mingling 
 together of many varieties of social rank and 
 mental attainment. Types, as far asunder as the 
 poles, were brought together in a common centre, 
 and the battle of life, which the youthful com- 
 
STUDENT DAYS 31 
 
 batants would have to wage to the end, was there 
 and then begun, under the conditions that would 
 prevail all through. Matheson threw himself 
 heartily into University life, and his bright intellect 
 and undoubted powers, which would have gained 
 him distinction under any circumstances, were 
 enhanced in the estimation of his fellow-students 
 by his constant cheerfulness and hopefulness, 
 which to them seemed nothing less than marvellous 
 in view of the physical disadvantage under which 
 he laboured. No student of his time was more 
 popular than he, and fond memories of him are 
 cherished to this day by surviving contemporaries. 
 
 It was fortunate for young Matheson that he 
 began his College life under the most favourable 
 circumstances. There was no need for him to 
 struggle for existence ; he had every comfort in 
 his home. Had it been otherwise the world miorht 
 have been so much the poorer, for we cannot 
 conceive how it would have been possible for him 
 to struggle at one and the same time against 
 poverty and the loss of sight. The fire of his 
 genius might not have been quenched, but his 
 intellectual training would in all likelihood have 
 had to be sacrificed. It would have been better 
 perhaps if he had remained a year longer at 
 school, but it was the custom then to enter College 
 at a comparatively early age. He more than made 
 up for whatever loss he may have sustained 
 through not taking the last year at Glasgow 
 Academy by attending for nine sessions at the 
 
32 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 University. This embraced a period of eight 
 years and a half, and during that time the eager 
 student subjected himself to the most rigorous 
 mental discipline, and laid the foundation of his 
 future distinction. 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1857 that he first 
 matriculated as a student of Glasgow University, 
 and enrolled himself in the classes of Junior Latin 
 and Junior Greek. His professors were William 
 Ramsay and Edmund Law Lushington. Even 
 the students of to-day are familiar with these two 
 names, so deep a mark did the possessors of 
 them make on the University. They were both 
 eminent scholars and distinguished teachers. 
 Matheson was only fifteen years of age at the 
 time, and notwithstanding that for the study of 
 languages the heaviest handicap is imperfect eye- 
 sight, he gained an honourable place in the prize 
 list of the Latin Class, and in the following year 
 as a Senior Student he won the third prize for 
 general eminence. One of my earliest recollec- 
 tions is Matheson's appearance, during his first 
 year as minister of Innellan, at the annual ex- 
 amination of the school, which in those days was 
 conducted by the Presbytery. I was among the 
 few scholars who had been prepared by the teacher 
 to appear for the Latin examination, and I re- 
 member distinctly Matheson's intervention and 
 correction of some mistake unchecked by the 
 schoolmaster. His knowledge of the ancient lang- 
 uage had not been allowed to grow rusty, and the 
 
STUDENT DAYS 33 
 
 impression which he made upon the pupils of the 
 Parish School by his command of the Latin tongue 
 on this memorable occasion was perhaps more 
 profound than that made on their parents by his 
 eloquent preaching. 
 
 It was in the Philosophical Classes, however, 
 that his special gifts displayed themselves in their 
 full power. It was in Session 1859-60 that he 
 became a student in the Logic Class under Pro- 
 fessor Robert Buchanan, fondly and familiarly 
 known by his pupils as " Logic Bob." Buchanan 
 was from all accounts one of the ablest and best 
 teachers that Glasgow University ever possessed. 
 He more than divided the honours of his day with 
 William Ramsay, the Professor of Humanity. He 
 was a minister of the Church of Scotland, and had 
 filled the charge of Peebles for eleven years when 
 he was appointed assistant and successor to Mr. 
 Jardine, the Professor of Logic in Glasgow 
 University. Buchanan occupied this chair from 
 1827 to 1864, when he resigned. As an author 
 he cultivated the drama, and published, among 
 other works, Wallace: A Tragedy. It appeared 
 in 1856, and six years later it was performed in 
 one of the theatres in Glasgow by a number of the 
 students of the time. Not a few of those who 
 received instruction at his hand are still to be found 
 in Scottish manses, and, without exception, they 
 speak with the highest praise of his ability as a 
 teacher, and of the charm of his character. A 
 fellow-student of Matheson's, the Rev. Thomas 
 3 
 
34 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 Carruthers, minister of the United Free Church 
 at Bridge of Weir, and himself a prizeman in 
 the Loo-ic Class, gives the following account of 
 Buchanan's course and method : — 
 
 He lectured from the beginning of November till 
 Christmas on Psychology, or, as it was called, Metaphysics. 
 He treated the subject like Reid in his Intellectual 
 Powers. The lectures were not influenced by Sir William 
 Hamilton or German philosophers, yet so great was 
 Buchanan's fame as a practical teacher, that Sir William 
 Hamilton sent his sons to study under him. His lectures 
 were exact and clear, and in questioning students he was 
 very sympathetic. He would frequently say to a student 
 who answered his question imperfectly, " Follow up that 
 idea." From the new year to the end of March he 
 lectured on Logic. Most of the time was spent on the 
 deductive logic of Aristotle, but the inductive logic of 
 Bacon was also clearly expounded. No students could 
 be more thoroughly drilled in Terms, Propositions, 
 Syllogisms, etc., than those who studied under this prince 
 of teachers. At the close of the session, for about a 
 fortnight, he gave lectures on Rhetoric. That was all 
 the teaching Matheson got in English Literature, for the 
 Chair of English Literature, with Professor Nichol as 
 occupant, was only instituted when he was finishing his 
 Arts Curriculum. Though he became so eminent as an 
 English writer, his degree did not include English 
 Literature; but the orator, like the poet, is born not 
 made. 
 
 Buchanan's influence over his students did not 
 depend entirely upon his lectures, excellent though 
 they were. He possessed in a high degree the 
 power of drawing out whatever knowledge the stu- 
 dents may have had, by his method of oral examina- 
 tion. *'The perfect quiet of his manner," remarks 
 Professor Stewart, in his University of Glasgow ^ 
 
STUDENT DAYS 35 
 
 Old and New, " the clearness of his thinking 
 and expression, and the occasional rapier thrust 
 of his wit, made him master in the class-room 
 without effort ; and though averse to original 
 speculation, he had a wonderful power of awaken- 
 ing in his students an interest in the problems 
 of intellectual philosophy. The veneration and 
 gratitude of his former pupils," he adds, '* have 
 preserved his memory to succeeding generations 
 in the Buchanan prizes, which, founded in 1866, 
 are annually awarded to the most distinguished 
 students in the classes of Logic, Moral Phil- 
 osophy, and English Literature." Distinction in the 
 Philosophical Classes has been invariably regarded 
 by Scottish students as the test of intellectual 
 eminence. However successful a man may be 
 in Classics or Mathematics, the blue riband of 
 the University is, In the estimation of his fellow- 
 students, gained by him who carries off the chief 
 prizes in Logic and Moral Philosophy. Glasgow 
 University has from the days of John Cameron 
 been noted for its freedom in speculation, and for 
 the distinguished men who have occupied its 
 Philosophical Chairs. Among them have been 
 Gershom Carmichael, Francis Hutcheson, Adam 
 Smith, Thomas Reld, Robert Buchanan, and 
 Edward Caird. It may be said that it was when 
 he joined the Class of Logic that Matheson ex- 
 perienced his first real intellectual awakening. He 
 proved himself to be easily head and shoulders 
 above every competitor, and was unanimously 
 
36 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 voted by his fellow-students the first prize in the 
 Senior Division for general eminence, and a like 
 honour was conferred on him by his professor for an 
 essay on the best specimen of Socratic Dialogue. 
 
 Three of his contemporaries, who have favoured 
 me with reminiscences of this period of his life, 
 testify to the strong and lasting impression which 
 he made both on his professor and class-fellows. 
 He shone particularly in the oral examinations and 
 in the essays set by the professor and recited to 
 the class by the students when called upon. These 
 essays, which formed a special feature of the work 
 of the session, did not occupy more than eight 
 minutes in their delivery. In the case of Matheson 
 they were necessarily committed to memory, and 
 the command of English style which he, at that 
 early age, displayed, together with his inborn 
 gifts as an orator, took the class by storm. *' My 
 recollection of his appearance," says an old fellow- 
 student, 
 
 in the Logic Class in 1859-60 is vivid. He was far and 
 above any other student. I often made up to him on the 
 road to the Old College, as he would be going along 
 George Street and into Albion Street and College Street. 
 He knew one's voice, and having seized his arm he would 
 say, "Oh, is that you, Young?" His talk was always 
 interesting, nothing pedantic ; and he gave a most hearty 
 laugh as one told him some fresh story or joke. We had 
 as students to stand up when " Logic Bob " would 
 examine us orally. Matheson was always ready, and 
 never appeared to be without an answer. His memory 
 was magnificent. More than once he recited the contents 
 of his essay. The subject on one occasion was the 
 " Association of Ideas as illustrated by Milton's Paradise 
 
STUDENT DAYS 37 
 
 Lost, First Book, * Satan's Palace of Pandemonium.' " The 
 professor asked Mr. Matheson to give his essay, which he 
 did, and he held the class spellbound by his beautiful 
 diction and eloquence. He excelled in imagery, and often 
 borrowed illustrations from nature. The class broke into 
 frequent applause. At the end, the ruffing of the feet 
 was so great that the dust of centuries was disturbed and 
 one could hardly breathe. The professor characterised 
 the essay as the finest he had listened to in his experience 
 of thirty years, and then pictured the various famous men 
 who had sat in the class-room. One, I remember, he 
 referred to with feelings of pride, was Archibald Campbell 
 Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had sat as a student 
 in bench xvi., the same, I think, which Matheson occupied. 
 He made various complimentary remarks, and wound up 
 by prophesying that, if health were given to him, Matheson 
 would adorn the calling to which he aspired. 
 
 Mr. Carruthers, v^ho has already been quoted, 
 would seem to have been impressed by another of 
 Matheson's essays. ** One day," he remarks, 
 '' Matheson v^as called upon to give his essay on the 
 ' Acquired Perceptions of Sight.' He did not read 
 but delivered it from memory. Tv^o impressions 
 in that oration cling to me. He described the 
 babe learning to distinguish distance by Hght and 
 shade as the 'infant philosopher,' and he illustrated 
 a certain point by saying, ' You do not despise the 
 rose for the thorn that lurks underneath.' These 
 expressions showed the boy, at College, to have 
 been father to the man, in the pulpit." 
 
 It was, however, on the closing days of the 
 College, when Buchanan, according to custom, 
 invited his students to engage in a great debate, 
 that Matheson made his most brilliant appearance. 
 
38 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 *' A charming April day," writes the Rev. Thomas 
 Gordon, minister at Edgerston, 
 
 in the session which extended from November 1859 to 
 the Kalends of May i860, rises to my recollection, as we 
 came down to the Logic Class in the mediaeval Quadrangle 
 of the Old College in the High Street, where Robert 
 Buchanan gave students their first lesson in Logic and 
 Rhetoric. The professor had prescribed an oration to 
 last no more than eight minutes. Each student was to 
 come prepared to take his place, if called on, in the 
 arranged discussion, which was to be carried over two or 
 three days. The subject was an imaginary debate in the 
 Canadian Senate as to whether " Canada being now 
 ready for a Constitution, ought that Constitution to be a 
 Limited Monarchy, with one of the sons of the British 
 monarch as sovereign, or ought it to be a Republic ? " As 
 a Junior Student I remember having taken the Republican's 
 side, and was thereby perhaps all the more forcibly 
 impressed by the oration of Matheson, who took the 
 opposite side. He charmed his professor, and carried 
 away his youthful audience until we almost seemed to 
 forget where we were. When the deafening rounds of 
 applause had ceased, Buchanan said : " Your oration, Mr. 
 Matheson, is not only creditable to yourself, but it is an 
 honour to the class of which you are a member " ; and 
 turning to the class, he said : " I do not wonder you are 
 pleased with that, Gentlemen." 
 
 This essay still remains in the original form in 
 which it was written. The paper is of the finest 
 quality, with the leaves tied together with a blue 
 ribbon. It bears the title, " Oration delivered in 
 the Logic Class on Friday 21st April i860," 
 and is signed " George Matheson." Mr. Gordon 
 quotes a part of it with wonderful accuracy. We 
 shall give an extract from the manuscript itself, 
 as a specimen of the young orator's method. One 
 
STUDENT DAYS 39 
 
 can well understand, on reading it, how, when 
 delivered with all the fire and enthusiasm of 
 which Matheson was capable, it left so indelible 
 an impression on his audience : 
 
 It has been said, Gentlemen, that the word Republic 
 means fraternity, but ask history in what Republic 
 fraternity is to be found ? Ask the United States, and 
 the chains of three million slaves shall answer: Not 
 here ! Ask the France of last century, and the Reign 
 of Terror will respond : Not here ! Ask the Florence of 
 the Middle Ages, and the wandering Dante shall respond : 
 Not here ! Ask ancient Rome, and the exiled Scipio 
 shall respond : Not here ! Ask Carthage, and the banished 
 Hannibal shall respond : Not here ! Ask Athens, and the 
 dying Socrates shall respond : Not here ! It has been 
 said, Gentlemen, that the word Republic means liberty. 
 It may be so, but it is the liberty of the planet that 
 has broken loose from its centrifugal force and is rush- 
 ing on through space into annihilation. It is the liberty 
 of the mind that has burst the restraints of freedom and 
 is borne along to ruin by a current of angry and con- 
 tending passions. It is the liberty of the ship that has 
 lost its rudder and is drifting with the winds and the 
 waves to destruction. It has been said. Gentlemen, that 
 the word Republic means equality. But I say that the 
 constitutional monarchy is the only sphere of true 
 equality. There is not a citizen of Britain this day 
 who cannot stand up and proclaim himself an equal 
 part of its Government, an indispensable item of its 
 Constitution. If the King have a sovereign power to 
 act, it is from the community that this power emanates. 
 If there is boundless wealth at the disposal of royalty, 
 it is the community that furnishes it. 
 
 Matheson's other chief success in the Logic 
 Class, and perhaps his most remarkable one, was 
 his specimen of the Socratic Dialogue on a subject 
 set by Buchanan: "The Volunteer Movement: 
 
40 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 Ought Britain to Arm?" His essay was awarded 
 the first prize. It took the form of a Dialogue 
 between Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Bright, and is pre- 
 faced by the following Explanatory Note : — " It 
 is here presumed that Mr. Disraeli, being aware 
 that Mr. Bright is opposed to the Volunteer 
 System, and being also conscious of certain very 
 sensible opinions entertained by that gentleman, 
 draws him out for the purpose of refuting him 
 by his own sentiments, and touches such springs 
 of thouofht as are calculated to elicit a declaration 
 of them." This essay is much more matured in 
 thought than the speech in support of a monarchical 
 form of government for Canada, and more chaste 
 and moderate in expression. Taking the two 
 together we find in Matheson the born artist. 
 He adapted both his matter and manner to his 
 subject and audience. He carried away his 
 youthful hearers by an oration set on a key 
 suited to their eager spirits, and in the dialogue 
 he reasoned out his thesis in a way to enlist the 
 sympathy and to secure the approval of his learned 
 professor. It is a capital specimen of the Socratic 
 method, as the two following extracts will show. 
 Bright had declared, in reply to Disraeli, that a 
 well-regulated imagination is the most useful of 
 all our intellectual powers, mainly for the reason 
 that it develops a most commendable self-esteem. 
 This thought is elaborated as follows : 
 
 There are individuals of the race of Adam who have 
 never known themselves ; to whom praise and censure. 
 
STUDENT DAYS 41 
 
 honour and disgrace, exalted excellence and moral de- 
 gradation, are terms as insignificant as colours to the 
 blind. Born in a low sphere, breathing from childhood 
 a pestilential vapour, and looking around them upon 
 nothing but squalidity and beggary, these wretched out- 
 casts of society have, from the earliest dawn of reason, 
 learned to loathe themselves. To them the word man 
 is associated only with certain physical peculiarities, 
 but the ideas of rationality, of nobility, of grandeur and 
 progress, have never once been annexed to it. Famine 
 has hunted them down ; the higher and middle classes 
 have ignored their existence, and they have always im- 
 agined the commission of crime to be their vocation. 
 And yet how little has been achieved by the contempt 
 of their superiors. They still swarm in our streets, crowd 
 our highways, and infect our very atmosphere. But 
 could you by any language convey to these miscreants 
 a definition of the human mind, could you make them 
 know, not the nature of legal punishment, but the latent 
 good in their own natures, I am convinced you would 
 effect more than all the proscriptions, ignominy, and scorn, 
 which have for ages been heaped upon them by a 
 censorious public. 
 
 Disraeli all through contented himself by put- 
 ting questions to Bright which would elicit the 
 very answers that he desired ; and after having got 
 the *' tribune of the people," as he called him, com- 
 mitted to certain propositions, he turned the tables 
 upon him, and wound up the dialogue as follows : 
 
 Enough, Mr. Bright. I was previously made cognisant 
 that such were the sentiments entertained by you, but I 
 wished to elicit them from your own lips. And how, then, 
 can you, who hold such manly principles, reconcile them 
 with your opposition to the Volunteer System ? If I ever 
 had any doubts on the subject, your conclusive reasoning 
 would have convinced me that it is a social, moral, and 
 commercial good. You have admitted the frequency of 
 
42 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 crime amongst the lower classes, and you have held that 
 nothing can tend so much to eradicate it as a conviction 
 of self-dignity, importance, duty, and responsibility. The 
 country has acted up to your wise suggestion. It is 
 about to put arms into the hands of the artisans and the 
 working populace, to let them feel that they are citizens 
 of the land and bound to protect its rights and privileges. 
 Inasmuch, then, as this is an elevation of honest pride, 
 and consequently a comparative restraint from the com- 
 mission of enormities, you must admit it is a legitimate 
 inference, from your own premises, to be a social good. 
 Again, you have stated that the poor are held in contempt 
 by the rich, and you have affirmed that the best allevia- 
 tion of this contempt would be the mutual dependence of 
 all ranks. Once more, Mr. Bright, has the country acted 
 on your suggestion, for by putting weapons into the hands 
 of the populace she is about to make the middle classes 
 feel that they are in a measure indebted for their safety 
 and their prosperity to the brawny arms and the dauntless 
 hearts of the sons of toil. Nay, more, you have said that 
 the secret of all security is confidence in our own strength, 
 and that the absence of this confidence engenders jealous 
 anxieties. Inasmuch, then, as it is the cure of pride, and 
 the promoter of tranquillity, you have admitted the 
 Volunteer System to be a moral good. And, finally, you 
 have affirmed that the true cause of flourishing trade in 
 France during the Napoleonic struggles was the con- 
 sciousness of impregnability. Our land has been recently 
 visited with severe commercial panics ; at every breath of 
 war the funds have fallen fifty millions in a day. But 
 you, Sir, have pointed out a remedy: Let us be impregnable, 
 you say, and not tossed about at the mercy of every wind. 
 A third time, Mr. Bright, has the country acted on your 
 suggestion, and it only remains for experience to prove 
 the justice of your reasoning when you desire social 
 comforts, moral benefits, and mercantile advantages from 
 the Volunteer Movement. 
 
 The closing day of the session, v^hen the 
 professors, students, and their friends were present 
 
STUDENT DAYS 43 
 
 in the Common Hall at the distribution of prizes, 
 took place on May Day, and the scene is thus 
 described in Hamilton's romance of Cyril 
 Thornton : 
 
 The first of May is the day fixed by immemorial 
 usage in the University for the distribution of the prizes, 
 a day looked forward to with " hopes and fears that kindle 
 hope " by many youthful and ardent spirits. The Great 
 Hall of the College on that day certainly presents a very 
 pleasing and animated spectacle. The academical dis- 
 tinctions are bestowed with much of ceremonial pomp, in 
 the presence of a vast concourse of spectators, and it is 
 not uninteresting to mark the flush of bashful triumph on 
 the cheek of the victor, the sparkling of his downcast eye 
 as the Hall is rent with loud applause when he advances 
 to receive the badge of honour assigned him by the voice 
 of his fellow-students. It is altogether a sight to stir the 
 spirit in the youthful bosom, and stimulate into healthy 
 action faculties which but for such excitement might have 
 continued in unbroken slumber. 
 
 Matheson, on going up to receive his prizes, met 
 with a perfect ovation, which was heightened by 
 the memorable eulogium passed upon him by 
 Professor Buchanan, The wild assemblage was 
 hushed as his aged teacher quoted with deep 
 emotion Milton's famous lines on his own blind- 
 ness, comparing the youthful scholar to ** Blind 
 Thamyris and blind Maeonides " : 
 
 Those other two equalled with me in Fate, 
 So were I equalled with them in renown. 
 
 This was the red-letter day in Matheson s career 
 as a student. He met with equal distinction the 
 following year in the Moral Philosophy Class, in 
 
44 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 which he took the first prize ; but the Professor, 
 Dr. William Fleming, was not the equal of his 
 colleague Robert Buchanan. He was incapable 
 of creatine: the same interest in the work of his 
 class, and the students treated him with an easy- 
 tolerance. Matheson graduated B.A. in 1861, the 
 last occasion on which this deo^ree was orranted with 
 '' Honourable Distinction in Philosophy," and M.A. 
 in 1862. His Arts Course was now finished, and 
 in the same year he entered as a student in the 
 Divinity Hall. 
 
 This was John Calrd's first year as Professor 
 of Divinity, and by him a fresh direction was given, 
 and a new spirit imparted, to the teaching of 
 Theology in Glasgow University. The Divinity 
 Faculty was strengthened at this time by the 
 founding of the Chair of Biblical Criticism ; its first 
 holder being Professor Dickson, a ripe scholar, 
 whose wide and accurate erudition was the marvel 
 of succeeding generations of students. He was 
 admired for his knowledge, and beloved for his 
 kind heart. Dr. Duncan Weir was the Professor 
 of Hebrew and Oriental Languages. He was a 
 born teacher, and although he published little his 
 opinion was frequently sought by workers in his 
 subject, and greatly valued. He combined with 
 his duties as Professor those of Clerk of Senate. 
 This was perhaps necessary, for it enabled him to 
 add to the salary of his chair, which at that time 
 was modest in the extreme. Dr. Thomas Jackson 
 was the Professor of Church History. He taught 
 
STUDENT DAYS 45 
 
 his subject on philosophical principles, but very- 
 few had the patience to understand what they were ; 
 and the hour spent in his class was more frequently 
 given to wild frolic than to serious study. 
 
 Caird was the man who at that time riveted the 
 attention of the students. He came with a great 
 reputation as a popular preacher, and he had already- 
 given one or two indications that he did not intend 
 to be bound by the traditional methods of his chair. 
 He succeeded Professor Hill, who practically repro- 
 duced his father's, Principal Hill's, lectures, and 
 anyone who wishes to know the kind of teaching 
 that for several generations prevailed in the 
 Divinity Faculties of the Scottish Universities 
 will find it embodied in the Principal of St. 
 Andrews' published volumes. There he will find 
 the high-water mark of Scottish theology previous 
 to the new trend given to it by contact with the 
 speculative theories of German philosophy. Caird 
 while at Errol, and afterwards as minister of the 
 Park Church, Glasgow, had been turning his mind 
 towards the new light that was shining from the 
 Continent. He had been gradually working his 
 way into the speculative ideas of the great German 
 thinkers. He was bea-innino^ to be infiuenced 
 by Hegel, and after a time he accepted him 
 as his master, and was in the habit of humbly 
 regarding himself as his interpreter. There can 
 be no doubt that the Hegelian method has a 
 wonderful fascination ; it charms, especially the 
 youthful mind ; and in a few years afterwards, when 
 
46 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 Caird's brother, Edward, subsequently Master of 
 Balliol College, Oxford, became Professor of Moral 
 Philosophy in Glasgow University, the spirit of 
 Hegel dominated the whole place, for Edward 
 Caird had no rival as an exponent of the Hegelian 
 philosophy, and his eloquence of thought impressed 
 the students quite as much as his more famous 
 brother's eloquence of speech. 
 
 If there be any virtue, and if there be any 
 praise in this speculative standpoint, then George 
 Matheson was John Caird's debtor. It is almost 
 certain, however, that an eager mind like his would 
 have discovered the Hegelian philosophy for itself. 
 The great writers of the day were busy disseminat- 
 ing German ideas. Carlyle, and Coleridge before 
 him, had done their part, and there were other 
 workers in the field. In any case the first period of 
 Matheson's life as a writer was strongly influenced 
 by the spirit and method of Hegel. He came 
 afterwards to doubt the absolutism of the system. 
 *' Facts are chiels that winna ding," and however 
 attractive the rhythm of the Hegelian philosophy 
 may have been to a poetic mind like his, he, like 
 many others, found that there are ''more things in 
 heaven and earth " than were dreamt of even by 
 the great Teutonic thinker. 
 
 Matheson had as contemporaries in the Divinity 
 Hall not a few who afterwards rose to distinction 
 in the Church. They must have been a very able 
 set of students. Among the prizemen of his year 
 were Matheson himself, Professor Stewart of 
 
STUDENT DAYS 47 
 
 Glasgow University; Rev. Dr. M'Lean, St. 
 Columba's, Glasgow ; Rev. Dr. Blair, St. John's, 
 Edinburgh ; Rev. Robert Thomson, Rubislaw, 
 Aberdeen ; and the Rev. Dr. D. M. Gordon, 
 Principal of Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. 
 One of them, the Rev. Mr. Thomson of Aberdeen, 
 who was afterwards, when minister of Rothesay, 
 Matheson's co- Presbyter, has favoured me with the 
 following reminiscences of him when a student in 
 the Divinity Hall : — 
 
 Among the students of my time at the Glasgow 
 Divinity Hall, no one stands out m.ore prominently in 
 the retrospect than George Matheson. It would be 
 about as difficult to recall the professors without thinking 
 of Dr. Caird, as to recall the students without thinking of 
 Matheson. Not only was he a distinguished student in 
 the sense of taking prizes, — others were distinguished in 
 the same way who have left no abiding impression on the 
 memory, — his distinction lay in the uniqueness of his 
 personality. Students have their groups and coteries, but 
 you could hardly rank him with any of these. He was 
 quite unlike the rank and file, quite unlike the ordinary 
 prizeman. There was a something that marked him off 
 from all the others. It is difficult to say precisely in 
 what this uniqueness consisted ; many things probably 
 were contributory. One of its obvious features was an 
 unmistakable exuberance of emotional and intellectual 
 life. His laughter was the biggest and heartiest in the 
 College quadrangle, being equalled, however, by his 
 tenderness and sensibility. One was not surprised at any 
 flight of eloquence in which he might indulge, or indeed 
 at any intellectual exploits ever so far remote from the 
 conventional routine. That a sober-minded professor 
 should attempt to keep him within bounds suggested, in 
 a small way, an attempt to harness Pegasus. When, on 
 a certain occasion, word was passed round that a poem 
 by Matheson was actually published in one of the 
 
48 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 magazines— the Sunday Magazine, if I mistake not— no 
 one was surprised. That he should write a poem, and 
 have it accepted and published by a recognised magazine, 
 so far from being incredible, seemed in his case the most 
 natural thing in the world, and quite in keeping with all 
 we knew of him. Though he was undoubtedly ambitious, 
 in the best sense, he never sought to gratify his ambition 
 at the expense of others ; however conspicuous his success, 
 no feeling of jealousy was left behind in the breasts of 
 any of his fellow-students. Theirs rather was a just pride 
 in the exploits of their gifted class-fellow ; everyone had 
 a share in the reflected glory that fell on the class of 
 which he was a member, and on the whole Divinity Hall. 
 He was, of course, as we all were, fortunate in his 
 professors. One and all, they were eminently qualified to 
 act as guides. Those were the days when we sat spell- 
 bound under the vivid and inspiring teaching of Dr. 
 Caird, then newly appointed to the Divinity Chair. We 
 students felt ourselves of no small importance when the 
 appointment was made, and we realised that the great 
 preacher who drew enormous crowds Sunday after 
 Sunday to the Park Church, among which every Divinity 
 student, I suppose, squeezed his way inside the doors, was 
 now to be our very own, and that we should have him all 
 to ourselves. Great things certainly were expected, and 
 we were not disappointed. The teaching itself was 
 supremely instructive. The methods of the modern 
 science of history were brought to bear on theology. 
 The best things in Schleiermacher and Hegel shed fresh 
 light on eighteenth-century maxims. In Dr. Caird's 
 luminous presentation, theology seemed to us a veritable 
 Queen among the Sciences. Even more than the matter 
 of the teaching was the manner of it. Earnestness and 
 fervour were always present ; so also the spirit of reverence, 
 " the angel of the world," against which did the audacity 
 of even the most brilliant student transgress in the 
 slightest measure, prompt suppression followed. Above 
 all there was the supremacy of Christ, " of Him, and 
 through Him, and to Him, are all things," in the forefront 
 of all Dr. Caird's teaching. That One was their Master, 
 
STUDENT DAYS 49 
 
 even Christ, was burned into the minds of the students 
 with a power which they can never forget. 
 
 The influence of such a teacher on a nature so sensitive 
 and high-strung as that of Matheson, everyone can see. 
 Matheson used to Hsten with rapt attention to the fervid 
 eloquence of his teacher, drinking it in with avidity, and 
 silently assimilating it. So thorough was the assimilation 
 that long years afterwards, when listening to Dr. Matheson 
 at the height of his fame, and in his most original excur- 
 sions, one seemed now and again to hear faint echoes of 
 the old teaching which had been our inspiration in the 
 Divinity class-room. 
 
 It so happened that during Dr. Matheson's ministry at 
 Innellan he and I were co-Presbyters. It was hardly to 
 be expected that he should attend meetings of Presbytery, 
 nor do I remember ever to have seen him present. It 
 was well known that he was engaged in systematic study. 
 His co-Presbyters understood that he was simply biding 
 his time, and that in due course he would emerge from 
 the seclusion of Innellan and fill a wider sphere — a forecast 
 which the event amply justified. 
 
 I have received the following account of 
 Matheson's first sermon from one of his fellow- 
 students, the Rev. Dr. Somerville, of Blackfriars 
 Parish, Glasgow. The discourse was delivered 
 while he was still in the Divinity Hall, and the 
 account is so interesting that I have great pleasure 
 in giving it in full : 
 
 In our day we had to prepare in the first session of 
 our Divinity Hall course the Homily, a discourse on a 
 text given out by the professor. And no sooner had we 
 finished the Homily, and rehearsed it before our teacher 
 and our fellow-students, receiving his criticism in public 
 and their observations in private, than we looked round 
 for a suitable place of worship in which to deliver it. 
 Matheson, like the rest of us, was desirous to let his light 
 shine. The opportunity came when he was in his second 
 
 4 
 
50 STUDENT DAYS 
 
 session ; his friend David Strong, now the Rev. Dr. Strong, 
 of Hillhead Parish, Glasgow, was then acting as College 
 Missionary, and it was his duty to have evening service in 
 the Parish schoolroom of the College Church in High 
 Street, of which I became in later years the minister. He 
 had occasion to be away, and he asked Matheson to take 
 his place. It was also the custom for the associates of 
 each student to go in a body to judge of their friend's 
 effort. 
 
 Matheson duly intimated to the fraternity the coming 
 event, and we turned out in full force to hear him. We 
 expected the Homily which had been delivered in the 
 Hall, but we did not get it. Matheson had made special 
 preparation, and had chosen as his theme the text 
 " Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His 
 saints." Young as he was, and young as I was, I have 
 never forgotten the sermon. It had the freshness and 
 originality that were characteristic of him in the after days. 
 Darwin's book on Evolution had been published a short 
 time before, and Matheson's sermon instead of rehearsing, 
 after the stereotyped fashion, the joys of the believer, and 
 the victory in the last act, was upon spiritual evolution. 
 Death is the gate to a larger sphere and a higher service. 
 One of his illustrations was so vivid that I have never for- 
 gotten it. " Death is the gate to higher work and purer 
 joys. Here on earth everything ripens except man. The 
 fruits ripen every year. A longer season would make 
 them no bigger and no better, but what man ever came to 
 full maturity. Even in the most saintly there are faculties 
 not fully developed, affections not applied to the highest 
 objects. Are these never to ripen or to do their highest 
 work ? Is there no sphere where the good and the gifted 
 shall come to the perfection of their full power? The 
 saints, as we term them, those who have grown in grace 
 and knowledge, are as the plants of promise removed by 
 death from this cold world to another, more congenial, in 
 which they will grow in beauty and in strength, and find 
 sweet exercise for each function. Life, long or short, is but 
 a waiting to be born into a higher sphere, and death is 
 the birth-angel." 
 
STUDENT DAYS 51 
 
 I can only say that if before we had thought that 
 Matheson would be a great poet, but would not be a great 
 preacher, because of his physical defect, we were converted 
 to a different view. We went to criticise, but we returned 
 deeply impressed. *' Yes,'^ said one now gone to his rest, 
 " George is to be the Caird of the next generation." 
 
 The sermon still remains among Matheson s papers, 
 and its theme was the burden of his thought to 
 the end. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 RECESS STUDIES 
 
 George Matheson was a thoroughly representa- 
 tive student. He was not a mere bookworm who 
 confined himself constantly to his desk and refused 
 to take part in the social side of University life. 
 He had a big heart, and felt in sympathy with 
 everything human, even with those animal spirits 
 which now and again broke forth. They, too, 
 served their purpose ; they prevented the youthful 
 competitors who strove for class honours from 
 having their friendship broken by too keen a 
 rivalry, or- from degenerating into mere ''intellec- 
 tuals." Both at home and at College he entered 
 fully into the side interests of life, and no one 
 enjoyed more than he the pleasures of poetry, 
 of music, of literature and society. " When a 
 student," writes his brother, "he was very fond of 
 hearing a good play in the theatre, and when a 
 distinguished Shakesperian actor like Vandenhoff 
 came to Glasgow he never missed the opportunity. 
 Music was one of his favourite pastimes, and many 
 a night saw him at the opera when the great stars, 
 
 52 
 
RECESS STUDIES 53 
 
 TItiens, Giuglini, Grisi, Santley, and others, were 
 in the ascendant. His school-friend, Mr. James 
 Hotson, whom we have already quoted, gives the 
 following reminiscences of this period of his life 
 and of this phase of his character : — 
 
 Meanwhile, and after he had gone to College, I saw a 
 good deal of him in private life. My father had a pretty 
 large library, and I frequently read to Matheson or talked 
 with him of books and kindred subjects when he came 
 down to smoke with me. Byron was our first idol. Later 
 on we came to prefer others, such as Wordsworth, Tenny- 
 son, and Longfellow. Matheson would recite pieces from 
 these authors with great expression. In particular I can 
 recall " Tears, Idle Tears," portions of In Memoriam^ and 
 the " Ode on Immortality," as also the closing stanzas of 
 Evangeline. Among novelists we ranked Bulwer Lytton 
 high above either Dickens or Thackeray. This was, I 
 remember, owing to his wide range of subjects, his 
 scholarship, and the philosophical trend of a number of his 
 novels. I remember one evening we were expressing our 
 views to this effect when my late brother William struck 
 in and maintained that there was nothing in all Bulwer 
 to equal Pickwick, He also enjoyed humorous writers. 
 I remember how hugely tickled he was with the student's 
 " Fox Song " in Longfellow's Hyperion, with its " Sa, 
 Sa, Leathery Fox." Our final favourite was Carlyle, to 
 whom Matheson took from the very first reading. He 
 became so familiarised with the Carlylese style that one 
 evening at a meeting of a literary society, criticising an 
 essay which had just been read, he remarked that the 
 essayist appeared to have had Carlyle in view as a model. 
 This society would probably be " The Clifton Literary," 
 which met weekly in the smallest of the Queen's Rooms. 
 It was started by a number of Academy boys who had 
 just left school and gone into offices, and our patron was 
 no less a personage than Dr. Pritchard, afterwards the 
 celebrated poisoner. Even then, from the " Munchausen " 
 flavour of some of his adventures, as he related them, we 
 
54 RECESS STUDIES 
 
 began to " smoke " him. After he had made his exit from 
 the world no successor was appointed. It would have 
 been awkward to have had to minute that "So-and-so 
 was elected as patron, vice Dr. Pritchard suspended^ 
 
 My late brother William was a law student while 
 Matheson was in Divinity, and, it being election time, 
 they became in some measure associated, both belonging 
 to the Conservative side. The Conservative candidate 
 for the Lord Rectorship was Lord Glencorse (Inglis), and 
 his opponent was the Lord Advocate (MoncreifQ. There 
 was great enthusiasm among the students, and Matheson 
 became a very popular speaker among his party. I 
 remember of him being present at a small gathering of 
 young folks at our house one evening, when William and 
 another student, John Eraser, came in, and said there 
 had been a great meeting of students, and Matheson had 
 been loudly clamoured for. A verse of one of the 
 election songs ran — 
 
 Confound the Radicals in a heap, 
 
 Hurrah, Hurrah ! 
 Their candidate to pot we'll sweep, 
 
 Hurrah, Hurrah ! 
 But prosper every bonnet blue. 
 And Johnny Inglis our Rector new. 
 
 The prophecy of the song came true, Inglis was elected. 
 
 Matheson always seemed to enjoy life thoroughly and 
 to take an interest in all that was going on. He once 
 remarked to me, " I don't know how it may be with you 
 people, but we of the Establishment see life whole, and as 
 a consequence, I think, more truly." This philosophic, 
 and indeed religious, standpoint conditioned his outlook, 
 and enabled him to relish a good song or a good story 
 quite as much as a good book or a good sermon. 
 Although, as I have heard him admit, he knew nothing 
 of music theoretically, he could appreciate it, and himself 
 sing with true expression. The best songs of the more 
 sentimental class were probably " The Harp that once 
 through Tara's Halls," " Believe me if all these endearing 
 young charms," and the " Irish Brigade " ; while among 
 
RECESS STUDIES 55 
 
 humorous ones he excelled in " Three Jolly Post-Boys " 
 and "Agus O!" the latter being a Highland woman's 
 lament for her child ; but better, perhaps, than any of 
 these were his imitations of a young lady's singing. He 
 had a command of the falsetto register such as I never 
 knew equalled, rendering an entire melody in it with the 
 greatest of ease, and the result was extremely comical. 
 I have seen some of his auditors almost in fits, and he 
 himself, when the performance was finished, seemed to 
 enjoy it quite as much as anyone. His two principal 
 songs of this class were " A Father's Love," and " Sweet 
 Spirit, hear my Prayer." It is hard to say which of them 
 was first favourite. He also told a good story ; he had 
 any number of them about the clergy, some of them not 
 very complimentary to that body. Perhaps as entertain- 
 ing as any was " the late Rev. Mr. Davidson of Arran's 
 Courtship, as narrated by himself." 
 
 Matheson was a born actor; the histrionic 
 faculty was strongly developed in him. He could, 
 single-handed, entertain an audience for hours ; 
 and while a student, and even after he became a 
 minister, he occasionally gratified a select number 
 of friends with an exhibition of his gifts. He 
 was also a wonderful mimic. He naturally- 
 dropped the practice of this harmless accomplish- 
 ment as he grew older. Experience taught him 
 that even the greatest can be touched to the quick, 
 when the gifts on which they pride themselves 
 are caricatured by others. Matheson relieved 
 the strain of study by other means. The stated 
 course of reading which his class work demanded 
 was supplemented by another, which was even 
 more congenial to him. He delighted from his 
 earliest years in poetry. Indeed, he was a poet 
 
56 RECESS STUDIES 
 
 before he was a philosopher or a theologian, and 
 although his professional studies in the end got 
 the upper hand, his gift of song was never quite 
 silent. Not only did it occasionally burst forth, 
 but It gave a special note to all he wrote. 
 Even his most thoughtful and serious works 
 are touched by his native gift, and lifted Into a 
 sphere in which those who may not be able to 
 follow his reasoning find themselves In a congenial 
 atmosphere. His appeal to their imagination is 
 effective, although his demand upon their logic 
 may fail. It is difficult to say at what age he 
 first began to write poetry. From the specimen 
 already given of his powers, his first flight in song 
 must have been before he reached his teens. The 
 poem which his class-fellows at the Academy 
 admired so much, and caused to be printed, shows 
 a knowledge of the technique of the art which 
 could not be acquired in a day. A very consider- 
 able quantity of these youthful efforts are still in 
 manuscript ; many probably were destroyed, but 
 enough remains to show the direction in which 
 his early genius flowed. 
 
 It was during the summer holidays chiefly 
 that he wrote verse. His family were In the 
 habit of spending the greater part of each summer 
 at one or other of the seaside resorts on the Firth 
 of Clyde. Dunoon, Skelmorlie, Row, and Innellan 
 were visited in turn, and young Matheson took 
 every advantage of the opportunities which these 
 charming places afforded. He responded to their 
 
RECESS STUDIES 57 
 
 beauty, took extreme delight in their many 
 attractions, gave free expression to his nature, 
 and enjoyed himself to the fullest. Boating was a 
 favourite pastime ; and sailing in one or other of 
 the many steamboats that plied up and down the 
 Firth was a source of great pleasure to him. He 
 was well known to captain and crew, with whom 
 he was a prime favourite. They showed him 
 every courtesy and attention ; and being over- 
 whelmed one day with their kindness, he said, " I 
 
 might be " (mentioning some great man), ** you 
 
 are so kind to me " ; and the reply was, " We are 
 fonder of you than of him." He loved to walk by 
 the seashore, and to stand on the pier watching 
 the boats coming in ; and to test his power of 
 vision, then, alas ! steadily failing, he would tell how 
 many funnels they had. He was keenly sensitive 
 to his surroundings ; and even to the last he 
 selected the place for his summer holiday on the 
 ground of its natural attractions. He was more 
 alive to the beauty of land and sea than the vast 
 majority who have their power of vision. 
 
 It was during one of those summer holidays 
 that the first of his Sacred Songs was written. 
 They were gradually added to as the years rolled 
 by, but many of them, his sister thinks, were com- 
 posed while he was a student, and particularly one 
 summer while they were resident at Row. An old 
 manuscript volume of certain of these Sacred 
 Songs still remains, and at the top there is 
 inscribed the words "Written in Boyhood." One 
 
58 RECESS STUDIES 
 
 or two of them are equal to anything that he wrote 
 of the same kind afterwards, — with the exception 
 of course of his famous hymn, — in particular a poem 
 on the ''Withered Fig-tree." It bears as a head- 
 ing the text — 
 
 " How soon is the Fig-tree withered awayT 
 
 Not because the fruit was clinging 
 To thy branches, withered tree, 
 Came the awful sentence, ringing, 
 " Grow not henceforth aught on thee." 
 
 'Twas not time for thee to render 
 What required the ripening hours. 
 And that Heart so kind, so tender, 
 Sought not what surpassed thy powers. 
 
 But amidst the sunshine gleaming. 
 Thou didst proudly rear thy head. 
 And thy boughs with foliage teeming. 
 Falsely to the traveller said : 
 
 *' Nature fruit to me has given, 
 Earlier than the other trees. 
 And the beams of day have striven 
 To exalt me over these." 
 
 Many trusted in thy story, 
 Hopeful hearts thou didst delude. 
 And the very King of Glory 
 Came to see thy vaunted good. 
 
 Thy pretentious leaves extending. 
 Far and wide in empty show. 
 Kept the sunshine from descending 
 On the humbler plants below. 
 
 Thine was but the specious beauty 
 That attracts the stranger's gaze, 
 Lustre more was prized than duty. 
 Virtue less desired than praise. 
 
RECESS STUDIES 59 
 
 Therefore fell those words that blighted, 
 Like the fleecy winter's breath ; 
 And the charms that once delighted, 
 Withered in the grasp of death. 
 
 He composed about this period two long poems, 
 of about one thousand lines each, the one dealing 
 with a sacred and the other with a classical 
 subject. They are both written In blank verse. 
 On reading over these two poems one can see, 
 at a glance, how blank verse was a much more 
 effective measure In Matheson's hand than the 
 different forms of metre afterwards chosen by 
 him In writing his Sacred Songs. The form of 
 versification which hymn-wrlting demands would 
 seem to have cramped his easy flow of thought 
 and freedom of expression. This was entirely 
 owing to his blindness. It Is easy to perceive how 
 difficult It would be for anyone without the faculty 
 of vision to conform to an artificial and intricate 
 measure. In epic verse this difficulty Is consider- 
 ably lessened, and that Is, perhaps, the reason 
 why It was chosen by blind Homer and blind 
 Milton for their great poems. It seems a pity, 
 with the specimens which he has left us, that 
 Matheson did not persevere in this form of verse. 
 The following account of his poetic labours at this 
 time may not be without Interest : — 
 
 The poetical genius of George Matheson culminated 
 in that beautiful hymn " O Love that wilt not let me 
 go," but there were many previous excursions into the 
 field of poesy, most of which he strangely suppressed. 
 He was a poet before he became a preacher. Some of 
 
60 RECESS STUDIES 
 
 us who knew him in early years expected that he would 
 become famous as one of the great poets of our day. 
 I remember that in the summer of 1862 there was a 
 company of students resident in Dunoon : D. M. Gordon, 
 now Principal Gordon of Queen's University, Canada; 
 C. M. Grant, now the Rev. Dr. Grant of Dundee ; Finlay 
 M'Donald, late minister of Coupar-Angus ; and Jas. 
 Fraser, now minister of Rogers Hill, Nova Scotia. We 
 were at a lodging in the East Bay, which came to be 
 known as the " Bears' Den." We regularly walked out 
 together, and talked on all subjects in heaven and earth. 
 Matheson was resident with his parents in one of the 
 grander houses of the West Bay, but his spirit of comrade- 
 ship was strong, and he always endeavoured to join us 
 as we passed towards Morag's Fairy Glen and to the 
 Innellan shore ; and he had nearly always a new addition 
 to a great poem on which he was then engaged. The 
 subject was " Zillah, or the Life before the Flood." 
 But strangely enough he would not recite the lines until 
 we led him into what he considered suitable surroundings. 
 His favourite spot was an opening in the grove under 
 Ardmillan, then the residence of Professor Buchanan 
 (Logic Bob). We had to lead him to the exact spot 
 where the opening Firth could be seen. He was most 
 particular about the pose and the outlook, though blind ; 
 and then he would begin to recite with all enthusiasm. 
 The picture of the youthful Zillah sitting beside the aged 
 Methusaleh asking strange, imperious questions, I still 
 remember vividly. Some of the lines I remembered 
 for many years, and I often wondered why " Zillah " 
 did not appear in print. She was one of the factors in 
 my literary being. 
 
 The poem to which Dr. Somerville here refers 
 bears in its final recension the title *' The Last 
 of the Antediluvians." It would have been better 
 perhaps if Matheson had stuck to his first choice 
 and called it " Zillah," for she is the central figure 
 of the poem. The subject, as its title suggests, is 
 
RECESS STUDIES 61 
 
 the Flood, and it is treated with much dramatic 
 power and poetic insight and grace. We have 
 on the one hand Lamech and his three sons, who 
 represent the Spirit of the world ; and on the other, 
 Noah and his three sons, who represent the Spirit 
 that is above the world. These characters, in their 
 various intercourse, bring into prominence the 
 conflict of thought and aspiration which justified 
 the Flood. As a mediating influence is Zillah, 
 the daughter of Jubal, and the beloved of Japheth, 
 who would save her from the impending doom. 
 The story of her fate, the descriptions of the Flood, 
 with the emotions and passions that filled the hearts 
 and distracted the minds of the proud spirits that 
 defied and denied Jehovah, are strikingly graphic. 
 The young poet traces his characters with a firm 
 hand ; and there is passage after passage which 
 show how well in his early years he used his 
 eyes. Many in after years were often surprised 
 at the minute knowledge which he possessed of 
 natural objects. Anyone who reads this poem 
 will notice how clearly he saw and how closely he 
 observed. If genius consists in the power of 
 seeing, Matheson surely possessed it ; and what 
 he did see in his youth left an image on his mind 
 that time could never erase. 
 
 Our first glimpse of Zillah is when she attracts 
 the notice of Methusaleh, who is sitting at the door 
 of Lamech's tent, to which he had been carried by 
 Jubal, who thought that in this way he would avert 
 the calamity of the Flood ; for Methusaleh, being a 
 
62 RECESS STUDIES 
 
 good man, God would surely not destroy him. If 
 he were prevented from finding shelter in the ark 
 the threatened deluge would be stayed. This 
 stratao^em the sons of Lamech thought would at 
 once throw discredit on Noah's prophecy and save 
 themselves. Methusaleh, sitting sadly at the door 
 of the tent, longs to return to his own people : 
 
 He turned his eyes upon the endless deep, 
 Which mirrored back the radiant smile of morn, 
 And on the margin of its shore descried 
 A child, intent on that unfathomed world ; 
 A girlish form, more ripe in thoughts than years. 
 She caught his eye, with timid steps drew near, 
 And naively asked : " What lies beneath the sea ? 
 Surely some land as beautiful as ours. 
 For nature here has tried to mimic earth ; 
 And when the moon is lighted in our sky, 
 In the great sea another moon is hung. 
 And there are voices like the sounds of song. 
 And sometimes tones like those of human grief. 
 Perhaps we too dwell down below a sea. 
 Is not yon heaven like a great ocean, blue, 
 And on its surface may not spirits float. 
 And wonder who are we that dwell beneath ? 
 
 Japheth, in pleading with his father for liberty 
 to take Zillah into the ark, thus describes her : 
 
 My father, I must go. 
 There is a well-wrought scheme within my brain, 
 Jubal, the son of Lamech, has a child, 
 A little girl, whose beaming countenance 
 Mirrors the beauty of a spotless soul. 
 'Tis like a sky, where night is never seen. 
 Where twilight shadows never meet the eye. 
 Where sombre clouds love not to linger long. 
 For happiness looks sunlight from her eyes. 
 
HECESS STUDIES 63 
 
 Shedding the lustre of unchequered day. 
 She has not heard of God, yet has her soul 
 Sought some exalted worship ; and in sun, 
 And moon, and stars, in tempest and in cloud, 
 In rippling stream, and far-resounding sea, 
 In pensive evening, a'nd majestic night. 
 She sees some greatness which she may adore, 
 And deifies the garments of our God. 
 
 The first threatenino^ of the deluo^e is thus 
 described : 
 
 Up from the hollow caverns of the earth 
 
 There comes a rushing sound like the great hum 
 
 Of some far-distant ocean ; yet ere long 
 
 The murmur rolls more loudly, and at last 
 
 The ground begins to shake beneath their feet, 
 
 As if the very heart of the vast world 
 
 Were palpitating with an awful dread. 
 
 They stand aghast, each scans his neighbour's face 
 
 And finds no comfort there. 
 
 Zillah, vi^ho had been brought by Japheth 
 into the ark, in her anxiety for her father's 
 safety climbs to its top, and v^hilst scanning the 
 waters for his form, is thus impressed by the 
 terrible desolation around her : 
 
 She heard the thunder roll, 
 A peal so loud that all the mountains shook. 
 And threaten'd to fall headlong on the plains. 
 Then came a frightful crash, the earth was rent. 
 And, bursting open wide, disclosed a gulf 
 Whence the imprisoned waters from beneath 
 Darted, with lofty leap, into the air. 
 And the great sea, made mightier by the rains. 
 No more restrained itself, but burst its bonds. 
 Bounding to meet the subterranean flood, 
 
64 RECESS STUDIES 
 
 As host advances to encounter host, 
 And in a moment, like a fleeting dream, 
 Terrestrial objects vanished from the eye. 
 Not as the summer gently fades away, 
 But rather as is ravished from the view, 
 A sunny peak, where sudden clouds alight. 
 Extinguishing its glory. The vast plains, 
 The modest valleys, the oak-studded woods. 
 The stable rocks, and the stupendous hills. 
 All dipped beneath the unrelenting waves ; 
 The lights went out in the celestial halls, 
 All space put on her funeral attire ; 
 The chambers of the universe were dark ; 
 Their walls were lined with drapery of black, 
 In tribute to the earth that was no more. 
 
 If the theme of this poem was inspired by 
 Milton's Paradise Lost, the second undoubtedly 
 owed its origin to Byron, who was, as we have 
 seen, one of those who influenced Matheson dur- 
 ing his College career. Its title is ''The Blind 
 Girl's Retrospect." The scene is laid in Greece, 
 and the hero is a corsair. It is not necessary to 
 give a sketch of the plot, for the author, in a 
 foreword, declares that his aim was purely 
 a "philosophical one." "It is not so much 
 designed," he says, "to depict any adventures 
 peculiar to a blind girl, as to ascertain two things : 
 First — With what imaginary analysis one born 
 blind might associate the descriptions of visual 
 phenomena ; and Second — How far the imagination 
 could extend without the aid of the visual faculty." 
 It is interesting to note that this poem was written 
 by Matheson in his eighteenth or nineteenth year, 
 just at the time when the failure of his eyesight had 
 
RECESS STUDIES 65 
 
 become almost complete. It is pathetic to find 
 him taking up such a theme and spending his full 
 strength on it. It is a strong testimony, at the 
 same time, to his cheery optimism and unconquer- 
 able faith. He did not take his misfortune lying 
 down. He attempted, on the contrary, to turn it 
 to a glorious use. 
 
 It is remarkable how, many years afterwards, 
 when, as minister of St. Bernard's, he gave an 
 address to the inmates of the Blind Asylum, his 
 theme was the very one which formed the subject 
 of this early poem. Reverting, afterwards, to the 
 subject, he remarked to a friend : 
 
 I hold that the training of the blind has been greatly 
 neglected in one respect, that of the higher imagination. 
 They have been taught any amount of cyphering and 
 manual work, but it seems to me that they have not been 
 taught what they most need, namely, how to conceive 
 the thing which has been denied to them. The blind 
 cannot conceive sight, as sight, but I hold that they may 
 be made to conceive it by analogy. Experiments have 
 convinced me that hearing is as much a revealer of form 
 as sight. We know that originally sight has no more to 
 do with form than hearing has. Touch, alone, gives the 
 idea of extension of form. The only thing which is 
 originally given by sight is colour, not even distance. I 
 hold that sound is simply a colour of the ear, and that it 
 is possible to conceive figure by the ear. For instance, by 
 ringing a bell at three points, you convey to the ear a 
 distinct impression of a triangle ; and, after all, there are 
 only a very few forms in the universe. Begin by 
 representing lines, and you may go on representing 
 the very sky to the blind. When I went to the Blind 
 Asylum, and described the sun rising, they said it was a 
 revelation, and you would have rejoiced to hear their 
 
 5 
 
66 RECESS STUDIES 
 
 exclamations. Never before, they said, had anyone 
 broken the dark cloud. 
 
 '' The Blind Girl's Retrospect " is an illustration 
 of Matheson's views on this subject. He attempts 
 to show how, by her other faculties, particularly 
 those of hearing and of touch, and also by her 
 imagination, she is able to conceive to herself the 
 visible world. As a matter of fact, Matheson 
 himself carried out his principles. He was never 
 without a picture in his mind of his surroundings, 
 and he created an image of the natural scenery in 
 which he moved. The images in his mind were 
 quite as distinct and glowing, and in many respects 
 more vivid and accurate, than those which affected 
 the retina of ordinary observers. He thus con- 
 stantly lived in a world of reality. It was framed and 
 filled by his imagination, aided by his other senses, 
 which had been carefully trained by a lengthened 
 experience. He always formed to himself a por- 
 trait of the individual with whom he might be 
 conversing, and he sometimes amused a friend by 
 describing him to his face. An instance of this 
 kind is recorded by the Rev. James Cunningham, 
 an old fellow-student of Matheson's, and now 
 minister of the Presbyterian Church, Wandsworth. 
 Cunningham had paid Matheson a visit, in the 
 summer of 1898, at Craigmore, Rothesay, and 
 among other interesting topics that he refers to, 
 Mr. Cunningham says: "After lunch, and, full 
 time to take what Mr. Fawcett used to call ' a good 
 look of his man,' when Matheson began to describe 
 
RECESS STUDIES ^7 
 
 my appearance, as he conceived it, in a series of 
 queries, his sister and I delightedly responding, 
 'Yes, yes; Right, right,' it was my turn to clap 
 hands, but nearer crying than laughing." To such 
 a man the loss of sight was not the calamity 
 which it would have been to others less endowed 
 with intellect, imagination, and Christian faith. 
 More than most, he was the habitant of two worlds, 
 both intensely real and living. 
 
 The poem opens with a soliloquy by the Blind 
 Girl as she sits by the seashore : — 
 
 Art thou not weary, music-breathing sea ? 
 Is thy great voice not yet worn hoarse with time ? 
 Storms rend the breast of man and scatter strife, 
 Thy tempest is but high-toned harmony. 
 
 After a pause she breaks forth in the following 
 invocation to Light : — 
 
 O Light ! thou unknown object of my search. 
 
 Too much a spirit to impress the touch, 
 
 Thou art the oldest of created things. 
 
 And heaven delights to be compared with thee. 
 
 For God has called Himself " Light of the Wodd." 
 
 In the following passage we find an illustration 
 of his theory, that the objects of vision can be 
 conceived by the other senses with the aid of the 
 imagination : — 
 
 One day the winds ran loose along the deep. 
 And high in space the storm-king blustered by ; 
 In rocky cradle, moaned the restless sea, 
 And nature, sorrowful, began to weep, 
 Pouring down tears of rain upon the trees. 
 
68 RECESS STUDIES 
 
 As nature wept, the rude and burly blast, 
 With wanton mirth, scattered her tears away, 
 The sea birds' cry shivered the air in twain, 
 Dragging behind it echoes from the hills. 
 
 The lowliest chorister that cleaves the air 
 
 Can revel in an enviable joy, 
 
 Yet these I envy not, for I can feel 
 
 How beautiful is light by its effects. 
 
 For I can judge the parent by her child, 
 
 And light is parent of all happiness, 
 
 And tunes the lark to song when sleep dissolves. 
 
 Yet there are times when man complains of light, 
 
 And speaks as one deserted by his guide ; 
 
 I never knew them, never felt their power. 
 
 Whence is it so with me the blind Greek girl ? 
 
 Perhaps as one on whose familiar ear 
 
 The ticking of the clock has fallen long, 
 
 Grows passive, and forgets the tuneless sound. 
 
 So has the habit of this darkness grown, 
 
 That I in vain would find where it abides, 
 
 And cannot feel the horror it involves. 
 
 The reflections which these poems — with Mathe- 
 son's own thoughts on the power of imagination 
 working upon the deposits of memory and on the 
 other senses, particularly that of hearing — suggest, 
 is finely expressed in a reference to the subject by 
 Dr. David Sime, who for ten years (i 872-1 882) 
 practised in Innellan, and who during the whole 
 of that period was on the most intimate terms with 
 Dr. Matheson. He remarks : 
 
 His memory of the light of nature, and of sunsets, 
 and of the green earth and its flowers, and of the stars in 
 the infinite depths of sky ; the memory of the faces of 
 man and woman, of mother and father, of sisters and 
 brothers, remained with him, and grew purer, more choice 
 
RECESS STUDIES 69 
 
 and sweeter every year. The same kind of sifting, 
 burnishing process of the sweets of recollection is to be 
 seen in Milton's superb description of sunrise in Paradise. 
 The poet was blind, and had been so for years in the 
 heart of a great city's crowded life, when he wrought in 
 undying poetry this vision. But it was the memory of a 
 thousand sunrises, and lingering so long, and becoming 
 more and more perfect in such a mind, it became all the 
 more fitted for a sunrise in Paradise itself Dr. Matheson's 
 memories of the loveliness of sea, cloud, and sky, and of 
 the earth in its seasons which were now shut out from 
 him for his life on earth, became idealised, and at times 
 his talk of the visible universe was like that of a spirit, 
 and always with emotion. It is the memory of pleasures 
 and highest joys that alone lingers in the mind. Pain 
 and suffering of even intensest degree, when once over, as 
 in toothache, neuralgia, colic, are, thank Heaven, soon 
 forgotten. So, likewise, are disappointment, misunder- 
 standing, persecution, failure. Even the misery, the corrupt 
 injustices and sufferings, the depravity of the Middle Ages, 
 are well-nigh obliterated in their sanctity, worship, and 
 work. Complete as it was, Dr. Matheson's blindness was 
 not revealed so much in his brown laughing eyes, which 
 were expressive, and had a light of their own which was 
 from within and not of the world, as perhaps in the use 
 of his delicate hands. When he laughed heartily, as he 
 often did, and he had an unrestrained flowing laugh, full 
 of thrillinor delight — he would sometimes flutter his hands 
 like wings, as if still he were a wondering wee boy. And 
 to the end he had much of the sweet spontaneity of a 
 child. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 PROBATION 
 
 Matheson was licensed by his own Presbytery, 
 that of Glasgow, on 13th June 1866. The register 
 is signed twice in his own handwriting. The 
 penmanship is round, clear, and bold ; in later 
 years, from lack of practice, there was a marked 
 falling off in his caligraphy, but up to the very end 
 he was in the habit of freely appending his signature, 
 and sometimes, as a mark of very special favour, 
 he would pen a whole letter with his own hand. 
 Very few young men ever appeared before a 
 Presbytery to receive their commission to preach 
 the everlasting gospel more fully equipped for the 
 task than George Matheson. He had spent nine 
 years at the University of Glasgow, five in Arts 
 and four in Divinity. He had entered with zest 
 into the work of the different classes, gaining the 
 highest honours in many of them. The summer 
 vacation was industriously employed in studying 
 the great masterpieces of English Literature, in 
 maturing his mind and perfecting his style, and 
 generally, in broadening his culture. He did not 
 
 70 
 
PROBATION 71 
 
 enter the ministry as a bread-and-butter pro- 
 fession ; it was his early choice. From his youth 
 upwards he had a passion for preaching. The 
 sphere which the Church could afford him for 
 exercising to the fullest his rare gifts of thought 
 and speech he highly valued, and one of the great 
 regrets of his closing years was the fact that his 
 failing health compelled him to relinquish his 
 charge, and to decline the many pressing invita- 
 tions which he received to address, in different parts 
 of the country, the large crowds that were eager to 
 hear him. 
 
 It was not, however, till the following year 
 that he entered upon his professional duties. The 
 summer and autumn months that intervened were 
 employed in preparing himself for his new vocation, 
 in writinor sermons, and in travel. There are still 
 in existence a number of his early productions, 
 some of them College exercises, and others written 
 for future use. They are inscribed on loose sheets 
 of paper, and do not belong to the professional 
 period of his life proper. From the time that he 
 preached his first sermon as an assistant, to the 
 day that he delivered his farewell as minister of 
 St. Bernard's parish, he was careful to have his 
 sermons written in large and well-bound notebooks. 
 Each notebook is numbered, and so is each sermon. 
 At the end of every notebook there is an index 
 giving the date on which the sermon was written 
 and the churches in which it was preached. And 
 at the close of each sermon that was written out 
 
72 PROBATION 
 
 in full there is a brief summary, a skeleton of its 
 contents, which, should he have occasion to preach 
 it again, he could easily carry in his mind to the 
 pulpit. One is greatly struck by the care displayed, 
 not only in the preparation, but in the penning of 
 these sermons. There is hardly an erasure, and 
 they could be printed from beginning to end 
 without a correction. This regard for exactness 
 characterised all his work, and his different 
 secretaries testify to his having suffered more 
 agony in the correction of his proofs than in the 
 composition of his works. I remember meeting 
 him on one occasion at a private dinner-party ; it 
 was at Christmas-time, and he had just posted the 
 final revision of a volume that was not to appear 
 till the following autumn. He had failed, or 
 thought he had failed, to make a correction ; it was 
 a single word, and an outsider could not understand 
 how even with the desired correction the sense or 
 style could be improved. He, however, was 
 differently affected, and now and again the thought 
 of this omission disturbed his enjoyment of the 
 
 evenme. 
 
 Matheson was never much of a traveller ; he 
 detested railway journeys. This can be easily 
 accounted for. Had he been able to travel alone 
 with his secretary, all might have been well, for 
 he could then have enjoyed being read to, which 
 was one of his greatest pleasures ; but in the 
 company of fellow-passengers this was impossible. 
 Latterly, also, he had a repugnance to being all 
 
PROBATION 73 
 
 night from home, and he preferred to make preach- 
 ing engagements which would enable him to return 
 the same evening. Before harnessing himself, 
 however, to what was to be his life's work he made 
 a trip to London and another to Paris. He was 
 accompanied on the latter occasion by his brother 
 John, and his sister declares that they were amazed 
 at the interestinof account which George grave of his 
 trip. *' Few," she remarks, " who had good eyesight 
 could describe things and places as he did." Have 
 we not in this a proof of his own contention that the 
 faculties of hearing and of touch, aided, as in his 
 case, by memory and by a powerful and well- trained 
 imagination, are able to represent to the mind the 
 world of vision. This was the only foreign tour in 
 which he indulged, but blind as he was he probably 
 learned far more from it than do the modern globe- 
 trotters, who career through Europe at the rate of 
 a country a day, from their incessant travelling and 
 constant sight-seeing. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Matheson on 
 starting his ministerial life was determined to be a 
 great preacher. It was his ambition to do with all 
 his might any work to which he might put his hand. 
 Whether he succeeded or not he always aimed at 
 being first, not that he might outstrip rivals, for no 
 man that attained to his supreme position ever 
 provoked so few jealousies. It was a healthy 
 boyish instinct that possessed him, and all who 
 knew him intimately were at once disarmed by 
 this youthful element in his nature ; and, when he 
 
74 PROBATION 
 
 hit the mark in a sermon or a book, they shared 
 his joy just as much as if he had been a young 
 fellow who had made the highest score in a cricket 
 match or won the game at football. It will, then, 
 go without saying that he formed to himself an 
 ideal of preaching, and took advantage of hearing 
 the most renowned exponents of the Art within 
 his reach. He was singularly fortunate in this 
 respect, for Glasgow at that time possessed several 
 preachers who left their mark on their generation. 
 It will be enough to mention five : Caird, Norman 
 Macleod, Charteris, Pulsford, and Macduff. It is 
 no disparagement to present-day pulpit oratory to 
 say that no city in Scotland can now boast of such 
 a combination. They were men who profoundly 
 impressed, by their thought, eloquence, and life, 
 not only the city which boasted of their ministry, 
 but the country as a whole. Indeed, the fame of 
 some of them travelled far beyond the limits of 
 their native land, and their names are still cherished 
 by many as household words. There can be no 
 doubt that Matheson was much impressed by them 
 all, and in a sense he was the representative of all 
 their special qualities. The speculative genius 
 of Caird, the humanitarianism of Macleod, the 
 mysticism of Pulsford, the fervour of Charteris, and 
 the poetry of Macduff, may all be said to be 
 reproduced in Matheson, but in such a way as not 
 to dominate but to make them tributary to his 
 native genius, which incorporated and transformed 
 them into its own likeness. Nor was he slow in 
 
PROBATION 75 
 
 acknowledging his indebtedness to two of them at 
 least. He was in the habit of declaring that he 
 owed his spiritual awakening to William Pulsford, 
 the thoughtful and saintly minister of Trinity 
 Church, Glasgow. *' The man of all others," he 
 once declared, ''that shaped my personality, was 
 Pulsford. I met him only once, but I never heard 
 a man who so inspired me ; he set me on fire, and, 
 under God, he was my spiritual creator." Dr. 
 Pulsford was told this on his deathbed, and it was 
 a great joy to him. 
 
 Trinity Church is situated in the Sandyford 
 district of Glasgow. It was within a stone-throw 
 of Matheson's residence as a student in St. Vincent 
 Crescent. It was also within a few minutes' walk 
 of Woodside Terrace, whither the family had re- 
 moved before George's University course was com- 
 pleted. Matheson would, accordingly, be a frequent 
 worshipper in Trinity Church, drawn thither, like 
 many other students, by the winning personality 
 and suggestive preaching of William Pulsford. 
 The minister of Trinity Church was not a popular 
 preacher in the ordinary acceptation of the term. 
 He did not strive nor cry ; he made no attempt to 
 attract crowds by any of those methods with which 
 we in these times are only too familiar. He was 
 content to be himself, and to give of his best in his 
 own quiet but effective manner. I have heard him 
 in Trinity on a Sunday evening. There was no 
 crowd, indeed It might be called a small audience, 
 but one felt the Inspiration of the man. His very 
 
7& PROBATION 
 
 appearance was a benediction. As a pastor he was 
 a true son of consolation ; he was surrounded by 
 a spiritual atmosphere which gave comfort and im- 
 parted peace to the afflicted. One of his greatest 
 friends and admirers was Principal Caird, who fre- 
 quently invited him to preach in the University 
 Chapel. It is now twenty years since he died, but 
 the remaining members of his flock regard his 
 memory with the profoundest reverence. 
 
 The other preacher to whom Matheson has 
 publicly owned his indebtedness was Dr. Macduff 
 of Sandyford Church. He was what may be called 
 a sweet preacher, an exponent of the devout life, 
 a gentle radiance that brightened the path of 
 Christians on their pilgrimage from earth to 
 heaven. He was the author of books that had a 
 phenomenal circulation ; some of them reaching 
 the unprecedented figure of three millions. Such 
 volumes as Memories of Bethany, Grapes of 
 Eshcol, Memories of Olivet, Morning and Night 
 Watches, Palms of Elim, and many others, found 
 readers in every part of the world, and no name 
 was so universally known and respected by the 
 Christian public of his day as that of Dr. Macduff. 
 He was the minister of Matheson's boyhood and 
 early manhood. He was the first incumbent of 
 Sandyford Church, and his congregation was one 
 of the largest and wealthiest in the city. Between 
 the two there was formed an early friendship, which 
 continued unbroken until the end ; and it said much 
 for Matheson that six months after he was licensed 
 
PROBATION 77 
 
 as a probationer of the Church he was invited by 
 Dr. Macduff to become his assistant. The young 
 licentiate naturally shrank from the position to 
 which he was thus invited. He felt a reluctance 
 to assume ministerial duties in the church in which 
 he was brought up, and among a people who knew 
 him so intimately, and who represented the culture 
 and the influence of the city. He also felt his 
 unpreparedness for the task, and pled with Dr. 
 MacduflT to excuse him on the ground that he 
 had hardly any sermons. *'How many have 
 you?" asked Macduff. *' Only thirteen," said 
 young Matheson. ''Ah, then, you are rich," was 
 the rejoinder, and the appointment was made on 
 8th January 1867. I have been favoured with the 
 following interesting sketch of this period of 
 Matheson's life by Dr. Macduff's daughter, who 
 has inherited much of her father's literary talent : 
 
 George Matheson did not come amongst us for the 
 first time when he began his ministerial duties. His 
 parents had (I believe from the date of its opening) been 
 members of Sandyford Church, and had for years en- 
 riched the heart and life of its minister by their valued 
 friendship. From early boyhood their eldest son grew 
 up in our sanctuary as in a spiritual home, and its holy 
 and beautiful services were familiar to him long before he 
 occupied its pulpit. 
 
 Thus, when the time of his appointment arrived, he be- 
 came all at once the teacher of those who had watched 
 his development from childhood. Some, who listened 
 with a thrill of pride and joy to his first public utterances, 
 had known him from earliest years, and in other homes 
 besides our own he was still affectionately and familiarly 
 spoken of simply as " George," as if there were but one 
 
78 PROBATION 
 
 George in the world to us. If this very fact might in 
 some ways be supposed to add to the difficulties of the 
 young pastor's task, the warmth of the friendly atmosphere 
 by which he was surrounded must at the same time have 
 proved an inspiration and a joy. 
 
 At the period in which he became my father's helper, 
 Dr. Matheson was still very youthful in appearance, re- 
 taining an almost boyish contour of countenance, and 
 was, I can well remember, in spite of difficulties connected 
 with his sight, specially characterised by a peculiar 
 buoyancy of step and movement as he went about his 
 pastoral duties, his arm linked in that of his secretary. 
 
 In spite of the marvellous attainments of his school 
 and University career, there was nothing about him which 
 suggested the traditional student, " sicklied o'er with the 
 pale cast of thought." He had no affinity with the 
 recluse, but was in its truest sense a man of the world, 
 finding his inspiration in life's human contacts and 
 sympathies, seeking not so much to renounce as to 
 reclaim the world, regarding our earth less as a wilderness 
 or a battlefield than a garden in which man might still 
 trace God's footsteps, and feel His touch. His was a 
 genial and a joyous nature, and the brilliant intellect was 
 ever warmed and softened by the glow of the kindly 
 heart. It was possibly because he was so intensely 
 "human," giving sympathetic response to the joys and 
 sorrows of existence, that he was able so soon to take the 
 place of pastor as well as preacher to my father's flock, 
 for, as will still be remembered by some, almost as soon 
 as his dear friend and spiritual son was appointed to the 
 assistantship. Dr. Macduff left on a tour to Palestine 
 and the East, leaving him as his representative. It must 
 have been a hard test to one so new to the ministerial 
 ofifice not only to keep the threads of church life and 
 organisation from entanglement, and to exercise the 
 wisdom and tact often learned only in the school of 
 experience, but Sunday by Sunday to hold that great 
 congregation together by the charm of his intellect and 
 eloquence. But he passed through it with victorious 
 success. Certainly in his case the proverb failed of its 
 
PROBATION 79 
 
 truth, " A prophet is not without honour save in his own 
 country." 
 
 I was, it may be, too young at the time to form any 
 reliable estimate of his pulpit gifts, but my impression 
 is that while the poetry of his nature lent its aid, while 
 his command of language enriched and adorned, while 
 his eloquence stirred, and his power of memory astounded, 
 it was his individuality and originality of thought which 
 gripped his hearers. Of course, from the very first, not 
 only the sermon, but all the chapters, psalms, and hymns 
 were committed to memory, and I can remember no 
 instance of even a hesitancy in this respect. I do not 
 know what may have been the habitude of his later days, 
 but at that time Dr. Matheson was always seated in the 
 pulpit before the congregation assembled. It appears to 
 me that his manner was a quiet one. As he rose to give 
 out the first hymn, or at the beginning of a fresh para- 
 graph or division, the head would be well thrown back 
 with a motion peculiar to him, but he used very little 
 action, his words being usually emphasised only by a 
 uniform and slightly persistent forward movement of one 
 delicate hand. In my childish and girlish days his great 
 deprivation always, in ordinary life, pathetically appealed 
 to me, but I have no consciousness of this being the case 
 when he occupied the pulpit. I only mention the fact, 
 because it goes to prove how completely his mental and 
 spiritual qualities overcame and outshone physical dis- 
 abilities. 
 
 At the time it all appeared to me perfectly natural, 
 but, looking back, it seems almost phenomenal that so 
 young a man should at once have achieved the position 
 he took as a preacher and a power ; not less so that my 
 father, ever scrupulously anxious for the well-being of 
 his people, should without hesitancy or anxiety have 
 committed them to his care. Doubtless much that 
 others learn gradually in the discipline of life, he had 
 already mastered in that of early trial, his own affliction 
 putting him at once in touch with the sorrows of others, 
 his deprivation with their losses, his victorious struggles 
 with their hopes. 
 
80 PROBATION 
 
 I feel that no reference, however slight, to any portion 
 of Dr. Matheson's youthful life would be complete, did 
 it not suggest that, while his own genius secured his 
 rank as preacher, and his early trial conduced to his 
 success as pastor, there was one external influence and 
 aid without which he would not have been what he was. 
 It was, in those Glasgow times of long ago, an open 
 secret that one stood by his side in the school and 
 college days which led up to the pulpit and the pastorate, 
 who was indeed " eyes to the blind," and often, as in the 
 old story of David and Jonathan, " strengthened his hand 
 in God." To that gentle and gifted lady all those who 
 have been inspired by Dr. Matheson's teaching owe a 
 deep and lasting debt. From early morning till night's 
 last shadow fell, she was the good angel of his life. 
 
 The most happy and sympathetic relationship between 
 my father and his young and valued coadjutor was dis- 
 solved by Dr. Matheson's translation to the church and 
 parish of Innellan. But though the bond of close per- 
 sonal intercourse and mutual work was all too soon 
 broken, the golden links of friendship were only riveted 
 more closely by the lapse of years, and severed alone by 
 death. 
 
 Now both have passed away to that land where 
 kindred souls are reunited in kindred service. Of the 
 afterglow of that beautiful friendship which, because I 
 was my father's daughter, Dr. Matheson from the warmth 
 of his generous heart bestowed on me since he left us who 
 was, as he wrote, " also to him a father," it is not for me to 
 speak here. I can only in thought twine with his memory 
 a wreath of amaranth and forget-me-not, and write, 
 " Mine own fi'iend and my father' s friend^ ^ 
 
 That Miss Macduff In her closing paragraphs 
 had good grounds for emphasising the close 
 relationship that existed between her father and 
 Dr. Matheson, until death divided them, will be 
 seen from the two following letters, written when 
 Dr. Macduff was on his deathbed. On hearlnof 
 
PROBATION 81 
 
 of his friend's serious illness, Dr. Matheson wrote 
 to Miss Macduff as follows : 
 
 19 St. Bernard's Crescent, Edinburgh, 
 March 14, 1895. 
 
 I cannot tell you what a shock I received this morning 
 on hearing of the illness of one who has been to me 
 associated with life itself. Your dear father is the one 
 who gave me my first sense of literary beauty, my first 
 impression of oratory, my first idea of sanctity, my first 
 real conviction of the beauty of Christianity. The tones 
 of his voice are even now unconsciously reproduced in my 
 own. I have retained more of his pulpit influence than 
 that of any other teacher. I am myself slowly recovering 
 from a sharp attack of influenza, and I am still so weak 
 that writing is extremely difficult, but I would not feel 
 happy if I did not speak out the grief that is in me. 
 
 To this Dr. Macduff dictated the following 
 
 reply : — 
 
 Ravenswood, Chislehurst, Kent, 
 March 18, 1895. 
 
 God bless you ! I am very ill, and can still only speak 
 in a whisper, but I cannot resist telling you how at this 
 season of great infirmity you have strengthened, en- 
 couraged, stimulated, by assuring me that the echoes still 
 linger of these dear old Sandyford days. I was proud of 
 you as one of my flock. My days are numbered, but you 
 have a great future before you. May you live to iniierit 
 its crowns and encouragements. 
 
 It is important to mark his theological stand- 
 point during this early period, and to trace the 
 stages in his religious growth. To enable us to do 
 this I cannot do better than give a synopsis of, and 
 an extract from, his first sermon. The text is the 
 
 37th Psalm, 6th verse : '* And He shall bring forth 
 6 
 
82 PROBATION 
 
 thy righteousness as the light," and the subject is 
 '* The Manifestation of Practical Christianity." At 
 the close of the sermon there is this brief summary 
 of its contents : 
 
 Has not God been kinder to matter than to mind ? Why 
 does He not say to the latter as to the former, " Let there 
 be light " ? Because He wanted from man precisely what 
 the previous creation could not give — a life ruled not by 
 law, but by the voluntary choice of love. Yet while they 
 are different in their origin, they are one in their manifesta- 
 tion. Light is at once the most heavenly and the most 
 secular object; above other things, yet gaining its beauty 
 from reflecting them. Compare it with the life of Christ 
 and with spiritual life in general. Worldly diffusiveness 
 does not degrade God's Spirit. The spirit of poetry in the 
 heart manifests itself not merely in grand works, but un- 
 consciously in the most commonplace acts. 
 
 Here is a passage in the sermon, in which he 
 compares natural light to the light of Christ in the 
 soul : 
 
 Perhaps the most prominent feature of resemblance is the 
 idea of a permeating power, of a capacity to blend with 
 all scenes and with all circumstances. For I ask you to 
 consider for a moment how close is the point of analogy 
 between the glory of the Father above and the glory of 
 the Son within. Of all physical existences light is at 
 once the most heavenly and the most secular. It comes, 
 indeed, from a height which imagination cannot measure. 
 No astronomic power has ever soared so high as to trace 
 the source of that wonderful essence. Away beyond the 
 farthest star, beyond the utmost flight of fancy, lies its 
 hidden, its mysterious seat. Its going forth is from the 
 remotest heaven, and its circuit is unto the end of it. And 
 yet how it descends to the commonplace, how accessible 
 it is ; how practical, universal, all embracing is its 
 influence. It goes forth into the rough, rude, everyday 
 
PROBATION 83 
 
 world ; it visits the meanest haunts of men ; it gilds the 
 mart of commerce and the scene of toil, the exchange, the 
 counting-house, and the workshop. It touches the most 
 prosaic objects and converts them into gold. It blends 
 with the smoke and dust of the great city, dispelling its 
 dense mists and chasing away its gloomy vapours, yet 
 gathering not a stain upon its spotless beams. And there 
 is no parallel to its boundless catholicity ; unconscious of 
 all partiality it looks up as proudly from the lowly vale as 
 down from the haughty hill ; it rests as brightly on the 
 desert wildflower as on the palace dome. 
 
 Now compare this description for a moment with the 
 outward course of that mysterious Being who was em- 
 phatically the external embodiment of evangelical religion ; 
 that true Light which more than eighteen centuries ago 
 flashed through this little world. He came from far 
 heights of majesty, yet His rise was not a sudden glare of 
 noonday, but the morning beam of childhood ; soft, gentle, 
 unpretentious. No rustling in the folds of night announced 
 the coming of the dayspring from on high. Unseen, 
 unknown, He rose into youth amidst the hills of Galilee, 
 and even when He entered on His grand career. He spread 
 like the sun through earth's most common ways. For 
 mark how broad a path was His ; how to every heart He 
 brought warmth and peace and comfort. How every affec- 
 tion of our nature went out to meet Him. Joy with its 
 marriage bells; sorrow with its sickness, its bereavements, its 
 poverty ; intellect with its scribes and pharisees ; love with 
 its alabaster box of ointment ; friendship with its house at 
 Bethany ; penitence with its poor desolate Magdalene, — 
 He had an affection and a word for all. Every pulse of 
 His spirit reverberated to universal humanity ; to laughing 
 childhood and thoughtful manhood ; to festive happiness 
 and to overwhelming sorrow; to the dear delights of 
 kindred and family and home ; to the social intercourse of 
 a Lazarus and the benign companionship of a John. No 
 gloomy, ascetic, narrow, circumscribed religion, but a piety 
 whose gladness was another's joy, whose grief another's 
 pain, and whose mightiest impulse that universal charity 
 beneath whose heaven all nature is made bright. 
 
84 PROBATION 
 
 One can see at a glance In this brief extract 
 the exuberant style of youth. Subsequent years 
 brought restraint, but the interest, for us, lies in the 
 theological standpoint. It is that of half a century 
 ago. The young preacher struck the note with 
 which he had been familiar in Sandyford pulpit 
 and elsewhere from his boyhood. The tone of the 
 discourse is thoroughly evangelical. Matheson had 
 not as yet begun to reflect seriously upon the 
 contents of the Gospels, or to interpret their meaning 
 for himself. The speculative theories with which 
 Caird and his own reading had made him familiar 
 were not to bear fruit until a later day. The 
 other sermons which he wrote during his probationer 
 days are cast In much the same mould as this one. 
 There Is undoubtedly an originality and freshness 
 about them which must have distinguished them 
 from the productions of his youthful contemporaries. 
 They also possess that beauty of style which was 
 to characterise all his subsequent writing. There 
 is no mistaking his meaning, his thoughts are 
 distinctly conceived and clearly expressed, and a 
 logical sequence links together each step in the 
 argument, which is brightened up by apt and telling 
 illustrations. We have in these early sermons the 
 talent necessary for the making of a great preacher ; 
 all that is wanting Is the spirit. We feel that once 
 the author begins to think for himself on the great 
 problems of religion, there would be revealed a 
 pulpit orator of the first order. Tradition after 
 having played Its part must yield to reflection. 
 
PROBATION 85 
 
 That also came; and when it did, the shell was 
 burst, and Matheson soared forth fully fledged, and 
 in his daring flights carried his hearers to heights 
 before undreamed of. 
 
 It is important to observe that from the very 
 first day of his ministerial life he was determined 
 to shrink from no duty which his profession imposed 
 upon him. He resolved to be the pastor as well 
 as the preacher. During Dr. Macdufl^s absence 
 in Palestine, the whole care of the congregation 
 devolved upon him. In a flock which numbered 
 a thousand members, there must have been much 
 sickness and sorrow. He could not have been 
 an admirer of Pulsford or of Macduff without 
 possessing the pastoral touch. His sympathy at 
 all times was quick and overflowing, and he never 
 failed to render those services which are due to 
 the house of affliction. Nor did he neglect his 
 parochial duties. Within a stone-throw of Sandy- 
 ford Church there is a large working-class population. 
 At that time it was still in the Barony Parish. A 
 few years afterwards it was disjoined and erected 
 into the parish of Kelvinhaugh. During a part 
 of Dr. Macduff s ministry he and his Kirk Session 
 relieved Dr. Norman Macleod, of the Barony, of 
 the charge of this district, and it was customary 
 for the Sandyford assistant to conduct a prayer- 
 meetinp- in one or other of the houses in Kelvin- 
 haugh. This duty Matheson also discharged ; and 
 I remember him, a few years before his death, 
 asking if a family, which he named, still resided 
 
86 PROBATION 
 
 in the only main-door in Teviot Street. On my 
 replying that they did, he said that he was in the 
 habit, when a probationer, of conducting a prayer- 
 meeting in their house. His position as an assistant 
 in Sandyford Church was, however, to be of short 
 duration. Events soon happened which transferred 
 his services to a new sphere, and promoted him to 
 a charge of his own. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 The minister of Sandyford had but newly returned 
 from his tour in Palestine and the East, when his 
 promising young assistant was elected minister of 
 Innellan. The new appointment might not on 
 the first blush be regarded as a great step in 
 advance, for Innellan, at the time of Matheson's 
 election, was only a Chapel of Ease in the parish 
 of Dunoon. Some years had to elapse before it 
 was erected into a parish, giving to its incumbent 
 the status of a parish minister of the Church of 
 Scotland. It, however, had this advantage, that 
 the members of the congregation had the right 
 of election, and in this respect they occupied a 
 position of greater power and privilege than the 
 members of the Parish Church of Dunoon, of which 
 they formed, in a way, a dependent part. The Act 
 of Disraeli's Government which abolished patronage 
 in the Church of Scotland had not yet been passed, 
 and the original parishes, numbering between nine 
 hundred and a thousand, had to accept, subject 
 to certain ecclesiastical conditions, the nominee of 
 
 87 
 
88 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 some patron. It is futile to discuss whether this 
 was a better system than the one which now 
 generally prevails. It had its advantages and its 
 disadvantages, like everything that is human, but 
 it says much for Matheson that, blind as he was, 
 the first important step in his professional career 
 did not depend on the patronage of any influential 
 man, but on his own ability and efforts. He was 
 elected to Innellan on his merits. In spite of his 
 physical disadvantage, he was chosen the minister 
 of the congregation by a popular vote. 
 
 It was most important, in his case, that he 
 should be appointed to a charge at the earliest 
 opportunity. There was naturally a strong pre- 
 judice in the minds of people against having placed 
 over them, as their minister, one whose eyesight 
 was so seriously impaired as to render him 
 practically blind ; and the congregation of Innellan 
 were not superior to a feeling which was so 
 general. There was very strong opposition to his 
 appointment, and the contest was so keen that 
 Matheson's supporters only managed to secure his 
 election by a very narrow majority. The success- 
 ful candidate was admitted by everyone to be 
 by far and away the ablest and most eloquent 
 preacher of all the competitors. But he laboured 
 under one great disadvantage, which the older 
 members of the congregation had not the courage 
 to ignore. Matheson was the chosen of the 
 younger section of the church, who thought less 
 of what was expected of a minister, out of the 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 89 
 
 pulpit, than in it. His approved talents and 
 preaching gifts were to them of far more conse- 
 quence than the discharge, according to use and 
 wont, of the petty details of ministerial duty. As 
 after events proved, Matheson fulfilled these duties 
 with a promptitude, a grace, and a success that 
 ministers with the most perfect eyesight would 
 have difficulty in excelling. That, however, had 
 still to be shown, and while giving our cordial 
 support to his youthful admirers, we cannot alto- 
 gether blame those who experienced some hesitation 
 in welcoming him as their minister. 
 
 There was one element in the election which 
 must have had some weight in producing the final 
 result. Matheson was no stranger to many of 
 the people. His family had been in the habit of 
 making Innellan their summer quarters for some 
 years. Their genial and kindly relation to the 
 villagers had made them popular, and this helped 
 to break down to a large extent the prejudice 
 that prevailed. It is not at all unlikely that, had 
 Matheson appeared in the pulpit of Innellan for the 
 first time as an absolute stranger, his transcendent 
 talent and eloquence might have been of no avail. 
 Those who are accustomed to the ways of Scotch 
 congregations at election times know how little 
 turns the scale. Anything in the personal appear- 
 ance of the candidate, in his tone of voice, in his 
 gesture, even in his dress, may make or mar him. 
 He may come before them with the most powerful 
 credentials, he may preach like another Chrysostom; 
 
90 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 but if a slight peculiarity tickles the fancy, or offends 
 the taste, of his rustic hearers, his fate, for weal or 
 woe, is sealed. No one knew this better than 
 Matheson himself, and he was in the habit of 
 telling some stories in illustration. On one occasion 
 he was introducino^ a friend to his new cono^regfa- 
 tion. The church was crowded, even the passages 
 and pulpit stairs were lined with people. Matheson, 
 on leaving the pulpit at the close of the service, 
 had some difficulty in piloting his way to the 
 vestry. An aged lady, and a warm admirer, seized 
 him by the hand, and whispered so loudly in his 
 ear as to be heard by many others : *' I voted for 
 Mr. P." (naming the new minister) *' not because 
 I thought he was the best preacher, but I kenned 
 he was a puir widower wi' four mitherless bairns." 
 He was also in the habit of telling the following 
 story. The minister of an Ayrshire parish secured 
 his appointment for the following reasons (nar- 
 rated by a representative farmer, who, after the 
 election, was discussing the matter with a friend) : — 
 *' In giving out the psalms and hymns, he repeated 
 the number and the verse twice ; we liked that. 
 In the middle of his sermon an old woman was 
 boasting badly, and he stopped until she was 
 done ; and we liked that. Then, again, when the 
 congregation skailed and he passed us on the road 
 frae the kirk, he did not baud his head in the air, 
 like some of the other young upstarts, but he 
 bowed, lifted his hat, and bade us guid-day; and 
 we liked that : and for these three reasons we 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 91 
 
 voted for him." Such are the whimsicalities of 
 popular election ; and the choice of a candidate, who 
 under the present system has to engage in a 
 preaching match over his less fortunate rivals, is 
 no guarantee whatever that he is the abler minister 
 or the better man. Should any certificate of merit 
 have been necessary in Matheson's case, his ability 
 to subdue, by his preaching, the strong and not 
 unreasonable prejudice that prevailed against him 
 may surely be regarded as a sufficient one. 
 
 The young minister left Sandyford with the 
 heartiest good wishes on the part of minister, office- 
 bearers, and people, and with the following extract 
 of minute from the Kirk Session records : — 
 
 At a meeting of Sandyford Church Session held 
 in the vestry on Monday, November 4, 1867 — 
 
 Inter alia, — A letter was read by the Moderator from 
 the Rev. Mr. Matheson, intimating his appointment to the 
 Church of Innellan, and resigning his situation of assistant 
 and missionary in connection with Sandyford Church. 
 
 The Kirk Session, while accepting the same, beg to 
 enter on their minutes the expression of their high satis- 
 faction with Mr. Matheson's labours, and especially desire 
 to record their warm appreciation of his pulpit services dur- 
 ing the Moderator's absence in Palestine and the East. 
 
 Extracted by 
 
 William Brown, 
 Session Clerk. 
 
 Innellan Church was built fifteen years before 
 Matheson's appointment to the charge. It was 
 opened in the autumn of 1853 by the Rev. Dr. 
 M'Culloch of the West Parish, Greenock, one of 
 the most eloquent preachers in the Church of 
 
92 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 Scotland. It was a modest building, pretty much 
 in the form of a chancel, but, so far as it went, 
 correct in design and form. It was at the time, 
 however, quite large enough to hold the congrega- 
 tion, for Innellan was then in its youth. A 
 generation earlier it was in its infancy, and a 
 generation earlier still it was as a residential district 
 non-existent. Anyone sailing up the Firth of 
 Clyde at the beginning of last century, and looking 
 towards Innellan, would have his outlook arrested 
 by a line of bleak hills, fringed on the foreshore 
 by a few green fields and clumps of wild wood, 
 with here and there a primitive farmhouse or a 
 shepherd's shieling. It might strike the wayfarer 
 as a place possessing great possibilities, but its day 
 had not come. It had not long to wait, for with 
 the prosperity of Glasgow came its opportunity. 
 That rapidly growing city made every year fresh 
 and increasing demands upon the shores of the 
 Firth of Clyde, for accommodation for its inhabitants, 
 during the months of summer. The smoke, and 
 dust, and din, amid which the citizens had to work 
 and live during the greater part of the year, drove 
 them, when the spring-time came, to seek purer 
 air and recreation at one or other of the waterinof- 
 places within reach of the city. No town in the 
 United Kingdom is so fortunate in this respect as 
 Glasgow. Thirty miles from the Broomielaw are 
 to be found as sweet retreats for the jaded man 
 of business as can be found, not only in any part 
 of Scotland, but in any other country in the world. 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 93 
 
 The shores of the Firth of Clyde seemed to 
 have been devised by a special Providence for the 
 recreation of the Glasgow merchant and his family. 
 And soon there began to be erected along them 
 pretty villas, which, year after year, attracted to 
 them those who sought refreshment and respite, for 
 a few months, from the labour and strain of their 
 business life. By the middle of last century one 
 of the most popular of these summer retreats 
 was Innellan. Nor will anyone who has resided 
 at it feel any surprise at its popularity. From 
 the lawn in front of the manse, which, with 
 the church beside it, crowns the hill that over- 
 looks the village, one's eye rests on a scene 
 as briorht and winninor as is to be found in 
 Scotland. Looking to the left, due east almost, 
 the hills of Cowal are seen merging into the 
 mountains that guard the entrance to Loch Goil 
 and Loch Long ; and the shores of Kilcreggan 
 seem to close the mouth of the Gareloch and the 
 estuary of the Clyde. In front, and straight south, 
 one looks on Skelmorlie and the Ayrshire coast. 
 The most inspiring view is to the west, where the 
 broad waters of the Firth flow into the Irish 
 Channel ; the far-stretching sea broken by the Isle 
 of Cumbrae, Toward Point, the low hills of Bute ; 
 in the distance the high peaks of Arran and, stand- 
 ing solitary as a sentinel in mid-channel, Ailsa 
 Craig. 
 
 The first minister of Innellan was the Rev. 
 Robert Horn, who after a brief stay was elected 
 
94 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 to the charge of Slamannan. He was succeeded 
 by the Rev. Martin Peter Ferguson, who also 
 remained but a short time. In a few years he 
 was chosen to be minister of the Presbyterian 
 Church, Buenos Ayres. The first who made a 
 distinct impression on the district was the Rev. 
 William Porteous. He came in 1862. One of the 
 earliest recollections of my childhood is being sent 
 to inquire for the minister, who at the time (1865) 
 was on his deathbed. He had been the subject of 
 a ruthless persecution. The young minister of 
 Innellan won the hearts of the people by the 
 transparency of his character and by his generous 
 and enthusiastic interest in all that concerned them. 
 He had a striking appearance ; his tall spare form, 
 pale countenance, and jet black curling hair, would 
 have made him a conspicuous figure anywhere. 
 He was full of nervous energy, and in the pulpit 
 his matter and manner were attractive in the 
 extreme. A vacancy happening at the time in 
 Bellahouston Church, in the parish of Govan, he 
 was chosen its minister by the votes of the con- 
 gregation. Bellahouston at that time occupied in 
 relation to the Parish Church of Govan much 
 the same position as Innellan did in relation to 
 Dunoon. The ministers of both parishes had 
 certain rights over the subordinate charges, if they 
 cared to exercise them. This the parish minister 
 of Govan, the Rev. Dr. Leishman, determined to 
 do in the present instance. He objected to the 
 appointment of Mr. Porteous on the ground, it was 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 95 
 
 generally supposed at the time, of a preference for 
 a friend of his own. The charge which he made 
 against him, however, was one of plagiarism, and 
 he prosecuted the young minister through the 
 various courts on to the General Assembly. The 
 case, if I mistake not, came up before two General 
 Assemblies. The final result was a victory for Mr. 
 Porteous, but it was a Pyrrhic victory ; it was 
 worse than defeat, for before the day of induction 
 to his hard-won charge he was dead. The strain 
 and the odium connected with the prosecution so 
 affected his sensitive nature and his delicate frame 
 that he succumbed and died. Never was a con- 
 gregation so affected by the death of a minister as 
 was that of Innellan. There are still livine those 
 who cannot speak of the sad event without deep 
 sorrow, in which there is a feeling of bitterness and 
 resentment against him who did so cruel a wrong to 
 one who was innocent, and who promised to be a 
 bright and leading light in the Church of Scotland. 
 Mr. Porteous was succeeded in 1865 by the Rev. 
 James Donald, now Dr. Donald of Keithhall. 
 He was also most successful and much beloved, 
 and under him the church prospered so greatly 
 that it had to be enlarged. The work was 
 carried out in the winter of 1866-67, ^^^ was 
 so arranged that, while the extension was tak- 
 ing place, the congregation was able to worship 
 in the church as usual. Dr. Donald was trans- 
 lated to his present charge in the summer of 
 1868, when he was succeeded by Matheson, under 
 
96 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 whose ministry the fame of Innellan reached its 
 climax. 
 
 There are three events in connection with the 
 settlement of a Scottish minister to his charge 
 which are of supreme importance to him and to 
 his people. These are the ordination, the ordina- 
 tion dinner, and his formal introduction to the 
 congregation on the following Sunday by his most 
 trusted friend. It is rather sad, in looking over 
 the list of the members of the Dunoon Presbytery 
 who took part in the ordination service on the 8th 
 April 1868, and who were present at the subsequent 
 dinner, that all of them, with one exception, the 
 Rev. Mr. Bain of Duthil, are dead. I question if 
 any of the laity who were present are still living. 
 But the occasion was one of deep interest, and a 
 united and hearty welcome was offered to the new 
 minister. At the dinner in the evening, at which 
 the Presbytery with numerous friends were enter- 
 tained, the young minister in replying to the toast 
 of his health spoke as follows : 
 
 There are moments in the Hves of all in which we 
 seem to pause between the past and the future, preparing 
 to advance yet looking back to bid farewell ; and such a 
 moment has now arrived for me. Behind there is a back- 
 ground of vivid memory ; before there is a prospect of stern 
 responsibility. I will not meet the new without a closing 
 glance at the old. The retrospect I speak of is cast in no 
 distant scene. It is within hearing of your ever sounding 
 shore, within sight of your perpetual hills. It seems but 
 yesterday since you and I met together in a very different 
 relationship, not as the pastor and the people, but only as 
 mutual friends, prepared to render to another the honour 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 97 
 
 you have conferred on me. When last I stood in this apart- 
 ment it was to celebrate the ordination of my esteemed and 
 able predecessor, now minister of Keithhall. To you, whose 
 sympathies have followed him to his new abode, the coinci- 
 dence must be a pleasing one, and the association with this 
 night's proceedings will come like a last ray of the past 
 summer which has wandered back into our April showers. 
 
 Perhaps, too, there are some here to-night whose 
 memories are travelling further back still, to the ministry 
 of one who, though outwardly dead, is yet living and 
 breathing in the hearts of all ; whose life, so short in its 
 duration, was yet so long in its intensity, so brief and yet 
 so crowded, so unfortunate and yet so fraught with lasting 
 power ; sealed, too, by a fate so untimely and so sorrow- 
 ful, has rendered him for ever devotedly beloved. I do 
 not call back these shadows from the past that I may 
 contrast them with the present, but rather that I may 
 catch the mantle which falls from the vanished years. 
 My predecessors have left indelible footprints, and these 
 footprints I would like to make my guide. And, Gentle- 
 men, never was there an age in which the preacher had 
 more need of a guide, whether from books or men. From 
 every grade of rank and station, from every sphere of 
 profession and calling, from every tinge of character and 
 life, alike from the palace homes of luxury and from the 
 rudest hamlet on the mountain-side, there is going forth the 
 one united voice — the demand for intellectual enlighten- 
 ment. Reason, recognising that bread is her birthright, 
 refuses any longer to be satisfied with a stone. They tell 
 us in these days that the pulpit has declined, say, rather, 
 that the laity have advanced. The beach has not receded 
 but the waves of the great sea have rolled up and covered 
 half its glory. The candle is not more dim, but the 
 surrounding sunshine has absorbed its brightness. The 
 Church has not lost its pristine power, but the spread of 
 universal power has robbed it of its contrast. 
 
 The preacher of our day must be a man not only of 
 universal knowledge, but, to some extent, of universal 
 nature too. In him must be blended something of the 
 lives of all men. There must be the depths of the 
 
 7 
 
98 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 philosopher's thought, with the simplicity of the child's 
 expression ; the inquiring mind of manhood, with the 
 pensive faith of declining years ; the speculative strength 
 of youth, with a hallowed, chastened, humble sense of 
 feebleness. There must be argument for the doubting 
 and confirmation for the trustful, encouragement for the 
 fearing and approbation for the brave, gentleness for the 
 erring and sympathy with the strong, and boundless, 
 deathless charity for all. He who has entered the Church 
 has become a student of the noblest academy; not the 
 mere college of sciences, but the university of souls. His 
 books must be selected, not merely from the dead letters 
 of a printed page, but from the living indelible epistles of a 
 myriad of human hearts. Gentlemen, in you I recognise 
 the subjects of my future study. It is said by them of old 
 time that the minister is the teacher of the people ; I think 
 that in all which is worthy to be known the people are 
 the teachers of the minister. But little acquainted, as yet, 
 with the personal cares of life, young in years and younger 
 in experience, I come to find in your cares that power 
 which is perfect through suffering; to gain in your ex- 
 perience that wisdom which grows in favour alike with 
 God and man ; and if in long time to come my maturing 
 mind shall give back to you the fruits you lent it — if the 
 bread you shall have cast on the waters shall return to 
 you again after many days — I will deem that, with all its 
 frailties and shortcomings and imperfections, my ministry 
 in Innellan shall not have proved in vain. 
 
 It will be evident from this brilliant speech 
 that Matheson had now reached that maturity of 
 mind which characterised, for the most part, all his 
 subsequent utterances. The first thing that strikes 
 one in his address Is Its perfect taste. The graceful 
 allusions to his two Immediate predecessors are a 
 proof of that generous recognition of the worth of 
 others which was one of the most notable traits in 
 his nature. The spontaneous manner, again, in 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 99 
 
 which he throws himself upon the forbearance of 
 his new congregation, and the humble attitude he 
 assumes towards them as their teacher, won at 
 once that confidence and loyal support which never 
 failed him. In fine, his outlook upon the intellectual 
 and religious needs of the day, which called forth 
 all that was highest and best in the modern pulpit, 
 showed that he was thoroughly alive to the signs 
 of the times, and was determined to spare no effort 
 in proving that the resources of the Christian 
 religion were able to supply the spiritual needs of 
 every man in every age. Add to all this, the 
 charm of style and the power of delivery which 
 even then he possessed in a marked degree, and it 
 will require no straining of the imagination to 
 conceive the effect which his oration had upon his 
 hearers. Everyone felt that, whatever his future 
 among them might be, there could be no doubt of 
 his brilliant gifts of head and heart and utterance. 
 
 The last of the three supreme events in 
 Matheson's settlement at Innellan had still to 
 take place. This was his formal introduction to 
 his congregation on the following Sunday. To 
 whom should this honoured duty be assigned 
 but to Dr. Macduff, the friend of his youth and 
 his revered pastor, whose pulpit too he had, as 
 assistant minister in Sandyford, recently filled ? 
 Macduff's name in those days was one to conjure 
 with. He was one of the most popular preachers 
 in Scotland, and his reputation in the west of 
 Scotland was second only to those of Norman 
 
100 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 Macleod and John Calrd. The occasion was a 
 great one for Innellan. The seaside village held 
 its head high on that beautiful spring Sunday 
 morning, when the hour of service drew the people 
 from far and near to listen to Dr. Macduff and to 
 celebrate the introduction of the young minister to 
 his flock. The little church was crowded to the 
 doors by a congregation representing the wealth 
 and culture of the city and the simple rustic life of 
 the village itself, and the interest reached its 
 climax when, at the close of the sermon, Dr. Mac- 
 duff addressed the congreo^ation as follows : 
 
 I appear here to-day to discharge a pleasing and 
 interesting duty. It is a time-honoured custom in our 
 Church, on the Sabbath succeeding the solemn service of 
 ordination, to introduce the new minister to the flock over 
 whom in God's providence he has been placed. This, I 
 need not say, in the present case is almost, indeed in one 
 sense, entirely superfluous, as he who now occupies that 
 sacred and endearing relation is one with whose voice and 
 with whose friendship you are already well famiUar. I 
 do not regret, however, that it has been deemed fitting 
 that there should be no departure on this occasion from 
 use and wont, as it gives me the opportunity of expressing 
 my unfeigned gratification that the day has arrived when 
 my excellent young friend stands before you and the 
 Church fully equipped for his great Master's service, and 
 for the career of usefulness and blessing which I trust he 
 has before him. If I dared mingle personal feeling with 
 a public duty, it would be to say that I hail the advent of 
 this hour with all the pride and affection of one who has 
 watched with tender interest the development of your 
 pastor's mind and character from early and precocious 
 boyhood. It would be alike unnecessary and unbecoming 
 in me in this place to dilate on the combination of natural 
 gifts with which he has been endowed, or on that manful 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 101 
 
 and heroic struggle achieved over difficulties which to 
 most would have been insurmountable. 
 
 Intellect and genius have in these days many ready 
 outlets, and had literary success been his only aspiration 
 few would have more easily secured it than he. But I 
 rejoice that with unwavering resolution he has adhered to 
 his early formed purpose of consecrating himself to the 
 service of the Redeemer, casting the gifts of nature, 
 sanctified by grace, at the foot of the Cross, and enrolling 
 himself in that honoured band who are embarked in that 
 angel-work of promoting God's cause and glory. 
 
 I have spoken of intellectual acquirements ; these are 
 undoubtedly a vast possession, but they are only, after all, 
 the part of a great whole. The greatest mental gifts are 
 incomplete without the complement of higher, nobler 
 qualities. The head is nothing without the heart. I 
 would rather have the humblest mediocrity of talent, 
 combined with tender, genuine, unselfish kindness and 
 sympathy, than all the intellect of the schools. I know 
 that in my dear friend the didactic or preaching power of 
 the pulpit will be accompanied and followed by the keen 
 and kindly sensibilities of a warm and affectionate heart 
 in his daily intercourse with his people. If, indeed, there 
 is one attribute of his nature more conspicuous than 
 another, it is his constant and unvarying cheerfulness, as 
 if the dimming to him of the outer world were compensated 
 by a gladder and brighter inner sunshine. And there is 
 yet one other diviner gift, which to those who are engaged 
 in the work of the ministry is more precious still either 
 than intellectual power or human kindliness ; and this is 
 the influence radiating from the spiritual, regenerated 
 being, the celestial unction of vital piety. This glorifies 
 all else. As it has been beautifully said, in illustrating 
 another subject, it is the figure standing before the other 
 ciphers which invests them with untold significance and 
 value. I believe you will come soon to know that, in the 
 case of him who is set over you in the Lord, there is no 
 absence of this crowning gift. 
 
 While what may be called the young pulpit of Scot- 
 land is too often in these days characterised by unprofit- 
 
102 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 able disquisitions, giving heed, in the words of St. Paul, to 
 " what minister to questions, rather than godly edifying 
 which is in faith," your young minister will, I think, give 
 you proof and evidence that he values above all the 
 teaching of the Cross, and that profound and vigorous 
 thought and apt illustration are not incompatible either 
 with simplicity of style and language, or with evangelical 
 fervour. 
 
 May the Great Head of the Church, with His own 
 abundant blessing, hallow the relation which from this 
 day onwards connects pastor and people. May this con- 
 tinue to be the end of his conversation — " Jesus Christ the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." May he long be 
 spared to be a polished shaft in his Master's quiver, and 
 after a laborious and honoured ministry receive the crown 
 which awaits the good and faithful servant. 
 
 The young minister was thus launched upon 
 his new sphere under the happiest auspices. What- 
 ever opposition existed soon died away ; his frank 
 and friendly attitude towards the people, apart 
 altogether from his commanding ability in the 
 pulpit, speedily won the confidence and affection 
 of all ranks and classes. Indeed, It is a minister's 
 pe^-sonal relations to his congregation, his un- 
 affected welcome of them when they call, and his 
 kindly interest In them when he visits their homes, 
 that give him an influence which his preaching, 
 however excellent, would never enable him to 
 secure. Innellan was an ideal place for a man 
 like Matheson to begin his ministry in. He was 
 quite aware of this himself, for while he was a 
 student he declared on visiting it that he would 
 like on some future day to be its minister. The 
 population numbered a few hundreds only ; for 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 103 
 
 eight months In the year there was only one service, 
 and during the other four months he had the 
 stimulus of a crowded, intelligent, and thoroughly 
 appreciative congregation. This made the burden 
 of the second service easy, and during the long 
 winter months the anticipation of the summer 
 services kept him, if that were necessary, up to the 
 mark. But he very soon found that among the 
 natives there were brains quite as capable, and 
 hearts as quick in their responsiveness, as among 
 the Glasgow merchants and their families who 
 composed the bulk of his hearers in the summer- 
 time. Norman Macleod was in the habit of saying, 
 that even in the editing of Good Words the man 
 that he always kept in his eye and wrote up to 
 was the level-headed engineer. Dr. Matheson in 
 his preaching had much the same aim, and if at 
 any time in his flights he soared over the heads of 
 his congregation, there were always present some 
 who could follow him, though it were at a distance, 
 and catch his meaning, even if they could not 
 fully understand all its bearings and significance. 
 
 One is able to describe, in a word, the tenor of 
 Matheson's life, in its ministerial aspect, during 
 the whole of his eighteen years' residence in 
 Innellan. On the Sunday afternoon, when the 
 day's work was over, he would select the text of 
 his next sermon, and for a few days following he 
 would ponder over it. Towards the middle of the 
 week he would begin to dictate it to his secretary, 
 and by the Saturday morning it was done. As he 
 
104 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 himself was in the habit of remarking : '* At the begin- 
 ning of the week it was without form or void, but 
 at the end he was always able to pronounce it to 
 be very good ! " This was his habit, week in week 
 out, and even when he was on holiday he wrote his 
 sermon, so that he was well in advance of any 
 emergency. In the summer-time he preached in 
 the evening one of the sermons that he had 
 delivered to his congregation during the preceding 
 winter. This was a prudent practice, for, as this 
 service was attended almost entirely by strangers 
 who had never heard the sermon, it would have 
 been a work of supererogation to have composed 
 a fresh one specially for their use. Besides, as in 
 those earlier years, the discourse was written out in 
 full, and committed verbatim, — the composition and 
 memorising of two new sermons every week would 
 have been subjecting himself to an unnecessary 
 and unwise strain. He was in the habit at first 
 of reading, after the ordinary manner, portions of 
 Scripture as a part of the service, but after a time 
 he substituted for this a brief exposition of certain 
 passages of the Old and New Testaments ; and 
 having discovered, both to himself and to his 
 people, his wonderful faculty in this respect, he, to 
 their delight and profit, continued this practice to 
 the end. His favourite book for these addresses 
 was the Book of Psalms, and I have before me, 
 as I write, several manuscript volumes which em- 
 brace the whole of the Psalter and other sections 
 of Holy Writ, filled with these expository notes. 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 105 
 
 They are so carefully done that a man with a touch 
 of Matheson's mind and genius could easily repro- 
 duce them. 
 
 It may be of interest to picture Matheson as he 
 appeared in the pulpit of Innellan Church on any 
 Sunday morning during these memorable years. 
 Take a Sunday in the month of July or of August, 
 when the little place was full of visitors, every villa 
 and cottage along the shore, from the Bullwood to 
 Toward Point, being occupied by families drawn 
 from far and near, but chiefly from the great city of 
 the west. It was a gay sight, and also an impressive 
 one, filling the mind with what was best in Scottish 
 Sabbath - day observance, to see whole families 
 emerging from their doorways and gradually con- 
 centratine on the little kirk that crowned the hill. 
 The murmur of the wavelets as they broke upon 
 the shore, the song of birds, and the humming of 
 bees that clustered round the limes that led to the 
 sanctuary, were nature's sympathy with the service 
 of human hearts and voices that was soon to be 
 engaged in, and seemed to beckon the worshippers 
 to the house of God. 
 
 After the congregation was seated there appeared 
 from the vestry, through a door immediately behind 
 the pulpit, the young preacher, whose fame, already 
 fast spreading, had drawn to hear him that day as 
 representative and eager a body of hearers as could 
 be found in any church in Scotland. As he stood up 
 one saw that he was above the middle height. He 
 had a spare form and a pleasant ruddy countenance, 
 
106 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 and his eye, albeit unseeing, had that penetrating 
 look which seemed to read the secret thought, and 
 gave one the notion of any other quality than that 
 of blindness. There was a buoyancy, a cheerfulness, 
 a hopefulness in his very appearance and attitude, 
 and a self-confidence, the farthest removed from 
 self-assertion, which put everyone at his ease. In 
 a clear ringing voice, which one would characterise 
 as a rich baritone, he gave out the Psalm to be 
 sung, repeating the first verse, and then sitting 
 down. The opening prayer was a thing to be re- 
 membered. It consisted, at that time, of appropriate 
 selections from the English and other prayer-books, 
 with additions of his own, but the manner in which 
 it was offered up was altogether his own ; he 
 breathed into the ancient words the breath of a 
 fervent spirit, and made the eternal desires of the 
 human heart an offering, for the day and hour, for 
 himself and those who heard him. In later years 
 he broke loose from the trammels of liturgical forms, 
 and led his congregation in those original prayers 
 which came to be regarded as a unique part of his 
 ministry. The other psalms and hymns were given 
 out in the same fashion as the first, and the inter- 
 cessory prayer was quite as impressive as the prayer 
 of confession and thankso^ivinor. 
 
 The beadle on taking the books to the pulpit, 
 before the appearance of the minister, always left 
 the Bible open on the book-board, so that when 
 Matheson gave out the portions of Scripture to be 
 read or expounded, or when he announced his text 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 107 
 
 for the day, he could look down upon the open 
 page, and without any pretence to deceive he could 
 foster the illusion that he was readinsf. In this we 
 see a touch of true art, not only permissible but 
 commendable, for it prevented the minds of his 
 hearers being distracted from the service and the 
 message he had to deliver by reflections on his 
 blindness. Indeed, to my knowledge, many have 
 heard him preach and gone away with the impres- 
 sion that he could see like other men. Accordingly, 
 when he came to read the lessons for the day he 
 did so as if he were really reading them. The 
 chapter and the verse were announced, and then 
 followed the repetition of each word and sentence. 
 Sometimes the passage was a long one, but never 
 on a single occasion was he known to make a slip 
 or a mistake. 
 
 It was, however, when he came to his sermon 
 that the interest of his hearers quickened and 
 deepened. His discourse in those days seldom 
 lasted more than twenty minutes, but it was almost 
 always a gem of the first water, perfect in thought, 
 in form, in diction, and in delivery. He usually 
 seized the mind of his hearers in the first sentence. 
 He struck a note which they never thought of 
 before, but which they felt to be true. He even 
 then displayed his rare gift of setting old texts in a 
 new light, and giving a reading to a well-worn 
 passage which was at once startling in its freshness 
 and impressive for its truth. He opened up his 
 subject by a brief and luminous introduction, and 
 
108 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 by what seemed a logical necessity his theme pre- 
 sented itself under three heads or aspects. These 
 he would develop in detail, enforcing his points by 
 argument and illustration, each paragraph leading 
 up to the climax of thought and impassioned utter- 
 ance, which swayed all breasts. The peroration 
 was usually followed by a brief application of the 
 principles which his theme inculcated. All this was 
 done without the slightest straining after effect : his 
 gestures were few, an occasional raising of the right 
 hand and a slight movement of the body ; but one 
 felt that the preacher's heart and mind were on fire, 
 that behind all there was a restraininor will and a 
 commanding personality. The man, after all, was 
 felt to be more than the preacher, and the oftener 
 he was listened to the more convinced were his 
 hearers that there was a reserve of thought and 
 strength which could only be exhausted by death. 
 
 It was not long before he came to be known as 
 ** Matheson of Innellan," and by the close of his 
 ministry there his name was as closely identified 
 with the place as Frederick William Robertson's 
 was with Brighton. Summer after summer many 
 families came to Innellan for the purpose mainly 
 of hearing Matheson preach. There was one man 
 in particular who for his sake visited the seaside 
 resort for thirteen years in succession. On Mathe- 
 son's departure he came no more. This made the 
 preacher a valuable asset in the finances of Innellan. 
 The prosperity of the place depended entirely on 
 its popularity as a summer quarter, and it was of 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 109 
 
 importance to the people, who made their living 
 largely by house-letting, to have as their minister 
 one who proved so great an attraction. The 
 demand for houses was unprecedented ; the rents 
 were proportionately high, and the season corre- 
 spondingly prolonged. It is not surprising that 
 Mr. Charles Turner, banker and session clerk, the 
 one man in the place who understood this aspect 
 of the life and interests of the people better than 
 any other should declare that *'it was a great loss 
 to Innellan when Dr. Matheson left, and the people 
 knew this well. He was our one and great attrac- 
 tion. Visitors have often told me that the reason 
 why they came, summer after summer, was that 
 they might sit and listen to him." 
 
 It would be as unfair to the people of Innellan 
 as it would be untrue to fact to say that this was 
 the only reason why they valued him. They 
 admired his preaching, respected his character, and 
 were proud of his reputation. He gave them a 
 new ideal of religion ; he opened up their minds, 
 and made them impatient of anything in the way 
 of preaching that was inferior or even commonplace. 
 I remember, as a boy, being sent to the pier on the 
 Saturday evening to watch the arrival of the last 
 steamer. My commission was to see whether it 
 was Matheson himself, or a substitute, that landed 
 for the purpose of conducting the service on the 
 following day. This would very likely be in the 
 late autumn, towards the close of his holidays. The 
 report soon spread, and if it was a stranger who 
 
no MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 was to officiate very few of the villagers found their 
 way to church that morning. 
 
 He soon beg^an to be much sought after on 
 special occasions. Whenever a liberal collection 
 was desired by the office-bearers of a church, the 
 minister of Innellan was approached, in order that 
 he might give his services. Large congregations 
 gathered to hear him, first in the west, and, as 
 his fame spread, in almost every part of the country. 
 His name became a household word all over 
 Scotland. Indeed, it speedily began to be known 
 far beyond the borders of his own country. 
 Searchers after truth, men whose faith was 
 distressed, and others who were interested in 
 spiritual and theological matters, found their way 
 to the seaside village, their sole purpose being to 
 hear Matheson. Not a few of them eave an 
 account of their impressions in one or other of the 
 periodicals of the day. It is thus that one such 
 visitor writes of a Sunday service in Innellan 
 Church : 
 
 I have a delightful recollection of the day on which 
 I first heard him, several years ago now, when he was 
 minister of Innellan. It was my privilege, one delightful 
 Sunday morning, to hear him preach in his little well-filled 
 church, and I shall never forget the freshness, power, and 
 eloquence of his words on that occasion. I went expect- 
 ing to see a venerable man, with " countenance sicklied 
 o'er with the pale cast of thought," and was not a little 
 surprised to see a man under forty, strong, ruddy, possessed 
 of a voice of great compass and power, and whose every 
 movement in the pulpit suggested a personality of vast 
 energy and commanding force, yet blended with wonderful 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 111 
 
 tenderness and graciousness. He seemed to be looking 
 the congregation full in the face, so that it was difficult 
 to believe that he had been, in early life, deprived of the 
 great gift of sight. I left the church that September 
 morning wondering how it could happen that a man of 
 such splendid parts had never been drawn away to some 
 larger sphere. I thought of the pulpits in Glasgow, 
 Edinburgh, London, and other great cities, often so in- 
 adequately filled, and it seemed to me that a moral wrong 
 was being inflicted on the Christian Church, for the services 
 of so remarkable and powerful a man to be confined to so 
 limited a sphere. 
 
 Another visitor to Innellan, writing a few years 
 later, says : 
 
 I have heard Dr. Guthrie and Principal Caird, Norman 
 Macleod and Principal Tulloch, and, in the English Church, 
 the Bishop of Wakefield, the Master of the Temple, Stopford 
 Brooke and Professor Momerie, and while not depreciating 
 any of those distinguished divines, I say that there is a 
 power of eloquence wielded by Dr. Matheson which places 
 him on a level with any or all of them, while in originality 
 of conception, and forcible, quaint expression, he excels 
 them all. 
 
 There was a pastoral and practical side to 
 Matheson's character which found scope In Innellan, 
 limited though Its opportunities were. He visited 
 his people, he was most attentive In cases of sick- 
 ness and sorrow, and he discharged the other 
 duties of his calling with unfailing promptitude 
 and punctuality. His prayers at the bedside 
 inspired sufferers with a fresh courage and a new 
 hope, and the outpouring of his soul at funerals 
 bridged the gulf which separated the Here and 
 the Hereafter, and confirmed the faith of the 
 
112 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 mourners in the blessed truth of immortality. 
 Every baptismal service was to him the promise 
 of a new birth. He was passionately fond of 
 children, and won his way to the mother's heart 
 when he tenderly inquired for the '' wee things." 
 Marriage bells were ever to him bells of joy, 
 ringing in the larger hope for the individual and 
 humanity. The humblest member of his flock 
 was received at the Manse with a genial welcome, 
 and he honoured the social customs of his people ; 
 himself setting the example of moderation in all 
 things. During the winter months he heartily 
 fell in with any scheme that might be proposed 
 for the brightening of that dull season. He fre- 
 quently presided at social gatherings and delivered 
 lectures, doing his best at all times to inspire the 
 minds of his people with an earnest quest after 
 the hieher thing^s of the intellect and the heart. 
 Nor did he neglect the summer visitors. He was 
 frequently seen in the afternoons, accompanied by 
 his sister or his secretary, calling upon those who 
 attended his church and supported it by their 
 liberality ; nor was he loath to receive them at his 
 own house, and to entertain them with that 
 hospitality for which he, then and afterwards, was 
 so well known. 
 
 Matheson had not been more than two or 
 three years at Innellan when steps were taken 
 for the building of a manse, and for the erection 
 of the charge into a parish. This necessitated 
 the raising of a capital sum by the congregation 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 113 
 
 and their friends of something like three thousand 
 pounds ; and it says much for their enthusiasm 
 and energy that by the end of 1873 the twofold 
 object was accomplished. A few years after- 
 wards the spire of the church was completed, a 
 bell presented, and, in the year of Matheson's 
 translation to St. Bernard's, plans were prepared 
 and arrangements completed for a further extension 
 of the church. All this reflects, in the highest 
 degree, not only on Matheson's popularity, but 
 also on his practical foresight and power of lead- 
 ing his congregation. He had the faculty of 
 conducting the meetings of his office-bearers in 
 such a way as to secure their hearty co-operation 
 in everything that concerned the good of the 
 church. "One thing I greatly admired in Dr. 
 Matheson," writes one who acted for some time 
 as his session clerk, "was the able way in which 
 he conducted the meetings of office-bearers. He 
 trusted them, and everyone was more anxious 
 than another to do all he could for him and the 
 church." The following letter, written to his old 
 friend Mr. William Stevenson, who was his right- 
 hand man in every scheme that w^as initiated for 
 the good of the church, shows at once Matheson's 
 tact, business faculty, and generous handling both 
 of men and of money matters : — 
 
 Manse, Innellan, 
 October 2^ 1879. 
 
 I yesterday received the sum of two pounds sterling 
 
 from Mr. . It was given gratuitously out of his own 
 
 pocket to liquidate the spire debt. As I have promised 
 8 
 
114 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 to give other two, the debt is now reduced to three pounds 
 and a few shillings. I had a call yesterday morning from 
 
 Mr. . He insists that he shall be informed of the 
 
 date of our Annual Meeting, and that to suit him it must 
 be held during the day ; in whatever part of the country 
 he is, he will come to it. He wants any overplus funds 
 of the church to be appropriated to certain projects with 
 which his head is on fire. I would like you, when the 
 meeting comes, to try and prevent any encroachment on 
 what was done at your instigation last year. Beyond 
 
 this I would be disposed to humour . I do not desire 
 
 any more money, and I do think there are required by 
 the church certain improvements which would require 
 all the spare funds, if not more. I merely want to hint, 
 meantime, that I see something like a storm signal for 
 next meeting. 
 
 Believe me, etc. 
 
 The phase of Matheson's life and w^ork at 
 Innellan that has nov^ been dealt with may be 
 summed up in the follov^Ing reminiscences by one 
 who knew him well, and who was closely associated 
 with him during this period of his ministry ; I mean 
 Dr. J. B. Watt of Ayr :— 
 
 During the College summer vacation of 1867 I had 
 the delight and privilege of becoming associated with the 
 Rev. Dr. George Matheson as reader and amanuensis. At 
 this time he had been left in charge of Sandyford Church, 
 during the absence of Dr. Macduff in Palestine. He had 
 been suddenly appointed ; and his work, it having been 
 changed from that of a probationer to that of a pastor, 
 for the time, of a most important Glasgow congregation, 
 necessitated very active study. Reading had to be done 
 in all fields of theology and other allied departments of 
 knowledge. Sermons had to be composed and written 
 out, psalms and lessons committed to memory, besides 
 the visitation of all ranks had to be undertaken ; but his 
 master mind showed itself in every detail, and when work 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 115 
 
 was over for the day he greatly enjoyed his evening's 
 recreation. What struck one first was his amazing 
 ability to commit to memory sermons and lessons after 
 one or two readings. At first the active work was some- 
 what of an effort, which, however, he steadily overcame. 
 It has been said that " without music man is but half 
 complete." Matheson fulfilled this conception of the 
 finished man, and his singing of '' John Peel " and other 
 songs delighted all who were privileged to hear him. 
 Story-telling was another of his great delights, and no 
 matter how often he told his tales, his own enjoyment was 
 so transparent, and his hearty laugh so infectious, that 
 one always welcomed them again. The summer ended, 
 work at College had to be resumed, and we were parted 
 for a period of some years. But, as good fortune would 
 have it, after visits at rare intervals at Innellan, where he 
 had now gone, I became settled in practice there in 1871, 
 for a year, and our friendship was renewed, became 
 closer, and our meetings were as frequent as our duties 
 would allow. Entering fully into his life there, I became 
 the secretary of his flourishing church, and experienced 
 great pleasure in co-operating with him in the schemes 
 that were then on foot for the building of the Manse and 
 the endowing of the charge. During that summer he 
 and I took a holiday to London for a couple of weeks, 
 doing the sights, and meeting many friends of previous 
 College days, and not a few of the well-known writers and 
 poets — G. A. Sala, H. S. Leigh, etc. — in whose company his 
 rich personality found genial expression. At this time 
 nothing important had appeared from his pen, but his 
 preaching was entrancing. His extraordinary flow of 
 poetic language, and his vivid descriptions, held one spell- 
 bound till the end of the service. During the brief year 
 of my life in Innellan our intimacy was one of most un- 
 reserved confidence; and though I was the familiar 
 repository of, I believe, his most secret thoughts, such 
 was the transparency and purity of his nature that death 
 itself could do little to enhance the sacredness of the 
 affection with which I regarded his character, and now 
 revere his memory. 
 
116 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 Two Important changes took place in Matheson's 
 preaching while he was at Innellan. They radically 
 affected both its matter and manner, and had far- 
 reachine results. In Dr. Watt's reminiscences 
 there is a tribute to Matheson's remarkable 
 memory. Two readings of a sermon, of a psalm, 
 or of the lesson for the day, were sufficient to enable 
 him to repeat it without a mistake. For the first 
 twelve years of his career he was in the habit of 
 committing his sermon to memory. As this in- 
 volved little trouble, and as he delivered his 
 discourse with an ease which suggested extemporary 
 speaking, neither he nor anyone else saw reason 
 why it should be changed. He evidently enjoyed 
 this method of preaching, and his hearers shared 
 his enjoyment to the full. But one Sunday morn- 
 ing an event happened which suddenly transformed 
 his former practice. At the time it looked like a 
 catastrophe, but it proved to be his salvation. 
 While in the flow of his oratory he abruptly 
 stopped. The sudden collapse caused a profound 
 sensation. Not only was it absolutely unprecedented, 
 but he was never known to have been at a loss for 
 a word or to have been subject to the slightest 
 hesitancy. Matheson was equal to the occasion. 
 He quietly announced to the congregation that, so 
 far as the sermon which he had prepared for their 
 hearing that morning was concerned, his mind was 
 a perfect blank. He then gave out a psalm and 
 sat down. After it had been sung, he rose, gave 
 out a fresh text, and from it preached a sermon 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 117 
 
 with all his wonted freedom, eloquence, and 
 vigour. 
 
 The surprise ought to be, that a collapse of 
 this kind had not happened long before. It was 
 not due to any failing of memory, to lack of prep- 
 aration, or the impairing of any faculty whatso- 
 ever. It was entirely due to the steady enrichment 
 of his mental and spiritual nature by years of con- 
 stant reading and profound meditation and study. 
 His mind had become so full, he was so armed 
 with intellectual weapons, fresh thoughts were 
 bubbling up in his soul so irrepressibly, that in 
 the middle of his prepared discourse a happy 
 suggestion protruded itself which he felt impelled 
 to develop. Once he had developed this thought 
 he had lost the thread of his old one, or, at all 
 events, the words which ought to have appeared 
 for expression failed to be forthcoming, and he 
 only stated the sober truth when he declared that 
 so far as the sermon in hand was concerned his 
 ''mind was a perfect blank." It cost him no 
 trouble to preach another sermon, his mind was 
 full of discourses which he had delivered on many 
 occasions ; but it shows his complete mastery over 
 himself, and confidence in his own powers, that he 
 so quickly recovered his self-possession, which in 
 fact was never altogether lost, and felt his ability 
 to deliver another discourse without any fear of a 
 breakdown. 
 
 This must have happened in the year 1878, 
 for I find from that time onward none of his 
 
118 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 sermons are written out in full. Up to that 
 period sixteen volumes are filled with his discourses, 
 and each one is complete, except that occasionally 
 the practical application at the end is simply 
 indicated by a note. But from this time onwards 
 there is a marked curtailment ; the space in 
 manuscript is reduced to a half, and, in a very 
 short time, to a tenth part of what the sermon 
 formerly occupied. He now adopted the method 
 of preparing a skeleton only. Each skeleton 
 seldom occupies more than a page, if so much ; 
 but the thoughts are so pregnant, the subject so 
 carefully arranged, the divisions so clear, the 
 suggested illustrations so apt, that anyone with a 
 power of extemporary speech and with a mind in 
 sympathy with Matheson's could, after a few hours' 
 meditation, deliver from them a sermon that might 
 be telling In the extreme. One can accordingly 
 understand what a power these notes would be in 
 the hands of a man like Matheson. Anyone who 
 listened to his conversation must have been im- 
 pressed by the readiness and conciseness of his 
 utterance. He could put a thought into a nut- 
 shell ; he could demolish an argument by a 
 quotation or an epigram. His poetic mind was 
 kept under the control of a strong will, which 
 always compelled the thought into the channel 
 which he had meant for it, and directed the arrow 
 of his fancy to the object at which he was aiming. 
 His logical faculty was much more pronounced 
 than those who are accustomed to argument by 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 119 
 
 syllogism were aware of. The truths which he 
 enforced often soared on the wings of imagination, 
 and his matter-of-fact hearers thought they were 
 lost in the clouds ; but those who were able to 
 follow him on such occasions felt that there was 
 reason in his madness, and recognised the force 
 of his loeic when the discourse was done. 
 
 For the subsequent, which fortunately was the 
 longer, period of Dr. Mathesons ministry, his 
 preaching gained in spontaneity, directness, and 
 power. He came into the pulpit after hours of 
 meditation, with his subject clearly held in his 
 mind. He put himself at once in touch with his 
 audience, and trusting to his marvellous power of 
 extemporary utterance, which had been trained by 
 long years of patient labour, he poured out his 
 whole soul and carried his hearers captive. It 
 was now that those who came to hear him dis- 
 covered the man, as well as the preacher. He 
 stood before them as he was, and gave them not 
 only the best of his thought but of himself, Sunday 
 after Sunday. This was a joy to him as to them, 
 and although for the moment he experienced that 
 ease and freedom which are shared by those who 
 have the gift of extemporary speech, still virtue 
 went out of him. The strain upon the physical 
 frame may have been too much. The spiritual and 
 mental nature itself only grew richer and deeper. 
 
 Of more importance perhaps than the change 
 in the manner, was that which took place in the 
 substance of his preaching. This change was 
 
120 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 anterior to the other. It took place during the 
 first or second year of his ministry at Innellan. 
 It reached far down, and shook the foundations 
 of his faith. The result was a temporary un- 
 hinging, a threatened collapse, of his religious 
 beliefs. Nor should anyone express surprise at 
 this, any more than he should at the break- 
 down in the manner of his preaching. Both were 
 bound to come. One cannot conceive a man 
 like Matheson passing through life without being 
 called upon to reconsider his theological bearings. 
 He was brought up on the traditional beliefs of 
 his day. His boyhood and youth were passed in 
 a period of extreme orthodoxy. He was educated 
 under a ministry which was noted for its evan- 
 gelical fervour ; and even Pulsford, whom he 
 declares to have set his soul on fire, never 
 disputed the evidences which were explicitly 
 accepted in his day. It was the spiritual genius 
 of Pulsford rather than his theological speculations 
 which quickened Matheson's nature. It is true 
 that John Caird had been gradually groping his 
 way in the direction of a new outlook upon 
 traditional and current theology. He had been 
 bitten by the speculative methods of the German 
 philosophers ; and his lectures, as Professor of 
 Divinity, were largely influenced by their spirit 
 and method. But the remarkable fact is that, at 
 the time, Caird's influence upon Matheson would 
 seem to have been extremely slight. It is perfectly 
 certain, at any rate, that he was not tempted to 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 121 
 
 assume that negative attitude towards the current 
 method of regarding Divine truth which was 
 adopted by many of those who came under the 
 influence of Caird's teaching. The Professor 
 himself, it need hardly be said, never wavered in 
 his allegiance to what is truly essential in the 
 Christian religion. Indeed, he was the helper of 
 those who had the power to follow him in his 
 search after eternal truth ; and the inspiration of 
 his teaching and character was deeply felt by 
 those who sat under him. But a spirit of negation 
 began to possess not a few of those who at the 
 time were affected by the new outlook upon 
 theology. Matheson never fell under its spell, 
 nor had he as a student become thoroughly imbued 
 with the positive spirit which reconstructed afresh 
 the forms of belief after criticism had done its work 
 with them. He was evidently content for the time 
 being to walk in the old paths, and to light them 
 up with flashes of imagination and poetry. He 
 could not, however, live long in a frail house of this 
 kind ; the crash was bound to come, and when it 
 did come his theological tabernacle was a mass of 
 ruins. 
 
 Ten years before his death, referring to this 
 experience, which could never be forgotten by 
 him, he said : 
 
 At one time, with a great thrill of horror, I found 
 myself an absolute atheist. After being ordained at 
 Innellan, I believed nothing ; neither God nor im- 
 mortality. I tendered my resignation to the Presbytery, 
 
122 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 but to their honour they would not accept it, even though 
 a Highland Presbytery. They said I was a young man, 
 and would change. I have changed. 
 
 I do not think that the matter ever came to so 
 acute a crisis ecclesiastically. There is no evidence 
 that the subject came officially before the court, 
 although he undoubtedly was quite willing that it 
 should do so, and had taken the first step towards 
 this result. I possess a letter from an honoured 
 minister of the Church, who at the time was a co- 
 Presbyter of Matheson's, which throws some light 
 on the question : 
 
 With regard to a resignation, certainly nothing of the 
 kind ever came before the Presbytery while I was a 
 member. Your letter, however, brings to mind a circum- 
 stance I had long forgotten. In a conversation with the 
 late Dr. Cameron of Dunoon, a friend of Dr. Matheson's, 
 and leader of the Presbytery in those days, he mentioned 
 that Matheson had thought of giving up the ministry, 
 for the reason you indicate. He spoke of it, however, 
 as a thing past and done with. I never heard any other 
 member of Presbytery refer to the subject. I do not 
 think they could have known anything about it. I had 
 forgotten it altogether until your letter recalled it. As 
 Dr. Matheson was in the Presbytery of Dunoon some 
 three years after I left it, it is, of course, just possible 
 that he may have taken more decisive steps afterwards. 
 I do not think this is probable, as I should have been 
 sure to hear of it in the course of my coming and 
 going, and meeting with his co-Presbyters. The im- 
 pression left on my mind by Dr. Cameron was, that the 
 matter had not gone beyond the stage of conversation, 
 and, though grave, was but a passing phase of thought. 
 
 It is not difficult to reconcile Matheson's state- 
 ment with this letter. He had never been in the 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 123 
 
 habit of attending meetings of Presbytery. Ac- 
 cordingly, when such a matter as the one under 
 consideration had to be dealt with, it was natural 
 that he should do it through a friend, who might 
 bring it up before the court in due course. Matheson 
 was perfectly honest at the time in his resolu- 
 tion, and one cannot be too grateful to Dr. Cameron 
 for counselling him to pause before the subject 
 should be officially communicated to the Presbytery. 
 His friend must have known that it was impossible 
 for a spiritually-minded man like Matheson to 
 remain for any length of time an atheist. The 
 darkness could only be temporary ; new light was 
 sure to dawn upon the troubled mind. 
 
 This new light came from the philosophy of 
 Hegel. Matheson's first introduction to the system 
 of the Qfreat German thinker was at the hands of 
 Dr. Caird. After his induction to Innellan he took 
 up the study of theology and philosophy afresh, and 
 with ereat thorouo^hness and earnestness. The 
 practical work of the ministry, the necessity of not 
 only thinking upon religion, but of presenting it, 
 Sunday after Sunday, in a way satisfactory to his 
 own mind and helpful to his hearers, brought him 
 face to face with his fundamental beliefs, caused 
 him to search for them, and, if found, to examine 
 them. To his amazement he discovered the search 
 to be in vain. He had in reality no fundamental 
 beliefs to examine. He had accepted the traditional 
 views, and had never really inquired into their 
 absolute truth or their living relation to his own 
 
124 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 soul. Most men are content to pass on through 
 life without ever questioning the doctrines which 
 they inherit. They may be reputed to be orthodox, 
 and are among the first to cast stones at those who 
 dare to inquire. Matheson could not possibly be 
 numbered with this class. The day of his visita- 
 tion was sure to come ; and it came to him, as it did 
 to Robertson of Brighton, like a thief in the night. 
 The famous Brighton preacher fled to the Tyrol, and 
 in the solitude of its mountains and forests wrestled 
 with his doubts until the dawn. Matheson's battle 
 of the soul was fought In the quiet village of Innellan, 
 and his lost faith was restored throuorh him whose 
 philosophy makes true to the spirit what criticism 
 or unbelief may have rendered false to the mind. 
 
 '' They," observed Matheson, referring to the 
 Presbytery of Dunoon, 
 
 said I was a young man, and would change. I have 
 changed. Without hypocrisy I preach all the old doctrines 
 and use all the old forms, but with deeper meaning. 
 My theological sympathies are in favour of breadth, 
 but not negation. It is a great mistake to suppose 
 that there is any advantage, or disadvantage, in being 
 broad or narrow, long or short, high or low. The ques- 
 tion is : What is it that is broad ? Is it broadcloth or 
 broad shoulders? Therefore I do not value an opinion 
 simply because it is a negative opinion, and different from 
 use and wont. I am as broad as can be, but it is a broad 
 positive. 
 
 In this he spoke the truth. These few sentences 
 give the key to his theological position — a position 
 which he gained as a young man at Innellan, and 
 which he never lost. He may In after years have 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 125 
 
 deepened spiritually, but intellectually he stood fast 
 to his profound belief in Christianity, in the ideas 
 which it embodies. These he was convinced were 
 from all time, and for all time. The '* Lamb slain 
 from the foundation of the world," the sacrificial 
 element in Christianity was, he believed, the thought 
 which God had from the beginning in His mind ; and 
 upon it the plan of the whole universe, the course 
 of history, and the life of the individual were based. 
 Christ, in the flesh, was the revealer and inter- 
 preter of all this. It was in the philosophy of 
 Hegel that he found the key to the mystery ; and 
 he rejoiced with joy unspeakable when what was 
 dark was illumined, and when his lost faith was 
 restored in a new and living form. In a letter 
 written at a much later date to his friend Dr. 
 Gloag, he, in speaking of Lichtenberger's History 
 of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century, 
 which had just been translated by the late 
 Professor Hastie, refers to this point : 
 
 I am glad you like Lichtenberger. I bought the book 
 some time ago and I am already half through. It is truly 
 delightful reading, full of information and replete with 
 epigrammatic beauty. There is a chapter on Schiller and 
 Goethe which reads like a novel. I think the author's 
 own mind is rather French than German — more brilliant 
 than profound. He has no adequate appreciation of the 
 Hegelian school, nor do I think him altogether just to 
 what he calls the reactionary party — the men of high and 
 dry orthodoxy. But with these reservations the book is 
 admirable, and you will thoroughly enjoy it. Regarding 
 my own views and projects I shall at present say nothing. 
 It is a subject on which I always like best to express my- 
 self verbally. I may say generally, however, that the man 
 
126 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 of all others who expresses most my personal belief is 
 Pfleiderer. I am every year more persuaded that the ideal 
 is the reality, and that the study of Church History ought 
 to be a study of the genesis and development of the 
 Christian ideal. I believe that the ideal of the Christian 
 life is itself the supernatural creation in the heart of man, 
 and that it must have existed before the historical Christ. 
 Because without its previous presence the beauty of the 
 Christ of History would have been unintelligible. I 
 cannot go further here. 
 
 Keeping this expression of his position In mind, 
 one is able to read v^Ith intelligence the long series 
 of books and articles v\^hlch he began to write a 
 fev^ years after his Induction at Innellan ; and 
 should his sermons ever be published, their in- 
 ward significance will be made plain In the light 
 of It. His writings cover a large field ; they deal 
 with a great variety of subjects ; they may be said 
 to differ in type, but through them all can be traced 
 his conception of the truth which this letter more 
 than Indicates, and his attitude towards the world of 
 thought and life as a whole, which he meant by 
 classing himself under the category of the *' broad 
 positive." The spirit of Christianity, the Ideal 
 which It embodies, and the central Figure in 
 whom It was realised, became part and parcel of 
 Matheson's nature. He had during that struggle 
 at Innellan not only reconcelved but relived his 
 faith. Two extracts from his sermons may here be 
 given. They will at once Illustrate the advance 
 made by him since his probationer days, and the 
 way In which he expounded and enforced his re- 
 constructed faith. Preaching at Innellan in the 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 127 
 
 year 1878, on the subject of ''building on the 
 foundation" (i Cor. iii. 12-14), he remarks: 
 
 We hear familiarly in the present day of the broad and 
 the narrow Church. The distinction is a real one, but it is 
 not always what is implied. Every church is narrow which 
 has not Christ for its foundation, every church is broad 
 which is built upon the Son of Man. Every form of 
 belief, and every form of unbelief, which is outside the 
 kingdom of Christ, exerts a narrowing tendency over the 
 human soul, for it tells me that I alone am right, and that 
 everyone else is wrong. But let a man once get his feet 
 on the foundation, let him once stand on the all-transcend- 
 ing truth of the Gospel, he will find it to be an all-com- 
 prehending truth too. It will throw light upon everything ; 
 it will cast a mantle of charity over all ; it will cover a 
 multitude of sins ; it will make us see good in much that 
 seemed hopeless evil. It will reveal stars in many a night 
 that appeared without a ray. If you have reached the 
 foundation, you have come to that charity which believeth 
 all things, and hopeth all things, and endureth all things ; 
 for you have entered into union with the source of Infinite 
 Love, and you have looked upon the world with His light. 
 Thine is the boundless compassion, and the world-wide 
 sympathy, and the endless hope. Thine the gentleness 
 that breaks not the bruised reed nor quenches the smoking 
 flax. Thine the redemptive yearning to seek and to save 
 that which is lost. You will go forth into the desert and 
 gather flowers from its barren waste ; you will walk among 
 the tares and pluck from the midst of them the seeds of 
 future promise. When you have rested on the great 
 foundation, " the wood and the hay and the stubble " shall 
 alike be included in your love with " the silver and the 
 gold and the precious stones." 
 
 If this quotation illustrates the ground on which 
 he reared his faith as "broad positive," the follow- 
 ing will reveal the way in which he expounded his 
 belief that the ideal of the Christian life must have 
 
128 MATHESON OF INNELLAN 
 
 existed before the historical Christ, and that it is in 
 the Hght of it all things are made plain. By the 
 time he preached this sermon on the " Lamb slain 
 from the foundation of the world " (Rev. xiii. 8), he 
 had ceased to write out his discourses in full, but 
 the skeleton, although much briefer than usual, is 
 sufficiently explicit : 
 
 Idea is, Christ's death not an accident but part of a 
 system. It also indicates that the system is one of love. 
 Calvary older than Eden, and the plan for redemption 
 precedes the fact of creation. Divine, like human father- 
 hood, provides for the contingency of its children. As 
 proof of this adduce the sacrificial harmony between the 
 volumes of nature and grace. " The foundation of the 
 world," that is, the work of God in creation, prefigures 
 sacrifice. All things shine by passing into the life of 
 others : the seed into the flower, the sun into nature, the 
 sea into the reflection of the light. Each stage of human 
 life expands by sacrifice of self-will. Show this in the 
 child, the boy, the youth, etc. Exhibit then how Christ 
 was "slain from the foundation of the world." Connect 
 the text with the words, " Lo, I come, I delight to do Thy 
 will." When the will is surrendered the work is practic- 
 ally done. 
 
 There was thus to Matheson not only a Divine 
 purpose in the universe and in human life, but a 
 purpose that was intelligible to the mind and ap- 
 pealed to the heart. In the light of it, all things 
 became new. The dark problems of existence, the 
 calamities of life, the vicissitudes and trials, the 
 sufferings and sorrows of mortal existence, yea, 
 even death itself, yielded up their mystery to the 
 Christian ideal. As seen through it, every effort 
 of the human mind and spirit, and the searchings 
 
MATHESON OF INNELLAN 129 
 
 and strivings of natural religion, were seen to be 
 but developments and stages in the realisation of 
 the world plan. The rise and fall of nations — in 
 fact, the course of civilisation as a whole — but 
 illustrated the truth which had now been revealed 
 to him. The Christian religion itself, in one sense 
 the goal, was in another the beginning. It revealed 
 in full measure what had always been in the mind of 
 the Eternal. Its broken creeds contained fractions 
 of the truth, and in place of being anathema one 
 to another they ought to regard each other with 
 that charity which believeth all things. It was 
 thus that Matheson could gather them all together. 
 His intellectual and moral sympathy embraced 
 each Church, and extended the hand to every 
 form of Christian faith ; indeed, it could reach out 
 to those religions that are regarded as natural, for 
 he saw in them foreshadowings of those truths 
 which were revealed when the times were ripe. 
 He thus became the great reconciler of his age, 
 and did for his own generation what Robertson 
 of Brighton accomplished for his. Matheson's 
 writings, which we are to study in the following 
 chapter, will illustrate this more fully. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 For a studious man like Matheson no better place 
 could have been found than Innellan. The con- 
 gregational and parochial demands on his time 
 were slight in the extreme. The membership of 
 his church was never very large ; there was little 
 poverty, and the occasions on which he had to 
 officiate at funerals and marriages were few and 
 far between. For eight or nine months in the 
 year his duties consisted mainly in the preparation 
 and delivery of the weekly sermon ; the remainder 
 of his time was practically at his own disposal, 
 and it must be admitted that he made the fullest 
 and the best use of it. There was nothing that 
 he enjoyed more than being read to, and he 
 had, within easy distance, in Glasgow, the com- 
 mand of a number of libraries, particularly the 
 University Library, and I know from the register 
 of readers at the time that he perused many of 
 the volumes on philosophy, theology, and cognate 
 subjects, that it contains. His secretary was con- 
 tinually coming and going, exchanging a packet 
 
 130 
 
AUTHORSHIP 131 
 
 of books for a fresh supply, and generally catering 
 for the mental appetite of his chief. 
 
 It goes without saying that most of what was 
 read was retained. Matheson's remarkable memory 
 enabled him to keep a firm hold of almost every 
 idea and fact that were once communicated to him. 
 But he did not become a mere bookworm ; he had 
 an extraordinary power of assimilation. Whatever 
 appealed to his intellectual sympathy was appro- 
 priated and, with any modification necessary, be- 
 came part of his own original views. In addition, 
 there was a method in his reading ; he was by 
 nature and training a speculative theologian. The 
 poet in him contributed to the fulfilment of his 
 main purpose, which was to produce in speech or 
 by writing a fresh and stimulating view of Divine 
 truth. From his earliest years he aimed at author- 
 ship. As a schoolboy his efforts were printed at 
 the express desire of his class-fellows, and as a 
 student one poem at least found its way to the 
 press. 
 
 Nor was he long at Innellan until he con- 
 templated publication. The work, however, which 
 he intended for the world was not the one that first 
 appeared ; indeed, it never appeared in the form in 
 which he wrote it. There are among his literary 
 remains a series of articles, or chapters, which were 
 no doubt intended for a volume. Including the 
 introduction and conclusion they number fourteen, 
 and would have made a very presentable book. 
 They bear the general title of *' Conquerors by 
 
132 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 Faith ; or the Gospel of the Old Testament," 
 and he evidently intended to publish them with his 
 own name, for on the title-page there is written, '' By 
 the Rev. George Matheson, M.A., B.D., Innellan." 
 They deal with those Hebrew characters of whom 
 a list is given in the eleventh chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, beginning with Abel and 
 ending with David. They bear signs of having 
 been submitted to some friendly criticism, and if 
 one can judge by the pencilled notes, the critic 
 was none other than Dr. Macduff. Why they 
 were never published I do not know. They 
 would have been quite worthy of any young 
 minister of the Church. But on the whole he was 
 wisely guided, for he would have forestalled the 
 publication, many years afterwards, of his remark- 
 able volume on TAe Representative Men of the 
 Bible. The subjects are mainly the same, the 
 point of view not radically different. But one 
 misses in the earlier series the touch of the master 
 hand, and that knowledge of life and of character 
 which can only come after much thought and with 
 the years that bring the philosophic mind. It is 
 rather striking that his first conceptions were those 
 that were last worked out. His earliest volume 
 may be said to have seen the light only after 
 his death, for The Women of the Bible, just 
 published, was but the completion of the idea that 
 he formed at Innellan of issuing in book-form 
 sketches of the characters of the Old and the New 
 Testaments. He never left his first love, and there 
 
AUTHORSHIP 133 
 
 is not a little satisfaction in the reflection that he 
 was able to fulfil the dream of his youth before he 
 died. 
 
 The work which he did prepare and publish 
 within six years of his settlement at Innellan was 
 Aids to the Study of German Theology, It 
 appeared in the autumn of 1874, anonymously. 
 It is no exaggeration to say that it came to the 
 English public of the day as a glad and wel- 
 come surprise. There was in the mind of Britain 
 at the time a strong and unreasoning prejudice 
 against German theology. This, of course, was 
 entirely owing to ignorance, or misrepresentation, 
 of the subject. Most of what had been pub- 
 lished in England during the first half of the 
 nineteenth century on the speculative theories of 
 our Teutonic neighbours was certainly not to their 
 advantage. Our insular conceit made us impatient 
 of anything that necessitated a reconsideration 
 or recasting of our theological position, and the 
 earlier writers on the subject, partly ignorant of 
 the language, and certainly quite out of sympathy 
 with the views which they tried to combat, pre- 
 sented German theology in a most unfavourable 
 light. 
 
 All this necessarily created a reaction, and such 
 writers as Pusey, Sir William Hamilton, Morell, 
 and Schaff, in independent works, and the scholars 
 who were employed to translate the German works 
 that composed Clark's "Biblical Cabinet "and the 
 "Foreign Theological Library," did yeoman service 
 
134 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 in breaking down this prejudice by well-informed 
 criticism of what the misjudged authors had really 
 said. By the time Matheson wrote, the works 
 of De Wette, Tholuck, Neander, Rosenmiiller, 
 Lisco, and Rohr, of Hengstenberg, Keil, Delitzsch, 
 Bleek, Julius Miiller, Giesler, and Dorner had 
 been translated ; and through the " Theological 
 Translation Fund Library " a beginning had been 
 made with a reproduction, in English dress, 
 of the works of Baur, Ewald, Keim, and Haus- 
 rath. 
 
 Matheson made himself familiar with all the 
 material in the English language that he could lay 
 his hands on, and devoted himself to a keen and 
 profound study of German theology. I have in 
 my hands, as I write, a large notebook, which he 
 used at the time, and it Is full of extracts from, 
 and reflections on, the works of Dorner, Miiller, 
 Neander, Baur, Morell, Hutchison Stirling, etc. 
 From these and other sources, partly original and 
 partly translated, he gathered together and sys- 
 tematised the views of the great German writers on 
 theology — from the time of Kant downwards. One 
 cannot study this notebook, which bears indisput- 
 able traces of wide and careful reading, without 
 seelnor in it the o-erm of all the works that 
 Matheson produced at Innellan. It bears traces of 
 his mental struggle at the time, gives a history to 
 the sympathetic reader of his spiritual combat with 
 the Giant Despair, and shows how the creative, 
 positive, and illuminating ideas of the great German 
 
AUTHORSHIP 135 
 
 thinkers enabled him to lay hold afresh of his lost 
 faith, and to body it forth in a new and living form. 
 It is also evident that he had during these years, 
 while patiently engaged in mastering the specula- 
 tive theories of the new age, a steadfast purpose 
 in view. The great names of Kant, Schleier- 
 macher, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, and Strauss, 
 recur most frequently, and their views on the 
 different problems in theology with which they 
 deal are elaborated more or less in detail. It 
 was durinof this time that Matheson rained a 
 sure foothold, and became master of himself and 
 the great themes with which he was afterwards to 
 deal. 
 
 There were three features of the new publica- 
 tion which commended it to the religious public. 
 These were its lucidity of style, its logical con- 
 tinuity, and its constructive aim. Students of Ger- 
 man theology had previously been debarred from 
 a sympathetic apprehension of the subject by the 
 linguistic jargon both of the writers and their 
 translators. Even eager aspirants were repelled. 
 Over the portals of this temple, as over those of 
 the kingdom of heaven, were written the words : 
 " Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, and 
 few there be that find it." Matheson opened the 
 barred door. He removed the inscription, and led 
 into the new kingdom thousands who hitherto had 
 stood patient but disheartened at the outer gate. 
 The fact is he had made the subject his own. The 
 iron had entered his soul, and he spoke because he 
 
136 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 felt and saw. He was impatient of vagueness, and 
 he could never speak or write without having first 
 of all formed a clear conception of the subject in 
 his own mind. Accordingly in his book there is a 
 beginning, a middle, and an end. System follows 
 system, philosopher succeeds philosopher, by what 
 seems a necessary law of development ; and German 
 theology, which before was to many English 
 readers an inversion or contradiction of the laws 
 of thought, is seen in Matheson's hands to be 
 but the necessary historical evolution of ideas. 
 The style, too, was found to be charming ; clear, 
 light, limpid, carrying the mind along by its own 
 sweet music, and satisfying the most exact literary 
 taste. 
 
 The greatest service, however, which Matheson 
 rendered was his emphatic and convincing pre- 
 sentation of German theology as a positive and 
 constructive power, which in place of destroying 
 belief in Christianity confirmed that belief to all 
 doubting and thinking minds. This is the first 
 note sounded by him. In his Introduction he deals 
 with the subject of German Rationalism, and shows 
 how it was an exotic plant. The German heart he 
 declares to be believing, the German mind to be 
 constructive ; and the late Professor Hastie, in his 
 excellent Introduction to Lichtenberger's History 
 of German Theology in the Nineteenth Ce7itu7y, 
 while expressing admiration for Matheson's book 
 as a whole, commends it in particular for the signal 
 service which it rendered at the time to the true 
 
AUTHORSHIP 137 
 
 conception of German theology as a creative 
 science. 
 
 The immediate cause of this work's inception 
 was a conversation between him and his friend Dr. 
 David Sime. The doctor, like others who were 
 in the habit of hearing Matheson preach, felt that 
 it was a pity that so much wealth of thought and 
 beauty of style should be confined to the limited 
 circle of his congregation at Innellan, and Sime 
 one evening besought him to gather a choice few 
 of the expositions of Scripture passages which he 
 was in the habit of giving, and to publish them ; or, 
 failing this, to write out his own lucid account of 
 the German Philosophies and Theologies ; or, still 
 better, to do both. " No man," urged Sime, 
 "should keep to himself, or for his own set, his 
 celestial, any more than his terrestrial work. It 
 assuredly would not do for a heavenly flower to 
 waste its perfume on the desert air." ''Of course 
 not," said Matheson, "but no good or beautiful 
 thing is wasted. However, I shall think still more 
 on what you suggest ; I think that I will write, and 
 that I have something to say." The immediate spur 
 to his resolution came a short time afterwards, when 
 Mr. James Sime, the well-known man of letters, 
 happened to be on a visit to his brother. He 
 was at that time enoraored in gratherincr materials 
 for his Life of Lessing, and the doctor having 
 invited Matheson to meet him, the trio so stimul- 
 ated each other's minds that, in a short time, 
 all of them became authors. " Some time, prob- 
 
138 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 ably months after this evening," remarks the 
 doctor, 
 
 in one of my now regular, and expected, visits to the Manse, 
 I found my friend rapidly pacing backwards and forwards 
 through the library, and with unusual strength and deter- 
 mination in his usually mirthful and cheerful face. He 
 received me with new enthusiasm, and if possible with 
 more affection than ever. " I have made up my mind," 
 he said ; " you have broken my rock-like silence — it should 
 have been broken long ago. I am going to write a small 
 work on German Theology, aids to the great German 
 conceptions, and also to prepare for the press some of the 
 expository work to which you have so pressingly alluded. 
 In point of fact, this morning I have finished the first three 
 or four sheets of a small work that I am to call Aids to 
 the Study of German Theology. Are you not glad ? Of 
 course you are, but whist ! not a word about it." 
 
 The book appeared in the autumn of 1874, and 
 so cordial was its reception that within two years 
 it was in its third edition. The second edition 
 appeared with the author's name on the title- 
 page. The reviews were most encouraging. The 
 Scotsman, for example, devoted a whole column to 
 it, and this for a small book, and evidently the 
 first, by an unknown author, was quite unusual, and 
 was a proof of the impression the work had made 
 on the reviewer's mind. It was impossible for the 
 writer to preserve his anonymity. In a short time 
 letters poured in upon him from leading men in the 
 Church, full of the heartiest congratulations and 
 encouragement. One of the first was from his old 
 friend Dr. Macduff; and among others who wrote 
 to him were Dr. M'Culloch, Dr. Hugh Macmillan, 
 Dr. Jamieson of Glasgow, Professor Charteris, and 
 
AUTHORSHIP 139 
 
 Dr. John Alison. The most valued commenda- 
 tion, seeing it was from a man who was particularly 
 versed in the subject, was from Dr. Gloag of 
 
 Galashiels : 
 
 Manse of Galashiels, 
 December 21, 1874. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I have been informed that you are 
 the author of the work entitled Aids to the Study of 
 German Theology^ and I cannot refrain from writing to 
 thank you for your excellent work. Its erudition is 
 extensive, but it is especially marvellous when it is 
 remembered that the author had to encounter great 
 obstacles from defectiveness of vision. I cannot under- 
 stand how you have amassed such knowledge of German 
 Theology. Although I have been studying it for nearly 
 twenty years, yet I must yield the palm to you. I do not 
 pretend to criticise your work, which is in all respects 
 admirable ; written in a candid spirit, and exhibiting great 
 judgment in weighing the different opinions. The distinc- 
 tion you draw between the Theology of Baur and Strauss 
 was to me peculiarly interesting. I cannot enter into 
 your appreciation of Hegel. To me his philosophy rests 
 on no solid basis, and is merely an ingenious theory, 
 without any ground of truth ; and I must confess that the 
 Left Hegelians carried it to its legitimate conclusions. I 
 was surprised at the statement that Ewald believed in the 
 resurrection of Jesus as an historical fact. I thought that 
 I had met with a distinct denial of it in one of his writings, 
 though I cannot tell where. Nor did I know that Whitby 
 was an Arian. His Commentary on John appears to be 
 strictly orthodox. I am also such a theologian of the old 
 school that I cannot agree with those who deprecate the 
 reasoning of Paley. To me it is as convincing, in oppo- 
 sition to the modern forms of infidelity, as it was in 
 opposition to the Deists. 
 
 Again thanking you for your excellent work, and 
 hoping that it will be only an instalment and a prelude to 
 still greater works in theology — Believe me, yours truly, 
 
 Baton J. Gloag. 
 
140 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 Matheson being now launched on the ocean of 
 authorship, book after book, and article after article, 
 followed each other in quick succession ; and the 
 remarkable feature about them all is that none 
 bear traces of slipshod or careless work. The 
 thought, the style, and the finish of each is as 
 perfect as he could make them. Nor did his 
 writing interfere with his preaching ; in fact it 
 seemed to help it. With every Sunday came a 
 new sermon, and as the years rolled on his 
 discourses grew in power. Their spiritual insight, 
 richness of thought, and wealth of illustration 
 increased with his deepening experience. Three 
 years after the publication of The Aids appeared 
 his second and his most ambitious book. The 
 Growth of the Spirit of Christianity. It was in 
 two volumes, and attracted considerable attention. 
 It was an application of the principles of Hegel to 
 the Christian Church ; in short, it was a philosophy 
 of the history of the Church from ''the Dawn of 
 the Christian Era to the Reformation." 
 
 The book, even after the lapse of thirty years, 
 impresses one by its power. It is full of brilliant 
 passages, and bristles with pointed epigrams. It is 
 bold without being arrogant, and faces the most 
 difficult facts with a courage that is chivalrous in 
 the extreme. Its knowledge of the events, the 
 movements, and the characters of that long period 
 is most striking ; and flash after flash of illuminating 
 light is poured upon passages and incidents which 
 make the whole period live. The author sees in 
 
AUTHORSHIP 141 
 
 the history of the world, preceding the dawn of 
 Christianity, a preparation for the advent of Christ. 
 The Pagan religions, as well as Judaism, serve their 
 purpose in paving the way for Him who was to be 
 the Light of the World. Christianity after its birth 
 enters on its infancy. It then passes through its 
 youth to its schooldays, and is subjected to the 
 training, struggles, and discipline which such an 
 experience involves. Only after it has gone 
 through these necessary stages of development 
 does it reach its full expansion and expression in 
 the Reformation. 
 
 Such, in brief outline, is the plan and char- 
 acter of the book. It presents Christianity as 
 a spiritual force, subject to the law of evolution, 
 and gradually unfolding its inner purpose as the 
 ages roll by. The leading journals, both in 
 England and Scotland, recognised at once the 
 importance and the significance of the new work, 
 and it won from The Spectator a lengthened and 
 favourable review. The organs of the English 
 Church, especially of the High Church party, 
 pointed out what they conceived to be its defects. 
 It was easy, of course, for anyone to question 
 the relation of all the facts to the theory by which 
 the author strove to interpret them. In the 
 opinion of not a few the facts were distorted to 
 suit the theory. No one will be eager to dispute 
 the fairness of this criticism ; it is one that is con- 
 stantly levelled against Hegel himself But it is 
 better surely to see facts in the light of some 
 
142 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 illuminating principle than to regard them as so 
 many unintelligible obstacles in the path of a true 
 appreciation of the course of history. The main 
 objection to the book, however, on the part of such 
 critics, was that it was a vindication of Protestant- 
 ism, a glorification of the individual at the expense 
 of the Church. Matheson would regard such 
 criticism as a compliment, for he held 
 
 that individualism was the reforming centre of even 
 collectivism ; the reformation of the latter being from the 
 unit to the multitude, not from the multitude to the unit, 
 from within outwards rather than from without inwards. 
 No Act of Parliament would make a drunkard a sober 
 man, or a grasping money-lender or sensualist into a large- 
 souled being. How often was the solitary individual 
 the starting-point of originality, and the glowing centre 
 of a life and light that raise all life, possibly for genera- 
 tions. The eternal importance of the individual fascinated 
 him. To lose one's life in order to find it was emphatic- 
 ally true of one's own work and pre-eminently true of the 
 works of great genius. 
 
 Notwithstanding the ability, learning, and fascina- 
 tion of this book, it never passed beyond a first 
 edition. It is difficult to account for this. With 
 all its defects it was a powerful and important 
 contribution to the subject treated. Its weakness 
 perhaps consisted in its aim, for while it may be 
 possible to apply the Hegelian principle to the 
 outstanding periods in the history of the world or 
 of the Church, it is difficult, to say the least, to see 
 this principle verified in every movement, incident, 
 and detail, in the growth of the Christian religion, 
 during the first sixteen centuries of its existence. 
 
AUTHORSHIP 143 
 
 Matheson on more than one occasion expressed a 
 desire to rewrite the work. He evidently believed 
 in the purpose which he had in mind when com- 
 posing it. No subject attracted him more than the 
 history of thought, nor was there any other theme 
 on which his insight and suggestiveness could find 
 a better field for their employment. 
 
 It was now that Matheson began his numerous 
 contributions to the religious and theological 
 magazines of the day. He had previous to this 
 endeavoured to find entrance to several of them, 
 but without success. Article after article, he used 
 to say, was rejected by the ''able editors"; but 
 once he had made a name for himself, his con- 
 tributions were solicited by these same editors, who 
 were glad to receive and publish the very articles 
 which they had previously declined. So much for 
 editorial insight and judgment. The very first 
 article that appeared from his pen was perhaps the 
 best he ever wrote. It was on the " Originality 
 of the Character of Christ," and was published in 
 The Contemporary Review of November 1878. 
 
 I have a distinct recollection of an interesting 
 incident in connection with this article. Sparsely 
 populated as Innellan was, it was never, in 
 Matheson's time at least, without one or two men 
 of intellectual ability. They naturally gravitated 
 to the Manse, and received fresh stimulus from the 
 young minister who was so mentally alive. With 
 them he used to discuss current theoloofical and 
 philosophical topics, and they took a deep personal 
 
144 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 interest in his literary aspirations and ventures. 
 Even at that early date he was beginning to gather 
 round him a sympathetic band whose minds he 
 imbued with his own spirit. One late September, 
 or early October, morning in the year 1878, I 
 chanced to be standing on Innellan pier, waiting 
 the arrival of some steamer, when my eye rested 
 on an animated group, centred round a close friend 
 of Matheson's, who was holding in his hand a sheaf 
 of printed slips, which at the time seemed very 
 unfamiliar to me, but which afterwards became only 
 too well known as printers' proof sheets. This 
 young Mathesonian was holding forth at consider- 
 able length in an animated, and almost excited, 
 manner to the group that had gathered round him, 
 and on drawing near I discovered that what he 
 held in his hand were the proofs of the article by 
 Matheson that was to appear the following month 
 in The Contemporary Review. What strikes one in 
 reflecting upon this incident is the deep interest 
 which these villagers took in the growing reputa- 
 tion of their minister. They were beginning to be 
 extremely proud of him, and though only a few could 
 have understood the importance, to a young author, 
 of having an article 'accepted by so influential a 
 magazine, they caught the spirit of the occasion 
 and responded with hearty sympathy to the out- 
 pourings of Matheson's friend, who was expounding 
 to them the great honour that had befallen their 
 minister. On reading anew the article, which has 
 now been in print for well-nigh thirty years, one 
 
AUTHORSHIP 145 
 
 feels that whatever honour may have accrued to the 
 author, an equal honour at least befell the magazine 
 which was fortunate enough to secure it. So deep 
 an impression did it make that, shortly after its 
 appearance, it was translated into French. 
 
 In the following year he formed a connection 
 with The Expositor that was to last till his death. 
 It was the magazine to which he contributed the 
 greatest number of articles. Between him and 
 its editor there was the closest intellectual sympathy. 
 Samuel Cox, who at that time had charge of the 
 magazine, was a prince of expositors — scholarly, 
 broad-minded, original, and suggestive ; and he 
 gathered round him a band of writers who made 
 the journal favourably known, not only in Britain 
 but in America and the Colonies. It was only in 
 its fifth year when Dr. Matheson joined it, and he 
 continued his connection under the present editor, 
 Dr. Robertson Nicoll. Even after he had, for the 
 most part, ceased to contribute to current literature, 
 he could not withstand the attractions of The 
 Expositor, and some of his latest writings appeared 
 in its pages. The article by which he introduced 
 himself to its readers was on '* Science and the 
 Christian Idea of Prayer," and in its own line it 
 was quite equal to the one that had appeared, two 
 months previously, in The Contemporary Review. 
 Indeed Matheson never surpassed, in any of his 
 subsequent writings, whether in magazine or in 
 book-form, these early contributions. Nothing 
 finer of their kind had appeared from the pen of a 
 
 lO 
 
146 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 Scottish minister. Their originality, convincing 
 argument, scholarship, easy mastery of philosophic 
 and scientific thought ; their suggestiveness, high 
 spiritual tone, and literary finish, mark them out as 
 among the best specimens of magazine writing that 
 the age produced. 
 
 This was the year in which the first distinctive 
 honour was bestowed on Matheson. At the spring 
 graduation of 1879, the University of Edinburgh 
 conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of 
 Divinity. It might be thought that his own 
 University should have been the first to recognise 
 him, but he was still young ; he was just in his 
 thirty-seventh year, and he had been a parish 
 minister for eleven years only. Think, however, 
 of his record ! He was one of the most dis- 
 tinguished students of his time, as a preacher he 
 was already in the first rank, and as an author he 
 had proved his quality. In addition to all this, there 
 was the sad fact that he was blind. No one of his 
 standing among his contemporaries, and with all 
 their faculties unimpaired, had in the field of oratory 
 or of authorship attained to anything like his dis- 
 tinction ; and yet in spite of a calamity terrible for 
 most men to contemplate, let alone to endure, he 
 had achieved a reputation which was fast spreading 
 over the length and breadth of the land. As for 
 Matheson, the fact of a University which was not 
 his own Alma Mater, stepping in at this early date 
 to recognise him, was a double honour. Upon the 
 University of Edinburgh he had no claims, except 
 
AUTHORSHIP 147 
 
 that of intellectual ability and the accomplishment 
 of ereat achievements. It was these that were 
 recognised by his degree. 
 
 It must have been singularly gratifying to 
 Matheson that one of the men who were capped 
 along with him on the occasion was the scholarly 
 and saintly Dr. Hugh Macmillan of Greenock. 
 Dr. Macmillan was an early friend of Matheson's. 
 He was among the first to recognise his genius, 
 and to give him every assistance and encourage- 
 ment in his literary pursuits. Professor Charteris, 
 in presenting Matheson to the Chancellor (Lord 
 President Inglis), said : 
 
 I have also the honour to introduce the Rev. George 
 Matheson, B.D., Minister of the Parish of Innellan. My 
 Lord, Mr. Matheson, though young in years, and though 
 he has had to struggle against a physical disadvantage, 
 which would have been to most men ample reason for 
 his enjoying a life of ease rather than of labour, has 
 already won for himself a high place on the roll of 
 scholars and divines. His first book, Aids to the Study 
 of Gej'man Theology^ is a remarkable proof of his power 
 to present an accurate and interesting, and even lively, 
 picture of the work of every German theologian and 
 critic of distinction, and students have welcomed it. 
 His next book, entitled The Growth of tJie Spirit of 
 Chidstianity, passes with a scholar's sure step and a poet's 
 eye, and the graceful ease of thorough culture, over the 
 whole wide field of Christian history, showing the 
 increasing power which runs through all the ages, and 
 leading to much thought on the unequalled opportunities 
 which are in the power of the Church of our own day. He 
 is also the author of several well-known papers, one of 
 which, in The Contemporary Reviezu, on the " Originality of 
 the Character of Christ," may be specially mentioned. 
 It is not only, as in some sort, a crown for the past, but 
 
148 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 as an encouragement to other labours, that the Senatus 
 Academicus asks your Lordship to confer on Mr. Matheson 
 the degree of Doctor of Divinity, which he has already 
 won so well. """^'^^ 
 
 Dr. Matheson received, in the following year, a 
 unanimous call to succeed Dr. Gumming at Crown 
 Court Church, London. It is said that one reason 
 for his declining this call was the failure on the 
 part of the managers to accept the condition that 
 he should be permitted to exchange freely with the 
 other Presbyterian and Nonconforming ministers 
 in London. Whatever truth there may be in this, 
 it points to a fact which cannot be gainsaid. There 
 was no exclusiveness in Matheson's ecclesiastical 
 views or leanings. His sympathies were sufficiently 
 broad to include all the Creeds and Communions 
 of Christendom. His work on The Growth of 
 the Spirit of Christianity showed that he regarded 
 every step in the history of the Church, every 
 fresh departure and secession, as a manifestation 
 of progress, a reaching forward to a fuller realisation 
 of absolute truth. So keen was his appreciation of 
 other Churches, and even of heathen religions, that 
 on one occasion, when advocating in private, and 
 with extraordinary force and eloquence, the cause 
 of foreign missions, he so impressed his hearers 
 with his fitness for the task that they urged him to 
 go himself. They felt that he, by his intellectual 
 presentation of Christian truth to the Hindu mind, 
 would do more to convert the natives of India to 
 the Christian religion than the ordinary missionary, 
 
AUTHORSHIP 149 
 
 who depended on weapons that were outworn and 
 
 effete. '' I go ! " he said, and paused. '* No, I 
 
 dare not go. I am afraid I would be converted to 
 Brahmlnism." 
 
 There can be no doubt, however, that other 
 reasons weighed with him in declining the call to 
 London. It would have been a wrench to break, 
 even in a modified form, his connection with the 
 Church of Scotland, and the difficulties and un- 
 certainties of the situation could not be denied. 
 All the same, he had really nothing to fear. He 
 could, in London, have lived the life of the student, 
 and he would certainly have gathered round him a 
 congregation in full sympathy with his views. In 
 a very short time his preaching would have been 
 one of the attractions of the capital, and the 
 strangers and foreigners who crowd into it would 
 of themselves have filled his church. The more 
 likely condition insisted on by him would be, that 
 he should be freed from all parochial and congrega- 
 tional work, so that his full strength might be 
 given to preaching. Presbyterianism, unfortunately, 
 has not even yet risen to this height, and he showed 
 wisdom in choosing to remain, for the time being, 
 in Innellan. 
 
 He now began to write regularly for the press. 
 During the next six years, until the time that he 
 was called to St. Bernard's, he wrote some fifty 
 articles to the more important theological magazines 
 of the day. To The Expositor alone he contributed 
 within that period twenty-five articles. Among 
 
150 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 them was the series on ''The Historical Christ of 
 St. Paul," another on the '' Minor Prophets," 
 and a third on " Scripture Studies of the Heavenly 
 State." Single articles by him appeared on such 
 subjects as ''The Paradox of Christian Ethics," 
 "Christianity and Judaism," "Christianity's First 
 Invitation to the World," "The Outer and the 
 Inner Glory," "The Hundred and Thirty-Ninth 
 Psalm," and " Spiritual Sacrifices." He also wrote a 
 series of three articles to The Catholic Presbyterian 
 on " German Theologians of the Day," and another 
 on "The Judaic Vision of the Happy Kingdom." 
 His article on " The Basis of Religious Belief" 
 appeared in The British ajid Foreign Evangelical 
 Review. He wrote in The British Quarterly 
 Review on "The Christian Idea of God," in The 
 Princeton Review on " Christ and the Doctrine of 
 Immortality," in The Modern Review on "The 
 Religious Forces of the Reformation Era," and in 
 The Homiletic Magazine on " Evolution in Relation 
 to Miracle." Nine articles by him appeared between 
 November 1884 and June 1886 in The Monthly 
 Interpreter. They were on "Christ's Exaltation 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews," "The Continuity 
 of the Sermon on the Mount," " The Three 
 Christian Sympathies," "The Empire of Christ," 
 "Christ's Defence of his Parabolic Teaching," 
 " Christ's Glorifying Work," " The Order of Christ's 
 Revelation," " Exaltation of Christ in the Epistle 
 to the Philippians," and "The Promise of Revela- 
 tion." 
 
AUTHORSHIP 151 
 
 Two things strike one forcibly on reading this 
 long series of articles. The one is Matheson's 
 amazing intellectual fertility, and the other is the 
 rare quality of the work which he produced. In 
 reflecting on the former It should not be forgotten 
 that these were but chips from his workshop. He 
 was all the time engaged on books that demanded 
 research and thought, and preaching sermons of 
 the first order, the delivery of which alone must 
 have been a great strain on his nervous energy. 
 The last ten years of his residence at Innellan 
 were, from a literary point of view, the most pro- 
 ductive and important in his whole life. He 
 experienced during that period a quickening of 
 his mental nature which It is hard to parallel. Dr. 
 SIme, who saw much of him during these years, 
 bears witness to his extraordinary activity, and 
 also to the method which utilised every hour of the 
 day. It was this combination which enabled him 
 to accomplish what he did. '' He talked rapidly," 
 says the doctor, ''walked rapidly, thought rapidly, 
 worked rapidly ; but his work was methodical in 
 the extreme. Every hour of the day had its 
 allotted kind and amount of work, which was 
 never by fits and starts, or by sudden impulses and 
 inspirations. A more ready man of thought, for 
 his mind was ever full, I have not ever met." 
 Continuing, he remarks : 
 
 At certain arranged hours he read the newspapers 
 or the monthlies, or general literature, or works of science, 
 philosophy, and theology ; or paced about the library 
 
152 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 alone, for an hour, thinking ; or dictated to his amanuensis 
 an expository gem of thought for the Sunday. As 
 reveaHng his systematic method of work, it may be 
 mentioned that whilst dictating, in full fervour and force, 
 he would abruptly cease for the day when the time devoted 
 for such workmanship had elapsed ; sometimes in the 
 middle of a sentence, often in the middle of a paragraph. 
 Then on the next morning, on returning to the theme, 
 he had the last two or three sheets carefully read over, 
 and resumed the dictation, his whole soul in the work, 
 fresh and animated as before. The same would occur 
 on studying the most fascinating poem, or fiction, or 
 piece of criticism ; such as Macaulay's, Carlyle's, Pro- 
 fessor Max Miiller's, or Huxley's ; not less than the most 
 abstract German metaphysics and theology, or the most 
 technical of scientific treatises. On coming back the next 
 day to the study of the work on hand, here likewise a page 
 or two would be re-read, and in full intensity and with 
 fresh power the interest in the work would be renewed. 
 Never did he allow himself to be fatigued, hence the 
 amount and the variety of work he was capable of, for 
 he was always at his best in reception and in creation. 
 Again, at a certain hour each day he would go out with 
 his private secretary or devoted sister to visit his par- 
 ishioners, and even these with methodical preparation. 
 He had his meals every day at the same time ; at the 
 same hour every night he went to bed ; and at the same 
 hour every morning he rose, jocund as the morn, for the 
 work of the day, maintaining a regular, normal, harmonious 
 life from day to day. 
 
 The most important of the articles which he 
 published at this time are apologetic in their nature. 
 His great aim was to commend Christianity to the 
 times, to show that modern science and criticism 
 had in no way impaired, much less destroyed, its 
 foundations ; but that, on the contrary, every fresh 
 discovery in the world of mind or of matter, or in 
 
AUTHORSHIP 153 
 
 the field of history, simply revealed its inherent 
 wealth, its boundless resources, and its eternal 
 adaptability to the needs of man. This is Chris- 
 tian Theism, and, having grasped the central truth, 
 Matheson was the very man to commend Chris- 
 tianity to the inquiring and thoughtful minds of 
 the age. His method was historical, broad, and 
 sympathetic. He had for years been engaged in 
 a profound study of natural religion. The religions 
 of the ancient world, In particular, attracted him. 
 He was also familiar with the different systems of 
 doctrine that had sprung out of Christianity itself, 
 and with the various currents of unbelief and 
 rationalism that had appeared during the Christian 
 era. He had made a very special study of English 
 Deism, and of the apologetic works associated with 
 the names of Butler and of Paley. iVbove all, he 
 had steeped his mind so thoroughly in the specu- 
 lative theories of the great German thinkers on 
 religion, from the time of Kant, and with the works 
 of the theologians inspired by them, that he could 
 move with ease and freedom in the world of modern 
 thought, and apply his own fundamental principles 
 to existing conditions. These conditions were 
 beginning to be radically affected by the spirit of 
 science, and he bent himself with his whole force 
 to master the principles which underlay that spirit. 
 Especially did he make himself thoroughly con- 
 versant with the works of its great exponent and 
 interpreter, Herbert Spencer, and in a book which 
 he was to publish before leaving Innellan, and which, 
 
154 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 to my thinking, is perhaps his greatest work, he 
 produced an '' Apology of the Christian Religion " 
 against the attacks made upon it by that agnosticism 
 which was the offspring of modern science. It will 
 serve our purpose to select two or three of the 
 more important articles, looked at from this point 
 of view, and briefly state the thought that inspired 
 them. 
 
 The problem which he had to face in his article 
 on the ''Originality of the Character of Christ" was 
 the one raised by Baur and Strauss. In other 
 words, he had to show that behind the Gospels, 
 and behind the history from which they were 
 supposed to have sprung, there was an element 
 which had to be accounted for, and that was the 
 ideal which was embodied in the historical Christ. 
 Grant that the Gospels were the result of the 
 conflict between the Petrine and Pauline schools of 
 thought which arose in the Apostolic Church, and 
 concede the contention that the ground of that 
 conflict was the offspring of mere myth, there still 
 remained the Christian ideal which neither the one 
 theory nor the other could explain. Matheson then 
 proceeds to give an historical sketch of the difl"erent 
 conceptions of the ideal man which had animated 
 the ancient world. He reviews in turn the Jewish, 
 Platonic, Greek, and Roman ideals, and he finds 
 that one and all of them come short of the Christ 
 of history. He has no difficulty in showing that the 
 natural mind, as represented in the searchings of 
 the ancient world after the highest type of manhood, 
 
AUTHORSHIP 155 
 
 has come woefully short of the Christ of the Gospels, 
 and he is driven to the conclusion that the explana- 
 tion can be sought in one direction only, in the fresh 
 revelation which was imparted to the world in the 
 Incarnate Word. ''If," he concludes, 
 
 we find Judea reaping where she has not sown, and 
 gathering where she has not strawed ; if we see her the 
 birthplace of an idea which surpassed her power of 
 origination, and when originated surpassed her power of 
 comprehension ; if in her contact with the Gentile nations 
 we fail to discover any germs from which that idea could 
 have naturally sprung; if we find it in essence and in 
 portraiture directly at variance with all heathen aspira- 
 tions, reversing the world's ideal of physical strength, 
 transforming its estimate of mental power, casting into the 
 shade its conception of aesthetic culture, and placing on a 
 contrary basis its hope of a theocratic power ; if we find it 
 introducing a new standard of heroism which caused every 
 valley to be exalted, and every mountain to be made low ; 
 and if, above all, we perceive that when that standard of 
 heroism rose upon the world, it rose upon a foreign soil 
 which received it as an alien and an adversary, are we not 
 driven to ask if, even on the lowest computation, we have 
 not reached the evidence of a new life in humanity, the 
 outpouring of a fresh vitality and the manifestation of a 
 higher power ? 
 
 In his article on ''Science and the Christian 
 Idea of Prayer," he tries to find a place for the 
 believing heart in the new world of inviolable forces 
 which the modern world was fast girding round it. 
 Science contended that nature is immutable, that its 
 laws are unknown, and the idea of Christian prayer 
 that was current at the time seemed to contradict 
 both these positions. Matheson, on the other hand, 
 declares that Christianity really admits them, and 
 
156 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 that thus far both it and science are at one. There 
 is a common ground on which both can meet, and 
 that is the beHef that the veil may be lifted, that the 
 Creator and creation are in communion, or, as he 
 puts it : '' According to the modern doctrine of 
 forces there is one inscrutable and ultimate Force 
 which is everywhere present and everywhere 
 persistent, and in which all other forms and forces 
 live and move and have their being. The universe 
 is but its manifestation, the laws of the universe are 
 but its expression. Christianity employs a different 
 terminology, but it asks no more. It only desires 
 the possibility of some communication from the 
 infinite to the finite. Like science it perceives an 
 immutable nature, like science it recognises its 
 ignorance of that nature, and like science it fore- 
 casts the hope that the law which is unknown will 
 in some way manifest its presence." Here, then, is 
 a sphere in which Christian prayer can exercise 
 itself. Its great desire is that the will of God 
 should be revealed so that the heart of the 
 petitioner may know and be in sympathy with it, 
 and that the life of the believer may be in con- 
 formity with its behests. It is this which differen- 
 tiates the Christian from the Pagan idea of prayer. 
 The Pagan knows of nothing save individual desires, 
 the Christian of nothing save the desires of God, 
 and so he concludes : 
 
 Paganism had questioned what it should eat and what 
 it should drink, and wherewithal it should be clothed ; 
 Christianity perceived that none of these things consti- 
 
AUTHORSHIP 157 
 
 tuted the essence of human need. Paganism desired the 
 gratification of the individual Hfe ; Christianity started 
 with the definite assumption that the only ultimate 
 gratification which that life could find was to cease from 
 its own self-seeking, and desire the universal good. 
 Christian prayer has become the antithesis of heathen 
 supplication; and it has reached this antithesis by entering 
 into union with that scientific life of Nature where the 
 interest of the one is the interest of the many, and where 
 the liberty of the individual is the service of the highest 
 law. 
 
 If there was one subject more than another in 
 which Matheson was deeply interested it was 
 Immortality. It is the theme of his earliest and 
 of his latest writings. There is hardly a book or 
 an article written by him in which there is not 
 some reference to it. It was with him a subject of 
 perennial interest. Nor was there any question to 
 which he had given a more definite answer. He 
 had no doubt concerning it. He believed as 
 strongly in the immortality of the soul as he did in 
 his own personality. Some may think that the 
 reason of his absorbing interest in this subject was 
 the fact of his being blind. It was natural that he 
 should look forward to another world in which the 
 film would be taken from his eyes and he could see 
 the " King in His beauty." Matheson had formed 
 to himself a very vivid conception of what the 
 Hereafter was to be like. He had created a 
 '* new heaven and a new earth," and in moments 
 of frank communication he gave his friends a 
 glimpse of what he himself saw ; but his hope of 
 immortality arose from another cause. As a 
 
158 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 spiritually minded man, as a Christian theologian, 
 as one who had pondered the problems which face 
 all serious men, he felt that there could be no 
 escape from a belief in this great doctrine. The 
 very idea of God made it necessary to his think- 
 ing, and the Christian religion would fall to pieces 
 were the doctrine of immortality to be blotted 
 out. 
 
 In two articles which he wrote at this time, the 
 one in The Expositor and the other in The Princeton 
 Review, he deals with both sides of the subject : the 
 future life of the soul, and the future condition of 
 the body. It is in the light* of Christ's life, death, 
 and resurrection that he views it ; and he contends 
 that the believer who is mystically united to Christ, 
 who is a member of His Divine body, is bound to 
 be a sharer in that life which Christ brought to 
 light. The power of Christ in the believing soul 
 will make it eternal, and the glorified body of Christ 
 will also be shared in by the Christian. Apart from 
 Christ, Matheson does not discuss the question. 
 What immortality there may be for those outside 
 the pale of Christianity he does not in these two 
 articles pretend to consider. As a Christian theo- 
 logian he confines himself to the subject which his 
 vocation naturally called him to ponder. To most 
 minds the question of the soul's " transition garment," 
 as Matheson calls the resurrection body, will be of 
 more interest than the question of the soul's future 
 life ; for the latter is tacitly accepted, while with 
 regard to the former not a few are in doubt. 
 
AUTHORSHIP 159 
 
 Matheson's views on this subject then are worth 
 considering. He says : 
 
 We believe the pervading thought of the New Testament 
 to be that the resurrection body of Christ forms the germ 
 or nucleus out of which is to spring the transition 
 garment of the believing soul. Let the student of the 
 Gospels and the Pauline epistles approach their study 
 with such a thought in his mind, and he will be struck 
 with the marvellous concentration of all other points 
 around it. He will find a new significance in that grain 
 of mustard-seed which, though buried, rises up into a 
 mighty tree and branches forth into the dwellings of the 
 homeless. He will see a fresh meaning in those elements 
 of communion which are professedly the symbols of 
 Christ's earthly body — the body broken in death, but dis- 
 tributed in resurrection. He will read in another light 
 those narratives in which the Messiah conquers death, and 
 measure by a new standard the " power of His resurrec- 
 tion." He will ask, not without intelligence, if when 
 Christ spoke of the Father's house with many mansions — 
 the house which His own resurrection was to prepare — He 
 meant anything less than that human body which had 
 been the scene of the Incarnation ? He will ask yet again, 
 and with still deepening conviction, if when Paul spoke of 
 " the building of God, the house not made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens," he meant anything less than that 
 same Father's house which the evangelist had beheld in 
 the form of Jesus ? He will inquire if Paul had any mean- 
 ing when he said that Christians were " members of 
 Christ's body," that they were crucified together with 
 Christ, that they were " buried with Him by baptism into 
 His death," that they were already " risen with Him," and 
 " made to sit together with Him in heavenly places," that 
 the Christian dead "slept in Him," and that He at His 
 coming would " bring them with Him " ; above all, that 
 their rising was so bound up in His resurrection, that if 
 there were no resurrection of the dead, then Christ Him- 
 self was not risen ; but that, if He were risen, they had al- 
 ready their " conversation in heaven." These are startling 
 
160 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 statements, but they are marvellously consistent with one 
 fundamental thought ; they point, in our view, unmistak- 
 ably to the belief that when the soul is clothed upon with 
 the house which is from heaven, it is clothed upon with the 
 resurrection body of the Son of Man. The effect of such 
 a belief was to abolish death. The soul no longer needed 
 to linger in an impersonal sleep, awaiting the consumma- 
 tion of all things. " He that believeth on Me shall never 
 die," was the last word on the subject of immortality. 
 
 The most striking thought in his article on the 
 '' Christian Idea of God " is one which he elaborates 
 more fully in his Baird Lecture. It is his view 
 of revelation. ** Revelation," he says, '' signifies 
 the drawing back of a veil. Supernaturalism 
 worships the veil and would perish by its with- 
 drawal. Rationalism has no veil to withdraw. 
 Revelation is the middle form between super- 
 naturalism and rationalism." Matheson held that 
 revelation was impossible except on the belief that 
 there is something in common between the Divine 
 and the human, between God and man. Unless 
 man had in him something akin to God he would 
 be unable to understand God's manifestation of 
 Himself; and unless there was in God something 
 akin to man, God would be unable to hold com- 
 munion with the creature. Hence in the Incarna- 
 tion, God manifest in the flesh, Matheson finds the 
 Christian idea both of God and of man. In the 
 article on the *' Basis of Religious Belief," he enters 
 on a very fine discussion of the different grounds 
 for this belief as held by various schools of thought, 
 both without and within the Christian Church. As 
 
AUTHORSHIP 161 
 
 IS customary with him, he treats the subject 
 historically, he shows how each basis when it proved 
 untenable gave birth to a new one, until at last the 
 theory of Schleiermacher is reached, which is only 
 the Christian conception of Faith in another form ; 
 that "the sense of absolute dependence" is the 
 real basis of religious belief. To feel our limitation 
 is to take the first step towards a conception of the 
 infinite. ** Faith," he remarks, ** is essentially a 
 Christian term. It differs from religious belief in 
 general, as the species differs from the genus. 
 Belief is the recognition of a Divine principle, 
 faith is the recognition of a Divine principle which 
 bears to us a moral relation. The peculiarity of 
 faith as a religious phenomenon, in other words the 
 peculiarity of Christianity as a system of belief, 
 consists in this, that it imports into the idea of God 
 an element of moral rectitude with which we as 
 worshippers have specially to do. Nevertheless 
 the basis of Christian faith is, by its own admission, 
 precisely the same as the basis of religious belief in 
 general, the sense of absolute dependence." 
 
 These articles, dealing with some of the most 
 important subjects in theology, and handled by 
 Dr. Matheson in an earnest and scholarly manner, 
 however valuable in themselves, were but a prepara- 
 tion for his next book, published in 1881, under 
 the title of the Natural Elements of Revealed 
 Theology. This was the Baird Lecture for that 
 year. It was a distinct honour to be appointed to 
 this Foundation, especially at so early a period in 
 II 
 
162 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 life. He was only in his thirty-ninth year, and 
 with a single exception this lectureship has all 
 along been given to men who at the time of their 
 appointment were, to say the least, beyond the 
 meridian of life. It has always been regarded 
 partly as a reward for lengthened services to the 
 Church and to theological literature, and partly as 
 an opportunity for men of ripe scholarship to give 
 their matured views to the world. The other 
 exception referred to was Professor Flint. He, like 
 Matheson, was Baird Lecturer at a comparatively 
 early age, and it is remarkable that the lectures of 
 these two are regarded on all hands as among the 
 best that have been delivered on this Foundation. 
 Some may see in this an argument for the appoint- 
 ment of young men, but it ought to be remembered 
 that every youthful theologian is not a Flint or a 
 Matheson. 
 
 The lecturer's design was to ascertain to what 
 extent the doctrines of revealed reliction have a 
 basis in the natural instincts of the human mind. 
 In the introductory chapter he discusses at length 
 the main thought of his article on the "Christian 
 Idea of God," namely, the nature and possibility of 
 revelation. Elaborating the idea which we have 
 already seen to lie at the basis of his views on the 
 subject, that revelation simply means the " drawing 
 back of a veil," he remarks : '' The act of drawing 
 back the veil is the supernatural part of the process. 
 It is too high to be touched by the human hand, 
 and therefore its removal demands the agency of 
 
AUTHORSHIP 163 
 
 another Hand. Yet no sooner is the veil withdrawn 
 than the mystery vanishes. The human spirit recog- 
 nises the vision not as a new vision, but as that for 
 which unconsciously it has been waiting all along. 
 It bounds to meet it as the normal fulfilment of its 
 destiny." 
 
 This conception of revelation will be generally 
 accepted as sound and satisfactory, and the attitude 
 taken up towards natural religion, just keeps the 
 mean between too sombre and too flattering- 
 a view of the latter. Christianity is not a mere 
 collection of mysteries standing in no relation to 
 human reason or experience, and incapable of 
 commending itself to the human heart as the 
 solution of its problems and the satisfaction of 
 its needs and desires. It is the complement of 
 human nature, it gives to nature the very thing 
 she needed, it satisfies the instincts manifested in 
 ethnic or natural religion. 
 
 In setting himself to prove this thesis. Dr. 
 Matheson first of all endeavours to ascertain what 
 the instincts and aspirations of natural religion are. 
 He seeks for these in the religions which prevailed 
 before the advent of Christ, and in them he dis- 
 covers three great problems, namely. What is God ? 
 What is His relation to humanity.^ Is His Glory 
 consistent with the existence of moral evil ? The 
 solution of the first he finds in the Christian 
 doctrine of the Trinity ; of the second in the tenet 
 of the Incarnation ; and of the third in the faith in 
 the Atonement. Dr. Matheson works out these 
 
164 AUTHORSHIP 
 
 ideas with great originality, eloquence, and skill. 
 The book was welcomed by the public as a glad 
 surprise. It was felt to be a new departure in 
 Scottish theology, and was hailed as significant 
 of a broadening of religious thought. Dr. Robert- 
 son NicoU, in the discriminating and sympathetic 
 appreciation which he gave in The British Weekly 
 of Dr. Matheson after the latter's death, referring 
 to this course of lectures, remarks : " The first time 
 we saw Dr. Matheson must have been some- 
 where about 1 88 1. He was delivering the second 
 of the Baird Lectures on a Sunday evening in 
 St. George's, Edinburgh. The great building was 
 but scantily filled, but the address, alike in matter, 
 in form, and in utterance, was worthy of any 
 audience. It seemed," he continues, 
 
 as if we had in Dr. Matheson the coming prophet of the 
 time. His face was turned with eager welcome towards the 
 new light, and his strong brain was busy in the work of 
 reconstruction and reconciliation. When the lecture was 
 over we went to the Synod Hall and heard the latter part 
 of an oration by Principal Cairns. This was a grand 
 defence of the old apologetical positions, delivered with 
 overwhelming passion and uncompromising in its ortho- 
 doxy. That evening was indeed spent well and nobly. 
 We had heard the fittest representatives of the old school 
 and of the new. 
 
 The late Professor Bruce, in an able review of 
 Dr. Matheson's book in The British and Foreign 
 Evangelical Review, was impressed much in the 
 same way as Dr. Nicoll. He says: *' With this 
 publication the Baird Lectureship passes into a new 
 phase. The book before us, while distinctly and 
 
AUTHORSHIP 165 
 
 decidedly evangelic, Is modern, liberal, and original. 
 It may not be the ablest of the Baird series, — that 
 honour probably belongs to Dr. Flint's two series 
 of lectures on Theism and Antitheism, — but it is 
 certainly the most genial. Dr. Matheson has 
 poetry and genius in him, and It comes out in all he 
 writes, and very markedly in this work on the 
 Natural Elements of Revealed Theology, In which 
 there is hardly a dull or a prosaic sentence," and he 
 concludes as follows : 
 
 The book is an earnest and eloquent endeavour to 
 utilise the results of the science of comparative religion 
 for the defence and commendation of Christianity as a 
 revealed religion. Specially worthy of note is the mode 
 in which the doctrine of Atonement is handled, the theory 
 advocated being what may be called the organic, in which 
 the idea of Headship plays a prominent part. Again, we 
 heartily commend this work to the attention of all inter- 
 ested in such questions, and especially to those who hail 
 the appearance in the field of apologetics of a theologian 
 of Dr. Matheson's type — orthodox, yet catholic in sym- 
 pathy; a sincere believer in the revelation of grace, yet 
 broad and genial in tendency. 
 
 Reviews of the book appeared in many of the 
 leading journals, and while for the most part dis- 
 criminating in their criticism, they were all, without 
 exception, hearty in their appreciation, and regarded 
 the author's position as thoroughly established, and 
 of the first rank. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 It was about this time that Dr. Matheson began 
 to publish the long series of devotional books upon 
 which, in the opinion of some, his fame will rest. 
 He began at an early period of his ministry, as 
 already pointed out, to substitute for the reading of 
 the Scripture Lesson a meditation on some text or 
 short passage of Holy Writ. He went through in 
 this way, for instance, the whole of the Book of 
 Psalms, and his thoughts, carefully conceived and 
 written out, are contained in a manuscript volume. 
 The majority of his hearers wxre greatly struck by 
 these meditations. They preferred them to the 
 ordinary reading of the Word, and they proved 
 more helpful to some than the sermon which 
 followed. As far back as 1872 he was urged, as 
 we have seen, by Dr. Sime, who only expressed the 
 desire of others, to publish a selection of these 
 meditations in book-form. It was not, however, 
 till ten years afterwards, in 1882, that he acceded 
 to this request, and gave to the world the first of his 
 devotional books, My Aspirations. 1 1 was published 
 
 166 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 167 
 
 by Cassell and Company, as one of their " Heart 
 Chords Series." Its popularity was instantaneous. 
 It has been frequently published since, the last 
 edition comine out a few months after his death. 
 It is not, I think, indulging in any exaggeration to 
 say that no modern book of devotion has had so 
 wide a circulation or has been more deeply prized. 
 Soon after its publication it was translated into 
 German, and it has formed the faithful companion 
 of devout souls in many lands. A writer in The 
 Examiner of November lo, 1904, in a review of 
 the author's book, Leaves for Quiet Hours, remarks 
 that on one occasion "he stayed at the house of a 
 busy literary man, through whose study there was 
 constantly streaming a flood of current literature 
 for review. He was attracted by the deeply spiritual 
 view-point of his host, and wondered how this 
 attitude of mind was maintained in the critical 
 atmosphere of such a life. A hint of an explanation 
 was accorded, when the professional reviewer asked, 
 * Do you know George Matheson ? ' and when he 
 brought a shabby little book from his bedroom 
 (was it My Aspirations ?) and added, ' I read this 
 every day.' " 
 
 The cordial reception given to this booklet 
 encouraged him to repeat, and with even greater 
 success, his venture in Moments on the Mount, 
 which appeared in 1884. This was followed by 
 Voices of the Spirit in 1888, Searchings in the 
 Silence in 1895, Words by the Wayside, also 
 translated into German, in 1896, Times of Re- 
 
168 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 tirement in 1901, Leaves for Quiet Hours in 1904, 
 and Rests by the River, the last book published by 
 him, in 1906, a few months before his death. This 
 list would make a good record for any ordinary 
 man, but with Matheson these books were the 
 production of his leisure hours, of those moments 
 when he snatched himself from the strenuous 
 labour of congregational work or sustained literary 
 effort, and gave up his spirit to meditation on God, 
 man, and immortality. They were in very truth 
 the fruit of his times of retirement. In them he 
 breathed forth his aspirations, they were leaves 
 plucked in the byways of life to be fondly gazed 
 at in quiet hours. In them he soared on the 
 wings of the spirit, and they tell us what he saw 
 when he stood on the Mount. In them more than 
 in any other of his writings will the reader find the 
 real George Matheson, the seer who saw because 
 he had felt, and who quickened the emotions of his 
 fellows because he had thought deeply on human 
 life and destiny. 
 
 Matheson must have known in publishing these 
 volumes that he was entering on a field which had 
 been in unbroken possession of some of the greatest 
 names in Christian literature, and that he would be 
 put into competition "With the half-dozen authors 
 whose devotional works had for generations been 
 regarded as classics. It is indeed by the highest 
 standard that he must be judged, and if the 
 opinion of his contemporaries be of any value, 
 he will rank for all time coming as one of the 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 169 
 
 select band of devotional writers whose names the 
 world will not readily let die. Matheson's great 
 popularity may in the opinion of some be largely 
 owing to the fact that he possesses the note of 
 modernity, that his writings appeal to the day 
 and the hour in a way that cannot be expected 
 of meditations written centuries ago. But the 
 human heart, with all its hopes and fears, has 
 remained the same, and a book that has the true 
 ring of devotion in it is as permanent as the spirit 
 of man to which it appeals, and will comfort and 
 inspire in every age and under every clime. 
 True genius bridges the gulf of time ; it destroys 
 space ; and this note of survival marks, in the 
 opinion of many, the devotional writings of Dr. 
 Matheson. 
 
 Matheson in writinor his meditations contented 
 himself with being an interpreter of the devotional 
 writings of the Jewish people. In other words, he 
 invariably took his suggestions from some passage 
 of Holy Writ. He did not pretend to create a 
 new religious literature ; he did not presume to be 
 independent of the source of all inspiration ; he 
 contented himself with expounding and applying 
 to the heart of the modern world the thoughts 
 which found expression at the hands of the various 
 writers of the Bible. In this we see a true instinct. 
 Granted the gift of spiritual insight, deep personal 
 experience, a knowledge of human life, and literary 
 expression, a man so guided could not fail to be an 
 interpreter of the devout life. Matheson possessed 
 
170 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 all these qualities in a supreme degree, and his 
 books could not fail to win the popularity which 
 they so quickly achieved. Having put himself in 
 communion with the Spirit of truth, he was able to 
 put himself in touch with the heart of humanity. 
 Matheson was saturated with that book of devotion 
 which is the pattern and precursor of that mass of 
 literature, embodying the experience of the spiritual 
 life, which has grown up during Christian centuries. 
 I mean the Psalms. ** They," as Dean Church 
 remarks, "are the records of the purest and loftiest 
 joy of which the human soul is capable, its joy in 
 God ; are also the records of its dreariest and 
 bitterest anguish, of the days when all seems dark 
 between itself and God, of its doubts, of its despair. 
 Their music rans^es from the richest notes of 
 triumphant rapture to the saddest minor key." 
 Like the Psalms, Matheson's devotional writings 
 **vary widely in their scale and tone. They reflect 
 the many sides, the countless moods, of the soul in 
 its passage through time, confronted with eternity 
 and its overpowering possibilities. They tell of 
 quietness and confidence, of strength and victory 
 and peace. They tell, too, of the storm, of the 
 struggle, of the dividing asunder of soul and spirit ; 
 of perplexities which can be relieved only by the 
 certainties of death ; of hope wrestling, indeed 
 undismayed, unwavering, but wrestling in the dark, 
 and when beheld for the last time on this side the 
 grave still obstinate, but still unsolaced. Christian 
 life may be upon the heights and in the sunlight ; 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 171 
 
 the lines fall to it in pleasant places, and ' the voices 
 of joy and gladness are in its dwellings.' But its 
 lot may be also *in the deeps,' where 'all God's 
 waves and storms have gone over it ' ; where the 
 voices are those of ' deep calling unto deep amid 
 the roar of the water-spouts,' voices of anxiety 
 and distress, of ' majestic pains,' of mysterious 
 sorrow." 
 
 Matheson had formed a definite conception of 
 devotional writing as a whole. He was familiar 
 with Augustine's Manual, and its wonderful 
 spiritual intensity ; with the lyrical outpourings of 
 the immortal Imitation, with the beautiful 
 mysticism of Francis of Sales, with holy George 
 Herbert, with plain-spoken and melancholy Jeremy 
 Taylor, and with the saintly Keble. It cannot bfe 
 said that his meditations bear any deep trace of 
 their influence. The man who, in one sense at 
 least, impressed him most was Pascal. At all 
 events he was at one with the writer of the famous 
 Pens^es in believing that "devotion to be kept pure 
 needs ideas as well as feelings." This is the point 
 that he touches on in the Prefaces to three of his 
 devotional volumes. In his Times of Retirement 
 he refers thus to the subject : 
 
 It is often said that devotion is a thing of the heart. 
 I do not think it is either merely or mainly so. I hold 
 that all devotion is based upon intellectual conviction. 
 Even your sense of natural beauty is so based. Whence 
 comes that joy with which you gaze on a bit of landscape 
 you call a " picture-scene " ? Precisely from your in- 
 tellectual conviction that it is not a picture; if you 
 
172 DEV^OTION AND POETRY 
 
 believed it to be a painting your emotion would die 
 altogether. A man may hdMQ faith in what he does not 
 understand, but he cannot have emotion in what he does 
 not understand. The heart must have a theory for its 
 own music. Therefore the devotional writer must have 
 a message as much as the expositor. Devotion must 
 be the child of reflection ; it may rise on wings, but they 
 must be the wings of thought. The meditations of this 
 little book will appeal to the instinct of prayer just in 
 proportion as they appeal to the teaching of experi- 
 ence ; therefore before all things I have endeavoured 
 to base the feeling of the heart on the conclusions of the 
 mind. 
 
 In his next devotional volume, Leaves for 
 Quiet Hours, he reverts to the same subject. It 
 would seem as if he were anxious to guard his 
 readers against the two dangers to which devotion 
 is exposed. '* The danger of becoming formal and 
 uninterested, a sleepy routine ; and the danger of 
 becoming artificial, fanciful, petty, of wasting Itself 
 in the unchastened flow of feelings and words ; of 
 sinking into effeminacies and subtleties and delicate 
 affectations of sentiment and language." So he 
 remarks : 
 
 Each devotional piece consists of two parts. The 
 first is a suggestion of a thought, the second is the ex- 
 pression of a feeling — either in the form of a prayer or 
 of an invocation. But I hope that these two parts will 
 never be divided in holy wedlock — that every fresh 
 thought will be tinged with the heart's emotion, and 
 that every emotion of the heart will be winged by the 
 inspiration of a thought. A devotional book is believed 
 to be a very simple thing. It ought to be the most 
 difficult composition in the world, for it should aim at the 
 marriage of qualities which are commonly supposed to be 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 173 
 
 antagonistic — the insight of the thinker and the fervour 
 of the worshipper. My own conviction has increasingly 
 been that the hours of our deepest devotion are precisely 
 in those moments when we catch fresh glimpses of 
 hidden things. 
 
 In the last Preface v^hich he ever wrote, the one 
 to Rests by the River, he harps upon the same 
 thing. He says these meditations are 
 
 intended for devotional moments, but by devotional 
 moments I do not mean moments of vacuity. It is not 
 in its season of intellectual barrenness that the soul 
 yields its spiritual fruit. Religious sentiment if it is 
 worth anything must be preceded by religious perception. 
 Accordingly I have divided these pieces into two parts, 
 — the first containing a thought and the second either an 
 invocation or a prayer. The appeals are to various 
 moods of mind ; if some of them should find their way 
 into hearts that have been unconsciously waiting for 
 their message, the aim of this book will have been 
 abundantly achieved. 
 
 In an interesting interviev^, v^hich he gave about 
 two years before his death, he discusses at length the 
 subject of devotional literature. '' There is an idea 
 abroad," he said, 
 
 that devotional literature is altogether on a wrong basis. 
 Well, while there is much to be remedied, I must say that 
 I consider that is going rather too far. I think that 
 literature of this kind is, as a rule, characterised by great 
 honesty of purpose and thought. But we want more than 
 that nowadays. It appears to me to be wanting in 
 originality of thought and treatment ; indeed, I know 
 certain good people who consider that the less originality 
 it possesses the more it is adapted for devotional purposes, 
 but my view is the very opposite. Devotion requires 
 stimulation, exactly as it does any other human attribute ; 
 
174 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 the soul must be taught to think just as much as the mind 
 is taught to think. I beHeve that our moments of devo- 
 tion are just those when we have great ideas. Well, are 
 those ideas not to be fed and encouraged ? It is on the 
 wings of the intellect that the heart rises. Now it is on 
 that basis that I have endeavoured to write all my 
 devotional books. My remedy for the weakness of which 
 we have been speaking would be to write books of a 
 different nature ; to write Thomas a Kenipis on the side, 
 not of asceticism, but of the appropriateness of the world. 
 I hold the deepest self-surrender, the noblest sacrifice to 
 God, lies mainly in going into the world, not in running 
 away from it. It is there that your devotion displays 
 itself at its highest and best. 
 
 As a devotional writer Dr. Matheson has many 
 rare characteristics. One cannot take up the 
 smallest of his volumes v^Ithout being struck by its 
 wide range of subjects. He sounded the heights 
 and depths, the lengths and breadths of man's 
 spiritual experience. The variety of his themes 
 secured him a multitude of readers. The most 
 Indifferent cannot turn the leaves of any of his 
 books of devotion v^Ithout lighting upon one 
 meditation, at least, which appeals to his heart. 
 His moods, too, are as varied as his themes. A 
 page that you would pass by to-day will rivet your 
 attention to-morrow. Another striking feature Is 
 his catholicity. It would be impossible to tell the 
 Church to which he belonged, or the school of 
 thought which he favoured. He struck a note 
 which found a response in the hearts of men what- 
 ever might be their creed. His universality, too, is 
 a marked quality. He appeals to the few and to 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 175 
 
 the many, to the inner and the outer circle of 
 discipleship, to the learned and to the unlearned, to 
 the king and to the peasant. 
 
 His devotional writings are characterised by 
 certain qualities which single them out from the 
 general mass of contemporary literature of the 
 same class, and give them a foremost place among 
 all the books of devotion which have been the off- 
 spring of Christian thought and experience. They 
 are marked by profound thought. Matheson could 
 not write a line unless his intellect were satisfied. 
 He was not one of those who believed In dividing 
 human nature Into so many compartments, of which 
 mind was one and soul another. Man, in all his 
 complexity, he believed to be of a piece ; and for 
 him to have written what some mlg^ht reo^ard as 
 religious, because It was void of thought, was 
 Impossible. His thought, besides, is always original. 
 He could not help being original, and, as he 
 remarks, "devotion requires stimulation." It is 
 perhaps In his possession of this quality, more 
 than in any other, that his excellence chiefly 
 consists. Each meditation Is based on a text of 
 Scripture. How many have gazed at this same 
 text without ever having received from it any 
 inspiration or consolation. In Matheson's hands 
 It shines with a new face, speaks with a divine 
 voice, and utters the very word that the soul 
 needed. 
 
 Dr. Matheson is not a writer for the sickroom 
 merely ; he steadily keeps In view those whose 
 
176 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 duty lies in the " dusty lane and wrangling mart." 
 He has a special message for the man of the world. 
 Religion in common life is the ideal he ever kept 
 before him. He was thus a practical mystic, and 
 in this is to be found the secret of his success and 
 the power of his teaching. The last of the qualities 
 which characterise his devotional writings is his 
 rare gift of style. There is a charm about It, a 
 music in it, which appeals at once to the artistic 
 and spiritual senses. The beauty of form may be 
 but the natural expression of the beauty of thought, 
 but It is the crown, and would of itself give his 
 meditations a high place in devotional literature. 
 Let me select two examples, one from his earliest 
 and another from his all but latest book of devo- 
 tions, in which these qualities are illustrated. In 
 My Aspirations there is a meditation on " Christian 
 Liberty." It is suggested by the text John x. 9 : 
 "• I am the door : by Me if any man enter in, he 
 shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find 
 pasture." 
 
 To go in and out of a house at will is the mark of 
 perfect liberty. It is the mark, not of a servant nor even 
 of a guest, but of a son ; he who at will goes out and in is 
 conscious that he is a member of the family. Our Lord 
 says that the saved man is the free man — the man who 
 goes in and out at the door. I had always thought it to 
 be the contrary. I had come to persuade myself that to 
 be saved was to be narrow, to be curtailed in the path of 
 freedom. I never doubted that the saved man went in at 
 the door ; it seemed to me that to be in the temple of God 
 was to be about his Father's business. But that this man 
 of all men should have a right to come out again at the 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 177 
 
 same door by which he entered ; should have a right to go 
 back into the pursuits of that world from which he came ; 
 this was a thought which it did not enter into my heart to 
 conceive. Yet this, and nothing less than this, is the 
 teaching of our Lord. He says that the saved man had 
 alone the right to be called the man of the world, alone 
 the right to come out into the secular pleasures of men. 
 He says that such a man will not only get no harm from 
 the world ; he will get positive good from it, " he will find 
 pasture." He will get from the things around him what 
 he has brought to those things— a pure heart. He will 
 see God in everything, because he has seen Him in his 
 own soul. He will find good in everything, because he 
 himself is good. He will recognise in the world green 
 pastures where the world itself recognises only a desert. 
 He will hear the song of birds where the natural ear 
 catches only the silence of the wilderness ; he will behold 
 the myrtle where the eye of sense gazes only on the briar. 
 My soul, art thou afraid of the Son of Man ? Art 
 thou afraid to enter in at the heavenly door ? Art thou 
 afraid that in becoming a Christian thoushalt lose thy 
 power to act as a citizen ? Thou s halt for the first time 
 gain that power ! Christ shall intensify thy natural gifts; 
 the rest He gives is the ability to do better that earthly 
 work which has been given thee to do. Dost thou fear 
 that the pleasures of God's right hand will blunt thee to 
 the joys of human affection? They will quicken them. 
 God's love helps all other love as surely as the vision of 
 the sun helps all other vision. God's love is something to 
 love with, just as the sun's light is something to see with; 
 it teaches the loveless how to love. He who has been in 
 at the Door is distinguished not only among angels but 
 amongst men. He is marked out by the intensity of his 
 human nature. Thou shalt know him from other men by 
 his superior zeal in all earthly causes. He shall hope 
 more for the world, he shall work more for the world, he 
 shall suffer more for the world ; for it is in the world that 
 he seeks for the pasture which has been provided by the 
 Shepherd-King. He that enters by this Door goes in and 
 out at will ! 
 
 12 
 
178 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 The second example is from his Leaves for 
 
 Quiet Hours. It is on *' In the Light of Eternity." 
 
 There is a personal note in it which is not without 
 
 its pathos ; it is at the same time a triumphant 
 
 note. This son of affliction has a word of cheer, 
 
 not only for the man of the world, but also for the 
 
 child of sorrow. The meditation is suggested by 
 
 two passages, the one from Psalm xxxvi. 9 : *' In 
 
 thy light shall we see light " ; and the other from 
 
 Revelation xxi. 23: '*The Lamb is the light 
 
 thereof." 
 
 Nothing is seen in its own light — not even a visible 
 thing. A landscape is not seen in its own light ; it is 
 perceived very much in the light of yesterday. How 
 little of what you see is mere perception I Every sight of 
 nature is tinged with the light of memory. The poet 
 looks from the bridge at midnight upon the rushing 
 waters ; but what he sees is not the flowing tide, it is a 
 tide of memory which fills his eyes with tears. You listen 
 to the babbling of the brook ; but what you hear is not 
 the babbling, it is the utterance of a dear name. You 
 visit Rome, you visit Jerusalem, you visit Greece ; do you 
 see any of these by its own light? No; they are all 
 beheld by the light of yesterday; there is their glory, 
 there lies their gold ! " Even so," cries the Psalmist, " it 
 is with this world ; if you want to see it, you must look 
 at it by the light of another world — God's coming world. 
 He does not mean that when we quit the scenes of earth 
 we shall have a bright light in heaven. It is more than 
 that. It is for the scenes of earth he wants the heavenly 
 light. He says you cannot interpret your own skies 
 without it. We often say that in the light of eternity 
 earthly objects will fade from our sight. But the Psalmist 
 says that until we get the light of eternity earthly objects 
 will not be in our sight. It is by the light of the Celestial 
 City — the City which has no need of the sun — that alone 
 we can tell what here is large and what here is small. 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 179 
 
 Thou Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world, 
 Thou art the Light thereof! When God said, "Let us 
 make man ! " He meant not Adam, but Thee. Thou art 
 the plan of the great building ; to Thee all things move. 
 By no other light can I understand the struggles of this 
 earth. Not by nature's light can I understand them ; I 
 have seen the physical sunshine sparkle on my pain, and 
 I thought it a cruel thing. Not by philosophy's light can 
 I understand them ; I have seen the great thinker impeded 
 by poverty and I thought it an unseemly thing. Not in 
 beauty's light can I understand them ; I have seen the 
 artist lose his eyesight and I thought it an unrighteous 
 thing. But if the world is being woven for Thee, I under- 
 stand. If Thy type of sacrifice is the plan of the Architect, 
 I understand. If Thy cross is Creation's crown, I under- 
 stand. If the Celestial City is a home for hospital training, 
 I understand. If Thine angels are all ministering spirits, 
 I understand. If the purest robe is not the white robe 
 but the robe washed white, if the goal of man is not Eden 
 but Gethsemane, if the glory of Thy Father is the sacri- 
 ficial blood of love, then have I found the golden key, in 
 Thy Light I have seen Light ! 
 
 As might be expected. Dr. Matheson received 
 from almost every part of the v^orld letters of 
 the deepest gratitude for the comfort v^hich his 
 meditations afforded to weary and despondent 
 souls. It may be sufficient to give one letter as 
 an example of the many that he received ex- 
 pressing the gratitude of those who found in his 
 books the consolation that their souls needed. The 
 letter is from a clergyman in Belfast, and is dated 
 14th October 1904 : 
 
 I have just got your Leaves for Quiet Hours. I feel 
 that I ought to put on paper what has been in my mind and 
 heart since I first began to read your helpful messages. 
 
 Ten years ago, when a probationary minister in our 
 
180 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 Nottingham circuit, I visited a poor woman, who for 
 thirteen years had been afflicted with a lingering form 
 of cancer which had affected her head. Night and day- 
 she was in pain. She told me she could not remember 
 much nor think out anything, but said she, " I have a 
 little book and it does help me." It was a well-worn 
 copy of My Aspirations. "Which was the one she 
 liked best," I asked ? " Ah ! " said she, and I shall never 
 forget her bright look, although her head was as though 
 there were coals of fire upon it, " And God saw everything 
 that He had made, and behold it was very good." In 
 fragments she almost gave me the whole of it. Said 
 she, " My Sabbath is coming ; it seems as though some- 
 times I hear the morning bells." I remember, not long 
 before she passed away, I called late one night, and I 
 found her suffering acutely. Her devoted daughter had 
 dressed her terrible wounds — a task from which the 
 trained visiting nurses would turn away, almost over- 
 powered. I noticed the laudanum bottle almost empty, 
 and then it flashed upon me, in spite of their comfortable 
 home, they were feeling the pinch of poverty. The 
 daughter, with tears in her eyes, told me that laudanum 
 cost so much. When someone went out to get what 
 alone could allay the burning pain, I saw in the hand 
 of the sufferer, as she lay apparently asleep, the little 
 book, My Aspirations. She once said the doctor wondered 
 how she could bear the burning of her wound with so 
 little outward relief, but, added the frail woman, " I 
 know." I have often wished to tell you what service 
 your book was to that poor afflicted woman. It was 
 through her I was introduced to your unspoken ministry, 
 and I venture to take this opportunity of respectfully 
 expressing my great indebtedness to you for your inspiring 
 and sustaining writings. 
 
 I have sometimes thought that if a few of your valued 
 meditations were printed on little slips, or cards, with 
 a view to their circulation in hospitals and amongst the 
 sick at home, I believe your messages would be words 
 in season for the weary and more than welcome to the 
 afflicted. I have put My Aspirations in more than one 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 181 
 
 chamber of sorrow. It has brought heaven a little 
 nearer and their lives have been blessed, while others 
 have been helped to quietly wait until they entered 
 into rest. 
 
 The year that sav^ the publication of his first 
 volume of Meditations also witnessed the com- 
 position of his famous hymn, '* O Love that wilt 
 not let me go." The circumstances under which 
 it was written are well-known. He himself has 
 furnished the following interesting account of Its 
 genesis : " My hymn was composed in the manse 
 of Innellan on the evening of 6th June 1882. I 
 was at that time alone. It was the day of my 
 sister's marriage, and the rest of the family were 
 staying over night In Glasgow. Something had 
 happened to me, which was known only to myself, 
 and which caused me the most severe mental 
 suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. 
 It was the quickest bit of work I ever did In my 
 life. I had the Impression rather of having it 
 dictated to me by some Inward voice than of 
 working it out myself. I am quite sure that the 
 whole work was completed in five minutes, and 
 equally sure that it never received at my hands 
 any retouching or correction. The Hymnal Com- 
 mittee of the Church of Scotland desired the change 
 of one word. I had written originally * I climbed 
 the rainbow in the rain.' They objected to the 
 word 'climb' and I put 'trace.'" 
 
 Matheson at the time at which this hymn was 
 written was no novice in the art of poetical com- 
 
182 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 position. This form of literary expression was, 
 as we have seen, the earliest practised by him. 
 He wrote, when quite a youth, long poems, but, 
 apart from the two referred to in a previous chapter, 
 nearly all his writings in this form were on sacred 
 subjects. He had the lyrical note strongly 
 developed in his nature. Much of his writing, 
 particularly his meditations, was couched in a 
 poetic strain ; he delighted in song and music, and 
 his soul demanded at times to utter itself in verse. 
 There still remains a very considerable collection 
 of unpublished poems by him, all in the strain with 
 which readers of his Sacred Songs are familiar. 
 They were written at different periods, and were 
 collected at intervals into forms that suggest the 
 intention of publication, but he delayed this purpose 
 until 1889, when, after a final revision, he gave a 
 selection of them to the world. 
 
 In a scrap-book, carefully preserved, it is 
 interesting to find a number of sacred songs by 
 him, cut out from some magazine or periodical in 
 which they first appeared. They are framed in 
 coloured flowers, and evidently show the tender 
 guardianship of his sister's hand. There is no 
 guide as to the journals in which they were 
 published, but so early as 1875 one of his best- 
 known hymns, '' My voice shalt Thou hear in the 
 morning," appeared in the Sunday Magazine. 
 This he thought worthy of reproduction in his 
 volume of Sacred Songs. Again, in 1878, under 
 the heading of " God with us," there appeared in 
 
DEVOTION AND POIJTRY 183 
 
 the same magazine the hymn which he afterwards 
 published under the title of "Jacob at Bethel." 
 Two more hymns, " Strength for the Day " and 
 ''Jesus, Fountain of my Days," also found a place 
 in the Sunday Magazi7ie ; the former with the 
 heading, '' Times of Need," in 1881 ; and the latter 
 with the title, "Above every Name," in 1884. 
 Other poems by him were sent, as the occasion 
 arose, to various magazines, which gave them a 
 ready welcome. 
 
 Matheson never took himself very seriously as 
 a hymn-writer, but the public has largely reversed 
 his judgment, for his volume of Sacred Songs 
 ran within a few years into a third edition. In his 
 Preface to the issue which appeared in 1904, he 
 says : " I was originally much exercised as to what 
 title I ought to give these verses collectively. 
 The difficulty arose from the desire to avoid pre- 
 tentiousness, by seeming to claim for them more 
 than they aspired to be. I decided that, in point 
 of form, their distinctive feature was a varied 
 rhythmicalness, and therefore I called them Sacred 
 Songs. The subject-matter was suggested by 
 Scriptural texts, but there was no attempt to classify 
 or systematise : I simply followed the impression 
 of the moment and endeavoured to express the 
 sentiment in its appropriate cadence. These pieces 
 were never intended as a volume of hymns ; but, 
 contrary to my expectations, many of them have 
 been so adapted." 
 
 It is but right in estimating Matheson's poetic 
 
184 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 effusions to keep what he thus says clearly in mind. 
 There are few kinds of composition about which 
 there has been so much controversy as hymns. 
 The lines on which lyric, epic, and dramatic poetry 
 are composed are well marked, and generally recog- 
 nised and followed ; but some of the most popular 
 hymns, according to experts, violate every canon, 
 and captivate the heart in spite of their rebellion 
 ao^ainst the law^s which ousfht to sfovern them. 
 Matheson accordingly was perfectly justified in 
 guarding himself against the criticism that might 
 be brought to bear upon his productions in verse. 
 He declared that they were Sacred Songs, and not 
 Hymns. Looking at them in this light, one is 
 impressed, not only by their variety of rhythmical- 
 ness, but also of theme. Like his Meditations, they 
 touch religious thought and experience at almost 
 every point, and open windows of feeling and 
 emotion through which divine light and comfort 
 pour in. The themes may be varied, but they 
 have one subject : the Divine Love. *' And now 
 abideth Faith, Hope, Charity, these three, but 
 the greatest of these is Charity," might be taken 
 as their motto ; and right through them there 
 breathes that spirit of Christian optimism which 
 characterised his preaching, his writing, and his 
 life. The darkest day does not dismay him ; the 
 sorest disappointment does not crush him ; the 
 bitterest anguish or the cruellest pain does not 
 daunt him ; the waves and the billows of life 
 may pass over his soul without quenching its 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 185 
 
 ardour or drowning its hope. The Divine Love 
 he sees in all ; the Cross of Christ assures him 
 of victory. 
 
 Matheson had very clear notions of what a 
 hymn should be. At all events, he subjected to 
 sharp criticism modern hymnology in one respect at 
 least, its lack of human sentiment. Being asked 
 on one occasion what he thought of our hymns 
 generally, he shook his head strongly as he replied : 
 
 To my mind they have one great defect ; they lack 
 humanitarianism. There is any amount of doctrine in 
 the Trinity, Baptism, Atonement, or the Christian Hfe 
 as such, but what of the secular life — the infirmary, the 
 hospital, the home of refuge? When I was asked to 
 preach a charity sermon some time ago, I searched 
 through the hymnal in vain for any hymn that would 
 suit my subject, but there was no incentive to charity 
 as such. I don't think our hymns will ever be what 
 they ought to be, until we get them inspired by a sense 
 of the enthusiasm of, and for, humanity. It is rather a 
 theological point, perhaps, but the hymnists speak of the 
 surrender to Christ. They forget that Christ is not 
 simply an individual. He is Head of a body, the body 
 of humanity ; and it no longer expresses the idea 
 correctly to join yourself to Christ only, you must give 
 yourself to the whole brotherhood of man to fulfil the 
 idea. I like " Lead, kindly Light " ; it is universal, 
 though not practical, perhaps ; it is vague, and applies 
 to any religion. Another good hymn is " Trust in God 
 and do the Right," written by Dr. Norman Macleod, a 
 good and practical hymn. " We give Thee but Thine 
 Own " sounds the real humanitarian note to the father- 
 less and widows. Hymnology is feeble and ineffective 
 when it ignores the humanitarian side of religion. 
 
 There is a strong note of modernity in this 
 criticism. Matheson lived in the age of practical 
 
186 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 Christianity, and he appreciated its significance 
 to the full. It may be true that he was a mystic. 
 He was constantly brooding upon divine things ; 
 his spirit was frequently in other lands than this. 
 He was convinced that the ideal is the real, and 
 that the life which is perceptible to the eye of 
 faith encircled all life, that it was the beginning 
 and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, of human 
 experience. Such a belief, however, did not trans- 
 form him into a mere dreamer of dreams. He felt 
 it to be his vocation to interpret man's varied 
 life in the light of the divine, and to see the law 
 which is behind all facts revealing itself in human 
 vicissitudes. It was this that made his preaching 
 so inspiring to the vast majority of his hearers, 
 and caused his Meditations to be welcomed, as 
 glad tidings, all over the world. It is this also 
 which will preserve his Sacred Songs from 
 falling readily into oblivion ; they will continue 
 to have a message for the day and the hour ; 
 their humanitarian note will preserve them from 
 growing out of date, as writings which have no 
 relation to man's troubles, man's needs, and man's 
 aspirations. 
 
 The criticisms on his volume, Sacred Songs, 
 refer with a unanimity which must have good 
 ground, in fact, to a feature which is common 
 indeed to nearly the whole of Matheson's writings. 
 They emphasise the note of catholicity that 
 pervades the book. But Matheson's catholicity 
 did not arise from indifference. He did not 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 187 
 
 simply assume a theological standpoint of his 
 own and quietly ignore all others. It was his 
 aim to stand on a platform so broad that he 
 could find room on it for every one, whether 
 Pagan or Christian, who was struggling towards 
 the light. In such a position is to be found 
 the true spirit of reconciliation, which sees the 
 unifying element in each, seizes it and links all 
 together in a bond which they interpret, and 
 which at the same time interprets them. They 
 find their meaning in it, and it finds its meaning 
 in them. Such a method does not lop off what 
 may seem incongruous, or irreconcilable, in the 
 different forms of faith which it unifies. If it did, 
 it would be a destructive, and not a constructive, 
 method. It, on the contrary, gathers them together 
 as they are ; and the central truth of each, being at 
 bottom an eternal truth, linked to Him who is the 
 Truth, of its own accord sheds what is defective, 
 and receives new strengrth and life from Him to 
 whom it is joined. In a poem of sterling excellence 
 Matheson clothes his teaching on this subject in a 
 form which is certain to live. He entitles it ''One 
 in Christ," and bases it on Ephesians i. lo : ''That 
 in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might 
 gather together in one all things in Christ." 
 
 I Gather us in. Thou Love that fillest all ! 
 Gather our rival faiths within Thy fold ! 
 Rend each man's temple veil and bid it fall. 
 
 That we may know that Thou hast been of old ; 
 Gather us in ! 
 
188 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 2 Gather us in ! we worship only Thee ; 
 
 In varied names we stretch a common hand ; 
 In diverse forms a common soul we see ; 
 In many ships we seek one spirit-land ; 
 Gather us in ! 
 
 3 Each sees one colour of Thy rainbow light, 
 
 Each looks upon one tint and calls it heaven ; 
 Thou art the fulness of our partial sight ; 
 We are not perfect till we find the seven ; 
 Gather us in ! 
 
 4 Thine is the mystic light great India craves, 
 
 Thine is the Parsee's sin-destroying beam, 
 Thine is the Buddhist's rest from tossing waves. 
 Thine is the empire of vast China's dream ; 
 Gather us in ! 
 
 5 Thine is the Roman's strength without his pride, 
 
 Thine is the Greek's glad world without its graves. 
 Thine is Judea's law with love beside. 
 
 The truth that centres and the grace that saves ; 
 Gather us in ! 
 
 6 Some seek a Father in the heavens above. 
 
 Some ask a human image to adore, 
 Some crave a spirit vast as life and love : 
 
 Within Thy mansions we have all and more ; 
 Gather us in ! 
 
 In the third edition of his Sacred Songs he 
 included his hymn '' O Love that wilt not let me 
 go," which first appeared in Life and Work. 
 Whatever may be the future of his other writings, 
 this hymn, we may confidently hope, will be sung 
 by congregations of the Christian Church so long 
 as the Cross and the Divine love of which it is 
 the symbol will continue to lift up the head of 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 189 
 
 fallen humanity. He himself always regarded 
 this hymn as his piece de re'sistance. He in a 
 way took no credit for it ; it was given to him 
 in a moment of divine afflatus, and he simply 
 transcribed what was communicated. This is the 
 orthodox view of inspiration, and so far it may be 
 sound enough ; but it should not be forgotten that 
 poets are cradled into poetry by wrong, and learn 
 in suffering what they teach in song. In other 
 words, like the prophets of old their moments of 
 inspiration are preceded by years of earnest 
 thought and spiritual communion. The subjects 
 on which they have long brooded may, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, and without conscious effort 
 on their part, be seen in a new light ; the mystery 
 is unveiled by an unseen hand, and the soul gazes 
 upon the land delectable. One should not, accord- 
 ingly, be surprised to find critics of this hymn 
 pointing to the fact that Matheson had in previous 
 publications expressed its thoughts almost in 
 similar words. They quote passages from his 
 Meditations in which the very phrases of the hymn 
 are anticipated. But I can do more : there is in 
 manuscript a poem by him on the rainbow, of 
 which the first line is " Jesus, Rainbow of my 
 Sorrow." Here we have a forecast of the line so 
 much admired, ** I trace the rainbow through the 
 rain." Indeed, such anticipations, in place of 
 detracting from ought to enhance the value of this 
 hymn, for in it we see the fugitive, the scattered 
 experiences, the chance phrases of the poet gathered 
 
190 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 together, and under the pressure of a deep 
 spiritual experience fused by his genius into a 
 perfect whole. 
 
 Dr. Matheson always modestly insisted that 
 his hymn was greatly indebted to the music written 
 for it by Dr. Peace; indeed, there may be some 
 excuse for those who declare that, but for Dr. 
 Peace's tune, it would not have attained its great 
 popularity. When somebody once complimented 
 Cardinal Newman on the great vogue of his '' Lead, 
 kindly Light," he replied, '' Ah, yes ; but, you see, 
 the tune is by Dr. Dykes." What '' Lux Benigna" 
 did for Newman's hymn, ''St. Margaret" did for 
 Dr. Matheson's. The latter tune was composed 
 with as little deliberation as Dr. Matheson wrote 
 the hymn. As musical editor of the Scottish 
 Hymnal, which at the time was passing through 
 the hands of the Committee of the Church of Scot- 
 land, Dr. Peace was in the habit of always carry- 
 ing in his pocket a copy of the words for careful 
 study. Sitting one day on the sands at Arran, he 
 was reading " O Love that wilt not let me go " when 
 the tune came upon him like a flash, and, taking 
 out his pencil, he dashed it off in a few minutes. 
 
 Dr. Matheson was in the habit of receiving 
 constant communications regarding his hymn. 
 The most frequent of these was asking his liberty 
 to use it for one church or congregational book of 
 praise or another. But he also received letters 
 from different parts of the country, and indeed of 
 the world, expressing the gratitude of some soul 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 191 
 
 to whom its teaching and its music had proved a 
 
 source of unfading comfort. Of such a character 
 
 is the following^ : — 
 
 ° Oakfield, Glaslyn Road, 
 
 Crouch End, London, N. 
 
 February 26, 1904. 
 
 My Dear Sir, — You have before very kindly permitted 
 me to use some of your hymns and poems, and I am 
 again coming to you as a beggar. It happens that I 
 have just completed a new Hymnal for Boys, to be used 
 in Public Schools, Boys' Brigades, Clubs, etc., and Young 
 Men's Meetings. I have also just completed arrangements 
 for a revised edition of the Christian Endeavour Hymnal^ 
 and in both of these books desire to include " O Love that 
 wilt not let me go." I trust that you will be able to 
 accord me the desired permission, and presume that for 
 the tune I must apply to Dr. Peace. 
 
 It will interest you if I refer to an incident that has 
 touched me greatly within the last few days. In the 
 church where I was pastor in Southampton there was a 
 young girl, a very beautiful character, the daughter of an 
 artist. She was stricken with a terrible illness, and 
 suffered intensely, but recovered in a wonderful manner, 
 remaining apparently well for a year. Then, suddenly, 
 the old disease reasserted itself, and she again passed 
 through a fiery furnace of pain. The fires were those of 
 purifying, for a wonderful change was wrought in her 
 character and in her very face. Your hymn was learnt 
 in our choir, of which she was a member, and from the 
 first it became a ministrant influence in her life, and 
 became for her the expression of deepest desire. She 
 was a girl exceptionally gifted, and clung to the very 
 last to the hope that she might continue her studies ; and 
 when the doctor told her that she must give these up, 
 after a long struggle she found the haven of trust and 
 rest through the hymn, and relinquished her ambition, 
 resting in the Divine love. When the end came, and 
 when her own voice had gone, the mother saw that she 
 wished to speak — and, bending over her, heard her whisper, 
 " Mother, sing me * O Love that wilt not let me go '" ; and 
 
192 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 the music of this song ushered her into the presence of 
 the Father. She was laid to rest a few days ago, and 
 her comrades of the choir gathered round the grave and 
 again sung the hymn. 
 
 How great a privilege and joy are yours in this 
 marvellous ministry ? — Believe me, most truly yours, 
 
 Carey Bonner. 
 
 The world-wide reputation of the hymn receives 
 emphatic proof from the following communication. 
 It relates to the Sunday-School Convention held 
 at Jerusalem in the spring of 1904, when the 
 representatives of fifty - five different Christian 
 communions, gathered from twenty-six different 
 nations of the world, united together to the number 
 of 1800 in singing Matheson's famous hymn on the 
 
 brows of Calvary : 
 
 Glasgow, 
 Sunday Evenings February 18, 1906. 
 
 Dear Dr. Matheson, — I have just been reading in 
 the last issue of Saint Andrew an interesting paper on your 
 noble hymn " O Love that wilt not let me go." It 
 brought back to memory an incident connected with your 
 hymn, of which I wish to tell you. 
 
 I was one of the pilgrim band in the Fourth World's 
 S.S. Convention which assembled in Jerusalem in the 
 spring-time of 1904. It was possibly the most cosmo- 
 politan assembly that ever met in the name of Christ. 
 Convened in the interests of the Sabbath-school cause, it 
 seemed to realise a strange fulfilment of the promise, 
 " A little child shall lead them." Representatives from 
 the ends of the earth were present. It would be difficult to 
 name a country that was not represented. Fifty-five different 
 sects or faiths were there, gathered from twenty-six different 
 nations. Our meeting-place was a huge tent seated for 
 1800, pitched on Calvary — close by Gordon's Calvary. 
 On the Sunday morning of our mission the vast tent 
 was crowded with worshippers. Archdeacon Sinclair, of 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 193 
 
 London, preached a noble sermon from Matthew xxi. 15,16. 
 
 The closing hymn was your own noble song, " O Love " 
 
 I have joined in the singing of it times without number, 
 but never did I hear it sung with such fervour. In that 
 strange assembly of divers nations nearly all seemed to 
 know it and to love it, and a mighty flood of melody 
 swept through the vast tent, as if all hearts knew only 
 one common brotherhood in Christ. I was so deeply 
 moved that ere the last verse came round I could only 
 read in a convulsive sob. 
 
 Two thoughts gave birth to this emotion. 
 
 Here, in distant Syria, was I, a Glasgow man, sharing in 
 this song from the pen of a fellow-citizen, and the melody 
 also written by one closely associated with the Service of 
 Praise in the Cathedral of Glasgow. I thought of the 
 " ocean depths " of that wondrous Love that is fashioning 
 one great family of all the nations on the face of the 
 earth. 
 
 The other thought was, that we were standing, pos- 
 sibly within a few paces of the veritable spot where was 
 planted that Cross that lifted up our heads, the actual 
 ground where was shed the sacrificial blood whence 
 blossoms red life that shall endless be. It was in my 
 mind, when I came back from Palestine, to write telling 
 you this little story ; but alas ! how often purposes are 
 allowed to slip unfulfilled. The reading of the sketch in 
 Saint Andrew revived the memory and rekindled the 
 desire. 
 
 Suffer an aged friend and warm admirer of your 
 writings, one who has passed the extreme limit of the 
 life's journey assigned by the Psalmist, to express the 
 earnest hope that God may spare you for many years 
 to continue to enrich the Christian world with your 
 noble, inspiring thought. — Believe me, etc. 
 
 J. Ingram. 
 
 The last contribution which I shall give in this 
 connection was sent to me by a missionary in 
 India. It testifies to the overwhelming power of 
 13 
 
194 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 Matheson's hymn when played and sung by a 
 musician of the first rank : 
 
 It was in March 1904, and the sunshiny scene still 
 lives in my memory. I had left my hotel and made my 
 way through the picturesque crowds in the streets of 
 
 A . The Sabbath was essentially a French one. By 
 
 force of habit I had turned aside that day from globe- 
 trotting pursuits, and taken my place in the Church of 
 the United Frees among some threescore of God's people, 
 whose mother-tongue was English. 
 
 On my right and left were missionaries of the North 
 African Mission. They found it refreshing to assemble 
 for worship, in the midst of their labours among a 
 fanatical Mahomedan people ; they from Africa and I 
 from India. It seemed to me a meeting of the oceans, 
 that we should stand for worship in the same pew, and 
 sing out of the same hymnal. I could not, of course, turn 
 round to see who sat behind, but worshippers in front 
 looked like those who might be residing in this watering- 
 place for purposes of health or trade, — some were certainly, 
 like myself, of the tourist type. Immediately in front of 
 me was the English Consul, a man well over six feet, with 
 shoulders like Sandow's. On his left was his wife — also 
 tall and well built. 
 
 The church was not built for show, but for use. By this 
 I do not mean that it was common. There was an aisle 
 on each side, and the seats ran right across the width of the 
 structure. A platform was placed in front, on the side of 
 which the organ stood. The pulpit was at the rear of this 
 platform, and suitably raised for its purpose. Thus 
 minister and organist were in our full view. 
 
 The organ was in keeping with the building : a plain 
 instrument of the American type. The organist was a 
 lady. 
 
 What the minister preached about I really forget. 
 Perhaps that was not the preacher's fault. He was a 
 pastor there for his health, and displayed no special 
 vigour. I have no objection to a written sermon, but that 
 morning the read sermon seemed, though an able treatise, 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 195 
 
 to fall flat. The order of service was what I had been 
 used to in Wellesley Square United Free Church, 
 Calcutta. To me it was all lifeless, formal, uneventful, 
 messageless, comfortless. Even the words and music of 
 the hymns had failed to stir the deeps of my nature that 
 day. I blame no one. Perhaps I was not in a receptive 
 spirit. I cannot tell — but so it was. On went the 
 minutes, and I was not sorry. 
 
 The hour had at last fled. Invocations, lessons, prayers, 
 sermon, collection, announcements were all over. What 
 had been a most uneventful service to me was now to 
 be punctuated by a hymn and a benediction. The 
 minister announced George Matheson's " O Love that wilt 
 not let me go." When a much loved hymn is announced 
 in Wales, the land I know best, the people stir with joy, 
 and cast meaning glances at each other. The worshippers 
 stand as if to pour out their hearts, and one gets thrilled 
 before a chord is struck. That morning it was all 
 contrary. " Listless " could have been written over the 
 whole service. The announcement of even that hymn 
 seemed to stir no one. 
 
 While the minister was reading the first verse I 
 noticed a man of, perhaps, fifty change seats with the lady 
 organist. 
 
 It was nothing to mark. " He is the local organist," 
 I thought, "and the lady is a visitor." Suddenly the 
 notes were touched and the little American organ seemed 
 to have been " born again." Bar followed bar. We all 
 brightened up. There was a master at the keys. We 
 stood and sang : 
 
 " O Love that wilt not let me go, 
 I rest my weary soul in Thee : 
 I give Thee back the life I owe. 
 That in Thine ocean depths its flow 
 May richer, fuller be." 
 
 Was the change in me or in my environment? I 
 cannot tell. The lost chord seemed to have been found. 
 If a seraph had come to wake me with a song of Zion, 
 the surprise would not have been greater. The organist 
 
196 DEVOTION AND POETRY 
 
 seemed in the third heaven. Here and there he made 
 pauses not in the book. He sang and played and 
 carried us on irresistibly. Then we plunged into the 
 second verse : 
 
 " O Light that followest all my way, 
 I yield my flickering torch to Thee : 
 My heart restores its borrowed ray, 
 That in Thy sunshine's blaze its day 
 May brighter, fairer be." 
 
 I could not fail to notice the deep emotion of the 
 Consul's wife, for she stood in the next pew in front. 
 She had ceased to sing, her trembling was manifest. The 
 music was like the sound of many waters. The volume 
 of it increased. The third verse was reached : 
 
 " O Joy that seekest me through pain, 
 I cannot close my heart to Thee : 
 I trace the rainbow through the rain. 
 And feel the promise is not vain, 
 
 That morn shall tearless be." 
 
 With a strange suddenness the Consul's wife fell on 
 her knees and was convulsed with emotion. With her 
 hands she covered her face, while the majestic music 
 swept on. The husband knew not what to do, for all eyes 
 were turned towards his wife. With inborn calmness 
 and strong sympathy he then bowed in prayer at his 
 wife's side. The sight was beautiful, and there were many 
 wet eyes near where I stood. But what of the organist ? 
 He was in rhapsody. Down his furrowed face tears 
 made their way. His head of curls added impressiveness 
 to the scene. Bending over the keys, he poured out his 
 very soul. Of time and space he seemed ignorant. The 
 emphasis was that of intense feeling, born of rare experi- 
 ence, controlled by musical ability — both instrumental and 
 vocal. 
 
 When we reached the last verse I, for one, wished 
 blind Matheson had provided us with more. And yet 
 we might not have been able to bear it. 
 
DEVOTION AND POETRY 197 
 
 " O Cross that liftest up my head, 
 I dare not ask to fly from Thee : 
 I lay in dust life's glory dead, 
 And from the ground there blossoms red 
 Life that shall endless be." 
 
 The scene continued the same to the end, only with 
 deeper feeling. Great was the relief when the last note 
 died away, and the minister, as awed as the rest of us, 
 pronounced the benediction. So great was the solemnity 
 of the occasion that no one wanted to disturb the 
 silence by rising from their knees. 
 
 When the congregation did rise to disperse, several 
 went forward to thank the organist. I was one of them. 
 In the group were several Americans, and one said to 
 the organist, still bathed in tear-marks, " We knew your 
 wife." The one answer was a quiet smile, followed by a 
 quick retirement from the church. This man did not 
 feast on plaudits or compliments. He was gone before 
 we could say a tithe of what we felt. 
 
 In the aisles and at the church door I learned that 
 the man who had waked up everybody's soul was a 
 distinguished Christian singer of England and Scotland. 
 Two years before his wife lay a-dying — and she was an 
 American, equal to him in musical talent. She had 
 asked him to sing to her, as she entered the valley of the 
 shadow of death, " O Love that wilt not let me go." He 
 did so, but had not ventured to sing it again until that 
 memorable morning. Ah, that was a sufficient explana- 
 tion. Sorrow had wrought the power. 
 
 I wended my way hotel-wards, but my thoughts were 
 on the wings of the music — "blossoming red." Such 
 music (that lost chord), set to such words, I can never 
 hope to hear again until I stand within the gates of the 
 New Jerusalem. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 
 
 Dr. Matheson's congregation at Innellan now 
 felt that it was time they should give some ex- 
 pression to their feelings of admiration for him 
 as their minister. He had been with them for 
 fifteen years, and he had endeared himself to them 
 in many ways. As a preacher and a writer he 
 had won recognition from a wider public. His 
 reputation had gained for him academic honours, 
 and theological experts had cordially accepted his 
 claims as an author of undoubted ability. The 
 people of Innellan, who had from the very first 
 responded to his eloquence in the pulpit and 
 who had all along appreciated his pastoral care, 
 resolved to give expression to their gratitude. 
 By the visitors to the seaside village, and by a 
 growing circle of readers of his books, one side 
 of his character and one aspect of his work were 
 known ; but by his parishioners he was also 
 admired for his interest in them, for his con- 
 cern and sympathy in cases of moral failure, 
 of bodily sickness, or of spiritual distress. Dr. 
 
 198 
 
LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 199 
 
 SIme, speaking of his work in this connection, 
 says : 
 
 As our professional lives in the place intermingled 
 everywhere, it was not only in the library of the manse 
 that we met, and seldom have I seen a clergyman so near 
 the heart of parishioners, not merely in prosperity and 
 success — that is easy and hardly wanted — but in sorrow 
 and distress, in health and disease, in work and worship. 
 His cheerful, uniformly unclouded optimism was every- 
 where welcomed, alike in joy and unhappiness, in disap- 
 pointment and failure. He was the instigator of the 
 public lectures during winter and the centre of every 
 good movement of the place, and his humour on the 
 platform was as excellent as it was in the library or in 
 private, being of the genuine thistly Celtic character, with 
 much imagination, an imagination appealing to the brain 
 quite as much as the heart. But he could be found manly 
 with all his cheerfulness and unwavering optimism. An 
 intelligent farmer, a favourite of his, who read and studied 
 much beyond agriculture, but who at one time was un- 
 fortunately addicted to occasional fits of bad excess, once, 
 for example, told me, that he was established in his 
 quiet, manly restraint by one or two observations of the 
 blind young clergyman. His failing, the minister said to 
 him, was no doubt due to a hereditary weakness, but there 
 was no use blaming for it one's forebears ; that was not 
 manly, it was cowardly. The giving way to the failing 
 was a return to the brute, a still older forebear ; all 
 sensuality and selfish appetite and ungovernable greed 
 being a return, a reversion, to the beast in man. The 
 weakness was there, in even a good, noble man, for him 
 to conquer, and to make a good, clever man the best of 
 men. Renunciation, he said, was the essential to the 
 primary condition, for a brave worthy man to show his 
 sterling worth. 
 
 Again, to reveal the condition of mind of my friend as 
 he even departed from, not entered, the house of genuine 
 tribulation. On another occasion I remember to have 
 suddenly met him with his private secretary, which I often 
 
200 LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 
 
 did, as they were just coming out of the garden of a 
 patient. This patient had been long ill of a mortal 
 disease, and was at that time near death. The resigna- 
 tion of this lady and her saintly suffering had been long 
 noted, and spoken of, by Dr. Matheson. As I passed 
 into the garden walk, my friend, laying his hand on my 
 shoulders, assured me in a word that the serenity of the 
 summer sky was now in the lady's talk, for possibly, he 
 added, there was in her vision the rosy gates of some 
 Paradise. 
 
 It was on the last Saturday of August 1883, 
 just before the crowd of summer visitors had begun 
 to leave Innellan, that Dr. Matheson was invited to 
 meet the congregation in the Parish Church, to 
 receive at their hands a token of their esteem and 
 admiration of him personally, and of gratitude 
 for the help his books and sermons had given 
 them. 
 
 Mr WilHam Stevenson, Colinwood House, a 
 lifelong friend and admirer of Dr. Matheson, 
 presided, and, in making the presentation, said : 
 
 Dr. Matheson has now been fully fifteen years in 
 Innellan, having been ordained on 28th May 1868. Those 
 present know how the church had grown. I remember a 
 few years ago, when their minister was plain Mr. Matheson, 
 saying to him : Well, Mr. Matheson, I'll live to see the day 
 when the people will fill the passages. Dr. Matheson laughed 
 at me, but I leave those present to judge whether or not I 
 was a true prophet. 1 had taken a leading part in getting 
 the little church endowed and Innellan erected into a 
 parish. That was in 1873. Looking over old books and 
 papers, I find that at that time the ordinary collection 
 was very modest, and when it ascended to the munifi- 
 cent sum of a few shillings we were all surprised, and 
 rejoiced with an exceeding great joy. That was not long 
 ago. Now the ordinary collections average over six 
 
LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 201 
 
 pounds. To what was this due ? To what and to whom 
 but to the work and person of him in whose honour we 
 have met to-night. I do not need to speak to you of the 
 good works and words of Dr. Matheson. Dr. Matheson 
 is known over the length and breadth of the land, and our 
 Innellan is known and renowned as the place where lives 
 and works Dr. George Matheson, the Preacher, Theologian, 
 and Poet. 
 
 Dr. Matheson, replying on behalf of his sister, 
 who was associated with him in the gift, and him- 
 self, said : 
 
 It is with feelings of deep emotion that I rise this night 
 to thank you. I have to thank you, Mr. Stevenson, for 
 that energetic kindness which, after having been one of 
 my main supports since the inauguration of this parish, 
 has crowned itself in the initiation of a movement so 
 friendly and so disinterested ; and I have to thank you, 
 ladies and gentlemen, for the warm and generous co- 
 operation with which the movement has been seconded 
 and sustained. There are times in a man's life in which 
 he seems to stand on the summit of a Nebo, not to behold 
 a promised land in the future, but to survey the trodden 
 country of the past. Such a moment have you brought 
 to me. You have caused me to hear a rush of old 
 memories — the spiritual refrain of a ministry of fifteen 
 years. The costly and munificent gift which this night 
 you have presented to me is no mere piece of mechanism ; 
 it is a piece of mechanism with a heart in it — the united 
 hearts of a congregation. What you have really given me 
 is yourselves. You have given me your affection, your 
 sympathy, your interest, your responsive greeting, and I 
 feel that the labour of life is cheered, and that the work of 
 life is rewarded, in receiving the communion and fellowship 
 of so many kindred souls. 
 
 To me, in more senses than one, your gift measures 
 time. It takes me back to the days when I stood amongst 
 you an untried, inexperienced youth, not perhaps illiterate 
 as to what is called the lore of universities, but altogether 
 
202 LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 
 
 unread in that noblest of all studies — the book of human 
 nature. To you, ladies and gentlemen, am I indebted for 
 this crowning knowledge; it is I, this night, that should 
 be the donor and you who should be the receivers. It was 
 in union with your joys and sorrows, it was in sympathy 
 with your summer and winter hours, that I first learned 
 that greatest lesson of humanity — the need of man for 
 man. It was in the dawning of that new interest which 
 made your cares my responsibilities, that life itself woke 
 into reality, into solemnity, into joy. Need I say that the 
 chain you have woven round me is one that can never be 
 severed. No change of locality could sever it ; it no longer 
 belongs to any locality, it is a fact of the spirit. The 
 associations of our youth are like Tennyson's brook — Men 
 may come and men may go, but they keep on for ever. 
 Youth fades, times change, prophecies fail, forms of know- 
 ledge vanish away ; but the loves of our early years, the 
 friendships of our morning's glow, are photographed in our 
 hearts in beams that cannot die, and keep their fadeless 
 bloom when suns have set: such a remembrance will I 
 have of you. 
 
 Matheson's intellectual interests beofan about 
 this time to take a new direction, or, more correctly 
 speaking, to flow in a fresh channel. He had for 
 the time being exhausted all he had to say on the 
 great questions of speculative theology. He had 
 discussed religion from the point of view of 
 philosophy, and he now felt called upon to treat 
 it in relation to science. In his three important 
 works up to this date — Aids to the Study of 
 German Theology, Growth of the Spirit of 
 Christianity, and Natural Elements of Revealed 
 Theology — he had endeavoured to expound the 
 development of religion in its threefold aspects as 
 a necessary process in the mind of man, in its 
 
LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 203 
 
 visible manifestation in the Christian Church, and 
 as it had revealed itself on the larger plane of 
 universal experience. The recent trend of scientific 
 thought put a stop for the moment to his buoyant 
 flight, and brought him to the earth by the startling 
 question, What if the religious instinct itself be but 
 a mere dream, and human belief and man's specu- 
 lation on divine things be but empty shadows ? 
 The doctrine of evolution, which had now received 
 a twofold exposition, first by Darwin on its scientific, 
 and secondly by Herbert Spencer on its philo- 
 sophical side, appeared to hold the field, and to 
 confine man within the bonds of nature, and to 
 control him by inviolable laws. 
 
 Matheson, even previous to this date, showed 
 keen interest in scientific pursuits and discoveries. 
 His friend Dr. Sime, who had also a lively interest 
 in such matters, used to discuss them frequently 
 with him. He says : 
 
 He was deeply interested in scientific study. 
 Archaeology, anthropology, and prehistoric humanity 
 constituted a very frequent subject of thought and talk. 
 The worship of a mere boulder, or block of stone, so 
 characteristic of savages to this day, was of deep 
 significance to him, and an indication of the intrinsic 
 difference between man and beast. When man came, 
 wonder and worship came. " The prehistoric man," he 
 used to say, " did not bow down to worship the block of 
 stone any more than does the modern savage. That is a 
 weak, even an absurd, deduction of the good, well-meaning 
 missionaries. He knew that as a lonely, weird boulder it 
 stood on the moor or headland in his father's, his grand- 
 father's, and his great-grandfather's time; he knew that 
 it would stand there in his children's and his great- 
 
204 LAST YEARS AT IIS! NELL AN 
 
 grandchildren's time. Everything else passed away ; the 
 clouds, the leaves, the flowers, the beasts, men, everyone, 
 but the boulder remained. As a rugged symbol of the 
 permanent in the passing — for even to him there was 
 something enduring in the universe — it was his nearest 
 conception of God, it was the one permanent thing he 
 could see." Again, the revelations of Pasteur in respect 
 of micro-organisms and their influence on disease, his 
 opening up the new great field of bacteriology, like a new 
 avenue into the most secret arcana of nature, and likewise 
 Lister's godlike creation of the antiseptic treatment, filled 
 him with enthusiasm. Lord Kelvin's works and Huxley's, 
 Tyndall's, and Max Miiller's, were also often in his mind. 
 His interest in the greatest scientific questions was so 
 profound, and so materially did they influence him, that 
 in after years he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society 
 of Edinburgh. 
 
 Referring to the conversation that took place 
 between the late James Sime and Matheson, 
 on the evening already spoken of, the doctor 
 continues : 
 
 How much these two had to say to each other. 
 Agnosticism was discussed, and a good idea of Dr. 
 Matheson's talk on the subject may be had in the fine 
 article on " Agnosticism," which years afterwards he 
 wrote to The Scottish Review. My brother's account of 
 Lessing's Education of the Human Race thrilled the young 
 poet-preacher, for although the work was not unknown to 
 him, its significance in the thought of our own times came 
 upon him as a great revelation. Not that he was not 
 familiar with some of the works of Lessing, especially 
 with Laokoofi and Nathan the Wise^ the latter of 
 which he greatly esteemed as the radiant picture of a 
 calm, radiant soul. 
 
 " Why, this essay of Lessing you speak of," I remember 
 him saying, " I shall get it at once. It is grand, a poet's 
 precursor, the very dawn in purest, sweetest light of 
 Hegel's growth, and of Darwin's sublime evolution of life. 
 
LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 205 
 
 After all, education does not create any new faculty 
 or power, it only educes, brings to light and into action 
 what powers are there ; so perhaps it is with evolution." 
 It was suggested that for every new type of being in the 
 living kingdoms, that for every family or class in the 
 vegetable and the animal worlds, that for every rising in 
 the scale of life there was a new access of deity, and that 
 certainly there was this on the arrival of man in the 
 animal kingdom, and on the appearance of every man of 
 genius since. My brother liked the suggestion that 
 evolution began and still continues from above, not from 
 below, like spring from on high awakening the lilies of 
 the valley. " My dear fellow," said my friend, turning to 
 me, "the highest and most perfect access of deity, and 
 which can never be transcended — it is unique — is the 
 Christ of Galilee. You are right, evolution begins from 
 above, and the Christ is the transcendent beginning and 
 end of evolution." 
 
 The incident thus recorded must have taken 
 place in the early seventies, for it v^as before 
 Matheson had published anything. For the next 
 decade the ideas which began at that time to 
 germinate in his mind steadily grew and developed. 
 The balance of the serious thought of his day 
 towards evolution, and its relation to, and effects 
 upon, religious belief, naturally deepened his interest 
 in the subject. He had written no book of a 
 scientific nature in theology or philosophy since his 
 Baird Lecture, and during the five years that had 
 elapsed between it and his next important book. 
 Can the Old Faith Live with the New f he made a 
 profound study of the doctrine of evolution and its 
 bearings on religious belief. The first-fruits of this 
 study was the fine article on "Agnosticism," 
 referred to by Dr. Sime, which was published in 
 
206 LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 
 
 The Scottish Review in 1 883. But more striking and 
 significant was the address delivered by him at the 
 Pan-Presbyterian Council, which met at Belfast in 
 the beginning of June 1884. The subject chosen 
 by him for his address was the " Religious Bearings 
 of the Doctrine of Evolution." In it we have the 
 leading thought of all he ever afterwards wrote on 
 the subject. His delivery of the address made 
 a deep impression. As a token of its power and 
 eloquence certain of the Scottish newspapers did 
 it the honour of publishing It almost In full. No 
 similar tribute was paid to any of the other 
 speakers, though among them were Drs. Hodge 
 and Schaff, and other leading lights of the Presby- 
 terian Church. A correspondent thus describes 
 the occasion : 
 
 '' The most interesting appearance yet made by 
 any member of Council has been that of Dr. Mathe- 
 son of Innellan. Unable, from his affliction of total 
 blindness, to read the paper on Evolution which 
 stood in his name, Dr. Matheson asked and 
 obtained leave to expound the gist of It verbally ; 
 and for much more than the usually allotted time — 
 twenty minutes for each paper — he held the Council 
 in delio^hted attention to one of the most lucid and 
 eloquent philosophical expositions we ever heard. 
 Dr. Matheson sat down amidst a tempest of 
 applause, again and again renewed." The late 
 Professor Lee of Glasgow, who was present, 
 declared : " None of us will ever fororet the Intel- 
 lectual treat experienced in that admirable, and, In 
 
LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 207 
 
 many respects, wonderful address on Evolution, 
 delivered by a neighbour of my own, Dr. Matheson 
 of Innellan." And the late Professor Calderwood 
 expressed the unanimous feeling of the audience 
 when he said : *'The Council all feel that God has 
 closed your eyes only to open other eyes, which 
 have made you one of the guides of men. Your 
 speech to-day was a perfect guide to the Council." 
 
 Dr. Robertson Nicoll, who was present at 
 the meetings of the Council, and who was also a 
 fellow-guest with Matheson, gives the following 
 impressions : — 
 
 My first meeting with Dr. Matheson will always be 
 memorable to me. It was at the Pan-Presbyterian Council 
 in Belfast, held, I think, in the year 1884. We were the 
 guests of the late Rev. Dr. William Johnston and Mrs. 
 Johnston, and we had as fellow-guests the late Rev. Dr. 
 William Wright of the Bible Society and his wife. Our 
 host and hostess made a very notable couple. They had 
 no children, and they were at the head of the magnificent 
 orphan scheme carried on by the Presbyterian Church of 
 Ireland. By this every Presbyterian orphan child in 
 necessity is taken care of Dr. Johnston had also a very 
 large congregation, mostly of the working class, and was 
 particularly active as an ecclesiastical and philanthropic 
 leader. His wife, a lady of very marked ability, was his 
 right hand in everything. Never have I seen such days 
 of strenuous work, beginning when the post arrived with a 
 huge number of letters, and never closing till midnight. 
 It was an education to live with them. Dr. Matheson 
 came with a great reputation, and amply sustained it at 
 the Council. In the house he immediately became a 
 favourite with everyone. I shall never forget his hearty 
 interest in all that went on within and without. He 
 strenuously attended the meetings, and brought back the 
 most vivid impressions of them. What struck me most 
 
208 LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 
 
 was his keen sense of humour, and his delicate perception. 
 You were always forgetting that he was blind. He 
 seemed to know who were in the room and where they 
 were sitting. Mrs. Johnston was in delicate health, and 
 unable to attend the meetings of the Council, and Dr. 
 Matheson very thoughtfully and sedulously set himself to 
 tell her everything that had happened. We who were 
 privileged to listen saw how he had learned to compose 
 mentally. Every sentence he uttered might have been 
 printed. His criticism was often keen, but it was always 
 kindly. I had the privilege of accompanying him to 
 several of the meetings, and was amazed by the acuteness 
 with which he summarised and criticised the speeches. 
 One speech he disliked. It was made by an American 
 professor, and was a defence of verbal inspiration. Dr. 
 Matheson took exception to the confident tone of the pro- 
 fessor, and thought his arguments inadequate. The great 
 day of the Council was one on which an American, the 
 late Dr. G. P. Hays of Denver, was chairman. At first his 
 pronounced Americanism seemed to bode ill for a peaceful 
 day, but very soon he established an extraordinary 
 dominion over the audience, and poured out such a wealth 
 of wisdom and wit as to surprise and delight everyone. 
 Dr. Matheson was sitting next me, and at first expressed 
 his discomfort and dissatisfaction, but he was soon subdued, 
 and then he became radiant. I went home with him, and 
 for Mrs. Johnston's benefit he went through the story of 
 the day. His memory was truly marvellous, and his 
 power of imagination. I shall never forget the helpless 
 laughter to which we were all reduced by his reproductions 
 of Dr. Hays' racy anecdotes. Dr. Matheson himself laughed 
 more heartily than any of the rest. It was truly a good 
 evening. On another night he was intensely pleased with 
 a speech by Dr. Stalker in favour of a more ornate and 
 elaborate ritual in Presbyterian churches. It was a bold, 
 thing to make the speech, for at that time the Presbyterian 
 Church of Ireland was discussing with some keenness 
 the use of organs in public worship. Dr. Matheson was 
 heartily in sympathy with Dr. Stalker, and said that the 
 arrangement and expression of his speech could not have 
 
LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 209 
 
 been improved. He searched for an adjective to describe 
 the speech, and found rest at last in the word Aristotelian. 
 I had an opportunity of some private conversation on 
 theological questions with Dr. Matheson. He said that 
 he had been a strong Evangelical, and was so still, but that 
 he was now very decidedly in sympathy with Broad 
 Churchism. I do not think he went so far in that 
 direction as he supposed, for he spoke in warm praise of 
 Dr. Liddon's lectures, entitled Some Elements of Religion. 
 In particular he praised the lecture on Prayer. He left 
 the impression on my mind of a singularly noble, beautiful, 
 and unselfish personality. He did everything he could to 
 keep his blindness out of sight so that it might not weigh 
 on anyone's spirits, and he succeeded so well that it was 
 only on occasion that one became aware of how much he 
 was missing. His was a truly valiant and indeed heroic 
 spirit. I will only add that I had many occasions to 
 remark Dr. Matheson's great gratitude for trifling kind- 
 nesses — a gratitude which often seemed much in excess of 
 the occasion. He was able to do his work without praise, 
 but the friendship and recognition of his fellow-workers 
 was precious to him, and, staunchly attached as he was 
 to the principles of his own Church, his spirit was most 
 catholic and wise. 
 
 The address, which was afterwards published in 
 the Transactions of the Council, blunts the edge of 
 the evolutionist's attack, by declaring in its opening 
 sentences that the doctrine of evolution originated 
 in the Christian Church itself. The speaker points 
 in proof of this to the controversy that arose in the 
 first centuries between Creationists and Traduci- 
 anists ; the former holding that the soul of man came 
 into the world at birth by a separate act of creation, 
 the latter holding that the soul of each man was 
 derived at birth from the essence of the soul of his 
 parents, and that therefore all souls were originally 
 14 
 
210 LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 
 
 included in a single life — the primeval Adam. The 
 traducianist's view was clearly the very principle of 
 the modern doctrine of evolution, the reduction of 
 the many to the one, a view which the Church 
 maintained to be on the whole more orthodox than 
 the other. Having thus shown that the new idea 
 which the doctrine of evolution had introduced into 
 the thought of the day was in reality an old doctrine 
 of the Christian Church, he proceeds to discuss the 
 conception of force and its relation to matter, and 
 in a lucid piece of argumentation shows how the 
 belief in the Divine Spirit, which was of the essence 
 of the Christian faith, was a more intelligible view 
 of the genesis and development of nature and of life 
 than the inscrutable Force of the evolutionists. In 
 any case, that there was nothing in modern scientific 
 belief which could be regarded as contradictory to 
 the fundamental principles of the Christian religion ; 
 in fact, that these principles, worked out on evolu- 
 tionary lines, give a more rational view of the world 
 than the Spencerian philosophy. Matheson ac- 
 cordingly, while neither accepting nor rejecting 
 evolution as a fact scientifically proved, welcomed 
 the ideas which it embodied as aids to the study 
 and better understanding of the Christian religion. 
 
 In the following year, the spring of 1885, 
 Matheson published the most important of his 
 books hitherto. Can the Old Faith Live with the 
 New? or, the Problem of Evolution and Revelation. 
 I remember meeting him a month or two before 
 its appearance. He was in the most cheerful of 
 
LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 211 
 
 moods, and told me about his new book, which had 
 just been accepted by Blackwood. This was the 
 first occasion on which he had been brought into 
 business relations with the famous Edinbureh 
 house, and he felt not a little pleased at his work 
 being so readily accepted by it. He was full of the 
 subject, and I was deeply impressed by his attitude. 
 He struck me as a man who had achieved a 
 triumph, who had overcome some great difficulty, 
 and felt the increased power which his victory 
 
 gave. 
 
 Matheson's position in relation to the doctrine 
 of evolution as discussed in his book is very 
 characteristic. He does not commit himself to 
 it ; he expresses no opinion as to the validity 
 of the doctrine ; his sole object is to inquire. If 
 the doctrine be true, what then ? He differs in 
 this respect from two important books which he 
 declares stimulated his attempt ; that of Mr. Joseph 
 John Murphy on the Scientific Bases of Faith, and 
 that of Professor H. X^xwrviVixonA on Natural Law 
 in the Spiritual World. '* Both of these books," as 
 he remarks, ** are in their nature constructive ; their 
 aim is to build a faith on the acceptance of the 
 modern doctrine of evolution." He, on the other 
 hand, pronounces no opinion on the validity of the 
 doctrine ; his purpose is purely analytic. He places 
 evolution side by side with those doctrines of 
 revelation which seem to come into contact with it, 
 and seeks impartially to consider the question, How 
 the adoption of the former would affect our accept- 
 
212 LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 
 
 ance of the latter? In the opening chapters he 
 considers the scientific value of the religious senti- 
 ment in general. He felt compelled to do this, 
 seeing that natural evolution is supposed to involve 
 religious agnosticism. He accordingly discusses 
 the place for faith in the system of nature, whether 
 the object of faith is knowable, and the conditions 
 requisite to Divine knowledge. In the subsequent 
 chapters he treats of the special doctrines with 
 which evolution comes directly into touch, and 
 considers how, if at all, it affects them. These are 
 *' Creation," *' Special Creation," the " Divine Origin 
 of Life," ''Primitive Man," '' Providence," ''The 
 Second Adam," the *' Work of the Spirit," '' Divine 
 Communion," and " Immortality." 
 
 Matheson's book was opportune. It fell upon 
 a public ready to welcome it. The subject had 
 been gradually assuming large proportions, and the 
 faith of many was distressed. Darwin was being 
 out-Darwined, and many scientific men, without 
 the caution of the author of T^e Origin of 
 Species, were driving his ideas to extremes that 
 seemed dangerous to religious belief Apologists 
 of Christianity were taking their place in the field ; 
 and the press, the pulpit, and the platform rang 
 with the war-cries of the opposing schools of 
 thought. It was freely admitted at the time, and 
 it has never been denied since, that Matheson's 
 book was the most important contribution made to 
 the controversy up to the date of its publication. 
 And this was the opinion of both sides. Its 
 
LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 213 
 
 breadth of view, its freedom from dogmatism, its 
 cordial recognition of the position of the evolu- 
 tionist as well as of the religionist, its grasp of 
 fundamental principles, its intimate knowledge of 
 the points in dispute, its keen logic and its urbane 
 spirit, caused it to be welcomed by every party and 
 to secure a hearing in every quarter. Its value as 
 a contribution to the subject in dispute consisted in 
 the simple, yet far-reaching, fact, that even though 
 evolution, as rationalised in the philosophy of 
 Herbert Spencer, were accepted, it would not in 
 the slightest degree invalidate the doctrines of the 
 Christian religion, which it was supposed to 
 destroy. On the contrary, that these doctrines 
 shone more luminous in the light of the ideas 
 which the new age introduced, and became more 
 pregnant of Divine meaning because of them. 
 
 Matheson in this book, as in most of his other 
 writings, was true to his own spirit. His work in 
 the world was that of a great reconciler. He had 
 already in the sphere of theology done his part in 
 bringing into intelligible relationship the conflicting 
 creeds of mankind. He had now started on a new 
 enterprise, and aimed at bringing under one great 
 idea religious thought and scientific discovery. 
 Here we have the true Christian Theist ; and 
 Professor Flint in his article on " Theism," in 
 the Encyclopcedia Britannica, elaborates and con- 
 firms this position. The Christian idea of God is 
 flexible and comprehensive enough to find room 
 for truth, from whatever quarter it may come. 
 
214 LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 
 
 Every new fact is unintelligible until it is related to 
 this idea ; this idea itself is imperfect until its 
 content is enriched by every new fact. If evolution, 
 then, has made discoveries, why should the scientist 
 be arrogant or the Christian be afraid ? Matheson's 
 book was an answer to this question, and it con- 
 tributed not a little to that mutual understanding 
 between science and religion, the first-fruits of 
 which Matheson saw before he died. 
 
 The reception given to the book was hearty 
 in the extreme. Long reviews of it appeared 
 in the more important literary organs of opinion. 
 Objections here and there were taken to de- 
 tails, but the book as a whole was accepted as 
 of the first rank. Matheson's position was now 
 thoroughly established. He was only in his forty- 
 third year, and although he might attain fresh 
 triumphs, these could only add to a reputation 
 already great. 
 
 His name now began to be a familiar one in 
 the highest quarters. Among his admirers was 
 Lord Tennyson. He appreciated in his writings 
 profound thought set forth in picturesqueness of 
 phrase, and imaginative beauty balanced withal by 
 intense practicality. This union of qualities, usually 
 severed, commended his writings to the poet. An 
 interesting letter from the late Duke of Argyll to the 
 Rev. Dr. MacGregor of St Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, 
 bears on this point. It was written a year or two 
 after the publication of his book, Can the Old Faith 
 Live with the New? but it is more than likely 
 
LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 215 
 
 that it Is the volume referred to in the letter. One 
 may feel some surprise at the Duke being ignorant 
 of so near and so distinguished a neighbour of his 
 own, and one who had just written on a subject 
 with which he himself was so familiar. But even 
 so universal a man as the Duke could not be ex- 
 pected to know everyone and everything : 
 
 Argyll Lodge, Kensington, 
 August 3, il 
 
 I have been to see old Tennyson — soon to enter his 
 eightieth year — yet writing as beautifully as of yore. I found 
 that the Bishop of Ripon had lately been on a visit, and as 
 the poet is an omnivorous reader, he had recommended, 
 among other books, some by Dr. Matheson of Innellan, of 
 whom I had never heard before. I saw one of his books 
 on Tennyson's table, and his son told me it seemed a 
 strong book. Tell me all you know of Matheson, who I 
 hear is a friend of yours. 
 
 The final crown to his reputation was still to 
 come. It was the ambition of ministers of the 
 Established Church of Scotland, during the reign 
 of the late Queen Victoria, to be invited to Balmoral 
 to preach before Her Majesty. Ever since the day 
 when Dr. Norman Macleod and Principal Tulloch 
 won her confidence and esteem by their large- 
 heartedness and simple presentation of Christian 
 truth. Queen Victoria had a liking for the Church 
 of Scotland and its ministers. It was her custom 
 to summon to Balmoral duringf her residence 
 there the more noted of the clergy of the Estab- 
 lished Church, in order that they might conduct 
 the service in the Parish Church of Crathie on 
 
216 LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 
 
 the Sunday, or, should Her Majesty prefer it, in 
 the Castle itself. In most cases names were 
 submitted to the Queen for her approval, and by 
 her command the clergyman selected was invited to 
 appear. In rarer instances she suggested the name 
 herself, and this was the case with Dr. Matheson. 
 It was by her unsolicited royal command that he 
 preached before her at Balmoral. No one of her 
 subjects had passed through so many sorrows. 
 She bore the burden of a great Empire, she also 
 carried the weight of her own personal griefs. 
 Without the consolation of our Holy Faith she 
 would have been unable to bear up as bravely as 
 she did under the many trials that she was called 
 upon to endure, and it was with unfeigned gratitude 
 to the author that she welcomed those meditations 
 of Dr. Matheson's which had been placed in her 
 hand by the Bishop of Ripon, and in which she 
 found the consolation that her soul needed. It 
 was in October of 1885 that Dr. Matheson was 
 summoned to Balmoral, and in a letter to his friend 
 Mr. Stevenson he gives an interesting account of 
 the occasion : 
 
 Manse, Innellan, 
 October 2,1 i 1885. 
 
 My dear Stevenson, — My visit to Crathie has been 
 a tremendous success, though I write with considerable 
 reserve as I should much prefer to have stated the facts 
 orally. The Queen sent word after the sermon that she 
 was immensely delighted with the preaching and the 
 prayers, the word " immensely " being underlined. She 
 stated through Lady Ely, who gives her orders, that she 
 desired me to be presented to her and to the Royal Family 
 
LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 217 
 
 at a quarter-past ten in the evening, and that as I was 
 unable to see her with the eye she and the Royal Family 
 would shake hands with me. She has presented me with 
 a little bust of herself, and she has requested that the 
 sermon should be printed for private circulation and sent 
 to her that she may have the thought beside her. She 
 says that she never understood the subject before. She 
 requested that I would send her a letter in my own hand ; 
 this, however, I have declined to do. When I came into 
 the room she came forward, took my hand, saying, How I 
 admired your sermon, most beautiful and most interesting. 
 She asked all manner of questions regarding Innellan, its 
 situation, population, etc. I afterwards conversed in turn 
 with the Duke of Connaught, the Duchess of Connaught, 
 and the Princess Beatrice. These are all the facts which 
 I can put on paper, but they will serve to show you that I 
 have received an almost unprecedented distinction. I may 
 say that among the Royal Household there are many 
 applications for a copy of the sermon, which is now being 
 printed. — Believe me, yours very sincerely, 
 
 G. Matheson. 
 
 The sermon v^hich he preached on the occasion 
 v^as on *' The Patience of Job," from the v^ell-knov^n 
 text James v. 2. It is a most beautiful sermon, 
 and one on reading it can well understand how it 
 appealed so strongly to his Royal hearers. The 
 point of the discourse is the thought, fresh and 
 original, that the patience of Job consisted in his 
 endurance of the repeated and overwhelming 
 calamities that befell him, without asking, Why? 
 It was only when his would-be friends endeavoured 
 to trace the dealings of Providence, and to find the 
 motive of God's anger in Job's transgressions, that 
 he cried out. But the Patriarch's outburst, the 
 preacher declared, in place of being a denial was 
 
218 LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 
 
 only an additional proof of his patience, for It 
 was an outburst, not against his calamities or 
 against Him under whose hand they befell him, but 
 against those who set themselves as judges over 
 man and his Maker. This standing with an un- 
 covered head before the mystery of life and saying 
 nothing, this acceptance of suffering which could 
 not be explained without a murmur, this undying 
 faith in God in the midst of troubles whose source 
 and whose meaning were a mystery, was an 
 exhibition of patience which was once paralleled 
 only in the history of the world — In the death of 
 the Son of Man on Calvary. The Patriarch's 
 cry of "Though He slay me yet will I trust 
 in Him " was an anticipation of the Saviour's 
 prayer, ''If It be Thy will let this cup pass 
 from Me, yet not My will but Thine be done." 
 '* Stand, then, where Job stood," concluded the 
 preacher, 
 
 under the shadow of Gethsemane, side by side with 
 the Son of Man. Keep green thy love with His love. 
 For remember that, after all, the patience of Job is the 
 patience of hope. Wherever love is, there is no despair. 
 There is a withered peace, a stoic peace, a peace of autumn 
 leaves ; a peace where rustling ceases, not because the 
 winds have lost their power but because the life has lost 
 its sap. That is not the patience of hope ; it is the 
 patience of despair. But if love be there, — His love that 
 under the shadow could keep the heart undimmed, that 
 under the wintry sky could preserve the summer foliage 
 green, — then come what may, though cloud rise on cloud, 
 and night come down without a star, already above the 
 heights of Calvary there shall gleam the sunlit peaks of 
 Olivet, and beyond the vale of death shall shine the glory 
 
LAST YEARS AT INNELLAN 219 
 
 of the resurrection day. Love is the prophecy that the 
 night is not eternal, and he that Hstens to love amid the 
 cold hears already the song of the swallow that tells that 
 summer is nigh, for the patience of Job is the patience of 
 hope. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 A DEVOTED member of the Parish Church of 
 Innellan expressed the fear, when in 1883 Dr. 
 Matheson received a presentation from his con- 
 gregation, that it was fated he should not remain 
 long among them. As anticipations often arise 
 from contradictories, she said that this fear was 
 caused by Dr. Matheson's own words, when he 
 declared that he would continue for the remainder 
 of his life as their minister. He no doubt at the 
 time believed this. He had never sought a 
 change. He was contented and happy in his 
 work. He felt that the sphere in which Pro- 
 vidence had placed him was perhaps the one above 
 all others specially suited for him. He might have 
 been in an equally easy charge in some country 
 district, but he would have been without the 
 stimulus which came from the inroad of summer 
 visitors, who latterly were drawn from every part 
 of the United Kingdom. He was within easy 
 access of the social life and literary opportunities 
 
 of Glasgow, with its University and libraries. 
 
 220 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 221 
 
 Besides, he belonged to the West of Scotland, and 
 he felt thoroughly at home among Its people. In 
 a true sense he was prophet, priest, and king of his 
 parish, and he ruled by the spirit of sacrifice, which 
 formed the special note of his preaching and his 
 life. He toiled incessantly in the interests of his 
 congregation and of the larger public who enjoyed 
 his writings, and as he never went beyond his 
 province, so no one dreamed of invading his. His 
 life indeed at Innellan was one of pleasantness and 
 peace. 
 
 It cannot be said, however, that he had no 
 visions of a larger field on which he might play his 
 part. He had become conscious of his power and 
 his influence, and, having a message, he naturally 
 longed to have it delivered to those who, in their 
 turn, might spread it far and near. Had he been 
 an author only, he might have contented himself 
 with the platform which Innellan supplied. But 
 he was a man of action as well. He rejoiced in 
 coming into contact with other minds, in ex- 
 changing ideas, in discussing questions of far- 
 reaching interest, in seeing his views carried out 
 into practice ; above all, he was a born preacher, 
 whose chief joy was in communicating his 
 thoughts by the power of his eloquence to the 
 minds of men, and moving their hearts by his 
 fervid appeals. No one was more susceptible to 
 the influence of numbers. He could y^^/ a crowd, 
 and a large congregation drew from him his very 
 best. His childlike nature revelled in the play of 
 
222 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 thoughts and words which were rendered possible 
 by mingling with masses of people ; and it was 
 only in some great centre of population where the 
 whole man could find fit expression. 
 
 Those who knew him, therefore, were not 
 altogether surprised when they heard that he was 
 not unlikely to accept the call which was to be pre- 
 sented to him from a large Edinburgh congregation. 
 The movement was in some respects a surprise. 
 It came upon all who were concerned in it as a 
 thief in the night. Even those from whom it 
 issued had never meditated calling Dr. Matheson, 
 until by accident almost it was told them that he 
 might not altogether refuse their overtures. The 
 reason, probably, why so many congregations, to 
 whom Dr. Matheson would have made a most 
 acceptable minister, never thought of inviting him, 
 was simply because it never dawned upon them 
 that he would be willing to accept a call. They 
 had the impression that he was so contented at 
 Innellan that no inducement whatever could 
 tempt him to leave it. There was probably 
 another reason. They felt that his blindness would 
 be a hindrance to him in the discharge of the 
 pastoral duties of a large congregation. There 
 can be no doubt, however, that if he had been a 
 minister in the Church of England he would have 
 found his proper sphere long before. In the 
 Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian, there 
 are no posts for preachers. The minister of a 
 charge must undertake all its duties, of which 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 223 
 
 preaching is only one ; and though he should have 
 the eloquence of Chrysostom, if he fails in the 
 minor tasks he, in the opinion of some, has failed 
 altogether. In the Church of England Dr. 
 Matheson would have been appointed a Canon in 
 St. Paul's Cathedral, and at Lent or at Easter he 
 would have attracted great congregations. When 
 his term of service there had expired, he would 
 have retired to his country living, where he would 
 have written his books and prepared himself in 
 quietness for his next term of office. 
 
 There is one kind of congregation in the Church 
 of Scotland which, it seems to me, would have 
 suited Dr. Matheson. A suburban charge in 
 connection with which there would have been a 
 minimum of congregational and parochial work, 
 and centrally enough situated to command a large 
 body of hearers every Sunday, would have been a 
 fit sphere for him. I remember on one occasion 
 asking a leading member of such a church why it 
 was when a vacancy had occurred, the members 
 did not think of giving a call to Dr. Matheson. 
 He said, ''Would he have come.^^" I replied that 
 I thought he would. "Well," he exclaimed, "if 
 that had occurred to us we would only have been 
 too proud to have had him as our minister." But 
 it was ordered that his translation from Innellan 
 should be to a large congregation, in which the 
 demands upon him as a pastor were greater than 
 as a preacher. The sequel will show the wisdom 
 of the step which he was now meditating. It was 
 
224 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 a difficult choice. No one, however, should regret 
 that he made it. If it was put in his way by a 
 Higher Hand for the purpose of testing to the 
 very fullest his Christian heroism, George Mathe- 
 son did not fail. His spirit was ever willing. The 
 victory which he achieved over the circumstances 
 of his new lot can only be paralleled by his triumph 
 over the catastrophe of his early youth. His in- 
 domitable courage enabled him to prevail in both 
 instances, and he only yielded when his physical 
 frame was unable any longer to endure the strain. 
 
 There is a touch of romance about his call to 
 St. Bernard's, Edinburgh. The members of that 
 church had failed to elect a minister within the 
 period of six months, which the law of the Church 
 allowed. The right of appointment had fallen into 
 the hands of the Presbytery, but, as is usual in such 
 cases, the Presbytery was willing to receive sugges- 
 tions from the congregation as to whom they would 
 like to be elected to the charge. The convener of 
 the congregational committee was Dr. Currie, the 
 Rector of the Normal School in connection with the 
 Church of Scotland. It chanced that some seven 
 or eight years previously he had been on a visit to 
 Innellan, and on the Sunday he went to hear Dr. 
 Matheson. It was a winter's day, and fierce gusts 
 of wind were driving the rain against the windows 
 of the little kirk. Dr. Matheson preached to a 
 handful of worshippers. He was disappointed at 
 the meagre attendance, for the sermon which he 
 had prepared was a specially good one. There 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 225 
 
 was, however, one stranger in the congregation ; that 
 stranger was Dr. Currie, and the eloquent words of 
 the preacher made a deep impression upon him. 
 When, therefore, St. Bernard's people found them- 
 selves in their difficulty, the name of Dr. Matheson 
 at once occurred to the convener's mind. He 
 remembered his ability in the pulpit, he knew his 
 power as an author, and he felt that he was the 
 man of all others who should be appointed to 
 the charge. The following letter from Dr. Currie 
 to a member of the congregation tells how the 
 
 matter came about : — 
 
 Shandon Hydropathic, 
 January 26, 1886. 
 
 You may be interested to hear the sequel of our 
 proceedings, and the help you gave us in our earlier stages 
 fairly entitles you to know. I must say I have found the 
 business not a little anxious and engrossing. At the time 
 that I wrote you, we were making special inquiry about 
 three men, but a meteor came across our sky in the 
 person of a minister whom you will know very well by 
 name and reputation at any rate. I mean Dr. George 
 Matheson of Innellan. It came upon us as a sort of 
 revelation that he would be willing to change, and from 
 the moment that idea was seriously borne in upon us it 
 has carried us captive. Of course there were great 
 difficulties to be considered in respect to how a blind 
 clergyman could carry on our parish work. We have 
 faced these, and, with the information we have been able 
 to get of him, we resolved at our committee meeting that 
 night to recommend him to the congregation. He 
 preached among us on Sunday last, forenoon and after- 
 noon, and created an enthusiasm which will probably carry 
 him through the ordeal of a congregational election. 
 Personally, I go for him heart and soul, for the sake of 
 the young people of the church mainly, who cannot resist 
 his manly eloquence. I think he will be a power in an 
 
 15 
 
226 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 Edinburgh pulpit ; one of those men who appear at 
 intervals to shake up our dulness, and to compel the 
 attention of the listless and the cynic. It is no disparage- 
 ment to our other candidates, and I trust it will not 
 appear to them to be any, that the claims of such a man 
 should be preferred. Of course there is sometimes a slip 
 between the cup and the lip, but from what passed at our 
 long interview with him in Glasgow last week, and also 
 on Sunday last, I expect that our courtship will end in a 
 union. 
 
 The meeting of the congregation of St. 
 Bernard's, held for the purpose of hearing the 
 committees report, took place on the evening of 
 February 9, 1886, and resulted in a unanimous 
 call to Dr. Matheson. The convener, in moving 
 the adoption of the report, expressed the belief 
 that Dr. Matheson if appointed would keep St. 
 Bernard's as one of the high places of spiritual 
 teaching In the city ; and he moved that the 
 Presbytery be petitioned to appoint him to be their 
 minister. The die had now been cast, and the 
 usual formalities took place for the translation of 
 Dr. Matheson to his new charge. One of these 
 was the severlnor of the ties that bound him to his 
 church and congregation at Innellan. It was not 
 an easy matter for pastor and people to part with 
 each other ; they both felt the wrench deeply. 
 It was only three years since they had In a sense 
 renewed their union and exchanged gifts — tangible 
 tokens of affection on their part, words of the 
 profoundest gratitude on his. But the unexpected 
 had happened, and the hour had approached when 
 they must part. The congregation, however, were 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 227 
 
 determined to give a final proof of their admiration, 
 so one evening, the 13th of April, they gathered 
 in full numbers in the Parish Church, and presented 
 Dr. Matheson and his sister with handsome gifts. 
 Dr. Matheson, in acknowledging the presentation, 
 said : 
 
 This has been for me one of the most trying — I should 
 say the most trying — day in my life. I have had this day 
 to undergo the terrible process of being loosened from 
 my charge. I have been loosened from my charge this 
 day by the Presbytery of Dunoon, and now I am reminded 
 this night that I am being loosened from my church. 
 I told the Presbytery of Dunoon to-day that I had 
 experienced both their binding and loosening power. 
 I had experienced their power of binding nearly twenty 
 years ago, when they ordained me to this ministry ; and 
 I experienced their loosening power to-day, when they 
 gave me permission to go to Edinburgh. I told the 
 Presbytery, and I repeat it now, that the power of 
 loosening was the more terrible of the two. On my 
 ordination to this parish I felt great trepidation and 
 fear, but I feel infinitely more now at the time of my 
 being loosened from it; and you have revived in all its 
 force this sad feeling by giving us — my sister and myself— 
 this double presentation. You have reminded me by a 
 tangible token that no loosening power can ever unbind 
 those ties — those indelible ties — of affection that subsist 
 between us. I have to return you my most sincere thanks 
 for this handsome present. The timepiece will be much 
 prized by me, and it will always remind me of those 
 eighteen years I have spent among you. 
 
 Eighteen years ago I came to you as an old man, 
 but now I am leaving you as a young man. This may 
 seem a wondrous paradox, but I speak to you in the 
 language of the Spirit, not of the flesh. I came to you 
 in those days very much afraid, rankled in mind, perturbed, 
 and disturbed, for I knew not the way before me. I was 
 ignorant then how the duties of this parish ought to be 
 
228 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 performed; you have taught me. I have renewed my 
 youth ; I cannot express myself better than to say I 
 have grown younger. Do you know, I think the ultimate 
 glory of us all is to grow young. I owe to you a debt 
 of gratitude which I can never repay. On behalf of my 
 sister, I ask to be allowed to say that the work that 
 she has done for this place has been, from beginning 
 to end, a labour of love. I feel sure that the lessons 
 which, during these years, she has learned, must have 
 rekindled her youth and made her stronger to continue 
 the same work in the new sphere to which she is going. 
 In her name I thank you deeply and abundantly for 
 this warm token of your appreciation and your regard, and 
 I may say — what she would have said had she been per- 
 mitted to speak — that she will always cherish this gift 
 as a memorial of days which have been to her days of 
 pleasantness and of peace. 
 
 Dr. Matheson was inducted to his nev^ charge 
 on May 12, 1886, and on the following Sunday 
 he began his ministry of thirteen years in St. 
 Bernard's Parish Church, Edinburgh; one of the 
 richest and most brilliant ministries of which the 
 Church of Scotland bears record. He had now 
 found his true position, it might be thought, for 
 was he not the minister of one of the largest con- 
 gregations in the capital of Scotland ? Edinburgh 
 has always been regarded as the city of light and 
 leading in the northern half of the United Kingdom. 
 It was the home of the Scottish kings ; in it sat 
 the Parliament, and it still glories in its Law Courts. 
 Its historic memories are romantic ; it witnessed 
 some of the most stirring events in the national 
 history ; and from it issued the commands that 
 turned the course of affairs. Its very situation 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 229 
 
 is inspiring, and its picturesque beauty draws to 
 it visitors from every part of the world. Its 
 ecclesiastical and literary associations, especially 
 from the Reformation downwards, are notable. It 
 was the city of John Knox, of Principal Robertson, 
 and of Thomas Chalmers ; and also of David 
 Hume, Walter Scott, and Thomas Carlyle. 
 Hundreds of other names of lesser lustre illumin- 
 ate its history, and if there was one place more 
 than another in which a man of Matheson's genius 
 should find a fit sphere it ought surely to have 
 been Edinburgh. 
 
 There is no doubt but what he felt the 
 stimulatinof influences of his new surroundino-s. 
 He began his ministry in St. Bernard's in the 
 full vigour of a strong manhood. His bodily 
 strength was unimpaired, his natural force was 
 unabated. He was on the crest of his fame, and 
 he felt himself possessed of inexhaustible resources. 
 He was master of ancient and modern thought ; 
 he had breasted the waves of speculation ; he had 
 met and turned the edge of the most recent 
 attacks on what was fundamental in the Christian 
 Faith. His daily reading and profound study of 
 the Bible had given him a knowledge of its mean- 
 ing and spirit which enabled him to interpret it in 
 the light of the day, and to apply its riches to the 
 needs of the hour. His acquaintance with science 
 and with literature, ancient and modern, native 
 and foreign, made him a man of the broadest 
 culture; and his supreme intellectual ability, lit up 
 
230 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 by flashes of genius, gave him a commanding 
 position among the most capable and the most 
 learned. Add to these his rare oratorical gifts, 
 his charm of style, and above all his sincere, 
 warm-hearted nature, and we have surely a preacher 
 the like of whom it is not the fortune of every 
 generation or of every country to possess. 
 
 Edinburgh responded to the unique personality 
 that it now found in its midst. St. Bernard's 
 Church became full to overflowing, and Sunday 
 after Sunday Dr. Matheson poured forth a stream 
 of eloquence that delighted, charmed, and inspired 
 the large audiences that came to hear him. " Dr. 
 Matheson's fame as a preacher," writes one who 
 had the closest personal and official connection 
 with him in St. Bernard's, " was so great, that 
 every seat was occupied at the morning service, 
 and many found only standing room ; in fact, even 
 seat-holders had to attend punctually or run the 
 risk of being temporarily dispossessed of their 
 pews." But the most striking compliment to his 
 popularity and power was the character of his 
 hearers. " His audience," continues the same 
 friend, '* was a mixed one, drawn from all ranks 
 and classes of society : clergymen, leading members 
 of the Bar, University professors, scholars and 
 scientists, artisans and workmen ; and whilst he 
 himself never despised those occupying good 
 social positions, his democratic spirit seemed 
 intensely gratified by the fact that the common 
 people heard him gladly. Possessed of a well- 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 231 
 
 modulated and powerful voice, he readily gained 
 a favourable hearing from every audience ; and if 
 some of his propositions were startling on their 
 first statement, no one with an open mind left 
 without being convinced that every word was 
 proved." 
 
 His preaching had developed since the old 
 Innellan days. His own character had grown and 
 his nature had become enriched. In particular 
 his sense of humour and frank outspokenness had 
 become a leading trait both of his conversation and 
 of his preaching. He restrained himself in writing, 
 but when, on the spur of the moment, he had, in 
 the pulpit, to express his present thoughts, and 
 being so engrossed in his subject as to be altogether 
 unconcerned about what was held to be proper, 
 or respected as conventional, he frequently gave 
 utterance to what surprised many and startled not 
 a few. There were two classes of hearers who 
 found in Dr. Matheson's preaching the word that 
 their souls needed. These were the students of 
 Edinburgh, who attended his church in large 
 numbers, and those whose faith was distressed — 
 men who had given up attending church, and who 
 perchance had ceased to believe in God. It was 
 surely a Divine blessing to Edinburgh that it had 
 in its midst a preacher who could lay his restrain- 
 ing hand on both these classes, who could lead 
 the wayward thought of ingenuous youth into the 
 path of true knowledge, and guide the wandering 
 mind of the doubter into the way everlasting. I 
 
232 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 have received two contributions, one from each of 
 these classes. Let the student speak first. The 
 Rev. Sydney Smith, Parish Minister of Keith, who 
 attended the classes in Edinburgh University during 
 Matheson's ministry in St. Bernard's, writes as 
 follows : 
 
 To write of Dr. Matheson as a preacher is for me to 
 relive some almost ecstatic moments of my life. Again 
 and again as I heard him, it is but little exaggeration to 
 say that I seemed as it were caught up into the seventh 
 heaven, whether in the body or out of the body I could 
 hardly tell. It was often in a kind of bewilderment that 
 I left the church. The value of every ordinary sensation 
 was lowered, and I was alone with the great thoughts and 
 profound emotions which the preacher had stirred. 
 
 Sometimes the effect of the whole was pathetically 
 modified. One recalls little incidents, half touching, half 
 amusing, but to me more touching than amusing, drawing 
 one into tenderer sympathy with the preacher, heightening 
 the impression made in so far as they reminded one 
 forcibly of the victory which he had won in his own 
 life. 
 
 For youth, and especially youth as represented at the 
 universities, the preaching of Dr. Matheson had peculiar 
 charm. It was no uncommon thing, I remember, for a 
 student of any denomination on a Sunday morning or 
 afternoon to look up another student and suggest a visit 
 to St. Bernard's. Nor is it very hard to understand 
 wherein for the student-mind the attractiveness of Dr. 
 Matheson's sermons lay. His boldness of interpretation 
 would not be without appeal to the young man's sense 
 of the heroic. The student as a rule is little of a tradi- 
 tionalist, and the way in which Dr. Matheson was wont 
 to set aside time-honoured exegesis harmonised with the 
 radical or revolutionary strain in the student's nature. 
 " I have been through all the commentators " was a 
 sentence with which he regularly introduced his own 
 exposition. Then Dr. Matheson showed respect, even 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 233 
 
 though it might be only the respect of recognition, to 
 certain great names in the scientific and philosophic world. 
 " Herbert Spencer would call it the vibration of the ether ; 
 I would call it the heaving breast of God," is an inter- 
 jection which comes back to me. Sometimes he went 
 further. It was the annual sermon, if I remember aright, 
 of the Primitive Methodist Conference, which was being 
 held that year in Edinburgh. The place of meeting was 
 what is now the United Free Church Assembly Hall. 
 The preacher's text was, " Who are these that are arrayed 
 in white robes ? " He portrayed heaven as a vast concert 
 hall, and asked his audience to take a sweeping glance 
 over it. " Who are these in the centre, ' before the 
 throne'?" For answer he quoted part of the text — 
 " These are they," etc. " Who are these, and these, and 
 these ? " He replied by mentioning different classes of 
 Christians. Then he asked, " Who is that man at the 
 very back of the hall, the man with the pale thoughtful 
 face? That is Spinoza. He has only got an angle of 
 the truth, but he is working his way to the front, to the 
 centre." And from all parts of the hall there came cries 
 of " Hallelujah !" and " Help him. Lord ; help him. Lord." 
 Then Dr. Matheson delighted in the use of biological 
 terms to express facts of the spiritual world. Just as 
 Professor Drummond in his addresses to students used to 
 speak of sin as a microbe, so Dr. Matheson would describe 
 Peter's words, " Be it far from Thee, Lord," or the wish of 
 the multitude to make our Lord an earthly king, as 
 " attempts to arrest His development." Characteristic too 
 of the preacher, and attractive to the student because of 
 the contrast suggested to his daily fare, were the bold 
 metaphors, the illustrations drawn from present-day fiction, 
 the apparent spontaneity of much of the thinking, the 
 wealth and effortlessness of language, the delight of the 
 preacher in his self-expression, the constant element of 
 surprise, and the magnetic glow which pervaded the 
 whole. One of his daring and unusual figures comes back 
 to me as I write. The context I have forgotten, and I 
 cannot well explain the impression made, but I can 
 remember the emotion which quietly surged through the 
 
234 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 audience, causing them literally to sway from side to side 
 as they heard the words. The preacher was speaking of 
 Robert Burns. " They brought the bard up to Edinburgh," 
 he said, " and he wouldn't sing, and they had to take him 
 back again." 
 
 There is an impression abroad that Dr. Matheson's 
 preaching was to some extent deficient in qualities which 
 are supreme conditions of appeal — lucidity and ethical 
 force. So far from this being the case, almost every 
 sermon I heard was a branching system of thought, and 
 the preacher's emphasis on the sacrificial love of the 
 Cross and the glory of humanitarian service was felt by 
 many of us to be a strong moral influence in our lives. 
 Yet it is not difficult to understand how numbers of 
 people have thought otherwise. When one recalls how 
 often the unity of the sermon was more imaginative than 
 logical, how sometimes the discourse was formally little 
 more than the elaboration of a single figure, one can under- 
 stand how for many the sense of all objective truth or rela- 
 tion to the real world might be lost, the cord of interest 
 snapped, and the impression of the whole destroyed. 
 George Meredith has said somewhere that the English 
 mind does not take kindly to metaphor. It is even more 
 true one would think of the Scottish mind. 
 
 For the rest, while it may be maintained that Dr. 
 Matheson's analyses of Bible characters, for example, were 
 highly speculative, and the range within which many of 
 the truths he discovered appeared true was very limited, 
 yet if, as Professor Flint once said, the essence of the 
 Gospel is God's love to man, and if the supreme dynamic 
 is the answering love of the soul, there were few of Dr. 
 Matheson's sermons without an element of evangelical 
 and practical power. 
 
 The other, who had wandered from church to 
 church, as he himself records, in search of an abid- 
 ing place for his soul, chanced to alight at last on 
 St. Bernard's. He there found what he needed. 
 Matheson's voice appeased his fears, and his 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 235 
 
 presentation of Divine truth won the doubting 
 disciple for the Kingdom. The writer, the Rev. T. 
 R. Barnett, is now an honoured minister of the 
 Christian Church — 
 
 It must have been some time in the year 1890 that 
 I first began to attend the morning service at St. Bernard's 
 in Edinburgh. I was a most diligent and at the same 
 time a most unorthodox church-goer, and during these 
 years I must have visited most of the better known 
 churches in Edinburgh — Presbyterians of all denomina- 
 tions, Episcopalians High and Low, Roman Catholics and 
 Jesuits ; seeking sound doctrine in the first, music and 
 aesthetics in the second, and information at first hand 
 with a variety of sensations in the third. 
 
 But St. Bernard's saw me oftener than any other 
 church in the city. For here there was something 
 which drew me irresistibly back again and again. I now 
 know that it was the inspiration of the preacher's per- 
 sonality. How well I remember the long walk from 
 Merchiston to St. Bernard's on the clear, sharp winter 
 mornings, or on dismal, drippy days when even the rain 
 did not deter me ! And the expectations were never 
 disappointed. If the day was bright, the preacher used 
 the very sunshine to illustrate the Eternal Light ; if the 
 day was depressing, he used the gloom to illustrate the 
 clouds and darkness of experience, on which he always 
 managed, somehow, to pour a radiance of Divine Mercy. 
 
 Dr. Matheson's first prayer was often the finest part 
 of the service. And what a prayer it was ! A lifting 
 up of the heart and upraising of the spirit, a reaching out 
 after God, an outpouring of the soul, like the rapturous 
 song of the lark, mounting higher and higher into the 
 blue, to find in the limitless skies the satisfaction of its 
 whole nature. I confess that it was this first prayer that 
 often lifted us up into the Mystic Presence more than 
 any other part of the service. How difficult it was to 
 keep the eyes closed 1 There, upon the high pulpit, was 
 the blind poet, with uplifted hand, always reaching out 
 and up into his own illumined darkness, as if trying to 
 
236 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 catch something of the mystery of God and draw it down 
 to man. He carried us all up into the heights along with 
 him ; and he drew down, for the most commonplace of 
 us, something of the transfiguring blessing ; so that, often 
 before the rapture of aspiration was over, the eyes that 
 watched the blind, praying man in the pulpit had to view 
 him through a mist of unconscious tears. How many 
 of our preachers draw tears from the eyes of the wor- 
 shippers as they pray? Through this man's aspirations, 
 God laid His hand on the heart of us all. In other 
 churches we could get more sustained eloquence, more 
 elaborate theology, more orthodox statements of Christian 
 doctrine ; but in this poet-preacher there was the illuminat- 
 ing flash of a Divine imagination which revealed the 
 beauties of many a hidden truth ; there was an aspiration 
 and an inspiration and a spiritual glamour which created 
 an atmosphere of worship that infected us all with a 
 sense of God's very self There were three great facts of 
 Christian experience which, I can personally testify, Dr. 
 Matheson restated for us all. 
 
 The first was the great truth of Reconciliation. In 
 those anxious days the doctrine of Reconciliation seemed 
 often a very difficult and a very departmental doctrine to 
 accept. But Dr. Matheson changed all that for us. He 
 lifted a truth out of its provincial connection and showed 
 it in its universal bearing. He showed us life in the light 
 of the Eternal mercy, until God and man, man and man, 
 pain and joy, sorrow and mirth, light and gloom, were all 
 made one in the great mystic unity of God's Love. And 
 then he taught us to have the patience of faith to believe 
 in the Great End of God, when man would see, as by a 
 vision in retrospect, that all things had been working 
 together for good. 
 
 Then another great foundation fact of his preaching 
 was the perfection of man tJirougJi suffering. He shed 
 many a ray of light on the mystery of pain. He taught 
 us that God meant us to overcome the pains of life, not 
 by avoiding them, but by taking them to our hearts and 
 passing them through our souls. We were to conquer 
 all enemies by conquering all our enmity to them. We 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 237 
 
 were to look upon pain as a friend (disguised), to be 
 received, not as an enemy to be shunned. Man was 
 made by God to become perfect through sufferings, not 
 to be made perfectly free from sufferings. 
 
 And most of all, I think, he showed us a 7tew way of 
 Faith. I well remember that it was a blind man who 
 made me see, most vividly, that there is no contradiction 
 to Faith in Reason. Reason and Faith were twin-sisters, 
 only Faith was ever one step in advance of Reason, 
 whom she nevertheless held firmly by the hand. It is 
 with a distinct sigh of relief that the seeker after truth 
 finds, for the first time, that Faith has nothing to fear 
 from Reason. And this was a very favourite subject 
 with Dr. Matheson. Faith, to him, was that sense of the 
 soul which transcends Reason. It was the sense in man 
 which made him fly to God, as the lark flies to the 
 morning. 
 
 All this was Dr. Matheson's best gift to the distressed 
 in faith who came to hear him preach. He had been in 
 the depths himself; yet this man, who had fought his 
 doubt and conquered it, infected men with his magnificent 
 faith. He lifted them up to God. He taught them to 
 look upon the world as one vast unity in God's sight. 
 
 And yet it was not the least compliment which we 
 paid to him that we sometimes did not agree with him. 
 He was an erratic as well as an inspired preacher. Some- 
 times we smiled at his irresistible thrusts of humour, at 
 his extravagant flights of imagination, at his wayward 
 interpretation of Holy Scripture. But no one who possessed 
 in the very slightest degree the imaginative sense, would 
 ever have dreamed of misunderstanding him. He was, 
 above all things, suggestive. In those past days he was 
 to me a blessed star of guidance, and but for him many 
 of the deep truths of life, which it is now my duty to 
 preach to others, would have had less meaning to me, and 
 to them, if it had not been for those student days when 
 I sat in a pew at St. Bernard's. 
 
 On the eve of leaving Edinburgh for my first assistant- 
 ship in Glasgow, I sat down and wrote him a letter of 
 thanks, from my own heart to his. And while it is a 
 
238 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 deep privilege to be able to set down this small testimony 
 to one who opened the eyes of many an inquiring soul, 
 it is also with pleasure I add the letter which he wrote 
 in reply to mine — a letter which, at the time, sent me on 
 my way rejoicing, and which I have ever since kept as a 
 precious memento of one who was to me a light in the 
 darkness : 
 
 19 St. Bernard's Crescent, Edinburgh, 
 January 10, 1893. 
 
 My dear Sir, — You do not ask an answer and I know 
 you desire none, but I cannot forbear just dropping a 
 single line to tell you how deeply I am touched by your 
 singularly beautiful and manly letter. It is such a letter 
 as would atone to any minister for years of obloquy and 
 seasons of neglect, and any man who received it might 
 go to his grave with the proud and grateful consciousness 
 that his work had not been in vain. To light one torch 
 which itself is destined to be a torch to others, is as much 
 as any minister can desire. — With all the sympathy of a 
 kindred nature. 
 
 Believe me, my dear sir, yours very sincerely, 
 
 George Matheson. 
 
 Strangers on a visit to Edinburgh flocked in 
 large numbers to hear Dr. Matheson. American 
 tourists in particular made a point of attending St. 
 Bernard's. His books had been carried across the 
 Atlantic, and several of his devotional volumes v^^ere 
 greatly prized in the sister continent. Many of 
 these tourists v^ere clergymen of distinction, and 
 several of them contributed a sketch of the poet- 
 preacher to one or other of their magazines. The 
 following, by the Rev. Charles Parkhurst, gives the 
 best account I have seen of Dr. Matheson's appear- 
 ance and manner of preaching at this time. 
 ** Spending a Sunday in Edinburgh, our first 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 239 
 
 inquiry," he remarks, ''was for Dr. George 
 Matheson. 
 
 This was occasioned by the fact that his book, 
 Moments on the Mount, had fallen into our hands a year 
 ago. We were greatly charmed and helped by the book ; 
 it was so devout, original and fresh, in its exegesis. To 
 our inquiry. Who is Dr. Matheson? we could get no 
 answer. We could only learn that he preached at 
 Edinburgh. Great was our surprise to learn that he was 
 totally blind, and had been all his ministry. This excited 
 our curiosity and desire to hear him. At an early hour, 
 therefore, with unwonted curiosity and expectation, we 
 are in his church. Of the intelligent usher we make 
 many inquiries, which are cordially answered. Dr. 
 Matheson has been with them one year. The church 
 had taken on new life and activity in his pastorate. It 
 was with difficulty now that seats could be secured on 
 the Sabbath for those who pressed to hear him. He was 
 a most excellent pastor, spending the greater part of each 
 afternoon calling throughout his parish. 
 
 We are anxiously awaiting the coming of the preacher. 
 What a quaint church is this ! It is the old box-pew, 
 very poorly cushioned, and if the architect had planned 
 to make the seats as uncomfortable as possible, he could 
 not have succeeded better. There must be some unusual 
 attraction to bring people to such seats as these. We 
 should never come but once, unless the pulpit had so 
 much of intellectual and spiritual vitality as to make us 
 forget where we were. A high gallery runs clear round 
 the church. The bell has ceased to toll, but the people 
 are still coming, and we are compelled to sit closer 
 together to make room for those who desire seats. On 
 a greatly elevated position in front is a small pulpit, not 
 larger than a flour-barrel, with only room for one person. 
 Above it is a sounding-board, the like of which we have 
 once seen in America. Behold ! a rear door opens, and 
 in comes our long-looked-for preacher. Have we been a 
 long time in introducing him? Well, it seemed a long 
 time before he came ; perhaps because we were so anxious 
 
240 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 to see him. We have desired that you should be thus 
 anxious ; but he does not look as we had fancied. We 
 thought at first it could not be he, but an unfortunate 
 exchange ; but we are assured by the stranger at our side 
 that it is indeed Dr. Matheson. We confess to strong 
 likes and dislikes. We rather enjoy having our favourites 
 in the pulpit. We had created Dr. Matheson into such 
 a one. That he ? Why, we had cast his face into that of 
 the typical Scotch student, a Dr. M'Cosh in earlier years, 
 but he is not that at all. I should not look for him in the 
 pulpit, but on the farm. Forty-five years of age ? He looks 
 ten years older. He has the face and form of General 
 Grant when the hero of Vicksburg was most stout. Taller, 
 however, rather more muscular, yet he makes you think 
 most of the man the American people loved so much. 
 With full beard and natural open eye, you would have 
 not thought that he was blind had you not been so 
 informed. 
 
 He has a remarkable congregation in numbers, in an 
 indication of intelligence and spiritual sympathy and 
 anticipation ; but he does not know it. Can a blind man 
 preach with enthusiasm when he must lack the responsive 
 help and inspiration which the seeing eye could get from 
 such an unusual audience ? Are we to be disappointed ? 
 Have we expected too much ? We do not believe it. 
 The man who can write such a book must have it in him 
 to preach. Now he rises, his body swaying a little until 
 he gets his equilibrium. Announcing a psalm for alternate 
 reading, he takes his verses without the mistake of a word, 
 and throughout the whole service, calling for several hymns 
 and Scripture references with chapter and verse, he never 
 made an error. Of course it was all memorised. Then 
 he prays; and such a prayer! It seems profane to write 
 about it. Two things are evident, however : though his 
 visual sight is entirely eclipsed he does " see God," and he 
 does see into the souls of his hearers. Like a skilled 
 harper, he has touched every string of the human soul and 
 made it chime into the ear of God. In that prayer we 
 have been to the mount of worship, and we could go away 
 content even if we heard no more. It was wonderful the 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 241 
 
 way in which that blind preacher talked with God and 
 uttered the aspirations of the people. 
 
 In the afternoon of the same day we heard one of the 
 most scholarly of the faculty of the Presbyterian College 
 preach and pray, but it was all cold, inapt, unresponsive. 
 The thoroughness with which Dr. Matheson apprehended 
 the life of his people, their struggles, sorrows, defeats, 
 victories, and his almost superhuman sympathy with such 
 actual life, was the most remarkable characteristic of the 
 man. For forty minutes he preached on the text, " Holy 
 men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy 
 Ghost." Though we undertook to make a full abstract of 
 the sermon, and it lies before us, yet so faint diXid imperfect 
 is our negative of that discourse that we will not do this 
 great man, so little known as yet in America, the injustice 
 here to produce it. Such a sermon is never forgotten. 
 Much that we had often vaguely felt he expressed. It 
 was not metaphysical nor controversial. He never said 
 anything about different theories of inspiration. He just 
 showed how natural it was for God to reveal Himself in 
 His word, just as He has done, and how each personality 
 through which it came, like David, John, James, Paul, 
 retained his identity and his peculiarity. The whole range 
 of illustration in art, science, history, and in practical life, 
 was touched with the familiarity of the master in each 
 department. We were instructed, refreshed, inspired. 
 God has given that faithful man, with his studious habits, 
 his pastoral nurture and sympathy, an immense equivalent 
 for the loss of physical vision. Dr. Matheson is to become 
 a special favourite to tourists, who long to have the 
 Sabbaths come that they may hear instructive and 
 inspiring preaching. 
 
 Hearers of Dr. Matheson, as can be seen from 
 
 the impressions of his preaching just quoted, were 
 
 alv^ays struck by the originality, fervour, and 
 
 devoutness of his prayers. Most of his life, indeed, 
 
 v^as spent in close fellowship with the Father of 
 
 Spirits. Flis hours of solitude were seasons of 
 i6 
 
242 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 communion. He never felt himself to be alone, 
 and though he could not see the outward world he 
 peopled a world of his own with the spirits of just 
 men made perfect. All his meditations end with 
 a prayer, and so does each chapter of his Portrait 
 of Christ, and of his Representative Men and 
 Women of the Bible. Even his sermons were not 
 infrequently caught up by this spirit of adoration 
 into the seventh heavens, and it seemed to be the 
 most natural thing in the world, when he was 
 carried away on the wings of some Divine thought, 
 to find his eloquence culminating in a prayer. It 
 was in this form. Indeed, that he made his most 
 effective appeals. In place of bringing the truth 
 home to his hearers, as is the practice of most 
 preachers, he brought his hearers home to the 
 truth ; carried them up into a region of Divine 
 communion, and lifted their souls above the things 
 of time and of sense to those which are unseen 
 and eternal. Under the spell of his eloquence 
 they seemed to see their souls transfigured before 
 their very eyes. Like the disciples of old, on the 
 Mount of Transfiguration, the prayer of many 
 was, "It is good for us to be here ; let us make 
 tabernacles." 
 
 Several of his members, who thought that the 
 strain under which he was put, not only of preach- 
 ing but of giving out the psalms and hymns, of 
 reading and commenting upon the lessons, and 
 offering up the prayers as well, suggested to him 
 that he ought to relieve himself of a part of the 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 243 
 
 service and to ask his assistant to take the prayers. 
 They were not aware of the dangerous ground on 
 which they were treading. He would much rather 
 have given up the sermon than the prayers, for it 
 was in those moments of ecstatic communion that 
 he carried his hearers to the throne of ofrace. So 
 his reply to the well-meaning petitioners was both 
 pointed and characteristic. " Prayer," he said, 
 " never causes me an effort. When I pray I know 
 I am addressing the Deity, but, when I preach, the 
 devil may be among the congregation." 
 
 Another feature of his preaching, upon which 
 the majority of those who were in the habit of 
 hearing him are agreed, was his power of fusing 
 all theological dogmas into the glow of a spiritual 
 and moral presentation of Christian teaching and 
 truth. Indeed I would find in this the very 
 essence of Dr. Matheson's preaching. He taught 
 religion, and not any formal or scholastic aspect 
 of it. The Christ of history was to him the 
 Christ of experience. He was the Lamb slain 
 from the foundation of the world ; in Him was 
 realised the Divine ideal, and that ideal was the 
 goal towards which the human race was striving. 
 It was not an ideal of doctrine merely, nor of 
 history, nor of tradition, nor of churches, nor 
 of priests, nor of creeds, nor of confessions : 
 it was an ideal of thought, an ideal of life, an 
 ideal which was beneath, and above, and beyond 
 any possibility of the mind of man to determine 
 by mere symbols. We have, it may be said, in 
 
244 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 this conception of Christianity the views of a poet 
 rather than a theologian. So be it. ReHglon 
 is not theology. There is far more poetry than 
 dogmatics in the teaching of Christ ; and poets, 
 as we know, are our greatest teachers. Mathe- 
 son had been in the depths. He had found 
 how unsatisfactory all purely formal teaching is. 
 He had fought his way to the surface, and he 
 held the truth as he had found It, through spiritual 
 storm and stress, with a tenacity which no power 
 could break, and he presented it with an intellect- 
 ual conviction, and under an imaginative glow 
 which carried his hearers captive. Under such 
 preaching all differences of creeds and churches, 
 of faith and reason, of the natural and supernatural, 
 of the Here and the Hereafter, of the Divine and 
 human, of earth and heaven, vanished ; and listeners 
 were lifted into a sphere of Divine fellowship, and 
 their souls were wafted into regions of ineffable 
 bliss. 
 
 It may be interesting to hear how he impressed 
 one who was in close official connection with him. 
 The Rev. Marshall B. Lang, minister of Old 
 Meldrum, at one time an assistant to Dr. Matheson, 
 writes as follows : 
 
 In the pulpit Dr. Matheson was at his fullest and best. 
 Sunday after Sunday new treasures were presented to 
 his spell-bound hearers. Old texts shone out with fresh 
 meaning, and the common experiences of life became 
 glorified under the preacher's poetic imagination. The 
 best testimony to his preaching power that I ever received, 
 was from an old woman who once lived in a dungeon of a 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 245 
 
 house in Stockbridge, but who informed me that Dr. 
 Matheson's sermons had made it impossible for her to 
 Hve in such sordid surroundings. She was thereafter to 
 be found in one of the brightest top attics in a new street, 
 not far off. One effect of Dr. Matheson's preaching was 
 an increased sense of self-respect. He seldom dwelt on 
 the humiliation of sin, but frequently on the exalting 
 power of righteousness, and the magnetic influence of the 
 person of Christ on the human character. Not unfre- 
 quently did he allow humour to lighten and brighten his 
 discourses. Describing on one occasion the visit of people 
 in different perplexities to St. Paul, who was represented 
 as sitting in the study, ready to hear their grievances 
 and to answer questions, and after giving imaginary con- 
 versations between Paul and members of the Corinthian, 
 Ephesian, and Galatian Churches, the preacher suddenly 
 stopped, and represented on the pulpit what purported to 
 be a low knock at the door of the study. " Come in," was 
 twice called out before the door was timidly opened, and 
 there entered one who was described to the life, a man 
 tall, thin, nervous, and anxious in expression. " Oh, it is 
 teetotal Timothy," exclaimed the preacher, " come to ask 
 St. Paul if it would be right to take a little wine for his 
 stomach's sake." Such vivid imaginative delineations of 
 character were listened to with breathless interest, and in 
 these graphic portraitures lay much of the preacher's 
 power. 
 
 Often he commenced his sermon by telling his people 
 that he had had a new revelation on the text chosen. 
 Indeed, he told me on one occasion that he never got a 
 text without reasoning himself into the belief that it was 
 a distinct revelation and contained a message hitherto 
 undelivered. Whilst at the beginning of the sermon the 
 startling novelty of his interpretation was often apparent, 
 sometimes towards the close the listener would find him- 
 self gradually led into the old and accustomed way of 
 thought, and be surprised or disappointed according to 
 temperament. At other times the preacher's method — 
 and it was an artful method — was to throw as much doubt 
 and darkness upon the text as he could, evolving all the 
 
246 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 possible difficulties in its reception as truth, and then 
 suddenly to lift the text out of its darkness by proclaiming 
 the transparent truth contained therein. It seemed often 
 as if he inverted the natural way of approach, and led us 
 through a back door — with its dark passages, until we were 
 suddenly shown out at the front door in the full light of 
 day. No one who was a constant hearer can ever forget 
 the wholly characteristic habit he had of lifting his 
 arms when he "scored a point," or when a sudden 
 flash of humour surprised him in speech. On these 
 occasions the very eyes that were blind seemed full 
 of expression. As when he solved the riddle of the 
 name and number of the " Beast " in the Book of the 
 Revelation by declaring that its name was " Selfish- 
 ness" and its number "No. i," and when he defended 
 preachers who were "high" or "low" by affirming that 
 there was a worse than either, namely, the preacher who 
 was " thin." 
 
 Once when preaching in St. Bernard's he was graphic- 
 ally describing the approach of the Philistine army over 
 a distant hill. " What is that I see ? " he exclaimed, and 
 then depicted the appearance of the army as the sun 
 flashed upon their armaments. "What is that I hear?" 
 he further exclaimed, and to this question there came 
 a most unexpected response. The congregation had 
 been absolutely still in their contemplation of the beauti- 
 ful word-picture, but just as this question was asked one 
 of the audience in a far-off gallery gave a most un- 
 seemly and surprisingly loud sneeze. Whilst his audience 
 could hardly refrain from audible laughter, the preacher 
 was seen to be as keenly alive as any to the humour of 
 the incident, and for a while he withheld the answer until 
 the effect of the surprise had gone. 
 
 Mr. Lang's reference to Dr. Matheson's descrip- 
 tion of St. Paul in his study, solving the difficulties 
 of young inquirers like Timothy, v^as illustrated in 
 the preacher's experience. Many, especially young, 
 men came to him viith their religious doubts. He 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 247 
 
 thoroughly appreciated their position. His attitude 
 towards them was most encouraging and sym- 
 pathetic, for had he not passed through a similar 
 mental and spiritual trial himself? The Rev. Mr. 
 Drummond, now at Jedburgh, who, from being 
 at one time a member of Dr. Matheson's Bible- 
 class, came to be his colleague, bears witness to 
 the service rendered by Dr. Matheson in this con- 
 nection. He says : 
 
 The minister of St. Bernard's was much more than 
 a popular preacher — he was a teacher of religion. In- 
 quiring young men, puzzled by the problems of modern 
 thought, came asking difficult questions in Christology, 
 or about the relation between science and religion, or 
 some particular book in the Bible, or some difficult 
 doctrine of Christianity. Dr. Matheson always answered 
 at once, clearly and fully, as if he were giving a previously 
 considered opinion, or as if he had just risen from a fresh 
 study of the subject. 
 
 Let me now give a specimen of the way in 
 which Dr. Matheson prepared the skeletons from 
 which he preached his sermons. Here is one that 
 seems to have been a favourite with him. It is 
 headed "The Length and the Breadth," and might 
 have as a sub-title " Proportion of Character." The 
 text is taken from Rev. xxi. i6 : 
 
 The secret of all beauty is proportion. A feature may 
 be perfect in itself and yet incongruous ; hence Hawthorne 
 makes Donatello not quite Grecian. Distinguish contrast 
 from incongruity. Quote the lines, " Now upon Syria's 
 land of roses," etc. The union in these lines of summer 
 and winter is all right, but it would be all wrong if they 
 were transposed in geographical position. A child play- 
 ing on a grave is all right; but not a man. The most 
 
248 THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 
 
 hard thing is to get proportion of character. There are 
 Httlenesses in great men — for example, Elijah; and there 
 are greatnesses in little men, e.g., the miser at Innellan 
 who bore so well the fall of the City Bank. Three types 
 of irregularity. First, Men of isolated height, e.g., John. 
 They soar aloft and seek a higher world ; but they are 
 apt to ignore the claims of length — the walking along 
 the prosaic plain of practice, e.g., Samaria. Second, Men 
 of isolated length, or the walk along the plain, e.g., James. 
 It comprehends the young men who spend their whole life 
 in a routine of work, and never raise their eyes to justi- 
 fication by faith. Third, Men of isolated breadth, e.g., 
 the nameless young man in the Gospel who always 
 refused to do what he was desired to do. This type 
 rejoices in breadth for its own sake — because it is doing 
 a forbidden thing, e.g., skating on Sunday, or promenad- 
 ing in Waverley Market. But there is no beauty in 
 breadth for its own sake; it must be breadth for the 
 sake of height, i.e., not the desire to break a fence, but 
 to carry something across the field. 
 
 The city of God has these three elements of proportion. 
 Human life leads through each in turn. Its progress 
 is marked by the three words, " aloft," " along," " across." 
 We begin by seeking the height — a fairer world than ours. 
 Youth is the most dissatisfied period. By and by we 
 are stopped by some practical weakness in ourselves, and 
 we give up trying. Whatever the weakness is that stops 
 us becomes to us the only thing in the world to be 
 conquered. If it is drink, our gospel becomes teetotalism ; 
 if pride, we insist that everyone shall feel himself a poor 
 creature. We move along a narrow plank, and admit no 
 breadth beyond it. At last there comes a new revelation, 
 that our brother and we have not been impeded by the 
 same weakness, and we grow broad ; we move across, to 
 meet in sympathy his way of salvation. Christ's training 
 of the Twelve is directed to bring out one of the three 
 elements. Peter is too materialistic. He presses along 
 the road of practical action so keenly that he has length 
 without height or ideality. Christ takes him up to the 
 mount. Apply to those who are withdrawn from the 
 
THE EDINBURGH MINISTRY 249 
 
 world by illness. John has height or ideality, but he 
 wants practice or length of road. Christ sends him to 
 cast out devils ; God often interrupts our dreams by 
 sending us the need for hard work. Paul has both height 
 and practice, but at first he wants breadth, e.g., his attitude 
 towards circumcision. God sends him the thorn — a 
 difficulty in his own sphere of labour. Nothing broadens 
 us like trial in our strong-point. Christ includes all 
 three — heights of prayer, day of walking, work ; and 
 sympathy with aims distinct from His own, e.g., the man 
 who would not follow Him. Hence Christ unites the 
 guild of humanity. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 ** Dr. Matheson has now completed his visita- 
 tion of the congregation. Some no doubt have 
 been omitted, although the list has been made up 
 as carefully as possible. Dr. Matheson would be 
 very sorry to pass over any of his congregation, 
 and he would be obliged by any in the parish on 
 whom he has not called letting him know of the 
 omission." Such is the announcement on the first 
 page of the Parish Magazine of St. Bernard's for 
 December 1886. Dr. Matheson was inducted to 
 his charge on the 12th May of that year, so that 
 within the brief period of six months he had visited 
 every family in connection with his church. 
 
 To the layman, the fatigue and mental strain 
 involved in such an ordeal are quite unknown. 
 The congregation of St. Bernard's at this time 
 numbered close upon 1500 members. There were 
 in addition many seat-holders who were not in 
 communion with the congregation ; outsiders, who 
 identified themselves with the church solely on 
 account of Dr. Matheson's preaching. They also 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 251 
 
 were visited ; so that, altogether, the new minister 
 must have paid within the short period mentioned 
 not fewer than between five and six hundred calls. 
 And all this, be it remembered, in addition to visits 
 paid to the sick, to the aged, to the infirm, and to 
 the dying. Dr. Matheson at the same time was 
 preparing and preaching sermons of the rarest 
 quality, attending assiduously to the various 
 associations in connection with his church, and 
 discharging the numerous demands of a public 
 nature that were being made upon him. In 
 addition he was busy at work on important literary 
 ventures, writing articles for magazines, and keep- 
 ing himself fully abreast of the literature of the 
 day. No layman, I have remarked, can fully 
 appreciate what Is meant by a minister of Dr. 
 Matheson's temperament paying so many visits 
 within so limited a space of time. He was so 
 warm-hearted and full of sympathy that every new 
 person whom he met In his ministerial capacity 
 drew, so to speak, virtue out of him ; made a 
 demand upon his spiritual nature which was 
 bound to be exhausting. Indeed, I know as a fact 
 that the visits that he paid at this time made 
 a lasting impression upon his congregation. The 
 very expressions which he used were remembered 
 by them. He put himself so closely In touch, not 
 only with their particular circumstances, but even 
 with their special idiosyncrasies, that his words 
 were ever cherished. And he was blind. This son 
 of genius, whose true sphere, in the opinion of 
 
252 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 many, was the study on the week day and the 
 pulpit on the Sunday, divested himself, with the 
 utmost cheerfulness, of his favourite robe and 
 clothed himself with the garment of humility. He 
 descended to the depths of Stockbridge, visited 
 poor widows in sunken areas or climbed to highest 
 attics, and with his hearty, sympathetic words 
 cheered them in their loneliness and comforted them 
 in their sorrow. 
 
 No one ever heard of a minister with his full 
 power of vision and with the sturdy limbs of a 
 Goliath ever accomplishing a feat like this. The 
 vast majority of the clergy make no pretence to 
 genius. If they possessed it they might very 
 well say, '* Such laborious, physical toil can be 
 performed by men of lesser mark ; let us confine 
 ourselves to our God-appointed task of ministering 
 to the intellectual wants of our people on Sundays." 
 Matheson, at the time the one minister of genius 
 in the Church, thought otherwise. He did not 
 even make his blindness an excuse. He visited 
 the fatherless, and widows in their affliction, and 
 kept himself unspotted from the world. Some may 
 have thought that his teaching failed in practicality. 
 No one with a spark of his spirit ever believed that. 
 His teaching, especially during his St. Bernard's 
 ministry, was full of reality. Every sermon almost, 
 was an application of Christianity to common life ; 
 but, should there be any doubt, his labours during 
 his first six months at St. Bernard's ought to be a 
 sufficient answer. 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 253 
 
 " He was," writes the Session Clerk of St. 
 Bernard's, ''an indefatigable visitor " ; nor did this 
 feature of his ministry belong to his first year in 
 St. Bernard's only, it marked his ministry on to 
 the time he applied to the Presbytery for a 
 colleague. Dr. Matheson perhaps felt himself put 
 on his mettle. The great fear on the part of some 
 of the St. Bernard's people, with regard to his 
 appointment, was that he would be unable to 
 discharge the ordinary duties of a parish minister. 
 In the case of St. Bernard's these duties were not 
 ordinary but extraordinary. The church was 
 situated in the north-western part of Edinburgh ; 
 the parish included a large working-class element, 
 and in it was Stockbridge, a district bordering on 
 slumdom. The congregation was thus a mixed 
 one. There were a number of well-to-do-families, 
 representing the professional and mercantile classes ; 
 but the vast majority of the congregation were 
 of the artisan order, and under recent ministries 
 the church was worked on the " modern " system. 
 Organisations were multiplied, agencies were in- 
 creased, schemes were set on foot ; in fact, St. 
 Bernard's, when Dr. Matheson came to it, was 
 a very bee-hive of associations. What such a 
 church really required was a manager and not a 
 minister, a man of business faculty who could keep 
 the concern running, rather than a man of genius 
 who could supply ideas for the illumination of 
 conduct and of life. The spirit of the church was 
 mechanical rather than dynamical, and at the first 
 
254 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 blush Dr. Matheson was the last man in the world 
 
 who ought to have been appointed its minister. 
 
 Here is the calendar of the various meetings 
 
 of the different Associations in St. Bernard's for a 
 
 single week : 
 
 Forenoon and Afternoon Services, Children's Church, 
 Sunday Schools, and Class for Women and Girls on 
 Sunday ; Evening Work Party, Boys' Carving Class, 
 Girls' Club, and Literary Society on Monday ; Mothers' 
 Meeting and Sewing Class on Tuesday ; Boys' Brigade 
 on Wednesday ; Choir Practising on Thursday ; Savings 
 Bank and Boys' Brigade Reading Club on Saturday. In 
 addition to these there must not be omitted the Young 
 Men's Fellowship Meeting in the Session House on Sun- 
 day ; the Forenoon Work Party and the Bible Class in 
 the Session House on Wednesday ; and the Minister s 
 Class for Children in the church after Forenoon Service 
 on Sunday ; as well as the Parochial Coal Fund and the 
 Flower Mission. The services of the Lady Collectors are 
 well known. 
 
 Dr. Matheson achieved many triumphs in his 
 day, but the one which he obtained over the 
 difficulties that faced him in St. Bernard's seems 
 to me to have been his greatest. There are few 
 ministers in the Church who would lightly enter on 
 such a sphere. The chances of failure would, in 
 the vast majority of cases, far outweigh those of 
 success ; and yet Matheson succeeded. During 
 the first five years of his ministry his communion 
 roll steadily increased. In 1886 it was 1494; 
 in 1887, 1530 > i^ 1888, 1591 ; in 1889, 1676; 
 and in 1890, 1703. The revenue of the church 
 increased in similar proportions. I have before 
 me, as I write, notebook after notebook filled 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 255 
 
 with addresses, most carefully prepared, which 
 Dr. Matheson delivered to the different agencies 
 and organisations of the church. These include 
 lectures to the Sunday-School teachers ; addresses 
 to District Visitors, to the Young Men's Guild, to 
 the Young Women's Association, to the Boys' 
 Brigade, to the Literary Society, to the Prayer 
 Meeting, Mothers' Meeting, etc. etc. An ordinary 
 minister would have excused himself from making 
 any preparation for such gatherings. He would 
 have trusted to the spur of the moment. Not so 
 Dr. Matheson. Every address was as thoughtful 
 and as appropriate to the occasion as his greatest 
 sermons. A selection from them would make a 
 fascinating chapter in Homiletics, and would be 
 invaluable to the pastor whose chosen sphere was 
 the cure of souls. 
 
 There was one body in particular that received 
 the very best which he could give them ; that was 
 his Bible Class. It consisted of two divisions : 
 young men and young women, who met on 
 alternate weeks. There were two books which he 
 selected for his addresses, the Book of Genesis 
 and the Acts of the Apostles ; and he so prepared 
 himself for his work that his remarks upon each 
 chapter and verse might be published as most 
 luminous commentaries on t'icse two portions of 
 the Bible. His method cor.ibined criticism with 
 exposition. The text was elucidated, side lights 
 were thrown upon it from history and archaeology. 
 The customs of the times were brought in to shed 
 
256 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 further light upon it. Then followed his own fresh 
 interpretation, and its practical application to the 
 lives of the young men and young women who 
 were listening: to him. These lectures formed an 
 epoch in the lives of many who heard them. 
 
 A specimen of his Notes on Genesis and the 
 Acts of the Apostles may not be unwelcome. Let 
 me give his opening remarks, first on Genesis, and 
 then on the Acts : 
 
 Chap. i. ver. i. — Explain In what senses Genesis records 
 the beginning of things. "In the beginning" ; one book 
 goes farther back still (John i. i). Exhibit how each of the 
 Gospels progressively antedates Christ's genealogy. Give 
 the two different views regarding the words, " In the be- 
 ginning" — those of Hugh Miller and Chalmers. "In 
 the beginning God created"; His existence is assumed. 
 State the four words in which this chapter expresses 
 creation — (i) "Created," Gen. i. i, 21, 27; (2) "Made," 
 Gen. i. 7 ; (3) " Formed," Gen. ii. 7 ; (4) " Build," Gen. ii. 
 22. Catechism makes it creation out of nothing, but 
 nothing means no tiling. Compare Heb. xi. 3. Defend 
 the emanation view, illustrating by a candle lighted at a 
 fire. This is proved by the fact that everything is referred 
 to the breath or Spirit of God. " The heavens and the 
 earth " ; the heavens before the earth, true to science. 
 P.S. — Explain the different words for God. 
 
 The Acts of the Apostles, Chap. i. ver. i. — "The 
 former treatise." Analyse the preface of Luke's Gospel, 
 taking up the origin of the Gospels from oral tradition 
 and showing how the different parties in the Church would 
 each emphasise the facts bearing on their own tendency. 
 Show how the four Gospels are coloured by the parties of 
 James, Peter, Paul, and Apollos respectively, and describe 
 the evangelists by the figures in Ezekiel's vision — man, 
 lion, ox, and eagle. " O Theophilus " ; the " most ex- 
 cellent" in Luke is dropped through greater familiarity. 
 " Began to do and to teach." This, Luke's peculiar formula ; 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 25 7 
 
 he goes to the sources ; it means, " Did and taught from 
 the beginning." " To do and to teach." Matthew deals 
 chiefly in his teaching, Mark in his deeds, Luke in both. 
 
 This is how Dr. Matheson prepared himself 
 for his Addresses to Teachers. The following, one 
 of forty or so that I have counted, is based on 
 Psalm Ixxxi. vers, ii, 12, ''But My people would 
 not hearken to My voice ; and Israel would none 
 of Me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts' 
 lust : and they walked in their own counsels." 
 
 Child's greatest danger is self-will or love of inde- 
 pendence. Its origin is not love of self, for self-willed 
 people are generally discontented. It comes from 
 an intellectual error — the belief that independence 
 is manly. This again comes from a false notion, that all 
 the grand things in nature are self-acting. Teacher should 
 counteract that, should teach the child that there is no 
 such thing in nature as a thing hanging upon nothing. 
 When we come to man we do find cases of laudable 
 independence, i.e.^ people refusing to be a burden to anyone. 
 But teachers should point out that even in these cases we 
 only reach independence of one thing, by leaning on 
 another thing, e.g., independence of praise comes from 
 sense of duty ; fearlessness of man from fear of God. 
 Hence if a child should become independent of the bands 
 of conscience, verse 12 says it can only be by getting 
 entangled in other bands, " I gave them up unto their own 
 hearts' lust." Every paltering with conscience does 
 indeed loosen the bond, and teacher should scrupulously 
 watch the initial attempts to get this false freedom. 
 
 One of his most characteristic and thoughtful 
 addresses bears the followinor title : — 
 
 Address to "Cat and Dog" Home 
 
 Begin by Goethe's two stages : Christianity first 
 taught the reverence for inferior things — the reverence 
 17 
 
258 PASTORAL AND LITERATIY 
 
 for man as man, irrespective even of brotherhood. In 
 later times the reverence has gone down beneath even 
 humanity — to the animal world. Darwinism has preached 
 the gospel of a ground of sympathy between man and 
 beast. They have a perfect community of nature in the 
 possession of one thing — pain. All creation is sympathetic- 
 ally united in the sense of want, and whatever creates 
 my sympathy becomes thereby my creditor. 
 
 Here is a little sketch of the way in which he 
 moved among his parishioners. It relates to the 
 year 1893 ^^ 1^94^ after he had been seven or eight 
 years in St. Bernard's. It throws some light also 
 on his labours in other relations, upon the calls 
 made upon him in connection with baptismal, 
 marriage, and funeral services. These, in so large 
 a congregation, were numerous Indeed. It does not 
 refer to his work in connection with his young 
 communicants' classes. No minister ever under- 
 took that duty with a more serious consideration 
 of its importance than Dr. Matheson, and his 
 many addresses, also carefully and thoughtfully 
 prepared for these classes, are models of their kind. 
 Speaking of his parochial and congregational work, 
 the Rev. Mr. Lang, already quoted, says : 
 
 Dr. Matheson, while I was assistant to him in St. 
 Bernard's, certainly did not neglect these duties. Baptisms 
 were conducted in the church once a month, and frequently 
 in his own dining-room. He always used the same form 
 of service in baptism, a form of his own, but always the 
 same. In my day he also conducted the service at a 
 great many of the funerals. His prayer on such occasions 
 was most beautiful, and I only wish I could remember 
 it correctly. I recollect on one occasion, at the funeral of 
 a child, he used some such expressions as the following : — 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 259 
 
 " Sometimes Thou sendest Thine angel when the sun is \ 
 setting and the leaf is ready to fall. At other times, when 
 the sun is in its meridian and the flower is in fullest 
 bloom. But here Thine angel has plucked a tender bud, 
 ere even the sun had opened its petals, and we murmur 
 not, for in the sun of Thy love it has opened to the 
 perfect day." Such, but very imperfectly recorded, was 
 part of the prayer. In the visitation of the sick 
 he was always assiduous. One woman told me she 
 always felt better when she heard his footstep. His 
 cheerful, but wholly sympathetic, manner at the bedside 
 was sure to be a tonic. In his interesting prayer he used 
 to pray that to the sad and sick there might be given that 
 grandly irrational and wholly incomprehensible peace 
 which the world cannot give, much less take away. His 
 relation to children and his sermons to them were not the 
 least striking traits in his rich and many-sided character. 
 
 Matheson had not been long in St Bernard's 
 until a movement was set on foot for renovating 
 the church. He was to do for his new charge a 
 work somewhat similar to what he had done for 
 his old one. He was to raise a large sum of 
 money. At Innellan his object was to build a 
 manse and to endow and erect the church into a 
 parish ; at St. Bernard's his purpose was to bring 
 his church structurally up to date, to provide some 
 necessary accommodation, and to make the whole 
 building, with its appurtenances, suitable for the 
 service of God and the work of the congregation 
 and parish. A sum of two thousand pounds 
 was required, and within a year the money was 
 raised, the work done, and the church reopened. 
 This was in October 1888, after he had been 
 minister of St. Bernard's for a little more than two 
 
260 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 years. This effort, so quick and so successful, Is 
 a further proof of Matheson's capacity as a man 
 of business, and his keen Interest in the practical 
 side of church life. 
 
 Many who are familiar with him solely through 
 his Meditations may regard him as a recluse and 
 a dreamer, a student of the devout life, given to 
 Introspection. Others who have read his more 
 ambitious books, dealing with theological and 
 philosophical subjects, may hold him to have been 
 a man of rare speculative power, and some who 
 chanced to hear him preach once or twice In 
 their lifetime, may look up to him as a prophet, 
 who could read the soul of things and inspire 
 his hearers with lofty and beautiful ideals. But 
 very few of them perhaps ever believe him to 
 have been the rarest of all men — a practical Chris- 
 tian ; one who carried out in the daily routine 
 of duty the thoughts that he breathed, the beliefs 
 that he cherished, and the emotions which filled his 
 soul. It was only those who came Into personal 
 contact with him, who were aware of his multitu- 
 dinous labours on behalf of his congregation and 
 parish, of his indefatigable zeal In ministering to 
 the wants of all ages and classes, and Inspiring 
 the different associations and agencies In connection 
 with his church with a true conception of their 
 vocation and duty. True, he was a mystic, but he 
 was a practical mystic, of all men the most 
 irresistible ; a dreamer of dreams that he realised in 
 fact ; a seer of visions which he transformed Into 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 261 
 
 reality. Preaching at the reopening of his church, 
 he paid a generous tribute to his predecessors in 
 office, and proclaimed the Gospel of humanitarianism, 
 of practical Christianity, of religion in common life, 
 which was to those who knew him the main note 
 of his preaching and the foundation of his work and 
 life. "We have this day," he said, 
 
 reopened our "holy and beautiful house." It has not 
 been unclothed, but clothed upon. I am glad that it has 
 not been unclothed, glad the old memories still surround 
 the ancient walls. Sixty-and-five years has this church 
 been in existence, and its life has been a progress from 
 the streamlet to the sea. With that progress I myself 
 had little to do; other men have laboured, and I have 
 entered into their labours. I have been indebted to a 
 long line of illustrious predecessors — to the evangelical 
 fervour of Martin, the genuine ability of M'Farlane, the 
 energetic power of Caesar, the intellectual vigour of Brown, 
 the popular eloquence of Robertson, the literary fame of 
 Boyd, the profound spirituality and unblemished piety of 
 my immediate pre-runner, Mr. M'Murtrie. 
 
 But looking back on the labours of others, and speak- 
 ing purely from the standpoint of a spectator, I may be 
 allowed to feel proud. I may be allowed to congratulate 
 myself that I have been privileged to be the minister of 
 the congregation which has done so much for the cause of 
 humanitarian interests. No one can say that, originally, 
 the lines were cast to you in pleasant places. Around 
 you was the city, with its sins and sorrows — its sins of 
 deepest colour, its sorrows of darkest dye. Before you 
 were poverty, squalor, vice, personal failure, social corrup- 
 tion, human degeneracy. Over this trackless region you 
 have made a path, through which already the flowers 
 begin to peep. Your vast Sabbath Schools, your flourish- 
 ing Fellowships, your extensive classes for males and 
 females, your Clothing Club in which self-help has been 
 made to blend with benevolent help, your munificent 
 donations to church schemes ; above all, your power of 
 
262 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 personal visitation, have contributed to purify the air and 
 have left to the germs room to grow. 
 
 And now what should be our guerdon of this extended 
 building? More sacrifice, more work to do; that is what 
 you expect — you and I. We have opened wide our doors 
 that more of humanity may enter in. But if in the 
 language of the hymn we look for " many a labour, many 
 a sorrow, many a tear," we look also for that which shall wipe 
 away all tears from the eyes. We look for an increase 
 of that humanitarian love which is itself the love of 
 Christianity's divine Head, and in whose light and leading 
 we believe that the weight of the burden shall disappear. 
 It is this conviction which to-day emboldens us to con- 
 secrate our building to the Highest, and to say to the 
 Chief Corner-Stone of all its architecture — " Establish 
 Thou the work of our hands." 
 
 The amount and character of the work which 
 we have thus seen Dr. Matheson accomplished 
 on behalf of his congregation and parish, would be 
 sufficient to tax the energies of most men ; but when 
 we follow him into his study, and consider his 
 labours there for the wider public who knew him 
 mainly as an author, we are filled with genuine 
 astonishment. His literary output during the 
 thirteen years of his ministry in St. Bernard's was 
 equal in quantity to what he produced at Innellan. 
 It may not, however, have taxed him quite to the 
 same extent, for the subjects on which he wrote 
 demanded less research and less profound thinking. 
 It may be said, of course, that his choice in this 
 respect was natural because he had less leisure, 
 but this was not the whole reason, and it will 
 be afterwards shown that his departure from the 
 themes that attracted him in his Innellan days was 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 263 
 
 the result of a natural development. His mental 
 and spiritual growth drew him into new paths and 
 attracted him to fresh subjects. 
 
 One important change is noticeable : his con- 
 tributions to periodical literature during this time 
 are fewer in number, and they are on more 
 biblical themes. They are of a lighter vein, more 
 expository in character, and better adapted for the 
 general religious public. They are found, conse- 
 quently, In the pages of those magazines that are 
 meant for Sunday reading. We find him accord- 
 ingly writing for Good Words, The Homiletic 
 Magazine, The Quiver, The Expository Times, The 
 Christian World, and The Children s Guide, His 
 fame had now crossed the Atlantic, and contribu- 
 tions by him are solicited by such magazines as The 
 Biblical World published in Chicago, and by The 
 Sunday School Tiines of Philadelphia. All his 
 articles in these magazines are characterised by his 
 usual freshness of thought and finish of style, and 
 one of them on the '' Feminine Ideal of Christianity," 
 which appeared in The Biblical World, is of ex- 
 ceptional ability and Interest. 
 
 The very year after his induction to St. Bernard's 
 he published a new volume. The Psalmist and the 
 Scientist, or the Modern Value of the Religious 
 Sentiment. This was the aftermath of his im- 
 portant work. Can the Old Faith Live with the New? 
 It was a selection, so to speak, from the chips that 
 had collected in his workshop while he was engaged 
 on that striking volume. The subject continued to 
 
264 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 interest him during the remainder of his life, and 
 ten years afterwards he reverted to it in a volume 
 which he wrote, but never published, on Natural 
 Religion. The special subject of The Psalmist and 
 the Scientist he had already anticipated in a long 
 and thoughtful article which he wrote on '* Modern 
 Science and the Religious Instinct." The question 
 which he asked in that article was : '* Is the modern 
 doctrine of evolution unfavourable to the develop- 
 ment of the religious sentiment ? Does it tend 
 naturally to dwarf the growth of the primitive 
 instinct or to exert a chilling influence on the 
 warmth of early days ? " Conceding that there is 
 no incompatibility between the spirit of early faith 
 and the spirit of modern science, his article is an 
 attempt to answer these questions ; and, beginning 
 with the statement that the three elements which 
 constitute the natural basis of religion are a sense 
 of wonder, a sense of fear, and a sense of depend- 
 ence, he shows that on the principle of evolution 
 these three elements not only remain but are intensi- 
 fied and purified, broadened out and^strengthened to 
 such a degree, as to make them surer foundations of 
 religion. In another article, which he wrote about 
 the same time, on " Evolution in relation to 
 Miracles," which appeared in The Homiletic 
 Magazine, he touches on the same question, and 
 defining miracle in the Christian sense to be the 
 "initial stage of that process by which a lower law 
 is transcended by a higher law," he finds nothing in 
 evolution that would contradict it. It was thus his 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 265 
 
 habit to prepare himself for his more important 
 books by a series of articles or addresses ; he 
 threshed out the subject first of all in his own mind, 
 and looked at it from every standpoint. This 
 largely accounts for the clearness of thought and 
 sureness of step which characterised all his writing. 
 In his preface to The Psahnist and the Scientist, he 
 states the purpose of the book. He says : ''I 
 design to inquire whether the religious sentiment 
 of the past has been superannuated or rendered 
 obsolete by the modern conception of nature ? 
 I have expressed respectively these seemingly 
 opposite standpoints by the title, The Psalmist and 
 the Scientist. Science is confessedly the author of 
 the modern conception of nature ; the Book of 
 Psalms is admittedly the repository of the religious 
 sentiment in its largest and most comprehensive 
 form." 
 
 This may not be one of Dr. Matheson's greatest 
 books, but it has proved itself to have been one of 
 his most useful. It popularised the subject of his 
 former volume, illustrated its arguments in various 
 ways, and put material into the hands of preachers 
 which they were not slow to use. The ordinary 
 reader may not have been able to follow the reason- 
 ing of Can the Old Faith Live with the New ? but 
 in the newer volume the subject is brought down to 
 the level of every man who possesses a religious 
 sentiment, and the Book of Psalms, with which 
 every Christian is more or less familiar, is made the 
 starting-point and ground of the argument. The 
 
266 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 mind of the ordinary worshipper was, at the time 
 of the appearance of Dr. Matheson's book, sorely 
 distressed by the fear that the modern conception 
 of nature had made reHgion impossible. This was 
 the man that Dr. Matheson appealed to. In his 
 earlier book he deliberately chose for his audience 
 the thoughtful and the learned. In his later volume 
 he selected the wider public for his hearers. His 
 appeal to both was successful in the extreme. No 
 man of his day did more on behalf of true religion, 
 in relation to the danger that threatened it, than 
 Dr. Matheson. He enabled the religious public to 
 breathe freely once more, and he did this not by 
 stemming the new tide of thought, but by allowing 
 it to spread over the religious sentiment which 
 absorbed it. The writer, in this volume, discusses 
 such subjects as the *' Psalmist's Argument for 
 God"; his "View of the Origin of Life" and of 
 ''Human Insignificance" ; his ''Ground of Religious 
 Confidence " ; his " Principle of Survival and Con- 
 servation." He shows how, when the sentiments 
 of the religious consciousness come into contact with 
 the views of evolution on the same subjects, there 
 is no real conflict ; the older truth is simply 
 widened and deepened by the impartatlon of the 
 new. The success of the volume was immediate 
 and deserved. 
 
 In 1888 he published two new volumes. Land- 
 marks of New Testa77ient Morality, and Voices of 
 the Spirit ; the latter, a devotional volume, has 
 already been referred to. Shortly after he came to 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 267 
 
 Edinbureh, Dr. Matheson had been asked to 
 deliver a lecture to the Church of Scotland Young 
 Men's Guild ; the first of a series by distinguished 
 preachers. He chose as his subject, '' The Relation 
 of Christian to pre-Christian Morality," and this 
 forms the title of the first chapter of his new book. 
 In his preface he declares his aim to have been to 
 compress into a few connected chapters what seemed 
 to him to be the distinctive and salient principles of 
 New Testament morality. The book formed one 
 of Nisbefs Theological Library, and in it such 
 subjects as the '' Motives of Christian Morality," 
 the ''Christian View of Sin," the ''Moral Place of 
 Faith," the " Moral Place of Prayer" are discussed. 
 The volume is full of vigorous thought, and contains 
 some of Dr. Matheson's most characteristic teaching. 
 As a chapter in the important subject of Christian 
 Ethics, treating it in its fundamental aspects, it 
 was timely in its appearance, and is still of value. 
 
 Two years afterwards Dr. Matheson gathered 
 together and published in volume form a selection 
 from the hymns that he had been writing at irregular 
 intervals from his early manhood, and published 
 them under the title of Sacred Songs ; and about 
 the same time, in 1890, there appeared what many 
 regard as his most important book. The Spiritual 
 Development of St. Paul. If one can judge of its 
 value from its popularity it was certainly the most 
 successful of all his serious efforts. It has had a 
 larger sale than any of his other books, with the 
 exception of his devotional volumes and his later 
 
268 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 publications, such as Studies of the Portrait 
 of Christ, and The Representative Men of the Bible. 
 The Apostle Paul would seem to have had a 
 wonderful fascination for Dr. Matheson. Some 
 of his earliest articles in The Expositor have him as 
 their subject. In twelve successive issues of that 
 magazine there appeared from his pen contributions 
 on the " Historical Christ of St. Paul," and subse- 
 quently, at frequent intervals, he wrote on various 
 themes suggested by the writings of the great 
 apostle. Wherein, one may ask, consisted the 
 charm of Paul for Dr. Matheson .^ An answer 
 might be found in the fact that between the two 
 there must have been a close intellectual and 
 spiritual sympathy. They were both eager spirits, 
 full of enthusiasm for the highest things, and carried 
 along by a passion of thought which nothing could 
 stay. They had both a tender and chivalrous love 
 for their Master, and they had penetrated to the 
 secret of His life as few have done in ancient or 
 modern times. Each was dissatisfied until he made 
 clear to himself the ground of his belief, and had 
 made that belief a living reality in his own soul and 
 in the souls of others. Even in their style of 
 writing, or at all events of thinking, there is a 
 strong similarity. The Aposde to the Gentiles 
 certainly did not aim at that finish of style which 
 characterised his modern admirer, but in their love 
 of paradox they are both alike. They saw at a 
 glance, they photographed in their minds an idea 
 or a truth, and they cast It forth In what seemed to 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 269 
 
 be an inverted form, which at once caught the eye 
 and riveted the attention, and only on reflection 
 could the beholder perceive its meaning and 
 appreciate its true significance. In dealing with 
 the characters of the Old and New Testaments, 
 even with those which had caught most of the spirit 
 of Christ, Dr. Matheson shows no hesitation in 
 pointing out their limitations. They are at best but 
 broken lights of the great Sun that they reflected ; 
 but in dealing with Paul he manifests a whole- 
 hearted admiration, and if he points out defects or 
 failures it is only because the great apostle had 
 not as yet attained to his full development. These 
 defects or failures simply mark stages in his spiritual 
 growth, steps in his religious advancement. The 
 life at the close is full, rounded, and completed, the 
 brightest and most precious gem in the crown of 
 Christian discipleship. 
 
 Now, it seems to me that there is one feature 
 common to the Apostle Paul and to Dr. Matheson 
 in which the latter found a special bond of union : 
 each had a thorn in the flesh, and in both cases 
 the thorn was the same. According to certain critics, 
 of whom Dr. Matheson was one, Paul was a martyr 
 to defective eyesight ; and the chronicler of his 
 spiritual development was blind. On no occasion 
 does Dr. Matheson refer to this bond of union. Of 
 all men he was the most reticent with regard to 
 his own afflictions, and so far as his great affliction 
 was concerned he was, for the most part, absolutely 
 silent. He never bemoaned his fate ; he made no 
 
270 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 parade of his calamity, nor did he even show any- 
 natural pride in the triumph which he won over 
 it. Paul was almost as reticent, but now and again 
 he had to speak out, because in his case the thorn 
 in the flesh was made a cause of reproach, and this 
 reproach he in the end was able to turn to the 
 glory of God and his own spiritual advancement. 
 It is well for us that he did give indications of what 
 he suffered, and of the experiences which he passed 
 through, before he attained his final victory ; and 
 the great and permanent value of Dr. Matheson's 
 book lies in the fact that he makes this thorn in 
 the flesh the oruiding^ element in tracinsr Paul's 
 spiritual development. The outward affliction and 
 the inward experience, the physical defect and the 
 spiritual sufferings, would seem to go hand in hand. 
 The one reacts upon the other, and together they 
 account for the development of Paul's inner life 
 and of his religious views. 
 
 A book that has taken so strong a hold on 
 the public mind, and one possessing so many 
 exceptional qualities, ought to receive a fuller 
 notice than I intend, in this connection, to give 
 it. My reason is that in an article which Dr. 
 Matheson wrote, seven years afterwards, to a 
 volume issued by Dr. Lyman Abbott, of New 
 York, on The Prophets of the Christian Faith, 
 he gives a resume of his book on St. Paul which 
 for fulness and brilliance of treatment far exceeds 
 what any other might accomplish. In that sketch, 
 extending to twelve pages only, he gives the gist 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 271 
 
 of the. larger volume, and anyone who wishes to 
 know, at a glance, his mind on the subject will find 
 it there. But one thing he does not do ; he does 
 not trace the close resemblance between Paul's 
 spiritual development and his own. It is quite 
 possible, of course, that in writing his book he 
 was altogether unconscious of that resemblance ; 
 but the very fact that, according to his own con- 
 fession, he lingered over the composition of the 
 volume, spending two years on its writing and 
 many more on its thinking, that of all his books 
 it bears the most traces of loving care, patient 
 treatment, and sympathetic handling, show that the 
 subject had a fascination for him which cannot be 
 explained on literary or theological grounds merely ; 
 it can only be accounted for on reasons that were 
 personal. 
 
 Dr. Matheson points out, to begin with, that 
 Paul's first conception of Christianity was absolutely 
 different from that of the other apostles. His first 
 vision of Christ was in the air ; theirs on the earth. 
 He knew Him, at the start, in His resurrection 
 glory ; they as the Man of Galilee. His first 
 glimpse was of His divinity ; theirs of His humanity. 
 The writer then goes on, in a series of chapters 
 bristling with suggestive thoughts and full of the 
 subtlest yet conclusive reasoning, to show how 
 the development of Paul's spiritual life was a 
 descent, a coming down from heaven to earth, 
 from the divine to the human, from the conception 
 of a glorified Christ to a Saviour of the world. In 
 
272 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 pursuance of his argument Dr. Matheson shows 
 how, according to Paul, Christ is the Head of the 
 universe, of the state, of society, and of the family ; 
 not only coming into touch with, but sanctifying, 
 the commonest duties and things of life. His flight 
 is towards the gospel of humanitarianism, of saving 
 the world by being its servant, of redeeming man 
 by ministering to him, of gaining the crown by 
 bearing the cross. The resurrection Christ of 
 Paul's completed journey is the Christ of sight 
 who has passed into that of faith, who again has 
 passed from that of faith to that of love, and from 
 that of love to that of hope. Hope for the in- 
 dividual, hope for the family, hope for society, hope 
 for the state, hope for the world, hope for the 
 universe. Christ is the Head of all. *'In Him 
 all are gathered together," and this gathering in 
 has taken place through Christ's emptying of 
 Himself, through taking upon Himself the form 
 of a servant, and becoming obedient unto death, 
 even the death on the Cross. 
 
 Now, a close follower of Dr. Matheson's career 
 as a preacher and a writer is bound to find in it 
 the counterpart of the development which he traces 
 in the life of the Apostle Paul. He too began with 
 the worship of a glorified Christ. Reflecting on 
 the sermons which, during his early ministry, he 
 preached at Innellan, and those which crown his 
 later life, one is conscious of a progress which, 
 in its own sphere and on its own lines, is similar 
 to that through which the great Apostle of the 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 273 
 
 Gentiles passed. Early hearers of Dr. Matheson 
 were carried up into the seventh heaven by his 
 flashes of thought, by his spiritual aspirations, by 
 his imaginative flights. But not infrequently they 
 were left there. In his sermons there may have 
 been that lack of reality, of food for common life, 
 which characterised the early preaching of the 
 Apostle Paul. But, as the years advanced, the 
 thought, without losing its strength or buoyancy, 
 became more sober. It grew more into touch with 
 the experiences of men. The preacher descended 
 to the earth and took up its common sights and 
 sounds, put himself into sympathy with the ordinary 
 lot of human existence ; nay, he did more, he 
 showed a tender concern for the sorrows and 
 sufferings of men, and brought the gospel of Divine 
 love to bear, with its redeeming grace, upon the 
 calamities of existence, and showed how the love 
 of the Father as revealed in the death of the Son 
 transformed the experiences of His children and 
 made them the means of spiritual advancement and 
 religious growth. In other words, the Gospel of 
 Dr. Matheson became more humanitarian, and 
 showed how the Cross of Christ sanctified and 
 glorified human existence. A similar develop- 
 ment can be seen in Dr. Matheson as an 
 author. His earliest books and articles deal 
 with subjects which are purely theological and 
 philosophical. They are themes that are, so to 
 speak, in the air ; they interest the mind of man, 
 and at first sight they do not seem to have much 
 i8 
 
274 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 relation to or influence on his life. But as the 
 years advanced new subjects present themselves. 
 They are in a sense more real, more human, 
 more personal. *' The Growth of the Spirit of 
 Christianity" gives place to ''The Spiritual Develop- 
 ment of St. Paul," '' The Natural Elements of 
 Revealed Theology" to **The Portrait of Christ" 
 and ''The Men and Women of the Bible," 
 religion to theology, and religion as a spiritual 
 development to its practical expression in the 
 life of man. 
 
 But what I regard as the personal note in the 
 book is by far the most interesting and suggestive. 
 The opening chapters deal at considerable length 
 with Paul's special affliction, which he indirectly 
 refers to as a "thorn in the flesh." Dr. Matheson 
 is at particular pains to show, by a process of very 
 careful and thorough exegesis, what this particular 
 affliction may have been, and he comes to the 
 conclusion that it was defective eyesight. In this 
 is to be found Paul's thorn in the flesh. A number 
 of the reviewers disputed this conclusion, but none of 
 them did so in more than a doubting way. For us, 
 however, the suggestive point is that Dr. Matheson 
 held this opinion. For us the luminous fact is not 
 the conclusion which Dr. Matheson came to, but 
 the manner in which he uses it to interpret the 
 spiritual development of the apostle. Taking his 
 stand on the apostle's confession that he " besought 
 the Lord thrice " to deliver him from his calamity, 
 the author searches for the occasions in the life of 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 275 
 
 Paul when this prayer was uttered. Each, he 
 believes, marks a crisis in the spiritual growth of 
 the apostle, and if one can lay his hand on the 
 particular moment when the cry for relief was 
 uttered, he can also discover the stage in his 
 development which Paul had reached. The theo- 
 logical views of the apostle, his interpretation 
 of Christianity, and his own relation to it as an 
 individual, will be found to synchronise with each 
 particular cry. 
 
 The first step, accordingly, in Paul's spiritual 
 struggle Dr. Matheson would see in the apostle's 
 glorification of the flesh, in his belief, inherited 
 from his Jewish training, that the servant of the 
 Divine must be flawless, not only in spirit but also 
 in body. Paul had been taught to believe that a 
 physical defect was a mark of the Divine anger, 
 and how could he, with his impaired organ of 
 vision, hope to be an accredited missionary to the 
 Gentiles. Paul's solution of this difficulty Dr. 
 Matheson would find in the note which he struck 
 in his earliest preaching. The apostle at this stage 
 shared the belief that the Lord was at hand. The 
 troubles of the present time would soon be over ; 
 the millennium was near, and by the glory which 
 was about to be revealed to waiting souls the 
 sufferings of life would be obliterated. The soul 
 of the believer would be caught up into the heavens, 
 and the bodily sufferings of earth would give place 
 to transports of eternal joy. 
 
 The second stage in the struggle Dr. Matheson 
 
276 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 would see in Paul's hatred of the flesh, in the 
 warfare which he waged against it during the 
 period of his Galatian ministry. If his Epistles 
 to the Thessalonians afford a key to his attitude in 
 the first, his Epistle to the Galatians reveals the 
 staee which he had reached in his second 
 struggle. The vision of the resurrection Christ 
 was beginning to fade ; the speedy deliverance 
 which he had hoped for was not to be his ; the 
 battle of life must be fought to a finish ; his thorn 
 in the flesh must still be endured. Well then, said 
 the apostle, let me endure. If the flesh lusteth 
 against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, 
 let me trample the flesh under foot ; let me keep 
 my body under ; let me '' beat it black and blue." 
 My prayer is not to be answered as I expected ; 
 my defective eyesight is not to be improved ; well 
 then, let my prayer be answered in another way. 
 I shall endeavour to forget my thorn ; I shall do 
 my work in spite of it ; the mission of my life shall 
 not fail because of physical suffering. I shall fulfil 
 my God - appointed task in the face of every 
 hardship and of every pain. 
 
 The third stage of the struggle has still to be 
 noted. The apostle's cry was heard at last ; and 
 his prayer, like all prayers, was answered, not in 
 the imperfect way in which he had at first desired, 
 but in a manner far beyond his thinking or his 
 asking. In this third stage, which is marked by 
 the Epistles to the Corinthians and the Pastoral 
 Epistles, which close the apostle's career on earth. 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 277 
 
 Dr. Matheson sees Paul's final triumph. His 
 first solution was in being lifted up from the earth ; 
 his second in despising the earth ; and his third in 
 loving it. In other words, he had now come to 
 see that the crosses of life, and his special cross, 
 could only be understood, only be borne, in the 
 light of the Cross of Christ. The Man of Sorrows 
 bore with patience not only a thorn, but a crown of 
 thorns ; He conquered by submitting ; He proved 
 victorious by yielding; nay, He found in the 
 afflictions of the present time the means for His 
 spiritual growth. His attitude accordingly towards 
 the trials of life was one of love, a love which in 
 the end was crowned by a hope that those who 
 had learned of Him would, through patient 
 endurance, also conquer and be awarded the palm 
 of victory. Hence, in the last stage of Paul's life 
 Dr. Matheson sees the apostle's true solution of 
 his difficulty, an answer to his prayer; for his 
 attitude towards the homely things of life, the 
 troubles and trials of man's lot in the world, had 
 changed, and the note of his teaching became that 
 of the gospel of his Master: ''Perfect through 
 sufferinor." 
 
 I have dwelt at some length on these points, 
 for the reason already stated, because in them 
 there is a personal note. The author in thus 
 interpreting Paul's spiritual experiences was also 
 tracing his own. He may have done so quite 
 unconsciously, but all the same the result of his 
 analysis throws a flood of light on his own life. 
 
278 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 At an earlier stao^e I endeavoured to account for 
 Dr. Matheson's Christian optimism, and I did so 
 in much the same way as he accounts for Paul's. 
 One was dimly conscious of the struggle through 
 which he passed, and of the battle which he 
 fought. On a priori grounds It was found that he 
 could have conquered only as a Christian ; but 
 here, so to speak, he gives us a bit of his auto- 
 biography ; he shows us, in tracing the spiritual 
 experiences of Paul, what his own were. Indeed, 
 I believe that, having passed through them first, 
 having reached the goal before he came to the 
 study of the apostle's life, he was able to under- 
 stand that life through a sympathy born of a 
 common trial and a common victory. It was the 
 Cross of Christ undoubtedly which Interpreted for 
 Dr. Matheson the meaning of his thorn In the 
 flesh. In the light of the Cross It became plain. 
 This explains his Christian optimism, his en- 
 thusiasm, his cheerful outlook upon life and upon 
 the world. This also accounts for his message of 
 comfort and consolation to the weary and to the 
 heavy laden. By his lips and by his pen he spoke 
 the word of hopeful submission to the sufferer on 
 the bed of pain, and of steadfast courage to the 
 soldier eno^ao^ed In the Christian warfare. To the man 
 of sorrows and to the man of the world his messas^e 
 was the same : " Fight the good fight of faith, 
 lay hold on eternal life " ; accept your thorn in the 
 flesh ; the troubles and trials of the present time, 
 not as messengers of Satan sent to buffet you, but 
 
PASTOHAL AND LITERARY 279 
 
 as angels of mercy leading you in triumph to your 
 home on high. 
 
 In his next work Dr. Matheson reverted to 
 a subject which had been of much interest to 
 him from his early days at Innellan. Some of his 
 first contributions to periodical literature and his 
 third important work, Natural Elements of 
 Revealed Theology, show that the old religions 
 had a special attraction for him. He manifested 
 in his Baird Lecture a familiarity with certain of 
 the pre-Christian religions which was a proof of 
 very careful research and prolonged thought ; and 
 in 1882 he brought his studies to a point in his 
 lecture on "Confucianism," one of the St. Giles' 
 Lectures on The Faiths of the World. This 
 was a very fine effort, and it brought his name 
 before the public in a new relation. The subject 
 had evidently been growing in his mind, and he 
 extended his studies, so that in 1892 he was able 
 to publish a volume of considerable size and 
 importance on the ancient religions. Its title, 
 The Distinctive Messages of the Old Religions, 
 indicated its purpose and its scope, and he was 
 careful, in the preface, to make his intention 
 perfectly clear. He says that his design was not 
 to describe the old religions, but to photograph 
 their spirit. " By the distinctive message of a 
 religion," he says, " I mean not an enumeration of 
 its points, but a selection of the one point In which 
 it differs from all others. My design, therefore, is 
 more limited than that of some volumes of equal 
 
280 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 size. I do not seek the permanent element of 
 religion with the Bishop of Ripon, nor the uncon- 
 scious Christianity of Paganism with F. D. Manvill, 
 nor the moral ideal of the nations with Miss Julia 
 Wedgwood : I seek only to emphasise the dividing 
 line which constitutes the boundary between each 
 religion and all besides." 
 
 The author introduces his subject by a lengthened 
 inquiry into the origin of religion, and its common 
 element. From this he passes to a consideration 
 of the distinctive elements of the ereat relieions of 
 the ancient world ; and in his concluding chapter he 
 considers the purpose of Christianity in relation to 
 these religions, and declares that its mission is one 
 of reconciliation. It is in this that one sees the 
 value of the book. From the point of view of Dr. 
 Matheson's biography it is a fresh proof of his own 
 message to the world, which also was one of recon- 
 ciliation. The religion of Christ was to his mind 
 the great ingatherer ; in Him all "things stand 
 together," and in His religion he finds a meeting- 
 place for the messages of the nations. The con- 
 cluding paragraph of his book indicates what 
 to his mind these messages were, and also the 
 message of Christianity towards them. The 
 religion of Christ, he believes, ought to have a 
 peculiar interest in the faiths of the past. 
 
 They are not to her dead faiths ; they are not even 
 modernised. They are preserved inviolable as parts of 
 herself — more inviolable than they would have been if 
 she had never come. Christianity has claimed to be " the 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 281 
 
 manifold wisdom of God." In this ascription she has 
 been candid to the past. She has not denied its wisdom ; 
 she has only aspired to enfold it. She has not sought 
 to derogate from the doctrines of antiquity ; she has only 
 sought to diminish their antagonisms. China may keep 
 her materialism, and India may retain her mysticism ; 
 Rome may grasp her strength, and Greece may nurse 
 her beauty ; Persia may tell of the opposition to God's 
 power, and Egypt may sing of His pre-eminence even 
 amidst the tombs : but for each and all there is a seat in 
 the Christian Pantheon, and a justification in the light of 
 the manifold wisdom of God. 
 
 A break of four years in Dr. Matheson's literary- 
 activity now intervened. It was the longest break, 
 and for this very reason it may not be without 
 its significance. Four years elapsed between the 
 publication of The Distinctive Messages of the Old 
 Religions and his next book. The Lady Ecclesia. 
 It was in 1896 that he gave it to the world, and 
 it made its entrance under the auspices of new 
 publishers. For a number of years his books had 
 been published by the Blackwoods. T. & T. Clark, 
 James Nisbet & Co., Cassell, and James Clarke & 
 Co., had also in turn published one or other of his 
 books. With all of these firms he was on the best 
 of footings, and maintained his friendly relations 
 with them to the end ; but he now became associ- 
 ated with H odder & Stoughton, and the remaining 
 volumes written by him, with the exception of one 
 or two devotional books, were published by them. 
 The break of four years, I have remarked, may 
 be regarded as significant, for The Lady Ecclesia 
 marks a new departure, and the books that he 
 
282 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 subsequently wrote may be said to be but a 
 development of the lines which he in that volume 
 laid down. We now find him dealing with subjects 
 that are purely religious and personal. He had 
 advanced to the last stage in his literary develop- 
 ment, in which he would seem to be drawn to 
 themes of universal import and to characters that 
 come into close touch with human life on every 
 side. Especially was he attracted by the central 
 figure in Bible history, Jesus Christ Himself. 
 The life and teaching of the Saviour became to 
 him the one theme worthy to be dealt with, and 
 the volumes that he wrote on this and kindred 
 topics were the most popular and influential ever 
 published by him. His progress, like that of the 
 apostle, was a descent. He began with subjects 
 of lofty thought ; he contented himself at the end 
 with lowly themes, but these themes after all were 
 the only vital ones, for they were common to the 
 heart of humanity, and came into contact with 
 man's experience at every point. The last note 
 sounded by him was the same as that struck by 
 the angels : " Peace on earth, goodwill towards 
 men." Religion in common life came to be the 
 absorbing topic of his latest thought and writing. 
 
 The Lady Ecclesia is an allegory. For beauty 
 of thought, for chasteness of style, for sustained 
 interest, it would be difficult in its own class to find 
 its equal. Its subject is the development of the 
 Spirit of Christ in the Church and in the individual ; 
 a restatement in allegorical form of one of his 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 283 
 
 earliest books. Indeed, it might have as a sub- 
 title, ''The Christ of History and the Christ of 
 Experience," and no one can read it without finding 
 a world of light shed both upon the story of the 
 Church, especially during its earlier struggles and 
 triumphs, and upon his own Christian experience. 
 Not only does it make plain different epochs in the 
 history of the Church and in the struggles of the 
 individual soul towards a fuller realisation of the 
 spirit of Christ, but it also unfolds, sometimes 
 with startling effect, the inner meaning of Christian 
 doctrine, and gives a conception of Christianity as 
 a whole which is certain to find an abiding place 
 in religious literature. 
 
 Not its least significant note is the light which 
 it throws upon his own life. The kingdom which 
 The Lady Ecclesia has inherited from her ancestors, 
 and which forms the background of the allegory, is 
 an island, and the book abounds in descriptions of 
 the great ocean which surrounds it. The sighing 
 of the winds, the moaning of the waves, the passing 
 to and fro of ships, and the infinite distance that 
 lay beyond, are again and again referred to ; and 
 cause the reader to inquire, Whence come these 
 allusions ? what memories in the mind of the blind 
 poet-preacher do they recall ? The answer may be 
 found in the following extract from Dr. Sime's 
 reminiscences. It refers to the old Innellan days, 
 to the times when Dr. Matheson sat in his manse 
 overlooking the firth, and commanding a view of 
 the sea opening wide in the distance. " At times," 
 
284 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 says the doctor, the moaning of the sea, with the 
 sighing and sobbing of the sea breezes through the 
 trees below, would come into his study where he 
 was sitting, perhaps pierced ever and anon by the 
 solemn monotone of the whistle of an ocean steamer 
 passing along. 
 
 " I often listen to that music," he said one evening, 
 shortly after my arrival, and as we stood together at the 
 window. It was a breezy evening, the sun setting towards 
 Arran, with a radiant shaft of light up the firth. White 
 horses were racing athwart the sea and breaking on the 
 shore with a muffled roar, and a black showery cloud 
 hovered over the far-off town of Largs. Round Toward 
 Point a brown-sailed barge, leaning well over with reefed, 
 rounded sail, fled up the firth like a bird, and was quickly 
 followed by the Wemyss Bay boat ; whilst an ocean 
 steamer glided majestically past Innellan through the 
 white horses, the smoke of the steamer curling in the 
 distance prettily, after its work was done. The music 
 that was coming into the room was massive and grand. 
 
 " That weird music comes up here from the ocean like 
 the far-off music of another world, a symphony of great 
 Nature. How varied and multiform it is ! I often listen to 
 it, when sitting here alone, or perhaps sometimes in the 
 depth of night ; it puts one in reverie. And that ? Listen ! 
 The monotone of that passing steamer, decisive and clear, 
 how finely it blends with Nature's majestic music ! What 
 liner is it ? " 
 
 " An Allan liner, I think, for Canada ! The ships, the 
 lights, the shadows, pearly edged distant cloudlets, the 
 breezes, — are passing through the firth like thoughts 
 through one's consciousness." 
 
 " Exactly ! One's consciousness is more lasting than 
 the firth itself, with a character of its own which we 
 bring into the world, unfledged. It is an eternal fact, 
 deeper than force or matter, and altogether distinct from 
 either ; for that alone I reverence and hope for the utmost 
 wreck of a man that I meet. That passing syren-note of 
 
PASTORAL AND LITERARY 285 
 
 your passing steamer, faintly pealing through the breezes, 
 is beautiful, is it not ? It is a part of the massive music 
 we hear, and perhaps the grandest. It reminds me of the 
 story of Goethe when he was on the Alps. On the whole, 
 it seems he liked best, not the mountains and their snowy 
 peaks in the sky, but a manufactory in one of the valleys. 
 The unceasing humming of the spinning-wheel sounded 
 in his ears in such a place, as never before, as the Music 
 of the Spheres. No wonder, then, that Carlyle so valued 
 Goethe. It was unquestionably the harmony of the 
 spheres he suddenly heard ; and in the valleys, mind you ; 
 think of that ! So is that symphony of Nature we are 
 listening to, with the occasional syren-note; but in the 
 most solitary clachan of our mountains and glens, you 
 will sometimes see — I daresay you have already seen it — 
 the sweet light and the unruffled life of heaven itself. 
 Heaven sometimes begins here, and immortality." 
 
 The same year saw a fresh volume of Medita- 
 tions from his pen, Words by the Wayside, which 
 has been translated into German. A year later, in 
 1897, he published a small Christmas book, The 
 Bible Definition of Religion^ based on Micah vi. 8, 
 and a larger volume, Sidelights from Patmos, 
 This latter book he describes as *' Flashes of 
 modern suggestion from the ancient Apocalypse." 
 Many of its chapters originally appeared as articles 
 in The Expositor, and it was at the suggestion of 
 the editor of that magazine that Dr. Matheson 
 collected them, and, with some fresh additions to 
 their number, brought them out in book form. 
 He remarks : '* I believe the design of St. John in 
 Patmos was to state the principles which would 
 regulate the good time coming. He wishes to 
 indicate what in any world would be to him the 
 
286 PASTORAL AND LITERARY 
 
 consummation of happiness. He does so some- 
 times in sober language, sometimes in allegoric 
 symbols. I have made a few selections both from 
 the sober language and from the allegoric symbols, 
 with a view of testing the adaptation of the picture to 
 our modern ideas of optimism. The other ques- 
 tion I wish to consider in these, otherwise dis- 
 connected, chapters is. Whether St. John's ideal is 
 still our ideal ; whether we should still accept his 
 principles as those which should regulate the good 
 time coming ? " 
 
 The success of the volume was an assurance of 
 the author having answered the question, which he 
 put to himself, in a satisfactory manner. The 
 subject suited his mind ; it was quite in keeping 
 with his own method ; and the fresh light which 
 he threw on passages that had been a source of 
 difficulty to generations of readers, secured him 
 heartfelt thanks from every quarter. He received 
 many letters of gratitude, and with such an effort 
 he could very well close his literary record as 
 minister of St. Bernard's. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 Admirers of Dr. Matheson will, in the days to 
 come, seek out the house in St. Bernard's Crescent, 
 where for twenty years he lived and laboured. It 
 was the third which he occupied since he became a 
 minister. For the first few years at Innellan he 
 resided at Labrador House, until his manse was 
 built, and during the whole period of his residence 
 in Edinburgh, with the exception of a few weeks 
 towards its close, 19 St. Bernard's Crescent was 
 his home. The crescent itself is quiet and 
 dignified, having a noble front of Doric pillars, 
 which makes it one of the most distinctive buildings 
 even in Edinburgh. The crescent, in and around 
 which many men eminent in art and literature 
 have resided, had an interesting origin. " Three- 
 quarters of a century ago its site was part of the 
 estate of the great painter. Sir Henry Raeburn. 
 Walking one day with the owner, another great 
 painter. Sir David Wilkie, suggested to him that 
 he should build on each side of the double row of 
 elms, a crescent, in the purest style of Greek 
 
 287 
 
288 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 architecture. Sir Henry took his brother artist's 
 advice, and the resuh is perhaps unequalled in a 
 range of private houses. Within the railed, grassy 
 enclosure in the centre are the remains of the 
 avenue of elm trees, now reduced to the sacred 
 number of seven, whose branches are dotted in 
 spring-time with the nests of cawing rooks ; hence 
 the local name, ' Craw Crescent' " Among the 
 famous men who at one time or another resided in 
 the near neighbourhood were Sir James Simpson, 
 the famous physician ; Sir John Watson Gordon, 
 President of the Royal Scottish Academy ; the 
 great Christopher North ; Robert Chambers, the 
 publisher ; Horatio Macculloch, the artist ; and 
 Thomas Carlyle, the first eighteen months of his 
 married life having been spent at No. 21 Comely 
 Bank, hard by. The district had seen better days. 
 Right beneath Dr. Matheson's study, which looked 
 to the back, was a slum quarter ; and his windows, 
 which were double-cased, looked down upon a 
 public-house, whose sign-board boasted of his own 
 surname. But he chose the house for its spacious- 
 ness, and for its proximity to his church and to 
 his sphere of parochial labours. It suited him 
 admirably in every respect until the end, when he 
 migrated to a new house which he had bought in 
 Belgrave Crescent, one of the finest residential 
 districts in Edinburgh, but which, alas, he did not 
 live long to occupy. 
 
 It is natural that many should like to know 
 how Dr. Matheson, with his physical infirmity, 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 289 
 
 was able to accomplish so great and so varied a 
 work during the thirteen years of his active ministry 
 at St. Bernard's. The chief factor, undoubtedly, 
 in his harmonious, successful, and marvellously 
 fruitful life, was his sister, Miss Matheson. The 
 world will never know what she was to her brother 
 during those years of incessant toil and strenuous 
 effort. She shielded him from the worries that are 
 the lot of those who, as parish ministers, think and 
 toil for their people. In her hands he knew that 
 his household affairs were safe, and his domestic 
 peace secure. In every movement of a congrega- 
 tional or parochial nature, where a woman's hand 
 should be seen or felt, she took a leading part, and, 
 in the social life in which he had to mingle, her 
 tactful and gentle manner smoothed over every 
 difficulty. With this safe anchorage he could 
 devote himself unreservedly to his own special 
 work, in the full knowledge that, whatever happened, 
 no trouble could disturb his dwelling. During his 
 residence in Edinburgh, his youngest sister, Ellen, 
 formed a member of the family, and between the 
 three there was such a perfect sympathy and 
 understanding that ofttimes their happy moods re- 
 called to the visitor the innocent joys of childhood. 
 During his earlier years at Innellan his other 
 sister, Mrs. Monteath, then unmarried, and affec- 
 tionately known among the villagers, with whom 
 she was very popular, as '' Miss Maggie," 
 occasionally relieved Miss Matheson of the 
 management of his house. The affection which 
 19 
 
290 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 they had for him in his boyhood deepened with 
 the growing years and contributed largely to the 
 ''happy life" which, he said to his eldest sister 
 shortly before his death, had been his lot. 
 
 He was in the habit, as has already been pointed 
 out, of taking full advantage of every minute of 
 time ; and without his careful arrangement of the 
 day's labours, shielded though he was from every 
 unnecessary interruption and worry, he would not 
 have been able to get through his day's work, 
 or to accomplish all that he was able to do in 
 the world. He was greatly aided by the young 
 men who from time to time acted as his private 
 secretaries. They were naturally drawn to him, 
 and he was able to inspire them with his own 
 enthusiasm. They looked up to him with profound 
 respect and reverence, and no task on his behalf 
 was to them a labour. One of them, and not the 
 least devoted, Mr. William Smith, who served Dr. 
 Matheson in this capacity during the last ten years 
 of his life, has furnished me with the following 
 account of his daily routine. Mr. Smith came to 
 him shortly before he was provided with a colleague 
 in St. Bernard's, and the brief sketch which he 
 contributes of his parochial duties does not give 
 the entire measure of the work which Dr. Matheson 
 performed when he had sole charge ; but his de- 
 scription of his chiefs method of work in the study 
 is not only full but most interesting. Speaking of 
 his parochial labours, he says : 
 
 When I took up my duties I began to put forth my 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 291 
 
 poor energies to assist him in his literary labours and 
 the parochial round of St. Bernard's Parish, Edinburgh. 
 Down in the Stockbridge vale he lived, and moved, and 
 had his being. Select company had lived there before 
 him ; it was a region sacred to the memory of the mighty 
 dead. And was not this a worthy follower in their foot- 
 steps. Did he not dream in Carlylean philosophy, did 
 he not picture in his pages those Bible heroes whose 
 descendants look out upon us from the canvas of Raeburn ? 
 It would seem that here, for him, those great ones had left 
 an imperishable legacy behind. 
 
 A parochial round, I say — but no common task. For 
 those were busy days. The numerous parochial organisa- 
 tions made their due demands. And then the baptisms 
 and the marriages — usually performed at his own house 
 at the mystic evening hour of eight ! How impressed I 
 was — coming from the South — with the simplicity of 
 these marriage rites, and yet with their solemnity, as, 
 with his full resonant voice, he pronounced the words, 
 " The Lord bless thee, and keep thee : the Lord make 
 His face to shine upon thee, and give thee peace." It 
 was thought a great thing to be married by "the blind 
 minister," and even to be visited by him. But early in 
 my day he was beginning to curtail the parochial visita- 
 tion. Allied to the prolonged and constant strain of 
 mental work, it was more than he could bear. At the 
 expense of his own pocket, he secured the services of 
 an ordained minister. And yet his day was full. Session 
 meetings and other meetings remained ; the regular pulpit 
 work, literary work, baptisms and marriages, were with 
 him still. It was surprising how he got through so much 
 and yet found time for the social hour — the hour of 
 recreation. 
 
 Mr. Smith then takes us into the study 
 and shoves us the nature of the work that was 
 done there, and the way in which Dr. Matheson 
 utilised the time at his disposal. His method 
 was much the same as that which he followed at 
 
292 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 Innellan, but it varied in some important points, 
 which are worth recording. 
 
 What was his day's routine ? For his life was essen- 
 tially a routine — a clearly defined programme essential 
 to his happiness. He would descend about nine to his 
 breakfast, which he took with his correspondence and 
 the papers. Unless any letter's reply involved some 
 theological question, I usually replied myself, in his 
 name. But he liked all replies sent off practically by 
 return of post, and he would scarcely rest till I told him 
 they were despatched. When I had read to him his 
 letters, I took up the morning papers. Notices of in- 
 teresting literature were, on the whole, the most attractive 
 feature ; but his attention was by no means restricted to 
 the book department. Politics, criminal trials, wars and 
 rumours of wars, all held for him a certain interest. 
 Particularly had he a penchant for the realm of criminal 
 law. He often told me he would in other physical 
 circumstances have studied for the Bar. Assuredly he 
 had a remarkably logical mind, which, in this respect, 
 enabled him to decide the question " Guilty or Not 
 Guilty ? " with, I have every reason to believe, absolutely 
 unfailing justness. He ever had an interest, too, in prison 
 methods and criminal reformation ; he might have written 
 It is Never Too Late to Mend. In the field of politics 
 he did not evince very pronounced opinions. Matters of 
 mechanism had for him a wonderful attraction. When 
 I explained to him the nature of the turbine or the motor, 
 or read to him of some accelerated service of train or 
 steamship, he drank in the information greedily. He 
 would speculate on their developments in the future, 
 and, in this respect, he might have produced Mr. Wells' 
 Anticipations. 
 
 From the papers he would pass to his studies in 
 French and German. These were brief; but they were 
 regular and remembered. He would often remark on 
 some British slang as obviously derived from one or 
 other of the modern tongues. And then he would read. 
 Theology, philosophy, science, history, literature — these 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 293 
 
 were his favourite lines. Usually a spell at some two 
 such volumes. And then he proceeded to dictate for 
 the press. This completed, he left me to attend to letters 
 or any proof-reading I might have on hand, betaking 
 himself to his work of composition. Leaving his world 
 of books and shadows, he would retire into the realms 
 of inspiration light. 
 
 This comprehended his day's serious work. In the 
 afternoon I again read to him fiction. And in the 
 evening I sometimes gave him his third daily repast — 
 miscellaneous books and fiction. But what was his fiction ? 
 All kinds, if good. He admired the best — George Meredith. 
 But, candidly, I think he preferred the lighter vein. Among 
 living novelists, there were none he liked better than 
 Braddon, Hall Caine, W. E. Norris, and, although so 
 optimistic in himself, he thoroughly appreciated the 
 genius displayed in the pessimistic pages of Thomas 
 Hardy. He held strongly that fiction's province is to 
 amuse, and though he perused the problems, thought they 
 were problems out of place. Among other modern fiction 
 writers in this country he favoured were, of course, 
 George Eliot, Barrie, Anthony Hope, Humphry Ward, 
 Merriman, and E. F. Benson. In America, he thoroughly 
 enjoyed Gertrude Atherton, Mary Wilkins, and James 
 Lane Allen. Of the school farther back, Thackeray, 
 Dickens, Trollope, and Kingsley had his sympathy ; while 
 as to Scott and Lytton — well, he read them once, of course. 
 He recently tried again, but could not persevere. The 
 elephantine phraseology, just as is also the case with 
 the bulk of translated fiction, was too much for him. 
 But how he would laugh when fiction afforded a " good 
 thing." I used to think that, could the writer have heard 
 that laugh, he would have felt his labour had not been 
 in vain. 
 
 After he had been some four years in St. 
 Bernard's, Dr. Matheson acquired a knowledge 
 of the Braille system of writing for the blind. 
 Previous to that time all his sermons and books 
 
294 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 and articles were dictated. It Is hard to measure 
 the strain which this put on his mind. The last 
 work written by him In this manner probably was 
 The Spiritual Development of St. Paul. Mr. 
 Smith makes very interesting references to the new 
 method, and also mentions Dr. Matheson's equal 
 mastery of the typewriter. 
 
 Let me now speak of his Braille. Strictly speaking, 
 genuine Braille it was not. It is true, he began the 
 practice of his peculiar system by learning the orthodox 
 Braille alphabet; but he soon played havoc with that 
 alphabet. A large number of the letters he " improved 
 upon " ; and he never even began to learn the Braille 
 method of contractions. Largely his own letters, entirely 
 his own abbreviations — this system fulfilled its definite 
 purpose and no more. That purpose was to act as a 
 private notebook. But when I say " notebook," I do not 
 mean that he committed to his Braille characters the 
 mere outlines of his train of thought. Every word — every 
 article and conjunction — figured in that " notebook." 
 The public is indebted to that characteristic — a character- 
 istic which enabled me to supply, word for word, a con- 
 siderable amount of literary matter which, at his death, 
 existed only in the form of Braille " copy " ; in other 
 circumstances the full beauty and rhythmic flow of this 
 particular writing would have been lost. When he com- 
 mitted matter to his Braille, then, it was quite ready for 
 dictation for the press. Ultimately, when it zuas trans- 
 ferred to black and white, I do not say that there w^as no 
 retouching; an occasional ambiguity was removed — a 
 too-oft-repeated word was exchanged ; but very seldom 
 was the whole gist of any sentence altered. And here 
 I may mention a point which has always struck me 
 forcibly — the remarkable absence in his writings of any 
 repetition, in the big sense. And what a common failing 
 this repetition is ! And let me suggest how heavily in 
 this respect George Matheson was handicapped. The 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 295 
 
 ordinary writer has no difficulty in the rapid scanning 
 of his foregoing pages ; but when Dr. Matheson had 
 " written up " a sheet of Braille, he rarely reverted to it 
 till time for dictating arrived. Once the sheets had been 
 added to the pile, the difficulty of " skimming back " was 
 so great that it was rarely, if ever, resorted to. And 
 ultimately, even when dictating, the piecemeal character 
 of the process was such as to positively court the danger 
 of repetition, while by this time his mind was usually full 
 of other work — other schemes. But no, his train of 
 thought was far too clear to allow him to succumb to 
 this common weakness; his inspiration went steadily 
 forward — no stopping, no going back ; it was like the 
 river, flowing gently onward to the sea. 
 
 He occasionally evinced a certain dissatisfaction with 
 his Braille concerning its shortcomings in the foregoing 
 respect ; but he ever admitted that its advantages greatly 
 outweighed its drawbacks. Latterly, indeed, he regarded 
 this apparatus as a kind of talisman or spiritualistic medium. 
 I remember, once, he made some kind remark about my 
 own literary qualifications. I scarcely took him seriously, 
 though, for that matter, I find that the fittest have most 
 sympathy for the unfit. At any rate, I repudiated his view 
 of my " fitness." " Nonsense ! " he replied, " get hold of 
 something as I get hold of my Braille ; my Braille to me 
 is a regular ' planchette.' " It would almost seem that his 
 physical affliction had produced positive helps to his 
 intellect, that out of his stony griefs Bethel he raised. 
 
 His acquiring of this " blind " method of writing, dates 
 only from some sixteen years back. Before that time his 
 literary and sermon work must have been pursued with 
 enormous difficulty. He never practised contemporaneous 
 study and dictation ; and I have often wondered how even 
 his great intellect contrived to store the material till 
 committal to black and white relieved the strain. I 
 believe some lady friend suggested the innovation to him ; 
 we are indebted to her, for the old regime could not have 
 lasted much longer, and we should have been less rich 
 to-day. Usually, when the Braille matter was "written 
 up " the original was destroyed ; but he always kept a 
 
296 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 certain stock, comprising lectures, sermons suitable for 
 special occasions, and the like. These were kept in a 
 special cupboard in his study, so that he himself could 
 get access to them at his will. This cupboard was indeed 
 a sacred spot, and the periodical cleaning thereof was 
 only effected under the strictest surveillance of myself. 
 When travelling, he usually had occasion to carry a 
 certain quantity of Braille matter, with a view to dictation 
 at the journey's end. This was ever a cause of the keenest 
 anxiety to him. "William," he would say at least six 
 times on the road, " is that MS. all right ? " An unhappy 
 experience preyed on his mind ; he had once had most 
 of his " raised dots " flattened down on account of improper 
 packing. He feared this awful event would recur. It 
 did not recur — I took good care of that ; nevertheless, like 
 Rachel, he refused to be comforted. 
 
 Occasionally he would receive a Braille letter from 
 some blind stranger — usually in England — who had heard 
 of his preaching or his books, or who evinced an interest 
 in his successful career. With his ignorance of the ortho- 
 dox system, he never attempted to decipher such a letter 
 himself I used to transmit them to the Blind School at 
 Craigmillar, Edinburgh, where the headmaster soon kindly 
 procured a written interpretation of the same. 
 
 For some time after Dr. Matheson became permanently 
 blind, he maintained ordinary penmanship. To aid him 
 in this, he made use of a small frame crossed at intervals 
 of about an inch with pliable catgut strings. In this 
 frame the paper was fixed, the pliable strings enabling 
 him to keep a fair alignment without placing too abrupt 
 a check on his straying from the path. Whether this 
 simple expedient was his own invention or whether it, 
 too, was suggested to him, I never ascertained. Long 
 before my day he had entirely discontinued penmanship — 
 though to the end he performed his signature in the case 
 of legal documents. 
 
 I must here state, however, that he acquired a know- 
 ledge of the typewriter. He had himself no particular 
 wish to do this; but a friend was so convinced of its 
 usefulness to him that he was persuaded to accept as a 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 297 
 
 present a fine Remington. Mr. Illingworth — then head- 
 master of Craigmillar Blind School — came periodically to 
 give him lessons ; and in a very short time he got on 
 surprisingly intimate terms with the keys. He never 
 practised regularly enough to acquire any considerable 
 speed ; and rapid working was also precluded by the 
 preciseness and correctness that pervaded all his work. 
 Often during my absence, he would in this manner answer 
 his letters on his own account ; and even at other times, 
 when not too pressed with work, he would use his machine 
 " just to keep his hand in." " I think I have forgotten 
 that typewriter," he would say ; and he would ultimately 
 express much satisfaction when I told him his production 
 needed little or no correction. But if on fairly intimate, 
 he never got on affectionate, terms with this innovation. 
 It did not really meet his felt want. He could not himself 
 refer to the typed, any more than he could refer to the 
 pencilled, lines ; and for the practical purposes of his 
 serious work, it was useless. With all its drawbacks, his 
 boon and blessing was his Braille. 
 
 I have said that in the case of his literary work every 
 word was committed to the Braille characters. This was 
 not the case with his sermons. In his early preaching 
 days at Innellan his sermons were entirely committed to 
 memory, and they were preserved in their entirety in 
 sermon books. But he forsook this policy — committing 
 only the skeleton and enlarging extemporaneously thereon 
 in the pulpit. These skeleton sermons were preserved in 
 books just as were the complete ones, and, after his 
 acquisition of the Braille, were committed to those char- 
 acters also. He retained in this Braille form certain 
 sermons suitable for special occasions such as anniversaries, 
 so that, when occasion arose, he could work them up 
 entirely on his own account. He treated in this way 
 lectures, or, if he had time for such preparation, public 
 speaking of any kind. 
 
 He was very impatient of interruption v^hen 
 his mind v^as in the actual flow of composition, and 
 his anxiety to accomplish v^ithin the promised time 
 
298 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 a task he had undertaken often brought him down 
 to his study in the morning long before anyone in 
 the house was astir. 
 
 If any event could give his mind a morbid turn, it was 
 an interruption during his working hours. Right into the 
 midst of our morning studies would come a servant with 
 a card. She might have brought a bombshell ! " The 
 Rev. Melchizedek Howler," I would read, " Kamschatka ! 
 it's really too bad ! " he would exclaim as he rose from 
 his chair, " I simply must be left time for my work." 
 Presently, that laugh — that pervaded the house — and the 
 house next door ! The cloud had passed ! He would 
 return to me : " William, we must just stop there this 
 morning; mark the place"; and off again to his new 
 friend — new, I say, for, assuming he had failed to recognise 
 the name, he no more forgot names than he forgot voices. 
 It was the same with his tailor or his hairdresser. Faithful 
 to the moment would they come. But the great brain 
 had forestalled them and demanded their immediate 
 attention. A word — a gesture of impatience. But soon 
 again the joke, the laugh — diversion complete. Verily his 
 moods were varied and multitudinous ; but very few were 
 sad. 
 
 These were the only clouds that even temporarily 
 darkened his life. Patient in his affliction — but impatient 
 in the hampering of the chariot wheels of his intellect. 
 An extra pressure of correspondence, an urgent request 
 for some magazine article which he did not like to refuse 
 — a spirit of intense impatience immediately possessed his 
 soul. I might try my best to curb this spirit; but all 
 efforts had little effect. " That article will do quite well 
 in a week." That article was usually done in half the 
 time. Often have I appeared for my duties in the morning 
 — to find him first in the field. He had prematurely 
 risen, descended the stairs, and commenced to work with 
 his beloved Braille — to the servants' consternation and 
 dismay. They might dust the foundations ; they might 
 dust the roof; but they must leave him for the nonce in 
 his study — alone. " I could not rest," he would tell me ; 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 299 
 
 " I must get this thing off my mind." But I had to rest 
 — till the flash of inspiration had been duly recorded in 
 his memorandum. This was his pessimistic vein — the 
 magnifying of his responsibilities. " I'm over head and 
 ears," he would say to his sister; "no one must bother 
 me to-day." He evidently believed he had twelve hours 
 work before him. His surprise and satisfaction were 
 positively childish when he found he had finished in four. 
 
 When Matheson was at the height of his fame 
 the demands made upon him to preach in almost 
 every part of the United Kingdom were very 
 numerous indeed. He had engagements made, 
 nearly two years in advance. He had to refuse the 
 vast majority of the invitations sent to him, but 
 once a month he was in the habit of occupying the 
 pulpit of another church in some part of the 
 country, usually in the larger centres of population, 
 and in no place did he receive a heartier welcome 
 than in his native city of Glasgow. Mr. Smith 
 makes amusing reference to the crowds that 
 besieged the vestry on such occasions, and to the 
 way in which Matheson was able to distinguish 
 some old friend or admirer, whom he had not 
 met perhaps for thirty years, by the tone of his 
 voice. 
 
 In my early days with him he made a practice of 
 preaching from home about once a month. I understand 
 that neither in Innellan nor in St. Bernard's did he ever 
 preach the same sermon twice. The preaching from 
 home, however, usually gave him the opportunity of using 
 an old discourse, especially as the occasion — often an in- 
 auguration or an anniversary — practically necessitated this. 
 " Old sermons," I say ; they were often presented with 
 such utterly fresh illustration that many might hear them 
 
300 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 again and think them new. And how obviously gratified 
 he was when, as he and I emerged from the vestry- 
 corridors, I said to him, in an undertone, " A very full 
 house." I suppose " a full house " is inspiring to most 
 ministers ; it certainly was to him. 
 
 He always found the actual travelling a great bore; 
 but, on the whole, he thoroughly enjoyed these week-ends 
 from home. He was apt to be somewhat abstracted till 
 his work was done, but after that he was the very soul of 
 vivacity and merriment. It is highly amusing to recall 
 some of the preparations for his week-end, especially in 
 cases where he was bound for a house which he had never 
 visited before. To ensure a night's rest in his prospective 
 quarters, he deemed it best to make certain arrangements 
 some few days before leaving his own house. Sometimes 
 in the train, to try and " pass the time " for him, I read 
 aloud a little, and I used to wonder if the operation were 
 more painful to him or to me. He seemed grateful, 
 however; and really I used sometimes to think that, 
 by some telepathic means, he " saw " as much of the type 
 as I did. 
 
 Arrived at a strange abode, he liked early to secure the 
 general geographical idea of its principal apartments, and 
 in this kind of thing he seemed fully as clever as a good 
 many people with sight. Also, if the church or lecture 
 hall were in the vicinity, he would express a wish to " take 
 his bearings " in that respect before the hour of service or 
 lecture arrived. I used to conduct him up and down, 
 perhaps twice, to and from his prospective rostrum, and, 
 as he was somewhat prone to gesticulation, he was ever 
 anxious that no loose books, no glass of water, no gas 
 chandelier, should be within reach of his arm. Whether 
 he always evinced such anxiety I do not know ; but I 
 understand that on one occasion a gas globe which pro- 
 jected from the side of the pulpit was smashed to atoms by a 
 wave of his hand. He stopped and with amazing presence 
 of mind exclaimed, " Gather up the fragments." But, 
 though he had this preliminary interview with his immedi- 
 ate oratorical surroundings, I made a practice of carefully 
 conducting him ultimately to his perch; and verily it 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 301 
 
 might oft have been said that "they climbed the steep 
 ascent to heaven." I have known occasions when, after 
 the service, the vestry was literally besieged ; and particu- 
 larly was this the case when preaching in the West. Old 
 friends who had not met him for many years would push 
 in their forms. " You'll not remember me, doctor ! " A 
 moment's hesitation, then a flash over the face, a beaming 
 smile, and " Mackintosh ! " Oh yes, it was Mackintosh, 
 right enough — no mistake about that Nothing wonderful 
 perhaps ; if men shut their eyes occasionally, it might 
 open their ears. 
 
 It is also amusing to recall the intense interest he 
 evinced in the personal characteristics of the new friends 
 he had been brought into contact with — personal, I mean, 
 with regard to physical appearance. There is no doubt 
 that, as a rule, he formed a wonderfully accurate idea of 
 their outward forms through the medium of their voices. 
 On the road home, this subject usually cropped up ; and 
 the comparing of our notes often occasioned in him the 
 most intense amusement and jocularity. In the mere 
 matter of stature, he could be practically left to judge for 
 himself; given a good light, he could actually discern 
 objects in silhouette. 
 
 Mr. Smith, after referring to Dr. Matheson's 
 recreations, speaks v^ith tenderness and admiration 
 of his chief's Christian heroism under his great 
 affliction. 
 
 It would not be easy to say, however, what actually 
 constituted Dr. Matheson's recreation, unless you applied 
 this term to his every conscious act. He so obviously 
 " revelled " in his every experience that it was impossible 
 to discriminate between the effect of the one and the 
 effect of the other. Did he laugh loud and long at some 
 passing joke in fiction ; he would also find " a good thing " 
 in philosophy's sober tome. Did his countenance evince 
 pleasure as, seated on steamer's deck, the Clyde's balmy 
 breezes fanned his cheek ; I have seen equally pleasur- 
 able expressions when, seated in his study chair, the flash 
 
302 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 of inspiration came like manna from above. No, every- 
 thing was recreation to Dr. Matheson ; though barred 
 from the earthly light, more life and fuller was his portion. 
 I think I never knew a man who more thoroughly 
 " lived." 1 experienced an agreeable surprise at our very 
 first interview. But surprises greater were in store. I 
 naturally felt chary of making any intentional reference 
 to his particular physical affliction, even in the general 
 sense. I went further ; I actually skipped over such 
 references when they occurred in books or papers I was 
 reading to him. To the end of my service I retained this 
 very natural delicacy; but I really think it was labour 
 lost. He was prone rather to joke about " the poor blind 
 man " than to treat such a subject with sympathetic 
 lament. " Pure pretence ! " you will say. I do not know. 
 Dr. Matheson was not good at pretence. At any rate, 
 outwardly he bore his burden lightly, gallantly, on to 
 the end. 
 
 And yet I admit, though usually the most optimistic 
 of men, he impressed me at times with strange incon- 
 sistencies. I remember more than once that he told me 
 he never woke in the morning but with a feeling of regret 
 — regret that he had woke, that he had not slept on, into 
 that sleep which knows no w^aking. A brief moment, and 
 some scrap of news, some chance remark, some unexpected 
 visitant, would instantaneously change the key. His joke, 
 his laugh, his beaming face, were a living illustration of 
 the j'oj/ of living, of life for life's sake. 
 
 Ah, yes ! the pessimism was the disguise — he could 
 not have played the opposite role so long — so long and 
 so successfully. You will find no pessimistic shadows in 
 his books ; those who ever met him in the flesh will frame 
 him in an atmosphere of wit and geniality. 
 
 None could more effectually enter the heart of the 
 child. He had practically given up the Sunday School 
 work before my day ; but I understand his addresses to 
 the little ones were masterpieces of their kind. He once 
 told me he thought he would write a book for children — 
 " w^ee things " he ever called them. Our little ones are 
 poorer than they might have been. 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 303 
 
 And he had another talismanic medium — his calumet 
 of peace. He certainly had faith in its more or less 
 imaginary influence. He ever restricted this indulgence 
 to the evening hour, and he has told me that it was to 
 him an hour of communion. Latterly, however, he be- 
 came less meditative at this particular time of day, owing 
 to the fact that he took his pipe with his evening 
 reading. And he had great faith in the workings of the 
 subconscious mind. Often has he told me he has taken 
 his dilemma to bed with him, and has woke up — to find 
 the problem solved, the mists dispelled. 
 
 Dr. Matheson was in his home quite as interest- 
 ing and inspiring as in the pulpit. Should the 
 visitor be an expected or invited guest, or should 
 he be an old friend who called at an opportune 
 moment, he was overwhelmed with kindness. The 
 hospitality of his house was probably unequalled 
 in the Church of Scotland, and the gracious welcome 
 offered by his sister received a double assurance 
 from him. His table-talk on such occasions was 
 the brightest, wittiest, and most humorous that can 
 be imagined. He kept everyone In the best of 
 spirits ; and conversation, light, gay, and laughter- 
 provoking, made the visit memorable. At times 
 he might be in a silent mood, but that was the 
 exception, and the originality of his remarks, the 
 unexpected allusions, the apt quotations, and the 
 startling suggestions, acted like a tonic on the 
 spirits. Dr. Matheson's laughter was the Carlylean 
 laughter of the whole man. His nature for the 
 time being was absolutely under the control of the 
 humorous mood which possessed him. His animal 
 spirits reached their highest when he was delivered 
 
304 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 from some great mental strain. If a difficult piece of 
 literary composition were completed, or some great 
 effort, in the way of oratory, had been successfully 
 accomplished, there was a strong reaction, and he 
 gave himself up for the moment to that absolute 
 abandon which possesses a boy when the first hour 
 of his holidays has arrived. 
 
 It was in the study, however, and under the 
 soothing influence of his beloved pipe, with the 
 day's work of preaching or writing well over, that 
 one discovered the man in all his moods. On such 
 occasions he freely unbent himself and gave to his 
 visitor of his very best. There were two outstand- 
 ing facts which speedily impressed anyone who had 
 frequent personal intercourse with him, and these 
 were his remarkable memory and his acute sense of • 
 hearine- A friend who had been on the most 
 intimate terms with him for many years, and who 
 by nature and training is of an observant nature, 
 remarks reofardinof the first of these : ' 
 
 Dr. Matheson's extraordinary memory was, from the 
 first, most striking. He could quote by the pageful, 
 not merely the Bible — which he had I think by heart 
 — but any book which he was interested in, however 
 solid or volatile. Nor was it merely the literature that 
 he loved that he remembered with exact precision, such 
 as Wordsworth's, Shakespeare's, or Burns' poetry, and 
 likewise the most abstract metaphysical disquisitions, 
 but also the most ephemeral writings of the hour. To 
 my surprise, years afterwards, he used to quote, ver- 
 batim, whole sentences and even paragraphs of a paper 
 of mine which, at his pressing instigation, I prepared and 
 read at the village hall, with nervousness — a paper on 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 305 
 
 Burns. It was my first lecture and public appearance 
 anywhere. 
 
 For the mere sake of revealing the extent of his 
 retentive power, I tested his memory one evening. I took 
 up a copy of the Glasgow Herald from the table, and 
 twice over read slowly and as solemnly as I could, an 
 entire line, column after column, from left to right, of an 
 advertisement page, and then, in the same fashion, the 
 second line. There was no connection whatever between 
 the advertisements, and they ended abruptly and in- 
 coherently. Then we had half an hour's talk over our 
 pipes, or " burnt-offerings," as we used to call them, about 
 the Correlation of Forces or other subject, a whole universe 
 away from a line or two of broken advertisements. Finally, 
 again I took up the newspaper, and to my astonishment — 
 for it looked like witchcraft or clairvoyance — my friend, 
 laying down the pipe, deliberately repeated verbatim the 
 incoherent fragments, just as I had read them. He had a 
 memory, I told him, as sensitive and receptive as a photo- 
 graphic plate, and retained for a time good and bad 
 alike, rubbish as well as diamonds, but ultimately only the 
 diamonds and flowers, in the deepest valley of his memory. 
 But he did not much prize mere memory, however 
 necessary and valuable. He valued more highly obser- 
 vation, reflection, reasoning, insight, foresight, imagination. 
 Imagination he prized as the highest power of man ; he 
 considered that its cultivation was too much ignored or 
 neglected, and, very much too frequently, positively 
 discouraged, in even the youngest children, much more so 
 in boys at school and young men beginning life's work 
 and responsibility ; for not only was imagination one of 
 the earliest of the great powers, but imaginative fore- 
 thought through life was a gift of the gods, and covered 
 far more than mere fairy tale or fiction or make-belief; it 
 ranged still more effectively and richly over the hardest 
 and sternest facts of life. 
 
 The other fact v^hich, I have observed, speedily 
 impressed anyone, v^ho was on friendly terms with 
 20 
 
306 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 Dr. Matheson, was his acute sense of hearing, 
 regarding which the same sympathetic observer 
 speaks as follows : 
 
 His sense of hearing was not merely most acute, it 
 was observing, discerning, and thinking. I have never 
 come across, even in the blind, a more delicately acute 
 hearing. It was the one perfect avenue in which things 
 external poured into his thoughtful mind. In conversation 
 the minutest difference of tone, he at once detected. My 
 footsteps on the gravel path of the garden he used to 
 recognise long before I got into the Manse, or he was 
 within earshot of my talk or laugh ; and his friend's 
 idiosyncrasies and many unknown people's peculiarities 
 he diagnosed from their cough, their walk, their mode of 
 blowing their noses. 
 
 Upon his sense of hearing he largely relied for his 
 picture of character and mind. It was for him direct, 
 first-hand knowledge. His knowledge of things visible — 
 forms, colours, distance — was from memory or inferred 
 and second-hand. Nevertheless, excluded as he was from 
 all the visible beauty and harmony of life, he frequently 
 said to me that he would rather be deprived wholly of 
 sight than hearing. And perhaps it was not an unreason- 
 able inference. The avenue of hearing is nearer than that 
 of vision to the sensorium, or the central nidus of the 
 soul, and disease in this direction or from the seat of 
 hearing ends much more frequently in insanity itself, as 
 in the great Dean Swift's case. To also lose hearing 
 would have been for my friend, who relied on it so wholly 
 for communication with the best around him, a complete 
 eclipse. Not to hear the voice of his sister, who through 
 life remained to him as his guardian angel, he told me ; 
 not to hear the thrilling tones of loved friends, or the 
 silvery laughter of children at play, would have been to 
 him in his blindness a blanker groping, than it was, for the 
 Infinite. Well might he value hearing, for it was the one 
 divine avenue for him from earth to heaven. His hearing 
 was perfect, and he judged quickly and much from mere 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 307 
 
 tone of voice. The mere tone and its quality and intensity- 
 had for him colour, form, expression, character, and infinite 
 variety. It was for him as subtle a quality as the mind 
 itself, and as characteristic as its colour to a ruby or 
 emerald, or its brawling music to a Highland burn. 
 
 All subjects came to him with equal readiness, 
 the latest fiction or the newest theology were alike 
 known to him. His memory was unerring. The 
 tendencies of thought in any theological volume or 
 the characters in any novel, however far back they 
 had been read, were never forgotten. His memory 
 gave him a large store of subjects to draw upon, 
 and his active, restless mind continually passed 
 from one to another. He had endless enjoyment 
 in humorous sallies, whether from himself or others, 
 and he had an ecstatic way of expressing fun, or 
 his appreciation of fun, in bursts of laughter. In 
 conversation he seldom monopolised the first or 
 only place. '' Many times I should have pre- 
 ferred," says Dr. Hately Waddell, who saw much 
 of him at North Berwick, during the last few 
 summers of his life, when he was on holiday there, 
 "that he did, but he had no desire to hold forth 
 and to lecture, and never asked anyone to sit at 
 his feet. All the same, his presence usually domin- 
 ated the conversation by reason of some vigorous 
 statement of a view, remarkable, unusual, or con- 
 troversial. He conversed usually in a graphic and 
 fragmentary way. He did not mind that conversa- 
 tion should now and then flag, or that it started 
 too soon on some new theme. Only once do I 
 remember a subject consistently discussed for any 
 
308 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 length of time, and that was the subject of * Eternal 
 
 Life.'" 
 
 Dr. Matheson naturally took the view that Eternal 
 Life was not any divided portion of existence, separated 
 from that which now is, but that it was already here in its 
 true conditions, was continually expanding in new experi- 
 ences, and would find death merely an incident in its 
 course. Judgment, he said, was certain, but was not only 
 retribution ; it was simply a new phase of life in which we 
 should be compelled to take a proper relation to our true 
 self, and to God. All men who having misspent their 
 lives here should find themselves compelled to live the 
 opposite kind of life there. As to Christ's second coming, 
 that also he said was continually on the way ; it began at 
 the resurrection. 
 
 When at Innellan I was in the habit of visiting 
 him of an evening at his manse. I was at the 
 time a student of philosophy, and he manifested 
 ofreat interest in the lectures of Professor Edward 
 Caird, under whom I was studying. Caird was 
 the greatest living exponent of Hegelianism, and I 
 was struck by Matheson's intimate knowledge of 
 the system. He was in those days a strong 
 believer in Hegelianism, and discussed its merits 
 with much enthusiasm. Years afterwards he 
 declared that he had modified his views somewhat, 
 but he never liberated himself wholly from the 
 grasp of the master. He discussed on such 
 occasions subjects like the " Higher Criticism," 
 and he made no secret of his opinions regarding 
 it. He would say : 
 
 I don't believe in it very much, from no mawkish 
 feeling, for to tell the truth I am rather broad, but as 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 309 
 
 a mere matter of historical fact I don't believe in it. My 
 reason is that, from a minute study of the earliest prophets, 
 Amos and Hosea, I am convinced beyond all question 
 that there was a previous national religious law existing 
 among the people. The very manner in which the 
 prophets rebuked the people proves they were familiar 
 with an existing code. Now, if the prophets had existed 
 before that law their rebukes would have had no mean- 
 ing. Then the whole question is, What are the factors 
 or agents of evolution ? Well, the answer of science is 
 that there are really two factors in all revolutions, force 
 and environment. I am willing to admit this, provided 
 they will allow environment to include God Almighty. 
 That makes all the difference in the world. Is God to 
 be one of the agents in the process of evolution? My 
 own opinion is that everything is produced by the com- 
 bined action of force and environment, but in that 
 environment I include not only earth and sea and sky, 
 but also that great force which Spencer called the 
 Unknowable, but which I call God. I quite believe that 
 the revelation of Scripture is a progressive development, 
 and that it grew out of historical surroundings of 
 different ages. If the theory of the Higher Criticism 
 was proved it would not in the least weaken my sense 
 of the Bible's value. The real miracle of the Bible is, to 
 my mind, the fact that out of a multitude of disconnected 
 writings, originating from various sources and often 
 proceeding from opposite tendencies, there has emerged 
 as a result the picture of the Messianic life. 
 
 Another subject v^hich cropped up in such con- 
 versations was " Evolution." " I wrote a book," he 
 once said, "to show that evolution, if true, is quite 
 compatible with orthodoxy, but I have since come 
 to the conclusion that evolution is not true. 
 
 I have no more fear of it than I ever had, but I am 
 quite convinced that in, say, twenty years it will be 
 regarded as an exploded heresy. I am an unbeliever in 
 Drummondism. Henry Drummond triumphantly waves 
 
310 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 his hand — you can almost see him do it — over what he 
 thinks is the strongest point in evolution, namely, 
 similar things that in you and me are not of the slightest 
 use, but in animals are of great utility ; his conclusion 
 being, that we were animals first and that these things 
 are survivals. My conclusion is not that at all ; I would 
 be driven to it if no other explanation were reasonable. 
 But if I want to make another staircase in this house 
 there are two ways in which I can do it. I can begin 
 afresh from the ground floor or I can start at the first 
 landing. I say that God Almighty always adopts the 
 latter method, to economise space and time ; He makes 
 the new life start on the top of the old — not grow out of 
 it ; and that accords with the whole analogy of nature. 
 The first stair cannot itself get beyond the first landing, 
 but another stair may be built upon it. I believe in the 
 eternity of species ; that all differences existed from the 
 beginning. 1 don't believe that first there was a trunk, 
 and that this trunk broke up into branches. I believe 
 the branches were first, and that they are gradually 
 being welded into a trunk. I believe in individualism — 
 individualism bound up into the life of God. I am con- 
 vinced that in modern speculation the individual has not 
 had justice done to him, and that the movement of the 
 future will be towards individualism. 
 
 As might be expected, he frequently discussed 
 *' Novels and Novelists." Present-day romance 
 had a wonderful fascination for him. He once 
 remarked to his friend, Mr. M'Kenzie Bell : 
 
 " I like Sir Richard Calmady. It reveals a victory of 
 mind over matter, even while at every moment the author 
 is showing what a poor cripple Sir Richard is. Even that 
 bad girl realises the influence of Sir Richard Calmady's 
 force of character over his environment. One of my 
 greatest dreads, when I was growing blind, was that thus 
 I should lose affection — especially the affection of women 
 — but I was wrong. In that way my blindness was a 
 positive advantage, for it drew out their affection, though 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 311 
 
 I have never been in love. Dr. Robertson NIcoll is most 
 persistent in trying to persuade me to write a novel. I 
 could do the plot, the characterisation, and the pathos. 
 But I think I should fail where every tyro would succeed. 
 I should fail in giving vitality to the scenes in which a 
 knowledge of the verities of sight became necessary." I 
 did my very utmost to disabuse his mind of this fixed 
 idea, urging in the strongest way in my power that 
 photographic realism was not at all a necessary adjunct 
 to fiction. But from his manner I saw clearly that my 
 arguments had produced no impression. 
 
 I expressed my surprise that he, so great a prose poet, 
 did not write more metrical poetry. Further, I pointed 
 out that he, unlike a great prose poet, my friend Blackmore, 
 had achieved in " O Love that wilt not let me go " and in 
 a lesser degree in " God's Captive " the writing of noble 
 verse-lyrics. He admitted to the full my contention that 
 eminent poets of prose generally fail to become eminent 
 poets of poetry. " My lyric ' O Love that wilt not let me 
 go,' " he exclaimed, " is merely the exception that proves 
 the rule. It came to me spontaneously, without conscious 
 effort, and I have never been able to gain once more the 
 same fervour in verse." 
 
 From novels in general it v^as an easy passage 
 to the ''Religious Novel" in particular. He had 
 no hesitation in expressing his disapproval of this 
 form of literature. 
 
 I am not in favour of it at all, for the simple reason 
 that the novel with a purpose always conveys to my mind 
 the impression that it is a sermon from the very outset, 
 and the whole novel becomes a foregone conclusion. 
 Now, I hold that the sole aim of a novel should be to 
 amuse, as it should be the sole aim of the drama. 
 
 I fully admit the transcendent genius of George 
 Meredith, but I do not consider that his works come 
 up to my ideal of what a novel should be. I should be 
 disposed to say that the test of the true novel should be : 
 what do the public like, for it is for them alone that the 
 
312 DR. MATHESON AT HOME 
 
 novel is intended. And judging from their verdict 
 generally, and from that point of view, I would place 
 Miss Braddon at the head of the list. She is a great 
 favourite of mine, and I think I have read every book 
 she ever wrote. 
 
 Another subject on which he would converse 
 was '' Creeds and Confessions." He often said that 
 he would never dream of altering these, but he 
 would continue to fill them with new meaning. 
 He frequently, says Dr. Waddell, discussed the 
 subject with me at North Berwick. He held that 
 
 the best way of broadening the religious thought of the 
 time was by working from within the Church, by leavening 
 the lump. There was nothing at all timid in this ; it was 
 just his chosen method of bringing the Church into 
 accord with the modern spirit. He knew that the people 
 did not any longer completely believe in the old formulas, 
 but he also knew that they clung to the old expressions, 
 and he wisely resolved to disturb these expressions as 
 little as possible, while his readers and hearers felt the 
 breath of the new and wider meaning moving through 
 them. He was, of course, essentially broad in his views, 
 but he preferred that any broad interpretation of religious 
 thought should filter gradually through old channels rather 
 than it should burst the banks of traditional faith and 
 bring commotion and destruction in its course. He 
 believed the Church was saved in the present generation, 
 not by the narrow-minded who forced others out of it for 
 conscience' sake, but by the broad-minded who determined 
 to stay within it for the same reason. Naturally, he also 
 saw that once a hand is laid upon an historic creed no 
 limit can ever be set to alterations. Within the historic 
 creed you may permit a wise freedom of interpretation ; 
 without the historic creed you lose all common standard. 
 What one Assembly alters another Assembly may continue 
 to alter, and within a few years or generations all standards 
 become movable. This he could not abide, and he 
 
DR. MATHESON AT HOME 313 
 
 maintained that the need of an historical document had 
 not only been historically proved, but that the wise and 
 prudent preachers would continue to uphold it. A 
 widening of the "subscription-formula" was his method 
 of freedom, rather than that of " creed-alteration." 
 
 It was not often that he referred directly in the 
 conversation to the person of Christ. Like all 
 great natures he was diffident of speaking about 
 what he loved most, but talking on one occasion 
 on Spinoza's conception of God he was led on 
 to express his views on this supreme subject. 
 Spinoza's conception of God as the underlying 
 Substance of the universe was too remote for him 
 and too shadowy. He hardly admitted that the 
 unknown, the unknowable, underlying Substance 
 might be a perfected harmony in the heaven of 
 heavens, making for perfection through an infinite 
 process of specialisation. No, he would say : 
 
 Not so much through a process of specialisation as 
 through the Christ, the perfected Christ of Galilee. He 
 and He alone is God made manifest to men, God's life, 
 light, character, purpose brought very near to the heart of 
 humanity, and through the utmost limits of thought itself. 
 
 Without the Christ in humanity, not as a mere ideal 
 but as the spiritual quickening essence of God performing 
 a miracle of transformation in man. Nature for him was 
 dark indeed. He would sometimes say : 
 
 As a pure revelation of God Himself, the grandest 
 the world has ever seen or ever will see, I bow down 
 prostrate to the Christ of NazaretJi. But for that 
 revelation in Christ every thinking man or woman would 
 be, I feel, a sad enough agnostic, and even without the 
 reverence of Hume, the calm serene-minded thinker, so 
 different a being from the witty Voltaire. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 LAST YEARS 
 
 When Dr. Matheson had been eleven years 
 minister of St. Bernard's he felt that the burden 
 of his office was more than he could bear. He 
 had at that time been thirty years a minister of 
 the Church, and during the whole of that period 
 he had laboured with a constancy and a zeal which 
 it would be difficult to parallel. There was no 
 failing in his powers, no falling off in popularity, 
 no abatement in love for his work ; but the con- 
 stant wear and tear of congregational and parochial 
 duties began to tell. Besides, his increasing reputa- 
 tion as a preacher, and the requests of editors for 
 articles and publishers for books, drew him in 
 another direction ; and the question came to be. 
 Which call was to be obeyed ? Up till this time 
 he had met every demand. He was convinced 
 that he could do so no longer. He was not the 
 man to attempt what he could not accomplish, or 
 to neglect his immediate duty. He carefully con- 
 sidered which road he should now travel, what 
 work he could accomplish with satisfaction to him- 
 
 314 
 
LAST YEARS 315 
 
 self and benefit to the public, and he decided that 
 the course which would be truest to himself and 
 in the best interests of all concerned was to resign 
 St. Bernard's and to devote himself to special 
 preaching and to literary effort. 
 
 It may be worth while to reflect for a moment 
 on the career in this relation of some of the most 
 popular preachers of recent times. Take his im- 
 mediate predecessor as the first preacher in Scot- 
 land, Dr. John Caird. The distinguished Principal 
 of Glasgow University, when at the height of his 
 fame, deliberately and wisely chose those charges 
 in which he would have a minimum of congrega- 
 tional and parochial work. It is true that he 
 was once minister of a city charge, Lady Yester's, 
 Edinburgh, but he only remained in it for a very 
 short time. The constant demands that were made 
 upon him hastened his flight, and he chose the 
 quiet country parish of Errol where he could develop 
 his thoughts and mature his style in peace. When, 
 again, he determined on a more public sphere 
 of duty, he accepted a call to the Park Church, 
 Glasgow, at that time without a parish and amid 
 a population that made little call on his ministerial 
 activity. Caird, it should also be remembered, had 
 not up till this time published anything, with the 
 exception of a volume of sermons. The five years 
 during which he was minister of the Park Church, 
 he confessed to a friend, were more than sufficient, 
 and he was convinced that if he had continued much 
 longer under the strain he would have broken down. 
 
316 LAST YEARS 
 
 Or take the great Chalmers. The world has 
 never ceased to hear of his parochial activity when 
 he was minister of the Tron and St. John's, 
 Glasgow. It may be true that he accomplished 
 more in this relation than any minister of the 
 Church of Scotland before or since. He organised 
 his Session ; he manned his Parish ; he founded 
 schools ; he relieved the poor : but with the ex- 
 ception of his Session and the agencies necessary 
 for carrying on his educational work he had no 
 other organisations. Chalmers, so far as I can 
 gather, confined his visitation to his parish. When 
 the spirit moved him he would call upon the 
 inmates of a tenement, and now and again he 
 would gather them together to be addressed. No 
 one can deny his enormous labours, but they were 
 on the whole more congenial and less exacting than 
 Matheson's. Nor was he hampered in his work by 
 the multiplicity of agencies, which, however artificial 
 they might be, were a tradition in St. Bernard's ; 
 and upon their success more than upon the dynamic 
 power of the pulpit some good people thought 
 the salvation of the church and parish depended. 
 Chalmers found eight years of Glasgow to be 
 quite enough, and he was glad to accept, at the 
 end of that period, an invitation to the Chair 
 of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. 
 Andrews. 
 
 It may not be without interest to cross the 
 Border and to allow our eyes to rest for a moment 
 upon one of the greatest preachers of a past genera- 
 
LAST YEARS 317 
 
 tion, I mean Dr. Joseph Parker. Matheson had 
 a sincere admiration for Parker. He told me on 
 one occasion that Parker was the greatest preacher 
 he had ever heard, and the tribute which, at his 
 death, he paid to his memory in the columns of 
 The British Weekly was one of the finest things 
 he ever wrote. Nor was Parker without his in- 
 fluence on Matheson. It has always seemed to 
 me that the minister of the City Temple was to 
 a certain extent responsible for a change in Mathe- 
 son's preaching which characterised his Edinburgh 
 days. It was during his incumbency of St. Ber- 
 nard's that Matheson delio^hted his hearers with 
 graphic pictures, startled them with semi-humorous 
 asides, and set their souls on fire with sudden and 
 unexpected flashes of original thought. A certain 
 spontaneity and freedom, which made the preacher's 
 personality all the more attractive, marked Mathe- 
 son's later preaching. It may have been Parker's 
 style that gave him confidence. It was all there long 
 before, but the fact of having found it in another may 
 not have been without its effect in causing him to 
 have respect for his own true self, and to allow 
 the spirit that was in him to have free play. Well, 
 what demands were made upon Parker as minister 
 of the City Temple } They v/ere purely of a 
 preaching nature. He lived at Hampstead, miles 
 away from what may euphemistically be called 
 the scenes of his labours. He only appeared upon 
 them about twice a week, on the Thursday and on 
 the Sunday, when he delivered his sermons. He 
 
318 LAST YEARS 
 
 had no parish to attend to, no calls upon him for 
 daily visitation and nightly services. He was 
 master of his fate. He was a great preacher, and 
 the conditions under which he worked were of such 
 a nature as to allow his special gift to be cultivated 
 without hindrance, and his message to be delivered 
 with a fervour unimpaired by harassing and dis- 
 tracting toil. 
 
 It will be one of the chief glories of George 
 Matheson that, while as a preacher and as a writer 
 he may claim equal rank with those great names 
 just mentioned, he at the same time, and for a 
 longer period than any of them, discharged faith- 
 fully and successfully the duties of a parish minister 
 in a congregation which at one time under him 
 numbered nearly two thousand members, and in a 
 parish composed for the most part of poor people 
 whose needs had to be ministered to. And he was 
 blind ! They had every faculty unimpaired, but he 
 was denied the power of vision ; yet in spite of it 
 he toiled on, attending to every duty, discharging 
 every task which his office demanded, preaching 
 sermons Sunday after Sunday which drew admiring 
 crowds from far and near, and publishing books 
 which circulated over the world and were read by 
 thousands. It is no exaggeration to claim this 
 as one of the most unique ministries, not only in 
 the Church of Scotland but in the Church of Christ, 
 not only in our generation but during the Christian 
 era. 
 
 Having thus determined on the resignation of 
 
LAST YEARS 319 
 
 his charge, he addressed the following letter to the 
 Session Clerk of St. Bernard's : — 
 
 December 2%^ 1896. 
 
 I have long felt that I could do more good to the 
 Church if freed from special parochial work. I have 
 given 'the matter a very lengthened, a very earnest, and 
 a very careful consideration, and I have come at last, 
 with absolute conviction, to the definite and final resolu- 
 tion to resign the charge as at Whitsunday. I intend 
 that my ministry shall close on the second Sunday of 
 May — the eleventh anniversary of my incumbency of this 
 church — after which the supply of the pulpit will devolve 
 on the Session. 
 
 It is not too much to say that the news of 
 Dr. Matheson's Intention fell upon the congregation 
 with a shock of surprise. Immediate efforts were 
 at once made to induce him to reconsider his 
 decision. Pressure was brought to bear upon him 
 from office-bearers and congregation alike. It is 
 well known that the matter weighed heavily upon 
 him and caused him great anxiety. His own desire 
 was to resign ; the earnest wish of his people was 
 that he should remain. They did not wish to lose 
 him as their minister, and they feared that if the 
 ties which bound him to St. Bernard's were severed 
 there would be a marked decline in membership. 
 After much hesitation, and somewhat unwillingly, 
 he at last yielded to the overtures made to him, 
 and at a meeting of Kirk Session, held on the 
 twelfth of January, he intimated that he withdrew his 
 resignation, and intended to apply to the Presbytery 
 for a colleague and successor. 
 
320 LAST YEARS 
 
 The arrangement come to was, that he should 
 be freed from all parochial duty, and set at liberty 
 to devote himself to preaching and to literary work. 
 This indeed was an arrangement that ought to have 
 been arrived at long before. He had on his own 
 account, a year or two previously, engaged as his 
 personal assistant an ordained Minister of the 
 Church who relieved him of certain duties. Had 
 this taken place earlier, indeed from the very first, 
 and with the full concurrence of his Kirk Session 
 and the Congregation, his services would have been 
 at their disposal for a longer period, and his life 
 might have been spared. The compromise came 
 too late in the day. The Church of Scotland had 
 no place for a man like him. He was compelled 
 to conform to the use and wont of the parochial 
 system, excellent in itself; but its very excellence 
 when universalised is apt to destroy its efficiency. 
 A good system is all the better when it is elastic, 
 and leaves room for development on other lines 
 than its own. 
 
 Dr. Matheson, in approaching the Presbytery, 
 wrote as follows : 
 
 January 13, 1897. 
 
 After eleven years of laborious work as minister of the 
 Church and Parish of St. Bernard's, and having regard to 
 the physical disability under which I labour, I desire now 
 to be relieved from all parochial duties and work, except 
 preaching. I am prepared to give up the whole stipend, 
 retaining merely the endowment of ;^I20. Should the 
 Presbytery not see their way to appoint a colleague and 
 successor, I tender the resignation of my office of Minister 
 of St. Bernard's. 
 
LAST YEARS 321 
 
 The Presbytery appointed a committee to confer 
 with Dr. Matheson and the Kirk Session, with the 
 result that the committee reported that it would be 
 for the advantage of the congregation that Dr. 
 Matheson should continue their minister, and that 
 an assistant and successor should be appointed. 
 After sundry procedure the Rev. J. J. Drummond, 
 B.D., now minister of Jedburgh, was elected, and 
 appointed as his colleague and successor. The last 
 meeting of St. Bernard's Kirk Session, presided 
 over by Dr. Matheson, was held on the 3rd October 
 1897, Mr. Drummond's induction taking place on 
 the 23rd of the same month. Dr. Matheson was 
 fortunate in his new colleague, who had been brought 
 up under his own eye in St. Bernard's, and between 
 them, during the two years in which they worked 
 together, there was the greatest cordiality and 
 goodwill. Mr. Drummond, referring to his connec- 
 tion with Dr. Matheson as a student and a minister, 
 bears ample testimony to his high appreciation and 
 deep reverence for his friend and mentor. He says : 
 
 My first association with Dr. Matheson was when I 
 was a member of his Bible-class. The class met on a 
 week night, and was attended by young men, intelligent 
 artisans, and some divinity students. He lectured on the 
 opening chapters of Genesis. The lectures were eminently 
 suggestive and fresh, even for him. He was then at the 
 full maturity of his powers and at the height of his 
 popularity in Edinburgh, In these, my divinity student 
 days, he showed me great kindness. I was often in his 
 house, had many a smoke and a chat with him in that 
 spacious study, which was more like a business room than 
 a library, with the outlook into slummy Dean Street. He 
 21 
 
322 LAST YEARS 
 
 did not care for any assistance in filling or lighting his 
 pipe. He spoke always with great animation, mostly 
 about theological or literary subjects. In 1891 I was 
 elected to the parish of Longformacus, in Berwickshire. 
 Two years afterwards Dr. Matheson preached at a special 
 service there in my newly renovated church. The long 
 summer afternoon we spent at the Manse, and I read 
 aloud to him passages of Anglican theology. 
 
 During the following years I saw him only at rare 
 intervals, but in July 1897 I ^^as elected as his colleague 
 in St. Bernard's. It was very far from my wish to 
 exchange the pastoral simplicity and peace of a beautiful 
 moorland parish for the work and worry of a city charge, 
 but I was unanimously elected, and I knew that I could 
 fit into his ways and make things easy for him as an 
 entire stranger could not have done. It was eminently 
 desirable that Dr. Matheson's services should be retained 
 to the church, but this could not be unless he had a 
 colleague in whom he had confidence, and who had some 
 tact and understanding. He received me with the greatest 
 heartiness and kindness ; indeed, he rather overwhelmed 
 me at the induction dinner with a eulogy far beyond the 
 deserts, either of myself or of anyone who might have 
 been elected as his colleague. 
 
 Then I started on the actual work of the parish. The 
 arrangement was that we were to take the church services 
 alternately. I was to be Moderator of Kirk Session, to 
 teach the communicants' classes, Bible-class, etc., and do 
 all the visitation and pastoral work. The arrangement 
 worked out most harmoniously. Dr. Matheson seemed 
 to have but one thought : to put me forward and to slip 
 into the background himself. 
 
 The arrangement thus amicably entered into 
 was cordially carried out for tv^o years, but on the 
 15th June 1899 Dr. Matheson wrote the following 
 letter to the Session Clerk of St. Bernard's : — 
 
 The pressure of other work compels me to sever the 
 remaining thread which connects me with St. Bernard's. 
 
LAST YEAKS 323 
 
 I wish to take this opportunity of stating how cordial have 
 been my relations with Mr. Drummond. We have lived 
 on terms of unclouded affection, and we have never had a 
 difference even of opinion. He has kept the church at 
 the zenith of prosperity, and I leave it in his hands with 
 perfect confidence. As I do not wish to resume the 
 charge after the autumn holiday, I desire my resignation 
 to take effect from the end of July. 
 
 A similar letter was v^^ritten by him to the Clerk 
 of the Edinburgh Presbytery. It was considered 
 by that body on the 28th of June, and on the 26th 
 of July 1899 the Presbytery accepted Dr. Matheson's 
 resignation. Resolutions passed by St. Bernard's 
 Kirk Session and Congregation, with reference to 
 Dr. Matheson's resignation, were read. The Kirk 
 Session testified to the most cordial relations that 
 had existed between them and Dr. Matheson 
 during his thirteen years' ministry, and to the great 
 measure of prosperity that had characterised the 
 congregation during that time. They earnestly 
 hoped that he would long be spared in health to 
 render further service to the Church. The Con- 
 gregation Hkewise expressed in their resolution 
 their deep regret at the loss they had sustained, 
 their high appreciation of his services, and their 
 earnest hope that he would long continue in the 
 enjoyment of his well-earned rest. At the meeting 
 at which these resolutions were read deputations 
 from the Kirk Session and Congregation also 
 appeared. Several of the members addressed the 
 Presbytery, and the remarks of all were indicative 
 of the warm relations that existed between Dr. 
 
324 LAST YEARS 
 
 Matheson and his parishioners. One of the deputies 
 said Dr. Matheson could not retire from the love, 
 respect, and esteem of his people. Another, who 
 was deeply moved, characterised their sorrow as 
 too deep for words. A third said, he would like to 
 inform the Presbytery of a single fact, and one that 
 was very interesting for the members to know, 
 namely, that during the thirteen years of Dr. 
 Matheson's ministry in St. Bernard's he had never 
 preached the same sermon twice to his congregation. 
 The Presbytery in accepting his resignation did so 
 with equal regret, which was somewhat mitigated 
 by the hope that a man so gifted and so active 
 would not altogether be lost to the Church. 
 
 The public press could not be silent on a 
 matter that was of interest, not only to St. Bernard's 
 congregation and the Church of Scotland, but to the 
 Church of Christ at large. Numerous comments 
 appeared in their columns on the event, and par- 
 ticularly on the fact that during the whole of his 
 thirteen years' ministry Dr. Matheson had never 
 preached to his congregation the same sermon twice. 
 This was generally regarded as something very 
 unique. And the same feeling of surprise was 
 experienced when, a few months afterwards. Dr. 
 Matheson delivered a farewell address to his con- 
 gregation, which was held on all hands to be the 
 most remarkable of its kind ever listened to. The 
 gathering took place in the Freemasons' Hall, 
 George Street, on the 17th November 1899. The 
 spacious building was filled to its utmost capacity. 
 
LAST YEARS 325 
 
 Farewell presentations were made to Dr. Matheson 
 
 and to his sister, Miss Matheson. Dr. Matheson, 
 
 after returning thanks in his own name and in that 
 
 of his sister, said : 
 
 I come to bid you one of the most remarkable fare- 
 wells that was ever uttered. Nearly all things that say 
 " Good-bye " say it before starting. When the spring 
 intends to leave us it presents us beforehand with a 
 primrose; when the summer purposes to quit it sends 
 us a present of short days. But my farewell has inverted 
 the order. I have first gone away and then come back 
 to say " Good-bye." I have come too late for leave- 
 taking. I have brought my primrose to your completed 
 year. Why have I done this ? Through unfeelingness ? 
 Nay, through excess of feeling. I wanted to say " Good- 
 morning " instead of " Good-night." I wanted to meet 
 you when the first pain on either side was dulled by the 
 passing hours. How could you think I was indifferent 
 to you ? Have I not been with you for thirteen years 
 in sunshine and in shadow? — and the sunshine has been 
 more than the shadow. Have I not caught the spray 
 of your baptismal fonts? Have I not heard your 
 marriage-bells? Have I not seen your courtships and 
 your courtesies? Have I not brought the grapes of 
 Eshcol to your hours of sickness? Have not your 
 children in my presence flowered into manhood, into 
 womanhood? Have not your middle-aged men grown 
 white with the winters' snow? I have been with you 
 in your Canas, in your Nains, in your Bethanys. The 
 cord between us has been an unbroken cord, and it is 
 still undissolved ; therefore it is that I said not " Good- 
 night " but " Good-morning." 
 
 I came a taper amid the torches. My place was down 
 in the valley — the Stockbridge valley. Do not think it 
 was less onerous on that account. There, where the 
 Water of Leith threads its devious way, you will meet 
 humanity unveiled. There you will see man outside the 
 stage, with the lights suppressed and the music silent, 
 
326 LAST YEARS 
 
 and the dancing ceased — man unconventional, man 
 natural, man struggling hand to hand with life's poverty 
 and toil. These were the masses before which I stood 
 — an atom in the crowd. It was a tragic spectacle; it 
 was blind Samson with his hands upon the gates of 
 Gaza. The Philistines laughed ; but I think I lifted 
 these gates one inch. And I think that next to the 
 strength of God, and next again to your kind co-opera- 
 tion, I was indebted to my own weakness. These sons 
 of toil said, " Here is a man with an environment no 
 less unfavourable than ours — barred by every gate of 
 fortune, yet refusing to give in — overtaken by the night, 
 yet confident of the morning. I say that such a spectacle 
 was a spectacle fitted to stimulate the toiling Stockbridge 
 masses : the appearing of a working-man who by his 
 own hammer and by God's arm should cleave his way 
 through opposing obstacles and plant his feet on a solid 
 shore. This has been my Gospel, this has been my 
 message ; by this shall I stand or fall. My sermons may 
 have flown over your heads like the bird of Paradise; 
 but my life has been level with your own — an obstructed 
 life, a circumscribed life, but a life of boundless sanguine- 
 ness, a life of quenchless hopefulness, a life which has 
 beat persistently against the cage of circumstance, and 
 which even at the time of abandoned work has said not 
 " Good-night " but " Good-morning." 
 
 Dr. Matheson's former assistants, eight in 
 number, all of them now occupying the position 
 of parish ministers in the Church of Scotland, 
 determined not to be behind the congregation 
 of St. Bernard's in showing their appreciation of 
 their late chief. Towards the end of October 
 they invited him to a luncheon in the Balmoral 
 Hotel, and presented him with an illuminated 
 address which testified to the kindness which he 
 had shown them and the enthusiasm with which 
 
LAST YEARS 327 
 
 he had inspired them. Between them there had 
 been the most cordial relations, and the fact that 
 within the brief period of thirteen years the one 
 succeeded the other so rapidly in their promotion 
 to parishes, was a proof of his influence and of 
 the readiness with which he exercised it. Indeed, 
 there was no class more deeply attached to Dr. 
 Matheson than the young ministers of the Church. 
 He was always prepared to welcome them, and 
 to give them every encouragement and assistance 
 in their work. There are not a few who now 
 occupy important positions who owe their pro- 
 motion to him. The concluding paragraph of the 
 address testifies to the whole-hearted devotion of 
 his former assistants, and their admiration of his 
 character and work : 
 
 But while we thus gladly recognise your widespread 
 influence, we especially desire to acknowledge our own 
 indebtedness to you as a teacher and a friend. When 
 we came to you it was at a period in our lives when we 
 were anxious to impart the truth we knew, but lacked 
 the knowledge of how best we could do so. From you we 
 received instruction and inspiration. You at once opened 
 to us the wondrous possibilities of thought, and exemplified 
 to us the attractive methods of expression. That we were 
 privileged, during shorter or longer periods, to enjoy your 
 pulpit ministry, your private and social intercourse, your 
 kindly and helpful advice, we are grateful to the Giver of 
 all good gifts. 
 
 The first-fruits of Dr. Matheson s retirement 
 was his Studies of the Portrait of Christ. It 
 marked a new and final stage in his theological 
 development, and proved the most popular of all his 
 
328 LAST YEARS 
 
 books. The subject had long lain in his mind. It 
 was one that many thought would have attracted 
 him at a much earlier period of his literary life, but 
 it was wisely ordered that he should take it in hand 
 at a time when his thought was ripest and his 
 experience most matured. He was fond of treating 
 his themes and characters in the order of their 
 development, and he himself, as has already been 
 pointed out, was subject to the same law that he 
 found governing others. It was only towards the 
 close of his life that he came to the study of Him 
 who is the Life ; at all events, that he felt com- 
 missioned to give to the world the fruits of a study 
 which, in very truth, was life-long. Dr. Matheson 
 began as a theologian ; he developed into the 
 apologist. He thereafter took up the role of the 
 biblical scholar and the historian of religious 
 thought. In all his works there is to be found the 
 imaginative glow which ever and anon blossomed 
 into poetic song, and that devotional spirit which 
 found expression in his series of Meditations ; but 
 it was only after he had traversed the whole course 
 of Christian thought that he ended where many 
 begin. The worship of Christ, which the young 
 convert is asked to regard as the first step in the 
 new life, was, in a sense, the last in the career of 
 Dr. Matheson. I do not desire to be misunder- 
 stood. That worship pervaded his life, but it was 
 only towards its close that it ripened into full 
 maturity and took possession of his whole nature. 
 If in his earlier years his ambition was to find in 
 
LAST YEARS 329 
 
 Christianity a solution of the problems which vex 
 human reason, in his later years it was his absorb- 
 ing desire to find in Christ Himself the solace of 
 the human heart and the satisfaction of the human 
 spirit. His own development, like that of his 
 Master, was also in its nature a descent. It 
 witnessed the fall of his spirit from the heights of 
 theology to the prosaic plains of religion ; from the 
 effort to cleave the skies on the wings of thought to 
 the patient sitting at the feet of the Master. It 
 was there, at last, that he found perfect peace. The 
 Christ of Prophecy, the Christ of History, and the 
 Christ of Aspiration had become to him the Christ 
 of Experience. 
 
 The book was issued in two volumes ; the first 
 appeared in the autumn of 1899 and the second in 
 that of 1900. In the Preface to the first volume he 
 said that if it proved a success he would continue 
 his studies to their close. Its success was, for a 
 book of the kind, almost unprecedented. Eleven 
 thousand copies were sold within the year. Its 
 reception by the press was equally hearty ; the 
 reviews were enthusiastic. One or two complained 
 of the title of the book, and wished that he had 
 simply called it a ''Life of Christ." But he had 
 good reason for his choice, and in the Preface to 
 the second volume he replied to the critics. '* By 
 the Title of this Book," he says, ''I do not mean 
 a study of the different Portraits which have been 
 drawn of Christ, nor even a comparison of the 
 Pictures drawn by the Four Evangelists. The 
 
330 LAST YEARS 
 
 Portrait of Christ is to me the united impression 
 produced upon the heart by these four delineations. 
 My office is not that of a critic, nor that of a 
 creator, nor that of an amender, but simply that of 
 an interpreter ; I study the Picture as it is." 
 
 The first volume embraces that period in the 
 ministry of our Lord which ends with the Feeding 
 of the Five Thousand. This miracle the author 
 very aptly characterises as the " First Communion," 
 and it is the climax in the first stage of our Lord's 
 work. That stage has as its keynote sympathy 
 for the multitude. During it we see Christ giving 
 Himself to man and finding joy in the giving. In 
 the second period of His ministry, which closes with 
 His death, Christ's aim was to induce the multitude 
 to give themselves to Him. In His apparent failure 
 to accomplish this lay His sorrow. The tragedy of 
 His life is found in the unresponsiveness of man. 
 
 In filling in his conception of the ministry of 
 Christ, as thus indicated, Dr. Matheson pays due 
 heed to historical accuracy. It is quite true that he 
 does not treat the records of the life of Christ after 
 the manner of the modern historical school. His 
 is no dry-as-dust production. He believes that 
 the possession of ideas, as well as the knowledge of 
 facts, forms a necessary equipment of a biographer. 
 But he is careful that his ideas should illumine his 
 facts, and not overcloud them. In the opening 
 chapters the author deals, in an original and 
 luminous manner, with such subjects as the 
 ** Messianic Hopes of the Jews " and the " Baptist's 
 
LAST YEARS 331 
 
 Conception of the Christ." It Is in the sixth 
 chapter, however, that he gets to the heart of the 
 subject. To the question. What Is the plan of 
 Christ's life ? he boldly replies Christ had no plan. 
 By this he means that our Lord did not arrange 
 beforehand the details of His ministry. He had In 
 His mind, from the very first, the aim to be the Holy 
 One of God. But He allowed each day and hour to 
 determine how that aim should be realised. God, 
 says Dr. Matheson, had a plan for the Son, and the 
 Son In yielding Himself to the will of the Father 
 carried out that plan without determining Its 
 contents In advance. Its general scope, however, 
 the author would find in St. Paul's conception of 
 Christ's work, which is recorded in the passage that 
 says, '' Let this mind be in you which was In Christ 
 Jesus who, though in the form of God, thought 
 equality with God a thing not to be snatched at, 
 but emptied Himself, and took upon Himself the 
 form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of 
 men ; and being recognised in the fashion of man, 
 he humbled Himself and became obedient unto 
 death, even the death of the cross." This passage 
 gives the keynote to Dr. Matheson's conception of 
 our Lord's life. For he holds, In this matter, St. 
 Paul to be a better guide than Renan, Schenkel, or 
 Seeley. Such a philosophy of the life of Jesus, he 
 remarks, is the description of a ladder of descent. 
 In the chapters that follow he works out this con- 
 ception In detail, not, however. In a hard-and-fast 
 manner, for that would be to reduce his work to a 
 
332 LAST YEARS 
 
 piece of mechanism. All the same he believes that 
 the sequence which the apostle sketches will be 
 found to follow, if not the steps, at least the 
 principle of the life of Jesus. In each event which 
 leads up to the First Communion, with which the 
 volume closes, when our Lord's sympathy with the 
 wants of men received its full manifestation, the 
 human and philanthropic spirit of the Master is 
 seen to grow ever deeper and wider. 
 
 It is at this point that the second volume takes 
 up the story and continues it to its close. The 
 pivot on which this period in the life of Christ 
 turns is the thought of His death. This is the 
 point which Dr. Matheson selects as the central 
 theme of the volume, and he has shown a true 
 instinct in doing so. Nowhere else can one find a 
 study of the ''final catastrophe," as it has been 
 called, so fresh, so profound, and on the whole so 
 hopeful ; which indeed transforms death from being 
 a "final catastrophe" into a "final triumph." 
 
 It is impossible for the student of the life of 
 Christ to read Dr. Matheson's pages without 
 challenging a comparison between him and the 
 greatest of those who have treated the same 
 subject. Since the day when St. Bonaventura, 
 early in the thirteenth century, wrote, outside of 
 the sacred canon, the first Vita Christi, more Lives 
 than can be numbered have been written of Christ. 
 But for the present generation two studies stand 
 out as of special interest — the Ecce Ho7no of Professor 
 Seeley, and The Training of the Twelve by Pro- 
 
LAST YEARS 333 
 
 fessor Bruce. Each of these works, in addition 
 to its great power as a whole, contains a single 
 gem, which of itself would be sufficient to redeem 
 it, supposing it needed redemption, which it 
 does not. The gem of Ecce Homo is the story 
 which describes the repentance of a woman — a 
 story which has gone to the heart of Christendom, 
 and which has given to Christian art the figure 
 of the Magdalene. The gem of The Training of 
 the Twelve is the anointing at Bethany. Severe 
 though the test may be. Dr. Matheson in each 
 case supplies us with a new gem which is worthy 
 of being set beside them. Indeed, the book as a 
 whole is richer than any that he ever wrote, in 
 originality, in depth, and in beauty of expression. 
 A spirit of calmness pervades it ; there is a sure- 
 ness of touch in the thought as well as in the 
 style. It bristles with suggestions ; it is bold and 
 yet reverent, deep yet devotional. He might well 
 call it Studies of the Portrait of Christ, for it is 
 a veritable picture gallery in which one loves to 
 linger. The Character, whose lineaments he traces, 
 is depicted in every stage of His development, and 
 in every form and fashion of His unique career. The 
 lines may be few, but they are drawn by a master- 
 hand. Each chapter introduces a fresh aspect and 
 shows a new feature. Round the central Figure are 
 grouped the leading members of the League of 
 Pity ; filling in the background are the sisters of 
 Bethany, the sorrowing Magdalene, the scowling 
 Pharisee, and the promiscuous crowd. Nineteen 
 
334 LAST YEARS 
 
 centuries of thought and progress combine, in the 
 hands of Dr. Matheson, to re-create the first century, 
 and to give us back the Christ of religion, whom 
 the Christ of theology had taken away. 
 
 The hope was expressed by the members of the 
 Presbytery of Edinburgh, when Dr. Matheson gave 
 in his resignation as minister of St. Bernard's, 
 that his services as a preacher would not be lost 
 to the Church. He amply fulfilled that hope. 
 One of the burdens of his of^ce as the incumbent 
 of a stated charge was that he had, in addition to 
 his immediate duties, to meet the constant and re- 
 peated demands made upon him for special services 
 by ministers and congregations of nearly all the 
 Protestant denominations in the land. He did his 
 best to meet their wishes, and he endeavoured 
 once a month to preach in other churches than 
 his own. After he was freed from St. Bernard's 
 he responded to these requests more readily, and 
 for the first few years he was active in preaching 
 special sermons in different parts of the country. 
 There was one class in particular that loved to 
 hear him. During the first year of his ministry in 
 Edinburgh he was invited to deliver inaugural 
 addresses to the theological students of three such 
 different Colleges as the Edinburgh University, 
 the United Presbyterian Hall, and the Free 
 Church College of Glasgow. He was a prime 
 favourite with Scottish students, and if there was 
 one University city in which he was more popular 
 than another it was Aberdeen. He visited it on 
 
LAST YEARS 335 
 
 several occasions, and was always gladly welcomed. 
 The most important of these was when, at the 
 invitation of the University, he came to deliver one 
 of the Murtle Lectures. This was in December 
 1 90 1, and Professor Nicol, who presided, has 
 furnished me with the following interesting account 
 of Dr. Matheson's address : — 
 
 I wish your request to say something about Dr. 
 Matheson's pulpit appearances in Aberdeen had fallen 
 into more competent hands. But I had a sincere admir- 
 ation of his genius, and as a colleague for several years in 
 the Presbytery of Edinburgh I was proud to win his 
 friendship and to retain it to the end. 
 
 That he was exceedingly popular in Aberdeen was 
 shown by the large congregations which assembled to hear 
 him on the rare occasions when he fulfilled public 
 engagements in the city. His published works had made 
 his name familiar among all denominations, and among 
 Church of Scotland people he had long been known 
 through his charming meditations and poems and con- 
 tributions to the Magazines. And of course his great 
 hymn, " O Love that wilt not let me go," had long been in 
 the Scottish Hymnal^ and latterly had found a place also 
 in the Church Hymnary. 
 
 It was at one of our University Chapel Summer Services 
 in 1900 that I heard him first in Aberdeen. He had 
 officiated at least once on some public occasion before, and 
 had then been the guest of Professor Matthew Hay. So 
 attached had he become to Dr. and Mrs. Hay, and so 
 much did he feel at home with them, that on his later 
 visits to the city he took up his abode with them. And it 
 need not be said that the esteem he had conceived for 
 them was warmly reciprocated. There was a large 
 attendance of students, considering that it was summer, 
 when a much smaller proportion of them are at classes ; 
 and, with as large a representation of the general public 
 as our beautiful chapel could admit, he had a crowded 
 audience. 
 
336 LAST YEARS 
 
 The preacher gave them of his very best. His opening 
 prayer was very striking and uplifting, and, though it was 
 short, it awakened reverence and aroused expectation. 
 His text was in Romans v. 20, " Where sin abounded, 
 grace did much more abound " ; a subject wholly con- 
 genial to his own sanguine temperament, and on which 
 he based an appeal to his student audience to cherish the 
 optimism of youth as one of their dearest possessions. As 
 he closed a remarkably fresh and impressive discourse, 
 delivered with that action of the uplifted right arm so 
 characteristic of his manner, he expressed his pride at being 
 invited to preach one of the University Sermons, and 
 showed how highly he esteemed the occasion. 
 
 His next appearance in Aberdeen was in December 
 1901, when he was invited by the University to deliver one 
 of the Murtle Lectures. These Lectures are five or six in 
 the course of each winter session, and are delivered in the 
 Mitchell Hall, Marischal College. Among the Lecturers 
 of recent years have been Moderators and past Moderators 
 of the Presbyterian Church, the Bishops of Salisbury and 
 Stepney, Canons Scott Holland and Hensley Henson, 
 Professor Margoliouth of Oxford, the late Principal Rainy, 
 and the late Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren), and even 
 laymen like Professors M'Kendrick and our own Sir 
 William Ramsay. For one labouring under Dr. Matheson's 
 physical limitations a lecture, usually occupying a full 
 hour or more, must have been a trying ordeal, but to the 
 end he held on his way with the ease and lucidity and 
 brilliance which marked his briefest meditation. His 
 subject was " The problem of Job's patience." There was 
 a crowded attendance in the large Hall, every seat being 
 filled, and many standing in the passages, and even 
 without in the adjoining picture gallery. When the great 
 congregation joined in singing, as they did with unusual 
 heartiness, the hymn " O Love that wilt not let me go," 
 one could see that the preacher himself was moved. 
 When the lecture began, the subject which in less 
 experienced hands might have become commonplace was 
 opened up with an originality and power which at once 
 arrested the audience. The preacher found in the 
 
LAST YEARS 337 
 
 literature of the world four typical notes of despair, — first 
 and deepest that of Omar Khayyam, next that of the Book 
 of Ecclesiastes, then that of Pascal in his Thoughts, 
 and finally that of the Book of Job. To expound the 
 significance of this last, he set himself with a wealth of 
 illustration the most effective, and at the same time left 
 the impression upon some of his hearers that the most 
 pathetic touches were derived from his own experience. 
 It was an effort worthy to be ranked among the most 
 successful delivered under the auspices of the Murtle 
 Bequest. 
 
 The relations established between Dr. Matheson and 
 the University of Aberdeen were of the most cordial 
 character. He had been nominated by the Senatus for 
 the Gifford Lectureship, but had declined. In 1902 the 
 Senatus conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., an 
 honour which gave him immense gratification. When he 
 died, in the course of last year, we felt that there had gone 
 from us a unique personality, and one of the greatest 
 ornaments on our Roll of Honorary Graduates. 
 
 His friend, Professor Cowan, wrote a letter to 
 Miss Matheson on the evening on which the 
 address was delivered, in which he says : 
 
 Your brother was in excellent form and voice, and gave 
 us a brilliant lecture. The Hall was crowded, including 
 the passages filled with standers, and a large number who 
 came fairly punctual had to go away, owing to the failure 
 of standing room. The audience listened with rapt 
 attention. 
 
 Dr. Nicol refers to two special honours con- 
 ferred on Dr. Matheson by the University of 
 Aberdeen, They offered him, in 1899, the Gifford 
 Lectureship, and in 1902 they conferred upon 
 him the degree of LL.D. It was a disappoint- 
 ment to many when he declined the Lectureship. 
 It was the greatest gift in the hands of the 
 22 
 
338 LAST YEARS 
 
 Senatus, and one that is only bestowed upon 
 the most distinguished men. Many wondered 
 why he declined this honour. I remember 
 speaking to him about it at the time, and ex- 
 pressing the general regret at his inability to 
 deliver the lecture. He replied that the reason 
 was one of health. His doctor had forbidden 
 him. This was the very year in which he had 
 resigned St. Bernard's. He may not have been 
 aware at the time of any failing of health, but 
 there is no doubt that this fact may have had not 
 a little to do with his determination to relinquish 
 his charge. The great strain under which he 
 had worked for so many years, and the worries 
 attendant on the arrangements which led to the 
 appointment of a colleague, told upon him, and he 
 now began for the first time to realise that 
 physically he was not the man that he used to be. 
 The question of the lectures themselves could 
 not have seriously troubled him, for he had 
 already in manuscript a full course on the very 
 subject on which he would have had to speak. 
 This volume was evidently meant for publication, 
 but it has never seen the light ; it is on Natural 
 Religion. 
 
 The other honour conferred upon him was the 
 degree of LL.D. He was greatly gratified at this 
 recognition, especially on the part of a University 
 that was not his own. But to do Glasgow justice, 
 it was an open secret that the Senate had resolved 
 that very spring to bestow upon him the same 
 
LAST YEARS 339 
 
 degree, but it was anticipated by Aberdeen, much 
 to the regret of the Professors, for they felt that 
 his own University would honour itself in honouring 
 him. Principal Story, in particular, was anxious to 
 make every reparation for Glasgow's tardiness, and 
 if both had lived but a little longer it was the 
 intention of the Principal to propose Matheson for 
 the degree of D.D. Many years previously, in 
 1890, he had been made a Fellow of the Royal 
 Society of Edinburgh, so that at the comparatively 
 early age of fifty-nine he was the recipient of all 
 the Academic honours that his native country could 
 bestow upon him. 
 
 The other occasion on which Dr. Matheson 
 appeared to greatest advantage as a special 
 preacher was when, in October of 1903, he delivered 
 the annual sermon in Brunswick Chapel, Leeds, in 
 connection with the Wesleyan Missionary Society. 
 This was not by any means the first occasion on 
 which he had appeared in an English pulpit. He 
 had previously preached at Bradford and other 
 places ; indeed, he was as much sought after by 
 congregations across the Border as in his own 
 land. The hold which he had upon the members 
 of other communions was most remarkable. He 
 was as popular with other denominations as with 
 his own. There was no church, for example, in 
 which he preached more frequently than in Free 
 St. George's, Edinburgh, and for Dr. Alexander 
 Whyte he had the greatest admiration and regard. 
 The esteem was mutual. They were the two 
 
340 LAST YEARS 
 
 outstanding ministers of Edinburgh. For origin- 
 ality of thought and freshness of treatment they 
 had no equal. Dr. Whyte, on the appearance of 
 the Studies of the Portrait of Christ, sent the 
 following letter to Dr. Matheson : — 
 
 Balmacara, Loch Alsh, N.B. 
 
 Dear Dr. Matheson, — On the last day of my Loch 
 Alsh holiday, a cold wet day, I have read your brilliant 
 Portrait of Christ, at a long down-sitting and pen in 
 hand. And now I sit down to put my notes of your 
 book in order for future inspiration and use. It is a true 
 test of a work of genius that its touch fertilises the mind 
 of the reader, and my mind and my heart have both been 
 fertilised to-day over your deep and beautiful book. — With 
 warm love and' honour, ALEXANDER Whyte. 
 
 In a communication from Dr. Whyte, he says : 
 '' I never heard Dr. Matheson preach, though more 
 than once he took my place in my absence ; but 
 always when he preached for me, there was an 
 outburst of praise among my people, most 
 unanimous and most thankful. I never could 
 account for the extraordinary kind words he 
 would employ about myself, or rather, I always 
 accounted for them as the outcome of his extra- 
 ordinary deep and warm heart." 
 
 His discourse at Leeds was on the " Boundless- 
 ness of the Bible," based on 2 Timothy ii. 9, " The 
 Word of God is not bound." It was a Missionary 
 sermon, and one of the most characteristic that he 
 ever delivered. *'The attraction of a great 
 preacher and the power of the pulpit," says a 
 correspondent, ** were shown on Wednesday evening, 
 
LAST YEARS 341 
 
 when, in spite of pouring rain, people came from 
 all parts to hear the annual Missionary sermon in 
 Brunswick Chapel. The sermon was an extra- 
 ordinary deliverance, in treatment as in manner. 
 Dr. Matheson's striking delivery and vibrant voice, 
 added to his original way of dealing with his 
 subject, at once arrested attention and kept it 
 undiminished till the close." The Wesleyan 
 Church, as a whole, had a great regard for Dr. 
 Matheson. One of its leading ministers has 
 written to the effect : 
 
 I thought probably you would be pleased to know, in 
 so strenuous a Church as the Primitive Methodist Church, 
 Dr. Matheson was greatly loved and read. I was sur- 
 prised to discover how strong was the devotion in our 
 Church to this prophet-seer, and it has given me no little 
 joy that there is the clearest evidence that Matheson's 
 soul has passed into many souls in our Church, and he 
 lives again in lives made better by his presence. 
 
 In 1 90 1, the year following the publication of 
 the second volume of his Portrait of Christ, he 
 published two books. Times of Retirement and The 
 Sceptre withottt a Sword. The first was a volume 
 of meditations, the second a Christmas idyll. I 
 well remember the inception of his Times of Re- 
 tirefnent. Some elo^hteen months before its 
 appearance I happened to be on a visit to him. 
 It was at the time when I was making preparations 
 for my editing of the Church of Scotland weekly 
 journal. Saint Andrew. He took a deep interest 
 in the venture, and as I was leaving he asked to 
 be excused for a moment, and on returning he had 
 
342 LAST YEARS 
 
 in his hand a brown paper parcel, carefully bound 
 up, and with evident delight he handed it to me 
 and said, ''There's my Christmas present for Saint 
 Andrew.'' On opening the parcel I discovered 
 that it contained twenty meditations. When they 
 had appeared he sent me fresh instalments. When 
 they too had run their course in the magazine, 
 the series was published in volume form, with a 
 brief '' Biographical Sketch of the Author," written 
 by me at the request of the publishers. These 
 valued contributions were a free gift from him 
 and a mark of his friendship, and he continued 
 to write regularly for the journal until his death, 
 and on the same terms. Indeed, the last book 
 published by him, Rests by the River, first saw 
 the light in Saint Andrew, a fact which he is care- 
 ful to note in the very first line of his Preface. 
 It was also a book of devotional meditations, and 
 was published in the spring of 1906. The Sceptre 
 without a Sword is a charming booklet, based on 
 the vision of Daniel, " I saw in the night visions, 
 and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the 
 clouds of heaven. . . . And there was given Him a 
 kingdom" (vii. 13). Dr. Matheson interprets the 
 vision of the old Hebrew seer in the liofht of the 
 history of the world since the coming of Christ. 
 He argues that the secret of the difference between 
 ancient and modern times is the influence of 
 Christmas Day ; in other words, the fact that the 
 hearts of modern men have been dominated by a 
 Man of sacrifice — simple motives setting in move- 
 
LAST YEARS 343 
 
 ment great forces, the wheels of time quickened by 
 the heart finding impulse and inspiration in the 
 sublime events associated with Christmas-time. In 
 this helping of man by man he finds the hope that 
 differences which now separate men will be 
 hushed, and the notes of a common Hymnal 
 drawing all together in that meridian hour of 
 Christmas Day when the last vestige of difference 
 shall be removed. 
 
 His contributions to periodical literature during 
 this period were not numerous. It is true that in 
 1 90 1 he wrote a series of eleven articles to The 
 Expositor on '' Scientific Lights on Religious 
 Problems." He now regarded the old war between 
 science and religion as at an end, and he himself 
 was an important factor in bringing the strife to so 
 happy and fruitful an issue. He now calls in Science 
 as the handmaid of Religion, and in these articles he 
 shows how the great doctrines of the Christian 
 Faith can be interpreted by it. In the previous 
 year, 1900, he wrote an article to The London 
 Quarterly Review on the '' Characteristics of Bible 
 Portraiture." It was a preparation for his next 
 important book. In this article he promulgates 
 the views which he afterwards embodied in his 
 Portrait of Christ and The Representative Men of 
 the Bible, 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1902 that the first of 
 his striking books on Bible characters appeared. 
 He published it under the above title, The Repre- 
 sentative Men of the Bible, '' By this," he says, 
 
344 LAST YEARS 
 
 '* I mean the men of the Bible who represent 
 phases of the Bible, irrespective of place and time, 
 and I consider them only in those incidents in 
 which they are representative. These studies," he 
 continues, *'are not historical, they are not 
 critical. They are an analysis of the portraits as 
 we see them, without any attempt to inquire how 
 or when they came." He follows the method 
 which, for a brief study of any human character, is 
 always the most illuminating ; he adopts a point of 
 view. He looks, so to speak, at the individual 
 whom he intends to sketch ; focuses the incidents 
 of his life and the features of his character, and 
 allows himself to be impressed by the idea which is 
 then produced. This he regards as the soul of 
 the man, the mental or spiritual fact represented 
 by him ; and it is what he pictures. No one was 
 more capable of excelling in a work of this kind 
 than Dr. Matheson. His point of view may to 
 the prosaic mind seem at times a little far-fetched. 
 As occasionally happens, when this method is 
 adopted, violence may be done to certain features 
 which do not harmonise with the image that the 
 artist has in his mind. But taken as a whole it is 
 a suggestive method, one which lifts its subject 
 out of the crowd of details which obscure the 
 character in place of revealing it. Matheson 
 pondered each " Representative Man " in turn. 
 He allowed the subject for the time being to 
 possess him ; he brought his own creative genius 
 to work upon it, and the result is a portrait gallery 
 
LAST YEARS 345 
 
 of Bible characters which has few equals in 
 Christian literature. The three volumes which 
 he published, two on the Old Testament and one 
 on the New, are as certain to live as anything he 
 ever wrote. The first volume was received by 
 public and press with much enthusiasm. In a 
 short time it reached a fourth edition. These 
 volumes, along with his Shtdies of the Portrait of 
 Christ and his Meditations, have had the largest 
 sale of all his works, and give every hope of con- 
 tinuing to attract readers for many a day. One 
 feature common to them all is the devotional note 
 with which each chapter ends ; and the following 
 interesting letter from a missionary of the Pres- 
 byterian Church in Japan bears striking testimony 
 to Matheson's far-reaching influence : — 
 
 Matsuyama, Japan, 
 May 12, 1906. 
 
 Dear Dr. Matheson, — My wife and I were of some 
 help to a Japanese military doctor who was very sick 
 during the late war with Russia, and upon his recovery to 
 health he asked me many things about Christianity, and 
 especially about prayer. I am teaching English in a 
 Government school here in Matsuyama, and asked one of 
 the English-speaking Japanese teachers to translate into 
 Japanese the prayer which follows on your study of 
 David in Representative Men of the Bible. This doctor 
 said that the prayer is comprehensive, and he used it every 
 day. While not yet baptized, I think the Lord has been 
 guiding him by this sickness to the truth. I thought per- 
 haps you might be interested to know that your prayer 
 has had an influence even in Japan, and thus the scope of 
 your work has been enlarged more than you might think. 
 I thank the Lord that He has qualified you for being such 
 a help and comfort, to many like myself, through your 
 
346 LAST YEARS 
 
 printed works. I have had such pleasure in reading your 
 books, and in feeling through them the warmth of your 
 spiritual nature. I hope you will still have many years of 
 being the teacher of God's comfort to others, even as He 
 has taught you of His comfort. — Yours very sincerely, 
 
 A. V. Bryan. 
 
 To this Dr. Matheson replied : 
 
 14 Belgrave Crescent, 
 June 13, 1906. 
 
 Please accept my very best thanks for your very 
 kind communication ! It is my greatest joy in life to 
 learn that my poor effort affords help and comfort to my 
 fellow-man. It is truly good of you to send me such a 
 high appreciation of my work. But specially am I rejoiced 
 to know that my words have influence outside the Church 
 of Christ ; this is indeed a thing of which one may be justly 
 proud. But, for that matter, I have the greatest admira- 
 tion for the Japanese nation ; and I firmly believe that, in 
 the main, they live the Christian life. I cannot but think 
 that that life will yet shape itself in the form of a creed 
 which will inspire them with the hope everlasting, and 
 stimulate the duties of earth by the light of heaven. — 
 Yours very sincerely, etc. 
 
 Hearers of Dr. Matheson's sermons v^ere v^ell 
 aware of the variety of his intellectual and literary 
 interests. He appeared in the pulpit with a Divine 
 message, but one that was lit up and illustrated by 
 the fruits of his multifarious reading. His books, 
 treating for the most part of theological and 
 religious subjects, fail to give the same impression 
 of his wide culture. In truth, however, he was quite 
 as much interested in secular literature as in sacred, 
 and his knowledge of the one was almost as exten- 
 sive as his knowledge of the other. It was a 
 surprise to many when, in the spring of 1905, an 
 
LAST YEARS 347 
 
 article by him appeared in the Glasgow Evening 
 News on the '* Modern English Novel," showing 
 an acquaintance with the popular authors of the 
 day quite as extensive as and much more informing 
 than that of the professional novel reader ; and the 
 surprise of others was almost as great when in 
 the previous year, at the annual dinner of the 
 Edinburgh Ninety Burns Club, he delivered his 
 remarkable oration on the poet. Dr. Mathe- 
 son's friends were well aware of his admiration 
 for the national bard. His enthusiasm broke out 
 now and again in the pulpit, and in one instance 
 he made a happy use of a famous passage in the 
 life of Christ to illustrate and in a sense to justify 
 the poet's character. In his Portrait of Christ, 
 remarking on an incident which he says has trans- 
 fixed the attention of the world, the contrasted 
 attitude of the Pharisees and of Christ in the 
 presence of an unfortunate woman, there is the 
 following striking passage : — 
 
 This particular kind of sin was precisely the one from 
 which a Pharisee was apt to be free. There are cases in 
 which Satan casts out Satan ; there are men and women 
 who are exempt from certain vices simply through the 
 presence of other vices. A cold, phlegmatic nature would 
 never commit the sins of Robert Burns. This does not 
 justify Robert Burns ; but it shows that one disease may 
 be cured by another disease. It is a matter of daily 
 experience that the advent of a new ailment may cause 
 an already existing ailment to subside ; there are forms of 
 physical illness which cannot live together. There are 
 forms of moral illness which are also mutually antagonistic. 
 I cannot imagine that the typical Judas Iscariot could 
 ever have been guilty of that form of sin which char- 
 
348 LAST YEARS 
 
 acterised this woman. The man who could carefully 
 count out thirty pieces of silver as the price of his Lord's 
 betrayal would never have committed the miscalculations 
 of her who squandered life, reputation, respectability, on 
 the sensuous passion of an hour. 
 
 So much for Dr. Matheson's conception of the 
 character of Burns ; it reveals at once his Insight 
 and his charity. In his Edinburgh address It is the 
 poetry of Burns that forms his subject, and the tvi^o 
 notes which, to his thinking, distinguish It are its 
 sympathy and universality. He aptly illustrates 
 the former by a reference to Burns's poem on the 
 Daisy. ''Did It ever occur to you to ask," he 
 exclaims, " v^hy he speaks of the flower as ' crimson 
 tipped ' ? — 
 
 Is it not the fact? you say. Of course: but I doubt 
 very much if that is why Burns said it. Burns is not the 
 maker of an almanac. He never records facts just because 
 they are facts, he has always a reason beyond. And if I 
 am not greatly mistaken he had a reason here. He has 
 been calling the daisy " modest." What is the expression 
 of modesty? Is it not blushing — blushing crimson. 
 Could any two epithets come together more beautifully, 
 more harmoniously? Crashaw once wrote a poem on 
 the Miracle of Cana of Galilee ; he wrote it in one line 
 — "The Conscious Water knew its Lord, and blushed." 
 Burns, I think, had the same thought about the daisy. It 
 grew upon the mountain-top and saw the glory. And 
 it blushed before the glory. It felt its own inherent 
 nothingness and the crimson dyed its face. 
 
 In referring to the second note of Burns's poetry, 
 its universality, Dr. Matheson remarks : 
 
 This man is an instrument of ten strings — of all 
 possible strings. He wears the garb of Scotland but he 
 
LAST YEARS 349 
 
 is the poet of Humanity. His accent is provincial but his 
 speech is cosmopolitan. He sings in a national dialect, 
 but he delivers a message to man. The hands are the 
 hands of Esau, but the voice is the voice of Jacob. We 
 claim him as the property of our separate land, but in 
 truth he has made our land universal. This man, in a 
 literary sense, has soared above principalities and powers. 
 He is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Roman, bond 
 nor free. He is neither Scotch nor English ; he is neither 
 French nor Italian ; he is neither Dutch nor German : he 
 is neither, and yet he is all these — he is human. It is on 
 this we base his claim to immortality. Nationalities will 
 die. Even though the foot of an enemy should touch 
 them not, time changes their countenance and disrobes 
 them of their vesture. The nationality of Scotland itself 
 has faded in the ever-increasing assimilation to her 
 wealthier sister. But Burns has not faded. He stands 
 on the mountain-top in full vision of that Canaan where 
 the immortals dwell, and his eye is not dim nor his natural 
 strength abated. 
 
 The great annual break in Dr. Matheson's life, 
 v^hen he was minister of St. Bernard's, vv^as his 
 summer holiday. He took tv^o full months, August 
 and September, and during them he w^ould preach 
 for no one. For the first fifteen years of his life 
 in Edinburgh he spent his summer vacation on the 
 west coast, chiefly at Craigmore, Skelmorlie, or 
 Largs. He did a certain amount of work each day, 
 and enjoyed being read to as usual, but he took 
 frequent sails on the river steamers and long 
 drives into the country. Latterly, however, he 
 preferred to go to the east coast, and for several 
 summers in succession he spent his holiday at 
 North Berwick. The quiet of the place, its 
 bracing sea-breezes, its variety of carriage drives, 
 
350 LAST YEARS 
 
 and its congenial society, all appealed to him. It 
 was there that he made the friendship of Dr. Hately 
 Waddell, and the two had frequent intercourse 
 together. Dr. Waddell, who had a great admira- 
 tion for his friend, has communicated to me certain 
 impressions which are particularly accurate and 
 interesting. He remarks, for example : 
 
 Dr. Matheson was in the habit of saying, in his 
 paradoxical way, that blindness was not the want of sight 
 but in reality too much sight. He was blind, he would 
 say, not because he saw too little but because he saw too 
 much. Blindness was excessive light, and the time of 
 revelation for him was in the night ; then he saw clearly. 
 He was fond of expressing himself in paradoxes, and it 
 was difficult sometimes to know how far he was in earnest 
 in statements of this kind. But certainly no other form of 
 words could so well have described his temperament 
 either as a writer or a preacher. All his work, written or 
 spoken, was a transcription of what he mentally saw. 
 Truth came to him as a vision ; he did not reason it out. 
 He had a vivid picture of it complete at once, and its 
 certainty was more or less tested by the vividness of the 
 form it assumed in his mind. 
 
 What chiefly struck Dr. Waddell was Matheson's 
 impressionist temperament, which, he says, 
 
 gave such force to his preaching and such vividness to 
 his writing. His power lay in holding up to others the 
 same living impression of a subject which he himself had 
 experienced. His preaching was not so much the 
 elucidation of a text or of a theme as the re-telling of 
 a series of graphic impressions which the subject had 
 already made on the preacher, each of which seemed to 
 absorb for the time the whole truth of life. Hence also 
 his writings, even his earlier works, assumed chiefly a 
 descriptive rather than an argumentative form, and 
 
LAST YEARS 351 
 
 finally became by preference a series of portraits or picture 
 studies. 
 
 But while his genius was thus poetical, pictorial, 
 and imaginative, and while he proclaimed himself 
 to be an idealist, 
 
 he never allowed either poetry or imagination to run 
 away with him. His work was all of an exact and 
 practical kind. Whether for pulpit or press his ideal 
 conceptions were reduced to the actual necessities of the 
 occasion. The most poetical themes and exalted views of 
 life and history became real and persuasive to those who 
 listened or read. No great man is vague in his thinking, 
 and Dr. Matheson shared this characteristic of true 
 greatness : that he worked out all his thought to its 
 legitimate conclusions and left a large and complete 
 picture of it on the imagination and memory. The truths 
 of religion and history he regarded as universal, and the 
 differences of time, or thought, or nationality, merely 
 incidental. He would have held himself as defrauded of 
 an inalienable right had he been forbidden to translate the 
 teaching of the Bible into all the varied conditions and 
 vernacular of to-day. His chief mission, he latterly 
 thought, was just this form of translation of Bible truths 
 into modern conditions. Not necessarily the illumination 
 of antique formulas but, certainly, the reconstruction of 
 them by modern ideas. 
 
 Dr. Waddell is in doubt as to Whether he was 
 more theological or devout in his nature, whether 
 he was more reasoning or emotional in his habit of 
 thought. He thinks both tendencies were fairly 
 well balanced, and that in his writings there is a 
 unique combination of both. " It is true," he adds, 
 
 that his more reasoned themes had a great influence on 
 current opinion, especially perhaps The Old Faith and 
 the NezVy which Tennyson is said to have recommended 
 
352 LAST YEARS 
 
 to the late Duke of Argyll, and which Sir Andrew Clark 
 recommended to many friends as the best antidote to 
 atheism. But the most of these works were the outcome 
 of his historical and theological reading, and are not so 
 peculiar to his genius as his more individual meditations 
 on devotional subjects. I should say that naturally his 
 temperament was more that of the preacher than of the 
 author, and that subjects which were treated from the 
 standpoint of the preacher were both more congenial to 
 himself and more helpful to his readers. 
 
 Referring to his most abiding mood, during his 
 later years, he says : 
 
 The truth of Christianity, which chiefly appealed to 
 him, was not any dogmatic definition of its special 
 purposes and aims, but the broader revelation it contained 
 of the immanence of the Divine in the human, of the 
 eternal in the temporal, of the spiritual in the natural. 
 Nothing indeed appealed to him more than this Christian 
 consecration of the natural and commonplace, of the 
 apparently common and unclean. This was the Gospel 
 of his later years : the immanence of the Divine in the 
 human, in all life and in all conditions of life. This, too, 
 was the ever-recurring theme of his conversation, it was 
 not so much a philosophy as simply a spiritual conviction, 
 learned direct from Christ. 
 
 Wherein, asks Dr. Waddell, lay Matheson's 
 chief value to the Church of his generation ? Putting 
 aside his literary v^ork, he would find the answer in 
 his fresh, spontaneous, unconventional personality. 
 
 He was a living rebuke to all formality, to all minis- 
 terial mannerisms, to all outworn proprieties. He had 
 a unique character, and it ruled all his clerical functions. 
 Like his conversation, these were absolutely unconven- 
 tional. His sermons and his prayers were things by 
 themselves ; they were sometimes startling, but always 
 fresh and forceful. He chose his own methods, but he 
 
LAST YEARS 353 
 
 had strength to make them successful. He broke away 
 from clerical customs, but he did not need their support. 
 And in days of advancing ritual he thought the Church 
 might perhaps stake too much upon forms and proprieties. 
 Much will be accepted from one who lets his own religious 
 individuality have its full swing. This was the advice he 
 gave as to ministerial training. He had great faith in 
 human nature when consecrated to an ideal, and had no 
 patience with anything artificial or unreal. 
 
 Speaking of a v^ell-known trait in Dr. Mathe- 
 son's character, his frank outspokenness and free 
 criticisms of men and things, he remarks : 
 
 A strong humanity ruled all his social views, though at 
 times his criticisms of individuals were severe. That, how- 
 ever, was but one side of his criticism, for the next moment 
 he would find something in the same character worthy of 
 the highest praise ; indeed, he passed from blame to praise 
 without delay and without grudge. It was his nature to 
 be constantly in extremes, and no one would have dreamed, 
 least of all he himself, of taking these sudden valuations 
 of character as prearranged judgments. His whole con- 
 versation was ecstatic and unpremeditated, and rose and 
 fell with quick succession of varied feelings. It never was 
 commonplace. 
 
 He had'^the same rapid and careless w^ay of flashing 
 out quotations on what might seem dangerous occasions. 
 For when the application appealed to him he could not 
 restrain a good-natured criticism or comparison, however 
 pungent. But, as one said who knew him well, " These 
 things all came and went in a moment." He took for 
 granted always a hearer of judgment and tact, who could 
 sympathise with and understand the sudden transitions 
 of a quick-moving mind. A Homeric simplicity ruled 
 all his character. The most sacred and profane equally 
 appealed to him. The unity of God's great world gave 
 worth and meaning to everything, even to things 
 which religious society, with its conventional judgments, 
 abandoned or condemned. 
 
 23 
 
354 LAST YEARS 
 
 It was when on holiday at North Berwick, in 
 the autumn of last year, that he took suddenly 
 ill and died. I had seen him in Edinburgh at 
 the beginning of June, and I was very much dis- 
 tressed at the change which was perceptible in 
 his appearance. It is true that he was just re- 
 covering then from a serious attack of influenza, 
 but it seemed to me that the hand of Death was 
 upon him. I understand he recovered with sur- 
 prising rapidity, and it looked as if he had many 
 years still before him. The one object of interest 
 to him, in those last days, was the beautiful new 
 house which he had bought at 14 Belgrave 
 Crescent. The last letter I ever received from 
 him was one from North Berwick, assuring me of 
 the welcome which he would give me in his new 
 abode on his return home. Mr. William Smith, his 
 secretary, has kindly furnished me with the follow- 
 ing details regarding Dr. Matheson's health during 
 the closing years of his life : — 
 
 '' First, I did indeed notice that some two or 
 three years before his death he was not in a 
 physical sense the George Matheson I had met 
 some seven or eight years before. He first, I 
 fancy, realised his failing health on the occasion of 
 a trip to Leeds, where he preached a great sermon 
 to the Wesleyan Methodists. From that time he 
 became increasingly averse to travel, and he de- 
 clined, right and left, invitations which involved 
 travel ; and before long he declined invitations to 
 preach, whether they involved travel or not. It 
 
LAST YEARS 355 
 
 was not that he feared the preaching itself; he 
 merely objected to being any length of time from 
 his own house. The last occasion on which he 
 preached was in Morningside Church, Edinburgh, on 
 the 14th of February 1904. That sermon, I admit, 
 appeared to call from him a great physical effort. I 
 remember, when disrobing him in the vestry after- 
 wards, he was positively wet with perspiration. 
 What I mean is, that he evidently anticipated this 
 effort, judged by what I recollect was an unusual 
 amount of anxiety, for him, for some time before 
 the event was due. I do not remember his text, I 
 only remember that Morningside Church was filled 
 that day, and that I was rather concerned about 
 his physical condition. I remember, too, having 
 an inkling myself that he could not preach again. 
 Whether he had such an inkling I do not know ; 
 I should say not ; and, for that matter, he was 
 destined to make another public appearance, on the 
 occasion, in November of 1904, of one of the 
 annual services of the Life Boat Saturday Fund 
 Service. He delivered a very fine prayer on the 
 Sunday evening at the Empire Theatre. Even 
 that occasion caused him a great effort, especially 
 as he had committed the prayer to memory — a 
 practice he was latterly much averse to. And yet 
 I do not think that up to this Empire appearance, 
 nor indeed till much later, if even then, he himself 
 realised that his bodily health was giving way. His 
 naturally optimistic disposition could not permit 
 him any despondency. 
 
356 LAST YEARS 
 
 '* He manifested during the last years of his life 
 symptoms of that trouble which In the end proved 
 fatal, and his Increasing shortness of breath made 
 him more and more reluctant to take bodily 
 exercise. But he was told that driving exercise 
 was the thing for him, and, latterly, he often took 
 this driving exercise when he would much rather 
 have stayed at home. The very work of getting 
 in and out of his carriage became more and more 
 difficult. Realising this myself, I latterly volun- 
 teered to personally assist him when he returned 
 from his two hours' drive. ' Ah ! ' he said one 
 day, when I had assisted him from his carriage 
 to his study, ' this is very good of you. I am a 
 poor creature, and I don't think you will have me 
 long.' This happened, I should think, about three 
 weeks before his death. But that mood did not pre- 
 vail till the end. During our working hours together 
 he seemed as cheery and vivacious as ever. Those 
 pleasantries to which he was accustomed were 
 always in evidence, and his laugh was something in 
 his old style. But if any instance struck me 
 afterwards, as having been of a premonitory nature, 
 it was the fact which occurred only some four hours 
 before his apoplectic seizure. After an hour's read 
 — from 8 to 9 p.m. on August 27th — which was 
 commenced upon the Napoleonic vol. (vol. iii. or iv., 
 I forget which) of the Cambridge Modern History, 
 and finished upon the lighter diet of one of W. E. 
 Norris' novels, I was considerably ' staggered ' 
 by, ' You might give me that Braille, William ; I 
 
LAST YEARS 357 
 
 think I'll do a little work.' I should not have 
 been 'staggered' by such a request three or four 
 years earlier ; but not for a very long time had he 
 been in the habit of ' writing up ' anything so late 
 in the day. I took it upon me to remonstrate with 
 him — gently but firmly. ' But I must get on with 
 my book ! ' \Representative Women of the Bible ; 
 published after his death] he argued. * An old adage 
 tells us not to "put off till to-morrow what we can 
 do to-day " ' — a saying rather suggestive, I think. 
 At all events Dr. Matheson could not have finished 
 his book that day, and it is perhaps just as well 
 that I prevailed on him not to attempt it. 
 
 *' Personally, I have not much faith in pre- 
 monitions ; but that looked remarkably like some- 
 thinof of the sort. But allowinof that these some- 
 what gloomy forebodings really found root in him, 
 his skies were of a singularly alternating nature. 
 He assuredly never thought the end was so near. 
 I am sure that, not more than a day or two before 
 his death, he was making plans regarding his new 
 house — how he would entertain during the then 
 coming winter. Then, during his drive on August 
 27th, lasting about two and a half hours, I under- 
 stood that he was in exceptionally good spirits. 
 So the premonition did not altogether weigh him 
 down. It is some years ago now, but he once 
 told me — in a not altogether jocular way — that he 
 thought he should ' never die ' ! The fact is, his 
 abnormally active intellect could not conceive that 
 intellect in a state of passivity." 
 
358 LAST YEARS 
 
 His sister, Miss Matheson, speaking of the last 
 visit to North Berwick, remembers her brother 
 saying to her then, as he had often said before, '* I 
 have had a happy Hfe." ''He also told me he thought 
 he had a new note in his voice, which made me 
 think he was strong ; and I did think he was seeing 
 better. One day he asked the doctor if there was 
 anything organically wrong, as he felt not so well. 
 The doctor said, quite decidedly, ' No.' My brother 
 replied, ' I would like to live to do a little good.' 
 Surely God had more important work for him to 
 do." "He was very happy," she continues, "at 
 North Berwick, and full of bright plans for the 
 future. He enjoyed driving with my sister Nellie 
 and me on the 27th, and was busily engaged In 
 writing his last work that day. He retired to rest 
 at 1 1. 1 5, and bade me his usual affectionate good- 
 night. At 1.30 in the morning I heard a slight 
 moan. My sister Nellie and I rushed downstairs, 
 and found he could not speak. He was quite 
 conscious, however, and smiled with a restful, satis- 
 fied look to us both, showing that he knew us 
 well and was glad we were near. I was told 
 not to go to his room, as the doctor wished him 
 kept very quiet. He thought he would recover, 
 as he had a fine constitution. I did go once, how- 
 ever, and when he heard my voice his face lit up 
 with a lovely, beaming expression, full of joy and 
 peace. I shall never forget It, and I feel that no 
 photograph could ever depict that radiant glow. 
 He passed most peacefully away ; there was no 
 
LAST YEARS 359 
 
 suffering. As the doctor said, ' He had an abundant 
 entrance.' " 
 
 The news of Dr. Matheson's death came as a 
 shock of surprise, and produced a profound feeling 
 of regret. It was so sudden and so unexpected, 
 and, so far as age is concerned, he had not long 
 passed the meridian of life. It was known that he 
 was more disinclined than ever to preach, but this 
 was not put down to any special physical weakness ; 
 and a fresh volume by him having appeared, so 
 recently as the spring, gave everyone the hope 
 that he would be spared for many years to instruct 
 and to comfort the Church of Christ. Long and 
 appreciative notices of him appeared in almost every 
 newspaper in England and in Scotland, indeed 
 throughout the British Empire and America. 
 Special references were made to him from almost 
 every pulpit in his native land on the Sunday after 
 his death ; and, by a unanimous desire, his famous 
 hymn was sung on the same day by most congrega- 
 tions. The two leading Presbyteries of the Church, 
 those of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the Royal 
 Society of Edinburgh, minuted special resolutions 
 of regret and sympathy, copies of which were sent 
 to his family. But more significant than any of 
 these, and a stronger testimony to his work and to 
 his influence, were the letters that his sister received 
 from admirers in different parts of the world, and 
 in particular from those, like himself, who suffered 
 from dire physical calamity, and whose life his 
 example had inspired and whose suffering his faith 
 
360 LAST YEARS 
 
 had mitigated. Indeed, under Providence, his 
 
 special gift to the world may, in the end, prove to 
 
 be, the encouragement which his noble life will give 
 
 to those who, like himself, may be subjected to a 
 
 life-long physical affliction. Let me give two such 
 
 letters. 
 
 i Surrey, 
 
 . September 2, 1906. 
 
 Dear Madam, — Will you pardon me, a stranger to 
 you, if I seem irreverently to intrude in your unspeakable 
 sorrow. 
 
 I only desire to convey to you a humble and an affec- 
 tionate acknowledgment of the endless debt I owe to the 
 late Dr. Matheson, whom having not seen I love. 
 
 He who writes to you is a young clergyman of the 
 Church of England, and a Scotsman. My eyes have been 
 permanently injured by illness for many years now, — but 
 after long darkness they partially recovered. 
 
 So your dear brother has been to me, by his heroic life, 
 a constant example in my ministry, and in times of 
 difficulty I have gone to his books for light and inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 I had for some time wished to write to him, but 
 hesitated to intrude. 
 
 May I now, and especially under the circumstances I 
 have named, be forgiven for sending these simple words 
 of deep gratitude to you ? 
 
 If so, I hope this letter will reach you. — Yours most 
 sincerely, M. A. 
 
 Dear Miss Matheson, — It was with feelings akin 
 to shock that I learned of the sudden death of your 
 beloved brother, and I desire on behalf of my wife and 
 myself to offer to you and all the mourning relatives our 
 sincerest sympathy. May you realise, in a very special 
 degree, the comforting presence and consoling companion- 
 ship of Christ in your great sorrow. 
 
 I cannot tell you how much your highly gifted 
 
LAST YEARS 361 
 
 brother was to me. Like him, I too lost my sight very 
 early in life, but through his magnificent example I was 
 induced to enter the ministry, in which I have been 
 labouring for these eleven years. It is somewhere about 
 seventeen years ago since one of my fellow-students 
 introduced me to Dr. Matheson, and well do I remember 
 our first meeting. I have met him more than once since 
 then, and I have corresponded with him frequently. He 
 was always kind and gracious, and supremely hopeful and 
 inspiring. It may interest you to learn that my wife had 
 just finished " The Glory of the Morning " in Mouients on 
 the Mounts when her eye caught the sad announcement 
 of his death in the newspaper. The eternal youth of 
 which he writes so beautifully in this meditation is now 
 for him not an inspiring vision but a glorious reality. 
 
 He died at Avenell House, North Berwick, on 
 Tuesday, 28th August 1906, and he was buried in 
 the family vault in Glasgow Necropolis on the fol- 
 lowing Saturday, September ist. His remains 
 had been previously brought to his new house at 
 Belgrave Crescent, which, alas ! was only to know its 
 owner in death. There service was conducted in 
 the presence of the family and of those specially 
 invited to the funeral. On reaching Glasgow a 
 large concourse was found waiting the arrival of 
 the cortes^e. 
 
 How the sun did shine on his funeral day ! Its 
 rays poured with a steady brilliance, that made men 
 wonder. It was not a day on which one could be 
 sad — it was a day of Hght and creator of gladsome- 
 ness. Many may have thought of this as they 
 crossed the Dean Bridge, or walked along one or 
 other of the terraces, on their way to the funeral. 
 Joy, not sorrow, the very heavens seemed to de- 
 
362 LAST YEARS 
 
 clare, ought to be the prevailing note in the service 
 and the feeling in the heart. For the day had a 
 message. It flashed the thought, that to him who 
 had been surrounded with outward darkness all was 
 now bright ; that to the miracle of the New Birth 
 which gives sight to the eye of faith had been 
 added the miracle of the New State in which we 
 ** shall see Him as He is." Nor did the sun lose 
 one ray of its lustre all that day. It followed the 
 cortege with its glad message of hope to Matheson's 
 own city, the city in which he was born and bred, 
 and round which clustered many of his fondest 
 recollections. Glasgow was proud of him while he 
 was in life, and it will ever cherish his memory in 
 death. Many of its leading clergy and citizens met 
 and accompanied the bier to its last resting-place 
 in the noble Necropolis. The ancient Cathedral, 
 with a look of perpetual youth on its venerable 
 walls, spoke as they passed of the " glorious 
 resurrection." Around the open grave the mourners 
 stood in sad dejection ; and when all was over, and 
 the last words of farewell and hope were spoken, 
 they still stood as if expecting something more — 
 they knew not what. That "something more" 
 will be revealed to them, also, when '' Death is 
 swallowed up in victory." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbotsford Place, 39, Glasgow, 2, 
 
 8,15. 
 Abbott, Dr. Lyman, 270. 
 Academy, Glasgow, 15. 
 Addresses— at Edinburgh Ninety 
 
 Burns Club, 8 ; at Presbyterian 
 
 Council, Belfast, 206, 209 ; at 
 
 St. Bernard's, Edinburgh, 255 ; 
 
 to Theological Students, 334. 
 Agnosticism, articles on, 205. 
 Aids to the Study of German 
 
 Theology, 133, 135, 138, I47, 
 
 202. 
 Alison, Rev. Dr. John, 139. 
 Apologetics, 152, 154. 
 Apostle Paul, the, 268, 269. 
 Appointment to Innellan, 87. 
 Argyll, Duke of, 214. 
 Assistants, Dr. Matheson's, 326. 
 Augustine, 171. 
 Autobiography of " Jupiter " 
 
 Carlyle, 26. 
 Avenell House, North Berwick, 
 
 361. 
 
 Baird Lecture, 162. 
 
 Balmoral, 215. 
 
 Bar, the, 23. 
 
 Barnett, Rev. T. R., 235. 
 
 Basis of Religious Belief, 160. 
 
 Baur, 154. 
 
 Belfast, meeting of Pan- 
 Presbyterian Council at, 206. 
 
 Belgrave Crescent, 288, 354. 
 
 Bell, Mr. M'Kenzie, 310. 
 
 Bell, Mr., Glasgow Academy, 17. 
 
 Bible Class at St. Bernard's, 255. 
 
 Bible Definition of Religion, 285. 
 
 Biblical World, 263. 
 
 Blackie, Professor, 4. 
 
 Blackwood & Sons, 211, 281. 
 
 Blair, Rev. Dr., 47. 
 
 Bleek, 134. 
 
 "Blind Girl's Retrospect, The," 
 64. 
 
 Boyd, A. K. H., 26, 27. 
 
 Braille system, the, 293, 294. 
 
 British and Foreign Evangelical 
 Review, 164. 
 
 British Quarterly Magazine, 150. 
 
 British Weekly, 164, 317. 
 
 Brooke, Stopford, iii. 
 
 Brown, Rev. Mr., 26. 
 
 Brown, Wm., Session Clerk, 
 Sandyford, 91. 
 
 Bruce, Professor, 164, 333. 
 
 Bryan, Mr. A. V., letter from, 
 
 364- 
 Buchanan, Professor Robert, 33, 
 
 34, 44- 
 Buchanan, Robert, 18, 35. 
 
 Buchanan's School, Glasgow, 14. 
 
 363 
 
364 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Burns Club, Edinburgh Ninety, 
 
 347- 
 Bust presented by Queen Victoria, 
 
 217 
 Butler, 153. 
 Byron, 17, 53, 64. 
 
 Caesar, Rev. Dr., 261. 
 Caird, Edward, 35, 46, 308. 
 Caird, Principal, 44, 45, 46, 48, 
 
 74, 76, 100, loi, 120, 315. 
 Calderwood, Professor, 207. 
 Call to London, 148. 
 Cameron, Rev. Dr., of Dunoon, 
 
 122. 
 Cameron, John, 35. 
 Campbell, Miss Mally, 26. 
 Campbell, Principal, 26. 
 Can the Old Faith Live with the 
 
 New, 205, 210, 214. 
 Carlile, Mr. James, 17. 
 Carlton Place School, 14. 
 Carlyle, " Jupiter," 26. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 46, 229. 
 Carmichael, Gershom, 35. 
 Carnegie, Mr., 30. 
 Carruthers, Rev. Thomas, 33, 
 
 Cassell & Co., 167, 281. 
 Catholic Presbyteria?!, The, 1 50. 
 Catholicity of spirit, 2, 129, 148, 
 
 174, 186. 
 Chalmers, Thomas, 229, 316. 
 Charteris, Professor, 74, 138, 147. 
 Christian World, 263. 
 Christianity, 140, 147, 148. 
 Church, Dean, 170. 
 Church elections, 89, 90. 
 Clark, Sir Andrew, 352. 
 Clark's "Biblical Cabinet," 133. 
 Clifton Literary Society, 53. 
 Clyde, Firth of, 92. 
 
 Coleridge, 46. 
 
 Confucianism, 279. 
 
 Contemporaries at College, 47. 
 
 Co7ite7tiporary Review, 143, 145. 
 
 Corelli, Marie, 9. 
 
 Cowan, Professor, Aberdeen, 337. 
 
 Cox, Samuel, 145. 
 
 Craigmore, 349. 
 
 Crathie Parish Church, 215. 
 
 Criticism, Higher, 309. 
 
 Crown Court Church, London, 
 
 148. 
 Cumming, Rev. Dr., 148. 
 Cunningham, Rev. James, 66. 
 Currie, Mr., Glasgow Academy, 
 
 17. 
 Currie, Dr., 224. 
 Cyril Thornton, by Captain 
 
 Hamilton, 27, 43. 
 
 Darwin, 203, 204, 212. 
 
 D.D. degree, 146. 
 
 De Wette, 134. 
 
 Deism, English, 153. 
 
 Delitzsch, 134. 
 
 Devotion based on conviction, 
 
 172, 173. 
 Devotional Works, 167, 168. 
 Dickson, Professor, 44. 
 Disruption, the, i. 
 Distinctive Messages of the Old 
 
 Religions, 279. 
 Donald, Rev. Dr., of Keithhall, 
 
 95- 
 Dorner, 134. 
 
 Dornoch, 3. 
 
 Drummond, Prof. Henry, 211, 
 
 310. 
 Drummond, Rev. J. J., B.D., 247, 
 
 321. 
 Dublin, Archbishop of, 22. 
 Dykes, Dr. 190. 
 
INDEX 
 
 365 
 
 Ecce Ho7no^ 332. 
 Edgar, James, 26. 
 Edinburgh University, 146. 
 English Literature Chair at 
 
 Glasgow University, 34. 
 Errol, 315. 
 
 Essays, College, 36, 37, 38, 39. 
 Evolution, 205, 206, 211, 309. 
 Evvald, 134. 
 Exaniiner^ The, 167. 
 Expositor, The, 145, 149, 268, 
 
 285, 343- 
 Expository addresses, 104. 
 Expository Titnes, 263. 
 Extempore preaching, 116. 
 Extract from first sermon at 
 
 Sandyford, 82. 
 
 Farewell addresses — to Innellan, 
 227 ; St. Bernard's, 325. 
 
 Father of Dr. Matheson, 2. 
 
 Ferguson, Rev. Martin Peter, 
 94. 
 
 Fichte, 135. 
 
 Finlay, Mr., 14. 
 
 Fleming, Professor William, 44. 
 
 Flint, Professor, 162, 213. 
 
 Francis de Sales, 171. 
 
 Eraser, Rev. James, 60. 
 
 German Theology, 133, 136, 
 
 138. 
 
 Giesler, 134. 
 
 GifFord Lectureship, 337. 
 
 Glasgow University, 24, 27, 35. 
 
 Glassford Street, 5, 6. 
 
 Gloag, Rev. Dr., 7, 125, 139, 
 
 Good IVoj'ds, 263. 
 
 Gordon, Rev. Dr. D. M., 47, 60. 
 
 Gordon, Rev. James, 38. 
 
 Gordon, Sir Robert, 3. 
 
 Gow, Mr., 17. 
 
 Graduation in Arts, 44. 
 Grant, Rev. Dr. C. M., 60. 
 Growth of the Spirit of Christi- 
 anity, 140, 147, 148, 202. 
 Guthrie, Dr., in. 
 
 Hamilton, Captain, 27. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir William, 27, 133. 
 
 Hastie, Professor, 136. 
 
 Hausrath, 134. 
 
 Hay, Dr. G. P., 208. 
 
 Hay, Professor Matthew, 336. 
 
 Hegel, Influence of, 45, 46, 123, 
 
 135, 140, 308. 
 Hengstenberg, 134. 
 Herbert, George, 171. 
 Highland ancestry, 3. 
 Hill, Professor, 44. 
 Hill, Principal, 44. 
 Historical Christ of St. Paul, 
 
 12. 
 History of German Theology, 
 
 136. 
 Histrionic faculty, 55. 
 Hodder & Stoughton, 281. 
 Hodge, Dr., 206. 
 Home life, 19. 
 
 Homiletic Magazine, 263, 264. 
 Home, Rev. Robert, 94. 
 Hotson, Mr. James, 16, 53. 
 Hutcheson, Miss, 14. 
 Hutcheson, Professor, 26, 35. 
 Huxley, 204. 
 Hymn, Matheson's, 181, 188, 191, 
 
 192, 194. 
 Hymns, criticism of, 185. 
 
 Immortality, 157, 160. 
 Individuahsm, 142. 
 Induction to St. Bernard's, Edin- 
 burgh, 208. 
 
366 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Inglis, Lord, 53, 147. 
 Innellan, 56, 87, 220. 
 Introduction at Innellan, 100. 
 
 Jackson, Professor, 44. 
 
 Jamieson, Dr., Glasgow, 138. 
 
 Jardine, Professor, 33. 
 
 Job, Book of, 14. 
 
 Job, sermon on the patience of, 
 
 217. 
 Johnston, Dr. Wm., of Belfast, 207. 
 
 Kant, 134, 135, 153. 
 Keble, 171. 
 Keil, 134. 
 Keim, 134. 
 Kelvin, Lord, 204. 
 Kelvinhaugh, 85. 
 Kent Road, 17. 
 Knox, John, 229. 
 
 Labrador House, Innellan, 287. 
 Lady Ecclesia^ The, 281, 283. 
 Lady Yester's Church, Edinburgh, 
 
 315- 
 Landmarks of New Testament 
 
 Morality, 266. 
 Lang, Rev. Marshall B., B.D., 
 
 244, 258. 
 Laokoon of Lessing, 204. 
 Largs, 349. 
 
 Leaves for Qiciet Hours, 168, 172. 
 Lee, Professor, Glasgow, 206. 
 Leechman, Professor, 26. 
 Leeds, sermon in Brunswick 
 
 Chapel, 339. 
 Leigh, H. S., 115. 
 Leishman, Rev. Dr., Govan, 94. 
 Leisure Hours i7t Toiv7i, A. K. 
 
 H. Boyd, 27. 
 Lessing, Life of, by Mr. James 
 
 Sime, 137. 
 
 Letters of gratitude, 179, 191, 192, 
 
 194. 
 Lichtenberger, 125. 
 Liddon, Canon, 209. 
 Life and Work, 188. 
 Lifeboat Saturday Fund Service, 
 
 355- 
 Lisco, 134. 
 Lister, 204. 
 Lockhart, 26. 
 " Logic Bob," 33. 
 London Quaj'terly Review, 343. 
 Lytton, Bulwer, 33. 
 
 M'Burney, Dr., 17. 
 M'Culloch, Rev. Dr., 91. 
 Macdonald, Rev. Finlay, 60. 
 Macduff, Dr., of Sandyford, 56, 
 
 74. 
 Macduff, Miss, Jj, 80. 
 M'Farlane, Rev. Mr., 261. 
 MacGregor, Rev. Dr., 214. 
 Mackenzie, Dr., 9. 
 Macleod, Norman, 74, 84, 99, 
 
 III, 215. 
 Macmillan, Rev. Dr., memories, 
 
 109, 143. 
 Macmillan, Rev. Dr. Hugh, 138, 
 
 147. 
 M'Murtrie, Rev. Dr., 261. 
 Magazine articles, 143, 149, 150. 
 Manville, F. D., 280. 
 Martin, Rev. Mr., 261. 
 Matheson, Miss, 7, 21, 80, 289, 
 
 303, 306, 337, 358. 
 Matheson, Miss Ellen, 289, 358. 
 Matheson, Mrs., 7. 
 Matheson, Mr. John, 5, y^)- 
 Matheson, Mr. John, Barrhead, 6. 
 Matheson, Sir Donald, 6. 
 Melville, Andrew, 24. 
 Memory, 305, 307. 
 
INDEX 
 
 367 
 
 Method in work, 151. 
 " Modern English Novel," 347. 
 Modernity, note of, 169. 
 Moments on the Mounts 167. 
 Momerie, Professor, in. 
 Moncreiff, Lord, 53. 
 Monteath, Mrs., 289. 
 Miiller, Julius, 134. 
 Miiller, Max, 204. 
 Murphy, Mr. Joseph, 211. 
 Murtle Lecture, 335. 
 Music, love of, 52. 
 My Aspirations^ 166. 
 
 Natural Elements of Revealed 
 Theology^ 161, 202, 279. 
 
 Natural Law in the Spiritual 
 Worlds 211. 
 
 Natural Religion, 153. 
 
 Neander, 134. 
 
 Newman, Cardinal, 190. 
 
 Nichol, Professor, 34. 
 
 Nicol, Professor, 335, 337. 
 
 Nicoll, Dr. Robertson, 145, 207. 
 
 Nisbet, James, & Co., 281. 
 
 North Berwick, 349. 
 
 Paley, 153. 
 
 Pan - Presbyterian Council at 
 
 Belfast, 206. 
 Parker, Dr. Joseph, 316. 
 Parkhurst, Rev. Charles, 238. 
 Pascal, 171. 
 Pasteur, 204. 
 Pastoral Work, in, 250, 260, 
 
 318. 
 
 Paton, Dr., of St. David's, Glas- 
 gow, 5. 
 
 Patronage, 88. 
 
 Peace, Dr., 190. 
 
 Perfection through suffering, 
 236. 
 
 Peter^s Letters to his Kinsfolk^ 
 
 Lockhart, 26. 
 Poems— "Zillah," 60-64; "The 
 
 Blind Girl's Retrospect," 64- 
 
 68. 
 Poetry,' love of, 55. 
 Porteous, Rev. William, 94. 
 Prayers, 106. 
 Preaching, 231, 249. 
 Prophets of the Christia7t Faith^ 
 
 by Dr. Lyman Abbott, 270. 
 Psalmist and the Scientist, The^ 
 
 263, 266. 
 Psalms, Book of, 104. 
 Pulsford, Rev. Dr., 74, 75, 
 
 120. 
 
 Queen Victoria, 215. 
 Quiver, The, 263. 
 
 Raeburn, Sir Henry, 289. 
 Ramsay, Professor Wm., 28, 
 
 30- 
 Ramshorn Church, 5. 
 Rationalism, German, an exotic 
 
 plant, 136. 
 Reconciliation of opposites, i, 
 
 129, 187, 213, 236, 280. 
 Rectorial election, 54. 
 Reid, Mr., Glasgow Academy, 
 
 17. 
 Reid, Thomas, 35. 
 Reminiscences, Mr. Wm. Smith's, 
 
 292, 294, 298, 299, 301. 
 Renan, 331. 
 Representative Men of the Bible, 
 
 132, 268, 343. 
 Resignation, letters of, 319, 
 
 323. 
 Restoration — church at Innellan, 
 
 112 ; St. Bernard's, 259. 
 Rests by the River, 160, 162. 
 
868 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Revelation, i6o, 162. 
 
 Ripon, Bishop of, 215, 216, 
 
 280. 
 Ritchie, James, 6. 
 Robertson, Principal, 229. 
 Robertson of Brighton, 24, 108. 
 Robertson, Rev. Mr., 261. 
 Ronald, John, 18. 
 Row, 56, 57. 
 
 Sacred Songs^ 60, 182, 186. 
 
 Saint Andrew^ 341. 
 
 St. Bernard's Crescent, 19, Edin- 
 burgh, 287. 
 
 St. Giles' Lectures, 279. 
 
 St. Madoes, 5. 
 
 St. Vincent Crescent, Glasgow, 8, 
 15, 16,75. 
 
 Sala, G. A., 115. 
 
 Sandyford Church, 5. 
 
 Sceptre 7uitJiout a Swordy 341. 
 
 S chaff, 133, 206. 
 
 Schenkel, 331. 
 
 Schleiermacher, 135, 161. 
 
 School honours, 16. 
 
 Scientific interests, 153, 203. 
 
 " Scientific Lights on Religious 
 Problems," 343. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 25, 29, 229. 
 
 Scottish Review, The, 204, 206. 
 
 Scottish University System, 28. 
 
 Searchings in the Sile?ice, 167. 
 
 Seeley, 331, 332. 
 
 Selections from devotional writ- 
 ings, 176, 178. 
 
 Sermons — Dr. Matheson's first, 
 49; last, 355. 
 
 Sermon writing, 71. 
 
 Sidelights from Patmos, 285. 
 
 Sime, Dr. David, 68, 69, 137, 151, 
 166, 199, 203, 283. 
 
 Sime, Mr. James, 137, 204. 
 
 Simson, Professor, 26. 
 
 Skelmorlie, 56, 349. 
 
 Smith, Adam, 35. 
 
 Smith, Rev. Sydney, 232. 
 
 Smith, Mr. William, 290. 
 
 Socratic Dialogue Essay, 36. 
 
 Somerville, Rev. Dr., of Black- 
 friars, Glasgow, 49, 59. 
 
 Songs, 54. 
 
 Speeches at Innellan, 96, 98, 
 201. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 153, 203. 
 
 Spiritual Developmefit of St. 
 Paul, 267-279, 294. 
 
 Stalker, Dr., 208. 
 
 Stevenson, Mr. William, 113, 
 200. 
 
 Stewart, Professor, 34, 47. 
 
 Stirling, Hutchison, 134. 
 
 Story, Principal, 339. 
 
 Strauss, 135, 154. 
 
 Strong, Rev. Dr., 50. 
 
 Studies of the Portrait of Christ , 
 268, 327, 334, 345. 
 
 Sunday at Innellan, 105. 
 
 Su7iday School Tiines, 263. 
 
 Sunday Magazine, 182. 
 
 Tennyson, Lord, 214, 352. 
 
 Teviot Street, 86. 
 
 Theological Translation Fund 
 
 Library, 134. 
 Tholuck, 134. 
 
 Thomson, Rev. Robert, 47. 
 Times of Retirement, 168, 341. 
 Travel, ']'}>' 
 Tributes and opinions, no, in, 
 
 199, 200, 207. 
 Trinity Church, Glasgow, 71. 
 Tulloch, Principal, in, 215. 
 Tyndall, 204. 
 Typewriter, use of, 296, 297. 
 
INDEX 
 
 369 
 
 University of Glasgo%v^ Old and 
 
 New^ by Professor Stewart, 34. 
 Unpublished writings, 131. 
 
 Voices of the Spirit^ 167, 266. 
 
 Waddell, Rev. Dr. Hately, 307, 
 
 350, 353- 
 Wakefield, Bishop of, iii. 
 Watt, Dr. J. B., of Ayr, 114. 
 
 Weir, Prof. Duncan, 44. 
 Whyte, Rev. Dr. Alexander, 339. 
 Wilkie, Sir David, 287. 
 Wilson, Bailie, 5. 
 Wilson & Matheson, 5. 
 Wilson, Mr. Wm., 5. 
 Woodside Terrace, 75. 
 Woine?i of the Bible, 132. 
 Words by the Wayside, 167, 
 285. 
 
 24 
 
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