8»aHB I. m REV. ANDREW-THOMSON.D.D. ***** % "<% PRINCETON, N. J. BX 9225 .B6 T50 Thomson, Andrew, 1814-1901. Thomas Boston of Ettrick Shelf PORTRAIT OF THOMAS BOSTON. THOMAS BOSTON OF ETTRICK: HIS LIFE AND TIMES REV. ANDREW THOMSON, D.D., F.R.S.E., Minister of Broughton Place Church, Edinburgh AUTHOR OF "SAMUEL Rl'THERFORD," " IN THE HOLY LAND," " LIFE OF PRINCIPAL HARPER, D.U." &C. &C. T. NELSON A N D SONS Lctuioi, Edinburgh, and New York 1895 PREFACE. T ~K J"E shall not be charged with superfluous authorship * ^ in having written the following Memoir of Mr. Boston of Ettrick. Nearly a century and a half has elapsed since the death of that remarkable man, and any- thing approaching to a complete biography of him has up to this time remained to be written. Brief narratives regarding some of the salient points in his life, and estimates of his character, have indeed ap- peared at intervals, usually attached to some of his works when they were republished ; but we are not aware of any book which, beginning with his early youth, and giving ample space to family incidents, has traced the story of his life through all its changeful periods — described his con- flicts with surrounding errors, his influence on the condi- tion of the church and the religious thought of his times ■ — producing, in fact, what we mean by a biography. No doubt we have Mr. Boston's diary, which was written by him for his family and published soon after his death, and must be invaluable to any biographer; but even it contains many gaps which need to be filled up from other sources ; and besides this, it would not serve the ends of biography to be always looking at the subject of it through his eyes. vi PREFACE. We have endeavoured, in the following pages, to include in our narrative the whole range of his life and ministry ; with what measure of success it will be for the intelligent and candid reader to judge. Even in so brief a preface as this, we cannot refrain from mentioning the names of friends to whom we are conscious of owing a debt of gratitude for kindly advice and cheering encouragement in connection with the writing of this memoir. We owe a warm tribute of thanks to the Rev. John Lawson of Selkirk, who guided us for several days amid the classic scenes of Ettrick and Yarrow, and showed us sacred spots that were linked with the honoured name of the author of the "Fourfold State;" and to Mrs. Dr. Smith of Biggar, who possesses, and kindly allowed us to photograph a portion of, the original manuscript of that work. We have also to thank our long-tried friend and fellow-labourer in the gospel, Dr. Blair of Dunblane, who was in full sympathy with us in our veneration for Mr. Boston, and ever ready with friendly advice and suggestion out of his well-stored mind. Nor can we omit to mention the name of W. White-Millar, Esq., S.S.C., the cherished friend of a long life, who grudged neither time nor trouble- in procuring for us desired information on the subjects of our narrative, and in this way, as well as by his cheerful countenance, turned our labour into a pleasure. And not least do we place on grateful record our deep sense of the spiritual benefit we have derived from the study, for so many months, of the life and character of a man of the true apostolic stamp, who would have been justly regarded as a star of the first magnitude, an ornament to the Chris- tian Church even in the brightest and purest periods of its history. CONTEN T S, I. INTRODUCTORY, II. FROM BIRTH TO EARLY MANHOOD, ... III. STUDENT, TUTOR, AND PROBATIONER, IV. SIMPRIN — FINDING OF THE " MARROW " — A CALL FROM ETTRICK, V. FIRST TEN YEARS IN ETTRICK, VI. THE " FOURFOLD STATE " — COMMUNION FESTI- VALS — A GREAT SORROW, VII. HOME LIFE, STUDY, PULPIT, AND PASTORATE, VIII. HEBREW STUDIES AND FOREIGN CORRESPOND- ENCE, IX. GATHERING CLOUDS, X. THE "MARROW" CONTROVERSY, XI. THE LAST DECADE, XII. HOME IN SIGHT, XIII. SUPPLEMENTARY, 33 56 95 134 151 i7S 187 200 210 218 246 THOMAS BOSTON OF ETTRICK. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. IT would be difficult to name a man who has a higher claim to an honourable place in the Christian biography of Scotland in the eighteenth century than Thomas Boston of Ettrick. We deem it sufficient of itself to explain and justify this state- ment, that he was the author of the " Fourfold State." It is a remarkable circumstance that, from the days of the Reformation downward, there has always been some one book in which the vitalizing element has been peculiarly strong, and which God has singled out as the instrument of almost in- numerable conversions, as well as of quickening and deepening the divine life in those who had already believed. Luther's " Commentary on Galatians," Baxter's " Call to the Unconverted," Bunyan's " Pil- 10 THOMAS BOSTON. grim," Alleine's "Alarm," Doddridge's "Rise and Progress," Fuller's " Great Question Answered," Wilberforce's " Practical Christianity ; " in France, Monod's " Lucille," and in Germany, Arndt's " True Christianity," have been among the great life-books of their generation ; and we may add with confi- dence to this sacred list the "Fourfold State" of Boston. Within a quarter of a century after its publication it had found its way, and was eagerly read and pondered, over all the Scottish Lowlands. From St. Abb's Head, in all the Border counties, in the pastoral regions shadowed by the Lammermoors and the Lowthers, to the remotest point in Galloway, it was to be seen, side by side with the Bible and Bunyan's glorious Dream, on the shelf in every peasant's cottage. The shepherd bore it with him, folded in his plaid, up among the silent hills. The ploughman in the valleys refreshed his spirit with it, as with heavenly manna, after his long day of toil. The influence which began with the humbler classes ascended like a fragrance into the mansions of the Lowland laird and the Border chief, and carried with it a new and hallowed joy. The effect was like the reviving breath of spring upon the frost-bound earth. Many a lowly peasant with Boston's " Fourfold State," familiar through frequent perusal to his INTRODUCTORY. I I memory and heart, became an athlete in the discus- sion of theological questions, and, like the Border wrestlers in an early age, was rarely worsted in a conflict. One who lived nearer to Boston's age, and was better able to judge, has declared that, over three generations, the "Fourfold State" had been the in- strument of more numerous conversions and more extensive spiritual quickening, in at least one part of our island, than any other human production it was in his power to specify. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that even in our own age this remarkable book had at length spent its force, and had become as an old defaced golden coin withdrawn from circulation, or as a sword that had become rusty and unwieldy, and was trans- ferred from the armoury to the museum. In a paper of much ability and interest on "Religious Thought in Wales," which was not long since read by Principal Edwards at a great meeting of the Presbyterian Alliance in London, it was stated that if you entered the house of a rustic elder or leader of the private societies fifty years ago, you would uniformly find that he had a small and very select library. Among other books you would be sure to lay your hand on translations into Welsh of Boston's " Fourfold State," Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress," Owen on the " Per- son of Christ " and on the " Mortification of Sin in 12 THOMAS BOSTON. Believers," and others. It is also true that in our British colonies at the present day, especially where the Scottish element abounds in the population, the "Fourfold State" continues to be sought after and read ; and we have received testimony from natives that it is extensively sold and circulated on the misty coasts of Labrador. It is natural that we should wish to know something of the outer and inner life of an author whom God has honoured for so many generations and in so many lands as the instrument of the highest form of blessing. It was not only, however, as the author of the " Fourfold State," and of other books that are after- wards to be named, but as the pastor of Ettrick, that the name of Boston long since obtained a secure and sacred place in the annals of the Church of Christ in Scotland and in the hearts of her people. The assertion is not likely to be challenged that, if Scot- land had been searched during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, there was not a minister of Christ within its bounds who, alike in his personal character and in the discharge of his pastoral func- tions, approached nearer to the apostolic model than did this man of God. It is a fact that, even before he died, men and children had come to pronounce his name with reverence. It had become a syno- nym for holy living. Away up among those green INTRODUCTORY. 1 3 hills and limpid streams of Ettrick, he rises before our imagination as a man striving daily to lead a saintly life, endeavouring by much thought and prayer to solve for himself difficult theological prob- lems, and doing earnest battle against the profanity, impurity, worldliness, and loose notions and practices in bargain-making which he found to prevail among his parishioners, and to win them to the obedience of Christ. He was such a man as might have sat as a living model to Baxter when he wrote his " Reformed Pastor." We would place him as a companion spirit, like-minded and like-gifted, to that " gentle saint of Nonconformity," as a pious English bishop has recently termed him, Philip Henry of Broad-Oak. It must be known to many that Boston wrote a "Memoir" of himself, or, more correctly, kept a diary, which was principally designed for the benefit of his family and " inner friends," after he had finished his course. It is a large volume, and is invaluable to the biographer both on account of the fulness and accuracy of its information, and because it introduces us to a knowledge of the writer's inward and spiritual life, which, in its degree, would have been impossible except in an autobiog- raphy. Next to the " Confessions of Saint Augus- tine," with their terrible fidelity of self-revelation, it would be difficult to name any autobiography, in 14 THOMAS BOSTON. any language, which bears so unmistakably through- out the marks of simplicity and truth. In so far as self-display or self-laudation are concerned, Boston forgets himself even when he is writing of himself. In regard to the incidents of his early life and his early ministry, and to the experiences of his last years, when begun defection in the church drew him forth reluctantly into ecclesiastical conflict, and the spirit of the martyr showed itself in the good con- fessor, the biographer must derive much of his in- formation from Boston. But it is from the records of his Ettrick life and ministry that we gather our most precious stores. To the Christian reader there is a sacred and heart- stirring interest in marking that abounding and ardent prayer which was as the air he breathed ; in his practice of seeing God, not only in extraordinary providences, but in the common round of daily life; and not less in noticing the severity with which he searched his heart and judged himself as if he felt himself standing in the burning light of divine om- niscience, and the sweet tenderness with which he ruled his house, and the holy passion with which his spirit yearned for the salvation of his children. While to the ministers of religion the Ettrick ex- periences of Boston, as he himself has described them, are full of the most wholesome impulses and INTRODUCTORY. 1 5 suggestive lessons. Alike in his motives and in his methods, as he has enabled us to see him, in his study, in his pulpit, in his pastoral visits, in his meek endurance of opposition, in his perils amid mountain mists and flooded mountain torrents, in his watching for opportunities of doing good, and carving out those opportunities when he did not find them, young ministers when entering on the difficulties and responsibilities of their sacred office may learn the secret of ministerial success, and those who have not succeeded may find out, while it is not yet too late, the secret of their failure. The more we study that grand Ettrick ministry, the more deep will become our impression that the ideal of a true Christian minister, as traced by Cowper in his well-known lines, and by Paul himself, was in an extraordinary measure realized by this man of God. In later generations Ettrick has become classic ground. In the poems of Sir Walter Scott and of James Hogg, " the great min- strel and the shepherd poet," as Wordsworth has happily designated them, every glen and hill and stream has been made sacred to literature, and its name has been wafted to the ends of the earth. But it is to be remembered that two generations before these masters in poetry had struck the chords of their lyre, Ettrick had already become a house- 1 6 THOMAS BOSTON. hold word in all the cottages and castles of the Scottish Lowlands, through its association with the name of Boston, who by his writings and his minis- try had, in many a parish, turned the wilderness into a fruitful field, and guided many a bewildered wanderer into the kingdom of God. CHAPTER II. FROM BIRTH TO EARLY MANHOOD — SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS. THOMAS BOSTON was born on the 17th day of March 1676, twelve years before the benign Revolution of 1688, which placed William of Orange on the British throne, and reinstated the Presbyterian Church in its emoluments and privi- leges. His birthplace was Duns, an important town in Berwickshire, situated on a fine plain to the south of Duns Law, which, in spite of broom and furze, still retains the vestiges of its occupation by General Leslie in the stormy times of Cromwell and the Commonwealth. This neat Border town has been more than usually distinguished as the birthplace of eminent Scotsmen. It claims, not without preponderating evidence in its favour, to have been the native town of John Duns Scotus, some time in the later part of the thir- teenth century, who maintained an almost unrivalled I 8 THOMAS BOSTON. reputation for learning, dialectic subtlety, and elo- quence over all Europe, until the scholastic theology and philosophy were exploded. It was said of him by one of his contemporaries, that "he wrote so many books that one man was hardly able to read them, and no one man was able to understand them." It became the birthplace of Boston in the seventeenth century, and, about a hundred years afterwards, of Dr. Thomas M'Crie, who did so much to enrich the ecclesiastical history of Scotland by his lives of Knox and Melville. Boston's parents belonged to that humbler middle class who have always formed a large part of the moral salt of Scotland. Reputable among their neighbours, his father, John Boston, was, as his son loved to describe him, an intelligent and pious man, "having got good of the gospel from his youth;" his mother, Alison Trotter, was " a woman prudent and virtuous." Thomas, the subject of our narrative, was the youngest of seven children. During the interval of twelve years between the birth of Thomas and the enlargement and liberty which came with the Revolution, both parents, who refused to bend to prelatic authority, and preferred peace of conscience to outward ease and the pleas- ing of men, were made to suffer severely for their Nonconformity. For this offence alone the father HIS PARENTS. 1 9 was cast into prison. It is the earliest reminiscence of the boy that he was taken into prison with the father to relieve his loneliness. The experience left a deep mark on the child's memory, and he often rejoiced, in his mature years, that he had thus been honoured to have fellowship with his father in his sufferings. One is reminded of something kindred in experience to this in the history of another Non- conformist family. The father of that Isaac Watts who, by his hymns, was destined to make all the churches and all succeeding generations his debtor, was also a Nonconformist, and lay in prison for his Nonconformity at the time when the future hymn- writer was born. The little Isaac was carried from day to day, in his mother's arms, to the prison gate, near to which she would sit for hours on a large stone nursing her infant ; for she knew that the innocent sufferer whom she was not allowed to see was soothed and comforted by his knowledge of their presence there. There is one reminiscence which shows how much the mother was of the same mould and metal as her husband in refusing to obey men in opposition to the demands of conscience, and, at the same time, how fully her woman's heart was in sympathy with him in his sufferings ; and she did her utmost to relieve them. On occasion of a second act of recu- 20 THOMAS BOSTON. sancy, she made every effort, by her self-straining and industry, to provide the cruel fine which was imposed by the magistrate, with the alternative penalty of imprisonment or the spoiling of his goods. On venturing to ask for some slight abatement on the charge, she was refused with oaths and imprecations of evil. But, according to the Spanish proverb that " curses like ravens often come home to roost," the malediction speedily returned upon himself in ruin and disgrace. We proceed with the story of the son's life. At an early age young Boston was sent to school. For three years he was under the care of a " dame," or schoolmistress, whose manner of teaching was of a very simple and primitive kind, different in many ways from our modern methods. After the tiny pupil had been sufficiently drilled in the alphabet and in the pronouncing of syllables of two or three letters, his next lesson-book, for reading as well as for spelling, was usually the Proverbs of Solomon or the Shorter Catechism, in both of which even poly- syllables were plentiful. There was no graduated scale then of first, and second, and third standards, to make the ascent easy. It was like requiring the young scholar to climb a ladder that wanted some of its steps, and to take an almost desperate bound upward as he might. Nevertheless, the diffi- SCHOOL LIFE. 21 culty was in due time overcome. But in the case of little Boston, the " good-souled " schoolmistress was not content with the usual routine of teaching, for her heart was drawn out to the gentle boy. It was in an upper chamber in his father's house that she kept her school ; and, especially in the long winter nights, when the other children were not present, she not only made him read to her aloud, but repeated to him endless Scripture stories, to which the child listened with wondering delight. We are reminded by the scene of Doddridge's gentle mother amplify- ing, with all a mother's loving simplicity, the incidents of Holy Writ depicted on the blue Dutch tiles which, according to the fashion of the day, lined the chimney corner. The lessons were never forgotten, for nature always paints her earliest pictures on the memory in undying colours. At eight years of age, or thereabouts, young Bos- ton, having probably risen in his attainments to the level of his kind schoolmistress, and having already shown a marked capacity for instruction, passed into the grammar school of his native town under the mastership of Mr. James Bullerwall, who, in addition to his promoting his further progress in the element- ary branches of education, engaged to instruct him in English grammar, in Latin, in which many of the Scottish schoolmasters had been eminent since the 22 THOMAS BOSTON. days of George Buchanan, and also to qualify him for translating some of the easier parts of the Greek New Testament. From the first, the boy was dili- gent and dutiful in his attention to his school tasks, profiting above the rest of his own class, by means of whom his progress was the more slow. It is interesting to notice the estimate which he formed of himself at this period of his school life, and also to obtain a glimpse of the youth as he appears among his schoolmates on the playground. He says, after his own quaint manner: " By means of my edu- cation and natural disposition I was of a sober and harmless deportment, and preserved from the common vices of children in towns. I was at no time what they call a vicious or roguish boy ; neither was I so addicted to play as to forget my business, though I was a dexterous player at such games as required art and nimbleness. And toward the latter end of this period, having had frequent occasion to see soldiers exercised, I had a peculiar faculty at mustering and exercising my school-fellows accordingly, by the several words and motions of the exercise of the mus- ket, they being formed into a body under a captain." We cannot help thinking, especially when we call to mind a later passage in his autobiography in which he tells us that " in the natural temper of his spirit he was timorous," that it would have been HIS CONVERSION. 23 for his advantage, both in his school life and after- wards, if he had been a good deal more of an athlete than he was. We say this in full remembrance of the protests of the gentle author of the " Tirocinium." It is probable that more of the friendly conflicts of the school-ground would have helped to give Bos- ton's natural timidity to the winds. Athletic exer- cises in the open air and in the midst of fanning breezes not only benefit the body, but the mind through the body, and no good moral education is complete without them. We should endeavour to keep " the harp of thousand strings " in tune for God. Looking back upon a period of more than sixty years, we can remember excursions of our school in autumn to the hazel-wood behind the hills, the rush in summer, after school hours, to the swimming feats in the bright river not far off, and the bracing winter amusements, secured by holiday, on the bosom of the frozen lake ; and we cherish the con- viction that the mental and moral, as well as the physical part of our nature, gained by the exercise. It was not until some time during the closing years of young Boston's attendance at the grammar school that he came under the supreme influence of the religion of Christ. In the case of those whose earliest thoughts have been associated with Bible instruction, who from their childhood have looked 24 THOMAS BOSTON. on the example of pious parents and breathed the atmosphere of Christian homes, the great change lias often come so gradually and imperceptibly that it was impossible for themselves or others to tell the exact moment of the dawning of the new life. Their sense of sin and their apprehension of the Divine love in Christ were so simultaneous that, according to the beautiful figure of Cesar Malan, their spiritual quickening was like the awakening of an infant by its mother's kiss — the moment that it opened its eyes it looked up into the coun- tenance of love. This was not quite the manner of Boston's great change; neither was it in his case associated with those terrible birth-throes into the new life which are associated with the repentance of some, especially when their previous career has been stained with profanity or vice. His conver- sion in some of its features was different from both of these, and its story is alike interesting and suggestive. When, in 1687, James II., for purposes of his own, relaxed the restraints on Presbyterian worship, the Rev. Henry Erskine was one of the first to take advantage of the begrudged boon. Originally he had been a Presbyterian minister at Cornhill, on the south of the Tweed, until, under the Act of Uni- formity which extinguished so many of the best HENRY ERSKINE. 25 lights of English Nonconformity, he had been driven from his charge. During the intervening years he had moved from place to place on both sides of the Border, taking eager advantage of opportunities for preaching wherever they could be found, when at length this sudden outburst of liberty, so soon to be enlarged and consolidated by the Revolution, brought him to Whitsome, a little village down in the Merse, about five miles from Duns. He was a man of gentle birth, being related to one of the noble families of Scotland, of much natural eloquence and evan- gelical fervour, to whom the preaching of Christ was welcome as the air he breathed. To many it may add a peculiar interest to know that he was the father of Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine, who, many years afterwards, were to become the founders of the Scottish Secession Church. Considerable numbers of the Duns people, who had long been weary of the sapless and Christless preaching to which they had been constrained to listen in their native town, no longer held back by the dread of fine or imprisonment, were gladly willing on every Sabbath morning to travel all the way to Whitsome to attend upon Mr. Erskine's ministry, which was impregnated by gospel truth and glowed with that love which the gospel in- spired. It was indeed a time of refreshing. Never 26 THOMAS BOSTON. did fainting traveller in an Eastern wilderness more welcome the cooling fountain under the shadow of the palm-trees, than did those weekly pilgrims welcome the message of Heaven's love for which they flocked to Whitsome. And John Boston was regularly there with his son Thomas. Our young scholar was among the first whose heart was effec- tually touched and won to Christ through Mr. Erskine's preaching in that Border village. Partic- ularly, two sermons, the former on the words, " O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" speaking of man's guilt and ruin ; and the second on the text, " Behold the Lamb of God," holding up before his anxious gaze the cross and the Crucified One as the divinely pro- vided means of his deliverance, marked the great turning-point in his spiritual history, and brought him into " the valley of decision." " By these," he says, " I judge, God spake to me. However, I know I was touched quickly after the first hearing, wherein I was like one amazed with some new and strange thing. Sure I am, I was in good earnest concerned for a saving interest in Jesus Christ. My soul went out after him, and the place of his feet was glorious in mine eyes." From that time, every Sabbath morning, as it dawned upon the young convert, seemed to arise with healing on its wings. SAINTLY COMMUNION. 2.J Nor were his benefit and enjoyment confined on those days to the Whitsome assemblies. The con- versation of his fellow-pilgrims, especially on their way homeward — many of whom were men of much Christian knowledge and ripe religious experience — was found by him to be so edifying and cheering as to make him unconscious of fatigue or weariness by the way. There were "Greathearts" in that com- pany; and in their fellowship, in which he listened much but said little, he had no need that any one should exolain to him what was meant by the " com- munion of saints." And when winter came with its cold and frost, and he was sometimes alone on his journey, and the swollen stream of the Blackadder, without boat or bridge, needed to be waded by him, he never hesitated or turned back ; for he knew that the heavenly manna which was in store for him in the Whitsome sanctuary would a hundredfold more than compensate him for all the sacrifice. " Such things," he says, " were then easy, for the benefit of the word which came with power." There was another good influence besides those which have just been named, to which he was accus- tomed to look back in his riper years with delighted remembrance. He and two of his elder schoolmates were in the habit of meeting frequently in a chamber of his father's house for prayer, the reading of Scrip- 28 THOMAS BOSTON. ture, and spiritual converse, " whereby," he tells us, " we had some advantage both in point of knowledge and tenderness." It was probably, in some measure, an imitation by the young lads of what they had seen in the practice of their pious parents. In this case the gratified parents would hail the budding life as a fulfilment of the promise to those in mature age who " feared the Lord, and spake often one to an- other," that " God would pour out his spirit upon their seed, and his blessing upon their offspring, and they should spring up as among the grass, and as willows by the water-courses." But with this glow of affection in religion, we need not be surprised to find that at this period in his early discipleship there was an alloy of weakness and imperfect knowledge which at times disturbed his stability and peace. He records an experience of this kind by which many young Christians, both before and since, have been per- plexed and distressed. We describe it in his own words, and with his own reflections : " Having read of the sealing of the tribes (Rev. vii.), Satan wove a snare for me out of it — namely, that the whole number of the elect, or those who were to be saved, was already made up, and therefore there was no room for me. Thereby one may see what easy work Satan, brooding on ignorance, hath to hatch things A VERY TRACTICAL QUESTION. 29 which may perplex and keep the party from Christ." He needed some one to teach him that the doctrine of divine election was never meant to be a barrier to scare away the anxious heart from the fountain of life, but to make those who had drunk of its living waters praise and magnify the divine grace that had led them to it, that they might drink and live for ever. He does not tell us how long he was entangled in this snare, and in what way he was at length delivered from it. Perhaps some words spoken by the good pastor at Whitsome may have been as the stretched-out hand that broke " the subtle fowler's snare." Having passed through the usual curriculum of the grammar school in his native town, and probably exhausted the resources of his master, for he tells us that " before he left the school he saw no Roman author but what he found himself in some capacity to turn into English," the very practical question now arose in the mind of John Boston, What was next to be done with his promising son Thomas ? As the good parents, who, like Zacharias and Elis- abeth, " were righteous before God," without an)' illusion of parental partiality which sometimes sees a genius in a dunce, marked their son's superior and expanding natural gifts, and noted with delight his young and earnest piety, the thought pressed 30 THOMAS BOSTON. itself on the minds of both that they should give him to the Lord in the Christian ministry ; all the more when they learned from their son himself that his own desires had already begun to point tremblingly in the same direction. Such holy ambition for their children has been no uncommon thing even in troublous times in Scotland, and the Scottish Church in all its best periods has received some of its most eminent ministers from lowly cottage homes. But it was wisely required by the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, from the Reformation downwards, that all entrants into the Christian ministry should pass through a course of preparatory study in one of its universities. And the worthy father was not long in discovering, to his own and his son's great disap- pointment, that the needed expenditure for this end was beyond his means. The bright dream was marred ; the res angustte domi blocked the way. The good purpose, however, was not abandoned ; but meanwhile, during the two following years, Thomas was employed in a notary's office in his native town, at the end of which time his father's improved circumstances made it possible for him to fulfil his heart's desire. The favouring tide had come which was to float his son into the midst of all the new scenes and aspirations of a college life. A similar practice had in god's school. 31 not been unusual among the children of the English Puritans at some point in their advance to the pas- toral office, even when there was no barrier of poverty to hold them back — a memorable instance of which we have in the student days of Matthew Henry, whose " Commentary," so unique in its excellence, has made all succeeding generations his debtor. Young Boston was made to see that this tempor- ary delay was for his lasting advantage. God took him into His school, that he might thus early " learn to labour and to wait." Moreover, in the notary's office he acquired habits of order and business which, as will be seen afterwards, proved of great value to him in later life ; and when, at length, he entered the university, it was with more matured faculties, which made his benefit from his studies all the greater. When God delays his blessings, it is that they may come at last with a fuller stream and upon a more prepared heart. This was Boston's own devout ac- knowledgment long afterwards, when, looking back upon this period of his life, he marked the guiding hand of Providence in all. " Thus," says he, " the Lord, in my setting out in the world, dealt with me, obliging me to have recourse to Himself for this thing, to do it for me. He brought me through many difficulties, tried me with various disappoint- ments, at length carried it to the utmost point ol 32 THOMAS BOSTON. hopelessness, seemed to be laying the grave-stone upon it at the time of my mother's death ; and yet, after all, he brought it to pass. And this has been the usual method of Providence with me all along in matters of the greatest weight. The wisdom appearing in leading the blind by a way they knew not, shined in the putting off that matter to this time, notwithstanding all endeavours to compass it sooner ; for I am perfectly convinced I was abun- dantly soon put to the college, being then but in the fifteenth year of my age ; and the manner of it was kindly ordered, in that I was thereby beholden to none for that my education ; and it made way for some things which Providence saw needful for me." CHAPTER III. STUDENT, TUTOR, AND PROBATIONER. THE face of young Boston was now turned with strong desire towards the Christian ministry. Accordingly, in the beginning of the winter of 1691. he proceeded to Edinburgh to enter on a course of stud\- in the Arts classes of its university, which should extend over three annual sessions — this being required by the Scottish Church of all aspirants to the sacred office before entering on the more direct study of theology. Coming from a country town in Berwickshire, in which almost even.- inhabitant was known to him, into the midst of the noise and bustle of a large city, without friend or acquaintance to ac- knowledge him, the somewhat timid youth must for a time have felt a depressing sense of loneliness even in the midst of thousands. But he had reached an age when the desire for knowledge in minds like his becomes intense and sometimes omnivorous ; and when he saw vast fields of instruction opening before 34 THOMAS BOSTON. him that stirred him into intellectual activity, this and higher considerations were not long in dispelling the temporary shadows, and making his university plea- sant to him, and himself ready to work with a will. The information he gives us in his autobiography regarding this period of his life is comparatively scanty. He mentions, however, that in addition to further and more advanced training in the Greek and Roman classics, his prescribed subjects of study were " logics, metaphysics, ethics, and general physics ; " the last named of which in our days, when new sciences have in the interval sprung into existence, and others have expanded into almost indefinite magnitude, would demand for even one of its de- partments the whole period of his triennial curricu- lum. His own report of the manner in which he acquitted himself is condensed into this modest statement, in which he very considerably underrates himself, that he " always took pains with what was before him, and pleased the regent." The proficiency which we discover at a later period in his knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages gives testimony not only to his assiduity but to his success. From what he tells us of his almost incredibly small expenditure during those three years of his curriculum, we are led to conclude that he restricted himself to much too scanty a fare at his solitary STUDENT DAYS. 35 meals ; not indeed from any fit of juvenile asceticism, but that he might lighten the burden on the little home exchequer at Duns. Indeed he lets out the fact that during his first two years at the university, having "tabled himself," he did fare but sparingly. But Nature is sure to exact a heavy interest from those who overdraw their account in her coffers. His over-strained economy was most unwise, and he had to pay dear for it, as many an earnest student has done, in a permanently weakened constitution ; though his experience showed, as in the case of Baxter and Doddridge, how much mental energy may live and work in a frail physical frame. There was one exercise by which our student be- gan to relieve the tedium of his long winter nights, and this was in the study and practice of vocal music, in which he took lessons from a qualified teacher. He gives prominence to this in his diary, and tells us that his voice was good, and that he had delight in music. It formed a pleasant alterative after long hours of severe study, and gradually, as he adopted the practice of singing psalms in private, it became the cherished habit of his life. He de- lighted in it as holy Herbert did in his lute. He was conscious that it not only soothed his over- sensitive spirit when at times he seemed to " see too clearly and to feel too vividly," but that, in his private 36 THOMAS BOSTON. devotions, it helped his soul to soar more easily upward, like the lark which sings while it soars. Many good men and ministers in those and earlier days had found the same experience. It is well known that Philip Henry was not content with sing- ing to himself the fragment of a psalm, but that he sought the full advantage of being brought into sympathy with all its changes of thought and emotion by singing it to the end. The practice is not common in our days, though it is understood that it still lives and lingers among the various sections of our Methodist brethren. One thing we know from personal recollection, that in some of those mountain districts of Scotland over which the influence of Boston in his later years had beneficially spread, it was no uncommon thing, in our own early days, for the shepherds tending their flocks away up among the silent hills, to awaken their echoes with the " grave sweet melody of psalms," until the place hemmed in by the mountains seemed like an oratory or a sanctuary of God's building. Our young scholar's attendance during the three prescribed annual sessions was at length honourably terminated by his receiving, some time in the summer of 1694, what was then termed Laureation. This was something more in value than " a certifi- cate of satisfaction " which it was the custom to give THEOLOGICAL STUDIES. 37 among the English Nonconformists, and approached nearer in its testimony of proficiency to our degree of Master of Arts. Having thus completed his three years' course of preparatory study in classical literature, philosophy, and science, and received his Laureation, young Boston's next onward step towards the Christian ministry, to which his heart owned a growing attrac- tion, was to devote himself for a corresponding series of years to the systematic study of theology, the teaching of which to his fellow-men, both as a preacher and as an author, was in a few years to be- come the congenial work of his life, and ultimately to make his name a household word over all Scot- land. The kind and seasonable presentation to him of a bursary by his native Presbytery of Duns and Chirnside opened his heart in gratitude, and relieved his ingenuous mind by assuring him that he would not be unduly drawing for help upon home resources. Accordingly, early in the winter of 1695, certified by a loving testimonial from his presbytery, and laden with commendations, he re- turned to the university to attend upon its theo- logical classes ; a great snowstorm, aggravated by intense cold, for a time stopping his way, for de- liverance from which he does not fail to record his devout gratitude when he testifies how it had not 38 THOMAS BOSTON. only impeded his journey, but for a time even en- dangered his life. For any knowledge of the Hebrew language which he received at this period, he appears to have been in- debted to a Rev. Mr. Rule ; but the benefit must have been slight, for the professor is simply named by him without one grateful note of praise. It is different with the professor of " theology proper," the Rev. Mr. Campbell, from whose prelections and examinations, as well as encouraging looks and words, he owns himself to have derived lasting benefit. It is plea- sant to notice in this age of ours, in which veneration is certainly not an outstanding virtue, especially among the young, the ingenuous enthusiasm with which he dilates on the excellences of his professor. He names him again and again as " the great Mr. George Campbell," and in one place describes him with felicitous appreciation as " a man of great learning but excessively modest, undervaluing him- self, but much valuing the tolerable performances of his students." We are led to conclude from other reminiscences of Boston that much of the instruction was conveyed by means of catechisms and text-books in Latin, which were probably good for their generation, but have long since been superseded or forgotten ; and the further information that the professor was ac- A RELUCTANT CHOICE. 39 customed to meet with his students in his chamber as well as in his lecture-room, favours the impression that he thus brought himself into contact with each individual mind in his class, winning the student's confidence, learning his wants, discovering his weak points, drawing out his powers, and kindly helping him to grapple with his difficulties — an immense advantage when the character and personality of the man add to the power and influence of the teacher. But there was an alternative course open to the student. After a period of regular attendance on the theological classes in the university, he was at liberty to withdraw and place himself under the care of one or other of the presbyteries of the church, for theological training and general oversight ; one of the ends intended by this being that the student should have an opportunity of self-support by labouring as a schoolmaster in one of the parish schools, or being engaged as a tutor in some family of rank and social position. It was evidently with a good deal of reluctance and regret that our young theologian, who had found so much profit and enjoyment in sitting at the feet of " the great Mr. George Camp- bell," succumbed to this alternative, and made choice yield to necessity, for a time, in a beautiful district in Dumfriesshire. There he taught in a parish school, but in the midst of uncongenial surroundings un- 40 THOMAS BOSTON. favourable to religion and even unfriendly to morality, from which his sensitive nature recoiled and sought, though for a time in vain, to be relieved. At length, a more attractive sphere opened to him in his being engaged as tutor in the family of Colonel Bruce of Kennet in Clackmannanshire. He was to find in this chosen home that there were additional schools in which divine Providence became the teacher, and in which aspirants to the sacred office might learn many a useful lesson which could not be so effi- ciently taught in theological halls and colleges. Boston's one pupil, a step-son of Colonel Bruce, was a boy of nine years of age, who attended daily on the parish school ; and as the principal work of the tutor consisted in the superintendence of the boy in the preparation of his lessons, and in the oversight of his general conduct, especially during the frequent absence of the head of the family on his military duties, there was a considerable margin of time remaining, even when his lenient studies under his presbytery were taken into account, for works of usefulness that might seem to be laid by divine Providence to his hand. A famine which prevailed in the land and was of long continuance, and which of course pressed with unusual severity on the poor, drew the nascent pastor to their homes, in willing ministries of material help supplied from LIFE AT KEN NET. 41 Kcnnet House, and also in Christian consolation. He gratefully owns that he obtained many of his most precious lessons in Christian experience from those low-roofed cottages. Though he did not claim to possess the functions of a family chaplain, he charged himself, during the absence of Colonel Bruce, with the conduct of family worship, associating with this religious instruction. Nor was he slow to reprove sin when, on some occasions, it obtruded itself upon his notice. This part of his action was sometimes resisted, and even resented, as passing beyond his province. But his naturally shrinking and timorous nature stood its ground faithfully, and this experience helped to strengthen him where he was naturally weak. We find him gratefully noting this, in some remarkable sentences which we shall quote. At the same time, we are led to conclude from some words in his diary that there were occasions in which his young zeal was not sufficiently tempered by discretion, or marked by that holy wisdom which selects the mollia tempora fundi, and aims to do the right thing at the right time and in the best way. The whole passage is, on more than one account, interesting : — ■ " I am convinced that God sent me to Kennet in order to prepare me for the work of the gospel for which he had designed me ; for there I learned in 42 THOMAS BOSTON. some measure what it was to have the charge of souls ; and being naturally bashful, timorous, and much subject to the fear of man, I attained, by what I met with there, to some boldness and not regard- ing the persons of men when out of God's way. There I learned that God will countenance one in the faithful discharge of his duty, though it be not attended with the desired success ; and that plain dealing will impress an awe on the party's con- science, though their corruption still rages against him that so deals with them. It was by means of conversation there that I arrived at a degree of public spirit which I had not before ; and there I got a lesson of the need of prudent and cautious management and abridging one's self of one's liberty, that the weak be not stumbled and access to edify them be precluded — a lesson I have in my ministry had a very particular and singular occa- sion for." Our student's habits during all this Kennet period were eminently devotional. We are not therefore surprised to learn from his own grateful testimony that, in spite of drawbacks and hindrances before which a feebler piety would have been discouraged, it was, on the whole, a " thriving time for his soul." He set aside times for fasting, which did not, how- ever, so much consist in partial abstinence from BETHEL EXPERIENCES. 43 food as in temporary isolation, in which he gave himself with mingled prayer to self-examination, especially with reference to heart sins — a practice much more common in those days than in our own, but in respect to which we are disposed to accept the saying of Foster, that " no man will regret on the day of judgment that he had been a most rigid judge of self." He had also his seasons of prolonged secret devotion, in which " prayer overflowed its banks like Jordan in the time of harvest." These were times of great spiritual strengthening and enlargement, as well as of holy joy, upon which he afterwards delighted to look back, as Jacob may be imagined to have remembered his Bethel dreams and visions, and the two privileged disciples their Emmaus walk. All around Kennet, indeed, there were sacred places linked in his memory with devout experiences in which they had seemed to him as the very gate of heaven. Particularly there was one spot which we have visited, in the orchard around Kennet, and which he describes with characteristic minuteness as " having been under an apple tree with two great branches coming from the root." " There," says he, " I anointed the pillar and vowed the vow." The prescribed years of his theological training were now approaching their end, when it was ex- pected that our earnest student would at once offer 44 THOMAS BOSTON. himself to one of the presbyteries within whose bounds he had resided for " trials and examinations," with a view to his becoming' a licentiate or pro- bationer of the Scottish Church, and eligible to the pastoral office in one of its parishes. Good men in those districts, who had learned to appreciate his blossoming gifts and ardent piety, vied with each other in seeking to induce him to apply for license within their bounds. But growing diffidence, arising from a deepened sense of the responsibilities of the pastoral office, made him hesitate for a time about taking the decided step. At length, a visit to Duns on another matter bringing him under the old home influences, his scruples vanished, and he consented to be proposed for license by his native presbytery. An elaborate course of examinations, associated with written exercises in theology, "dragged its slow length along" through several months, and ended in a unani- mous record of approval and resolution to enrol his name on the list of probationers. With mingled feelings of humility and gratitude, the young licen- tiate now stood within sight of the sacred office which was to him not the object of a mere human ambition, but of a holy passion to serve the best of Masters in the best of causes. Our probationer's superior preaching gifts were "SETTING FIRE TO THE DEVIL'S NEST." 45 readily acknowledged and appreciated, especially by his more serious and earnest hearers who had had some experience of the power of Christian truth in their own hearts. It is evident, however, that, in the earlier months of his novitiate, his sermons consisted too exclusively in denunciations of sin and threaten- in sfs of divine wrath and retribution. It might have been said of him in measure, as Cotton Mather had long before said of the great missionary Elliot, that " his pulpit was a Mount Sinai, and his words were thunderbolts." No doubt this was necessary in its own place and degree. The ploughshare of the law must turn up the furrows for receiving the good seed of the gospel ; but the ploughshare is impotent alone. He had hoped thereby, to quote his own words, " to set fire to the devil's nest." But " old Adam proved too strong for young Melancthon." A kind hint from a minister of long experience helped the young and intrepid minister to see his mistake. "If you were entered," said he, " on preach- ing Christ, you would find it very pleasant." The immediate effect of this word spoken with a wise love was to make him so far modify his strain of preaching, and to season and vitalize all his dis- courses with the gospel of Heaven's love. From that day no one had cause to complain to him, " Sir, we would see Jesus." The change was followed by 46 THOMAS BOSTON. a life-long gratitude to his fatherly mentor. " I have often," said he, " remembered that word of Mr. Dysart as the first hint given me by the good hand of my God towards the doctrine of the gospel." It was natural to anticipate that, in the case of so impressive and attractive a preacher, with so much glowing earnestness of spirit, he would not have needed to wait long for a settlement. Perhaps Boston himself, without any undue self-appreciation, may have shared in this expectation, all the more that there -were many vacant parishes longing and looking out for one who should break among them the bread of life ; but, in fact, his probation extended over the somewhat protracted and dreary period of two years and three months. The explanation of this lays open some not very pleasing glimpses into the ecclesiastical condition of the times. There were dark shadows and portents upon a picture which revealed many things that were bright and promis- ing. For one thing, though the right of election to the pastoral office in the Scottish Church was nominally in the free call of the people, it was practically to a great extent in the hands of the principal heritor or landed proprietor in the parish, whose veto, though not formally given, was in many instances potent enough to hinder a settlement ; and Boston's sense of the sacredness which belonged to WAITING FOR A SETTLEMENT. 47 the call or free choice of a Christian congregation, as well as his tenderness of conscience, held him sensitively back from any approaches, by way of solicitation or otherwise, to those who, to use his own words, " had the stroke in such matters." Then one of the greatest blunders and most mischievous compromises which helped to vitiate the Revolution Settlement which re-established the Presbyterian Church and restored to her her former immunities, was the allowing as many of the Episcopal incumbents as were willing to accept the Presbyterian polity and form of worship, to continue in their charges and retain their emolu- ments. Bishop Burnet declared, in terms which one would like to believe were somewhat over- coloured, that these conformists "were ignorant to a reproach, many of them openly vicious, and the worst preachers he ever heard." By a natural in- stinct, these men with their easy pliancy were almost certain to use their influence and secret manoeuvring and management against such a man as Boston, whose life and character were a standing rebuke and condemnation of theirs. In seven different parishes where the popular voice, if left to its own free and unbiassed choice, would have fallen upon our young evangelist with his expanding gifts and ardent zeal, these hostile forces dashed the cup from his lips. It 48 THOMAS BOSTON. was impossible that he should not deeply feel these repeated disappointments, though he knew that he owed them in part to his determination, at whatever loss and hazard, not to walk into the sacred office over the body of a wounded conscience. In the midst of this long succession of hopes de- ferred, of expectations which blossomed only to be blighted, it is pleasant to note that his spirit was sustained by the testimonies he received, wherever pulpits were thrown open to him, of the highest forms of blessing which multitudes had derived from his ministry of the Word. Everywhere, as in the fresh bloom of our religion in the preaching of the apostles, " the Lord gave testimony unto the word of his grace." It was a frequent experience to be told by some who came to him with streaming eyes that his words had been to them the seeds of a new and heavenly life ; while others would be found waiting at the church gates to tell him, with mingled wonder and gratitude, how, while unknown to him, he had seemed by his searching representations to have been reading their history and their hearts. Even ripe and aged saints were not slow to express their astonishment how one so young could reflect in his teaching their deepest and most hidden ex- periences as " face answereth to face in a glass." Could there be any more distinct sealing of the LIGHT AND SHADOW. 49 Holy Spirit upon his ministry than this ? Thus he interpreted the providence, and " thanked God, and took courage." There is one fact recorded in his experience at this period which is not without its suggestiveness. There were occasions in which he preached under much mental depression and restraint, and these he was sometimes tempted to regard as tokens of divine displeasure and desertion, which, for the time, might leave his ministry unblessed. Probably these alternations of light and shadow in the same day, or even in the same hour, sometimes had their explana- tion in physical weakness or ill health, as seen and judged by Him who " knoweth our frame, and re- membereth that we are dust." One thing is certain, that some of those very occasions on which there was an absence of happy frames and eloquent speech were signally blest. There was a rich harvest of the sea when the man-fisher seemed to be dragging out from the deep an empty net. We notice in this trying period of his life the same abounding in prayer, and severe heart-search- ing and striving against heart sins, which no eye could see but God's, as we remarked in his student life. Again and again we meet with such exclama- tions as, " Oh, how my heart hates my heart ! " Even some of his dreams wounded his moral sensi- 4 50 THOMAS BOSTON. bility, and he could have prayed with good Bishop Ken, — " When in the night I sleepless lie, My soul with heavenly thoughts supply ; Let no ill dreams disturb my rest, No powers of darkness me molest." We shall introduce another fact in his own words which exemplifies the same habit of unsparing self- scrutiny in connection with somewhat novel con- ditions. We must imagine our young probationer to have been listening to the preaching of a rival candidate, Mr. J. G., for a vacant charge. Mark how he schools his heart against prejudice, and into just and even generous appreciation : — " On the Saturday's afternoon, there comes a letter to my hand, desiring me to give the one-half of the day to Mr. J. G., whom those that were against me had an eye upon. The letter I received contentedly, granted the desire of it, and blessed the Lord for it. In these circumstances, seeing what hazard I was in from an evil prejudice, I committed my heart to the Lord that I might be helped to carry evenly. I cried to the Lord for it, and got that word, ' My grace shall be sufficient for thee.' On Sabbath morn- ing, I found in myself a great desire to love Christ and to be concerned solely for his glory ; and prayed to that effect not without some success. He (Mr. J. A CRUCIBLE OF FIRE. 5 1 G.) got the forenoon, for so it was desired by them. I was helped to join in prayer, was much edified both by his lecture and sermon, yet, in the time, I was thrice assaulted with the temptation I feared ; but looking up to the Lord, got it repulsed in some measure, and found my soul desirous that people should get good, soul-good, of what was very seri- ously, pathetically, and judiciously said to us by the godly young man. Betwixt sermons I got a sight of my own emptiness, and then prayed and preached in the afternoon with much help from the Lord. Yet for all that, I wanted not some levity of spirit, which poison my heart sucked out of that sweet flower." On the whole much genuine gold was revealed by that crucible of fire. Two years of this probationary life had now come and gone, and the prospect of settlement in a parochial charge seemed as remote as ever. Mr. Boston began to question with himself whether the many tokens of divine blessing upon his some- what wandering ministry were not to be regarded by him as providential signs that his mission was rather to be that of an evangelist itinerating and preaching from place to place, than that of a settled pastor. But such an arrangement did not seem practicable. To quote his own words, " he had now reached the full sea-mark of his perplexing circumstances. He 52 THOMAS BOSTON. felt like one standing in the dark, and not know- ing what his next step should be." We notice in his diary at this period a growing heavenliness of spirit and a more unqualified self-surrender and willing- ness to follow whithersoever God might lead, blam- ing himself with more severity than others generally would have done for the occasional risings of itching desires after a settlement. Texts of Scripture like the following were as ointment poured forth: "The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way " — " He hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." And we find these words in his diary : " My soul desires to lay itself down at his feet. Let him do with me as he will. I am his own." And now had come "the time for God to work." In the small parish of Simprin, down in the Merse, about five miles towards the east of Duns, " least among the thousands of Judah," God had provided for him a sphere in which he should find welcome rest in the congenial work of a minister of Christ. The rustic people were unanimous in their choice of him for their pastor, and for the first time in his experience there was no spectral lay-patron to neutralize the people's action and to stop the way. The principal heritor cordially joined with the simple people in their call , and with no vitiating elements to make his CALLED TO SIMPRIN. 53 course of duty uncertain, he heard the voice of God in the voice of the people, and obeyed it. We can imagine devout ministers in some of the surrounding parishes to have wondered much that a man of such rare gifts and capabilities should have been placed by the manifest leadings of Providence in so narrow a sphere. As for Mr. Boston himself, if such a question as this ever for a moment cast its shadow over his mind, he thought of his responsibility for the care of souls, " watching for them as those who know that they must give an account," and was satisfied. More- over, we find him saying in one of his mental soliloquies, " I know not what honourable use the Lord may have for me there." But could those kindly onlookers whom we have imagined have been permitted to look on the whole of that plan of God of which every good man's life is the development, their wonder would have been turned into praise. Simprin was the chosen place in which, through strangely varied incidents in which God was pleased to work, Boston should receive great enlargement in his knowledge of divine things, which should not only be of large and lasting benefit to himself and his ministry, but should favourably influence the religious thought and teaching of Scotland for generations to come. Moreover, within seven busy years he was, by his earnest preaching not taught in 54 THOMAS BOSTON. the schools of human rhetoric, but kindled and sustained by fire from off the altar of God, by his pastoral oversight and all-pervading prayer, to trans- form his parish, putting a new look upon everything, and to "cause the desert to blossom as the rose." Surely this more than solved the mystery. We find him writing many a year afterwards in grateful and adoring retrospect, " I will ever remember Simprin as a field which the Lord blessed." " When obstacles and trials seem Like prison walls to be, I do the little I can do, And leave the rest to Thee. " 111 that He blesseth is our good, And unblest good is ill ; And all is right that seems most wrong, If it be His sweet will." We shall be forgiven if, in closing this chapter, we mention the fact that, in the latter part of his course as a probationer, Mr. Boston composed a small treatise, which evidently grew out of passing experiences, and which, in its devout thinking and practical sagacity, would have been worthy of a minister of twice his age. The little book was not published at the time, but only appeared after a long interval. We shall enrich our chapter by quoting a ON THE ART OF MAN-FISHING. 55 few sentences. It was entitled "A Soliloquy on the Art of Man-fishing ; " and it was founded on those words of Jesus to Simon and Andrew when, standing by the seaside, he called them away from their em- ployment as fishermen, in order that they might be trained and qualified by him for becoming the minis- ters and apostles of his religion, and thus coming forth at length as " fishers of men." The young author explains that when Jesus thus said to those sincere and simple men, " Follow me," his language meant a great deal more than, " Leave your nets and boats and come after me, and learn to be the preachers of my word ; " but, in addition, that if they would do good to souls, and gain them to him by their ministry, then they were to imitate him " in their character and preaching, to make him their pattern, to write after his copy, as a fit means for the gaining of souls." CHAPTER IV. Simprin as Mr. Boston found it — Marriage — Redoubled happiness — Death of first-born child — A strange dream strangely fulfilled — the young minister's efforts to do good — growing signs of blessing — Story of the finding of the "Marrow" — All Sim- prin SHARES THE INFLUENCE — A CALL FROM ETTRICK. M R. BOSTON was ordained at Simprin on 21st September 1699. He had now reached the object of his holy ambition, and was ready to say of his church and parish, " This is my rest, here will I dwell. I found my heart well content with my lot, and the sense of God's calling me to that work with the promise of his presence. Oh, it satisfies my soul, and my very heart blesseth him for it. For really it is the doing of the Lord, and wondrous in my eyes." The text from which he preached on the first Sab- bath after his ordination struck the loud and solemn keynote of his whole ministry : " For they watch for souls as they that must give an account." The CONDITION OF SIMPRIN. 57 solemn thought of the care of souls which, as a preacher, he must feed with the manna of heavenly truth, and as a pastor he must tend and guide in the way of life, with the foresight of that day of reckon- ing in which he must give an account of his steward- ship, haunted him like an angel's presence, and made him well content with the obscurity of his position, the rustic manners of his people, and the smallness of his charge. A mere hireling, whose earthborn ambition never rose above a comfortable manse, a good stipend, and a respectable social position, would have turned away from poor Simprin with disappointment or disdain, because he was an hire- ling ; all the more that both church and manse were dilapidated and going fast to ruin, and the people had been described as generally ignorant and coldly indifferent. But our young minister judged of the matter by another standard. There was even a peculiar fascination to his consecrated spirit in his being called to " break up the fallow ground," and to give his days and nights to the winning of souls. Was not this the part of the Lord's vineyard to which God had appointed him ? And woe was unto him if he turned a deaf ear to the divine voice which said to him, " Go and work there." We find Mr. Doddridge, the author of " The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," in the same 58 THOMAS BOSTON. spirit, though more in a vein of contented pleasantry, writing to a friend who had condoled with him in a letter on his being buried alive in the obscure coun- try village of Kibworth. He admits that his rustic flock consisted mainly of graziers and their depend- ants. " I have not," he adds, " so much as a tea-table in my whole diocese, although about eight miles in extent, and but one hoop petticoat within the whole circuit. I am now with a plain, honest, serious people. I heartily love them myself, and I meet with genuine, undissembled affection on their side. Instead of lamenting it as my misfortune, you should congratulate me upon it as my happiness that I am confined to an obscure village, seeing that it gives me so many advantages to the most important pur- poses of devotion and philosophy, and I hope I may add of usefulness too." Eight days after his ordination, Mr. Boston renewed his dedication of himself to God, and subscribed anew his solemn covenant in the following charac- teristic document, which long afterwards was found among his papers : — " I, Mr. Thomas Boston, preacher of the gospel of Christ, being by nature an apostate from God, an enemy to the great Jehovah, and so an heir of hell and wrath, in myself utterly lost and undone, be- cause of my original and actual sins, and misery SOLEMN COVENANT. 59 thereby ; and being, in some measure, made sensible of this my lost and undone state, and sensible of my need, my absolute need, of a Saviour, without whom I must perish eternally; and believing that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of the eternal God, is not only able to save me (though most vile and ugly, and one who has given him many repulses), both from my sins and from the load of wrath due to me for them, upon condition that I believe, come to him for salvation, and cordially receive him in all his offices, consenting to the terms of the covenant : therefore, as I have, at several opportunities before, given an express and solemn consent to the terms of the covenant, and have entered into a personal covenant with Christ, so now, being called to under- take the great and mighty work of the ministry of the gospel for which I am altogether insufficient, I do by this declare that I stand to and own all my former engagements, whether sacramental or any other whatsoever : and now again do renew my covenant with God ; and hereby, at this present time, do solemnly covenant and engage to be the Lord's, and make a solemn resignation and upgiving of myself, my soul, body, spiritual and temporal con- cerns, unto the Lord Jesus Christ, without any re- servation whatsoever ; and do hereby give my volun- tary consent to the terms of the covenant laid down 60 THOMAS BOSTON. in the Holy Scriptures, the word of truth ; and with my heart and soul I take and receive Christ in all his offices, as my Prophet, to teach me, resolving and engaging in his strength to follow, that is, to endeavour to follow, his instructions : I take him as my Priest, to be saved by his death and merits alone ; and renouncing my own righteousness as filthy rags and menstruous cloths, I am content to be clothed with his righteousness alone, and live entirely upon free grace : likewise I take him for my Advocate and Intercessor with the Father : and, finally, I take him as my King, to reign in me and to rule over me, renouncing all other lords, whether sin or self, and in particular my predominant idol ; and in the strength of the Lord do resolve and hereby en- gage to cleave to Christ as my sovereign Lord and King, in death and in life, in prosperity and in ad- versity, even for ever, and to strive and wrestle in his strength against all known sin ; protesting that whatever sin may be lying hid in my heart out of my view, I disown it and abhor it, and shall, in the Lord's strength, endeavour the mortification of it when the Lord shall be pleased to let me see it. And this solemn covenant I make as in the presence of the ever-living, heart-searching God, and subscribe it with my hand, in my chamber at Dunse, about one o'clock in the afternoon, the fourteenth day of DIFFICULTIES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS. 6 1 August, one thousand six hundred and ninety-nine years. — T. BOSTON." The young minister lost no time in entering on his sacred work. " The King's business required haste." It was true that the half-ruined and unin- habitable condition of his manse made it necessary that he should reside for a time in Duns, which was about six miles distant, and this both consumed much of his time and impeded his labours. But still he would do what he could, and while his work was unpleasantly diminished, this was no reason why it should stand still. It was reasonable that one of his earliest mea- sures should be the visitation of every household in his parish, not only that he might endeavour to win the confidence of his people in his good intentions, and that they might be convinced of his earnestness of purpose, but that he might ascertain for himself the amount of their Christian knowledge and their general moral and religious condition. The diagnosis was disappointing and saddening. The whole truth had not been told him. Their ignorance was such that they needed to be instructed in the simplest elements of divine truth, and their indifference to everything spiritual and heavenly was in proportion to their ignorance. Their thoughts were bounded by the ploughing 62 THOMAS BOSTON. of their fields, the sowing of their seeds, and the gathering in of their crops, in the circle of the seasons. Two facts revealed much. In all that parish, with its seventy " examinable " persons, he could find only one house in which there was the observance of family worship. And such was the prevailing spiritual death, or languor that was on the verge of death, that the Lord's Supper had not once been observed in the parish for several years. We can imagine the devoted young pastor, as he realized the cheerless picture, again and again putting to himself the question, " Can these dry bones live ? " and yet, in another moment of kindling hope, pros- trating himself in the solitude of his little prophet's chamber, and sending up the cry to heaven, " Come from the four winds, thou Spirit of the Lord, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." This was the condition in which he found Simprin. We are now to see what it became under his ministry, and by what means, in the following seven years. He proceeded to " build up the waste places," and to set in order the various agencies of an earnest min- istry. The forenoon and afternoon Sabbath services, which had long been irregularly and fitfully observed, were instituted anew; the smallness of the parish having this advantage, that it made attendance easy even for the most remote parishioner. Already BUILDING UP THE WASTE PLACES. 63 alive to the fact that such a people needed, in the first instance, a ministry of conviction and alarm, such as that of Elliot in olden times to which we have already referred, or that of John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan among the self-satisfied and hardened Pharisees, his earliest discourses, with their glowing personal applications to his somewhat astonished hearers, were principally on man's de- pravity and guilt; as if he had already in his mind the germ of that " Fourfold State " which, in another age, was to exercise so powerful and beneficent an influence upon the religious thought and the spiritual life of Scotland. Simultaneously w T ith this, he commenced the life- long practice of pastoral visitation from house to house, its predominant services consisting in re- ligious exhortation and prayer. To this he con- tinued to attach an importance only second to his pulpit ministrations, not merely because of its direct influence, but because it brought him into direct contact with individual minds, and made him ac- quainted with the history and condition of the individ- ual families, while it helped him the better to select topics seasonable for pulpit instruction, and to adapt them to their business and bosoms. One is apt to think that his gift of music must often have been brought into service in the singing of psalms, in the 64 THOMAS BOST<: winding up of those edifying family gatherings. And when, in the depth of winter, with his church t :>red and his manse renovated and made in- habitable, he was able at length to give his whole strength and time to his sacred work, he proceeded to institute a Sabbath-evening service for his people, in order to their more familiar and systematic in- struction in the elementary truths of the Christian faith, in which he found them most grievously ill- informed ; uniting with this the catechetical exam- ination of his hearers, one by one, in the lessons which the}- had heard. We find in his autobiography a summary state- ment of his instructions in one of those Sabbath- evening exercises, on the subject of " divine provi- dence," which we may take as a specimen. In com- mon with the Nonconformists of England at the same period, he seems to have taken the Shorter Catechism as his text-book, while leaving himself free for individual freedom of treatment. " The evening service concerning the providence of God was sweet to me ; and in converse after it, it was a pleasure to think and speak of the saints' grounds of encour- agement from that head — under trouble, particu- larly, how it is their God that guides the world, and nothing do they meet with but what comes through their Lord's fingers ; how he weighs their troubles EARNEST EFFORTS. 65 to the least grain, that no more falls to their share than they need ; and how they have a covenant right to chastisements, to the Lord's dealing with them as with sons, to be rightly educated, not as sen-ants whom the master will not strike but send away at the term." We are struck with the evidence which the whole of our young minister's plan and action at this period affords us of the earnest anxiety with which he thought for his people in all his arrangements. The practice of questioning his hearers on those Sabbath evenings, immediately after his familiar conversa- tional lessons, enabled him at once to see how far he had succeeded in making himself understood, and gave him an opportunity of reiterating his instruc- tions, and of further explanation where he saw it to be needed. He was unwilling to move beyond their pace. Another fact reveals his conscientiousness and zeal in these instructions. He tells us that he endeavoured to enlist and retain their attention and interest by the free use of similitudes drawn from the natural world, enlisting their imaginations by those natural pictures. But in his first endeavours, he was disappointed, and mortified to find that he had only half succeeded. His catechizings brought to light the fact that while they remembered the similitudes, they failed to retain the divine truths of which they 66 THOMAS BOSTON. were meant to be the vehicle ; kept hold of the earthly, but let drop the heavenly ; relished the shell, but not the kernel. " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." But this monotony of unfruitfulness was not long to continue. Before spring was ended, there began to appear signs not only of awakening inquiry but of spiritual quickening, like the music of the early song- birds, which not only tells us that winter is past, but is hailed as a prophecy of summer. The heart of the young pastor was gladdened by these few but wel- come experiences. He thought that he saw in them the sealing of the Holy Spirit upon his labours, and that their voice to him was, " Be of good cheer ; " and they sent him to his closet with songs of thanks- giving, so that he could already write in his diary : " With joy I saw myself in Simprin as in my nest, and under the covert of Christ's wings." But when midsummer came, there occurred an event which, next to his conversion and ordination to the Christian ministry, exercised the most import- ant and beneficent influence upon all his future life. Early in his probationer life, he had formed an acquaintance with a lady of good family in Clack- mannanshire, which had speedily ripened into a tender affection. He informs us, indeed, that on the first day on which he looked on her his heart had CATHERINE BROWN. 67 been drawn out to her with a preference which in- creased with intercourse, while it was fully recipro- cated by the object of his choice. And what helped much to strengthen his love, while it introduced into it a new and sacred element, was the living religious sympathy which existed between them, so that Boston beheld in his Catherine Brown not only a sweetheart but a sister in Christ. He tells us, in his own characteristic manner, that from the first " he discerned in her the sparkles of grace." Had this divine quality been wanting, or its existence even dubious, it was certain that he would never have told his love. But there was no cause even for uncertainty ; and the consequence was that the honourable attachment which, in his own words, " needed rather to be bounded than strengthened," soon ripened into mutual devotement and betrothal, to be consummated in honourable wedlock when Providence should make their way plain, and should be ready to arise and bless the banns. Probably neither of them anticipated that a period of nearly three years would intervene before marriage would be made practicable through Mr. Boston's settlement in a pastoral charge. And there must have been an occasional sinking of the heart on the part of both when the cup of ecclesiastical preferment, as it rose to his lips, was again and again dashed away. 68 THOMAS BOSTON. But during all that wearisome interval of hope de- ferred, the betrothed maiden looked on with quiet and trustful patience, giving no sign of murmuring or disappointment, and did much to encourage Bos- ton in waiting God's time, which would be seen and owned by them to be the best when it came. It was with reference to this, as well as to later periods, that we find him making this grateful record : " I was made often to bless the Lord that ever I was made acquainted with her." But when Boston became minister of the church and parish of Simprin, every barrier to marriage was taken out of the way, and about ten months after- wards the two attached friends, whose hearts had for years been one, joined hands in holy wedlock, and pledged themselves to each other by sacred bonds which nothing but death could sever. The solemn rite, which had been preceded by much heart- searching and prayer, and was engaged in with a deep and chastened joy, took place at Culross, on the banks of the Forth, on July 17, 1700, and was conducted by the Rev. Mr. Mair, who was Boston's friend, and minister of the parish. "The action," says Mr. Boston, " was gone about most sweetly by Mr. Mair. The Lord directed him to most seasonable and pertinent exhortations, and they came with power and life. Of a truth God owned it, and it was MARRIAGE. 69 sweet both to him and to us." A few days afterwards, when the grateful husband led his bride into the humble manse of Simprin, he felt that he had indeed received a gift from the Lord. The words of Luther when writing of his wife Catherine Bora would not have been unsuitable to Boston when speaking of his wife Catherine Brown : " The greatest gift of God is an amiable and pious spouse who fears God, loves his house, and with whom one can live in per- fect peace." It was a union which stood the tests of time and trial. Thirty years after his marriage, we find Mr. Bos- ton bearing his testimony to this in words which have often been admired since, and in whose holy beauty, tenderness, and gushing thankfulness he rises above himself: "Thus was I, by all-wise Providence, yoked with my wife, with whom I have now, by the mercy of God (1730), lived thirty years complete ; a woman of great worth, whom I therefore passionately loved and inwardly honoured ; a stately, beautiful, and comely personage, truly pious, and fearing the Lord ; of an evenly temper, patient in our common tribulations and under her personal distresses ; a woman of bright natural parts and an uncommon stock of prudence ; of a quick and lively apprehen- sion in things she applied herself to; of great presence of mind in surprising incidents ; sagacious and acute 70 THOMAS BOSTON. in discerning the qualities of persons, and therefore not easily imposed upon ; modest and grave in her deportment, but naturally cheerful ; wise and affable in conversation, having a good faculty at speaking and expressing herself with assurance ; endowed with a singular dexterity in dictating of letters; being a pattern of frugality and wise management of house- hold affairs, therefore entirely committed to her; well fitted for and careful of the virtuous education of her children ; remarkably useful to the country-side, both in the Merse and in the Forest, through skill in physic and surgery, which, in many instances, a peculiar blessing appeared to be commanded upon from heaven ; and, finally, a crown to me in my public station and appearances. During the time we have lived together hitherto, we have passed through a sea of trouble as not seeing the shore but afar off. I have sometimes been likely to be removed : she having had little continued health, except the first six weeks, her death hath sometimes stared us in the face, and hundreds of arrows have pierced my heart on that score ; and sometimes I have gone with a trembling heart to the pulpit, lay- ing my account with being called out of it to see her expire. And now for the third part of the time we have lived together — namely, ten years complete — she has been under a particular racking distress, and OPEN FAMILY WORSHIP. 7 1 for several of these years fixed to her bed ; in the which furnace the grace of God in her hath been brightened, her parts continued to a wonder, and her beauty, which formerly was wont upon her recoveries to leave no vestige of the illness she had been under, doth as yet, now and then, show some vestiges of itself." It was probably not long after his marriage that the earnest minister, ever on the outlook for new opportunities of benefiting his people, threw open his house to any who might be willing to attend on his morning family worship. Nor is it difficult to believe that his young wife, who was ready to be his helpmate in his ministry as well as in the common details of home life, would sympathize with him in this arrangement, and, casting aside all thoughts of domestic inconvenience, would give cordial welcome to all that came. The project was successful. Many of his parishioners came regularly to the service. Mr. Boston mingled with the devotional exercises a brief exposition of Scripture, for which he never failed to prepare himself by previous study ; and the interested worshippers returned to their home cares, or their out-of-door industry, toned for the day. But his sky was not to be long without clouds. The first year of his Simprin pastorate was scarcely ended, when he was called to mourn over the death 72 THOMAS BOSTON. of his father, in his seventieth year. The stroke was not unexpected, but, as he tells us in his diary, " it went to the quick with him." "It was a heavy death to me, the shock of which I had much ado to stand." There were filial ties and sacred memories of peculiar strength and tenderness which bound him to his father. He remembered how, when a boy, he had borne him company night and day when he was suffering imprisonment for conscience' sake. He could not forget the sacrifices which he had made for a series of years, out of his straitened means, in order to obtain for him such a university education as was required of candidates for the Christian ministry. And ever since, the hoary head had been found in the way of righteousness. There must have been grateful joy, mingled with natural sorrow, when the bereaved son could write thus of his father : " He was one who, in the worst times, re- tained his integrity beyond many ; and in view of death gave comfortable evidences of eternal life to be obtained through the Lord Jesus Christ." A few weeks after the father's death, another event happened in the family history, in which joy and sorrow were strangely mingled. On the 24th May 1 70 1, Mrs. Boston gave birth to her first child, Catherine, " having," says the devout father, " at the holy and just pleasure of the sovereign Former of all JOY AND SORROW. 73 things, a double harelip, whereby she was rendered incapable of sucking." On the way to the chamber he was met by the nurse, who intimated to him the case of the child, " with which," says he, " my heart was struck like a bird shot and falling from a tree. Howbeit," he adds, " I bore it gravely, and my afflicted wife carried the trial very Christianly, and wisely after her manner." It was a weakly child, requiring to be watched night and day through all the months of summer ; but when autumn came, the little one began to revive. Money affairs requiring that Mr. Boston and his wife should visit her former home in Clackmannanshire, they proceeded thither in the beginning of harvest. On their return home after a brief stay, made shorter on account of Mrs. Boston's imperfect health, they rested for a night in her sister's house at Torryburn, Fifeshire. There, in the morning before rising from bed, she had a remark- able dream. She dreamed that she saw her child perfect in form, "the natural defect being made up, and extraordinarily beautiful." This making an impression on their minds to which they could not be indifferent, they hastened their way homeward. On arriving at Black's Mill, about nine miles from Simprin, they were met by friends, when their hearts were pierced with the information that their little infant was both dead and buried. " After which," 74 THOMAS BOSTON. says Mr. Boston, " we came home in great heaviness, and found that that very day and hour of the day, as near as could be judged, when my wife had the dream aforesaid, the child had died." They could not help connecting the death with the dream which had been sent to them beforehand " with healing on its wings." It may be interesting to some ministers of Christ in our own days to be told of some of our young pastor's early ministerial experiences — those " lessons in black print," as Foster calls them. They may even suggest valuable hints both for encouragement and warning. In the earlier years of his Simprin life, he had frequent difficulty in fixing on a text for the following Sabbath. Sometimes, even more time was consumed in finding a text that suited his present state of mind, than was usually occupied in the composition of a sermon. There was something more than perplexity and worry in this, when, as occasionally happened, the week was already far advanced, and in his growing anxiety he seemed to hear the sound of the Sabbath bell summoning him to his sacred work. This was even beyond the ex- perience of John Newton, the good pastor of Olney, who was seldom helped to more than one text in the week, and who compared himself to a servant to whom a key had been given that only opened one EARLY MINISTERIAL EXPERIENCES. 75 drawer at a time, but never had committed to him a bunch of keys which opened all the drawers. But in his later years at Simprin, it was Mr. Bos- ton's custom to select large paragraphs of Scripture, which, in their succession of verses, supplied texts for many sermons, — a practice which carried with it the great advantage of enabling him, sometimes con- sciously and sometimes unconsciously, to gather ma- terial from his reading and observation, not only for the wants of the present week, but for those of many weeks to come. We find him, for instance, lingering over the few verses of the epistle to the Church of La- odicea from January to the end of May, and appa- rently loath to leave the passage even then, with the feeling that the golden mine had not yet been made to yield up all its riches. One statement which he makes is specially valuable and suggestive, that his afflictions not unfrequently found his texts for him, and that those sermons were the most profitable to others which had taken their shape and colouring from his personal and family history, and had been suggested by the events of his own life. A valuable lesson may also be gleaned by some from another experience in his early ministry. It had been his practice, at first, to delay his prepara- tions for his pulpit to the last days of the week, the consequence of which too often was that when Satur- 76 THOMAS BOSTON. day came much of his sermon yet remained to be written. It was not long ere he began to find the inconvenience and evil of this delay, and to resolve that the writing of his discourses for the Sabbath should be over, at the latest, on the Friday evenings. In more than one respect he found the advantage of this wise change. The intervening rest of Saturday secured for him a greater reserve of strength and freshness for his Sabbath ministrations. It may even have preserved him at times from mistaking mental and physical depression for divine desertion. It saved him also from the fretting and worry which were certain to come out of undue haste or inconve- nient interruptions, while it gave him time to preach the sermc i to his own heart before he preached it to his people. Much is revealed regarding his frequent state of mind on closing the writing of one of his sermons : " Oh that it were written in my heart as it is in my book." It must have been a painful surprise to a minister of such lofty aims and gentle charity as Mr. Bos- ton, to have been told by certain of his hearers that he was suspected of indulging in "person- alities " in his preaching, and that they even be- lieved that, in some things which he had recently spoken, he had been aiming at them. It is super- fluous to say that few things can be more unworthy SCARCITY OF BOOKS. 77 of a minister of Christ, or a more shameful degrad- ing of his sacred office, than when he uses his pulpit to gratify a secret vindictiveness or spite. But such suspicions are commonly groundless, and are to be accounted for by an overweening self-importance on the part of some of his hearers, or by an uneasy conscience in others, which smarts under faithful preaching when it unveils to the man some secret besetting sin, or purpose of evil. Indeed it is a poor sign of a minister's discriminating skill and fidelity in his pulpit when his preaching does not at times make individuals among his hearers uneasy almost to resentment, and his " drowsy tinklings only lull his flock to sleep." " I should suspect his preaching had no salt in it," says the wise and witty Thomas Fuller, " if no galled jade did wince. But still it does not follow that the archer aimed because the arrow hit." Some of our readers will be interested by another phase in Mr. Boston's early Simprin experiences. We find him mourning again and again over the fewness of his books, and especially of commentaries on the Word of God. He even describes himself in one place as having been wounded in his feelings, " touched to the quick," by observing the smile which passed over the countenance of a brother minister from a neighbouring parish, when he showed him yS THOMAS BOSTON. his little book-press with its scantily supplied shelves. Among the cherished few, he tells us, were Zanchy's works, and Luther on the Galatians, " which he was much taken with ; " and Providence also laid to his hand Beza's " Confession of Faith." Circulating libraries, and book posts, and other expedients with which the modern country parson is gratefully famil- iar, were unknown in those days, and there is no evidence that the weekly carrier's cart from the great city regularly touched at Simprin. Only once in the year did our pastor's straitened means admit of his bringing home a carefully selected book parcel, not very portly, to add to his little stores. . He came, however, ere long to see that there were compensating advantages even in this. For he had time to read and digest the supplies of one year before the next greedily-waited-for annual parcel of books arrived. The reproach could not have been flung at him that it was more easy to furnish our library than our understanding. And even by his lack of commen- taries, he was thrown back the more upon his own mental resources, and closed up to independent thought ; while he early began to register in a " Book of Miscellanies" the difficulties of interpretation which he could not surmount, and the problems in theology which he could not immediately solve ; and not unfrequently the solution came in maturer years. THE BEST INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE. 79 One precious testimony of Boston's, more than once repeated by him even at this early period of his ministry, will find its echo in the heart of every devoted minister of Christ — that a heavenly frame of mind is the best interpreter of Scripture. There are great texts, especially those which belong to the region of Christian experience, which sound to the man of mere lexicons and grammars as paradoxes or riddles, and before which he will sit for days and weeks vainly guessing and groping at their meaning, but which sweetly open themselves almost at once to the mind which has " tasted that the Lord is gracious," and' disclose to him all their golden stores. It is a profound saying, expressing in another form Boston's meaning, that " the best scriptural inter- preter is the man with a scriptural mind." We have noticed the manner in which our young Simprin pastor hungered for books, and how scanty was his supply of this mental pabulum during the earlier years of his ministry. But there was one book to which we have now to advert which came into his possession without his seeking, even the name of which he had never before heard, which was destined to exercise over himself and his min- istry a most powerful and benignant influence, and ultimately and partly through him, over the theo- logical thinking and the ecclesiastical history of 80 THOMAS BOSTON. Scotland for ages to come. Other ministers, such as Mr. Hog of Carnock, soon became associated with him in his experience and action ; but his was the hand which beyond all others put the leaven into the meal. This remarkable book was '' The Marrow of Modern Divinity." Its author was Mr. Edward Fisher, a gentleman commoner of Brasenose College, Oxford. Its first part was published in May 1645, and its second part three years after; and it consisted largely *of extracts from the writings of the Reformers and the Puritans, these having reference mainly to questions con- nected with the way of a sinner's access to God. We see the familiar names of Luther and Calvin and Beza shining out from the great multitude of honoured names, and the editor himself contributes an occasional sentence or brief passage. But he prefers to describe himself as one who has gathered sweet-scented and medicinal flowers from many a garden, and bound them together in one bunch of mingled sweetness and healing power. The book was strongly recommended by the famous Joseph Caryl, who held the office of censor of theological works, from the Westminster Assembly of Divines. And the fact that the entire work passed through ten editions in a few years after its publication, proves the avidity with which it was sought after and read. THE FINDING OF THE "MARROW." 8l The story of the manner in which the " Marrow " found its way into this obscure corner of Scotland, and into Mr. Boston's hands, presents a remarkable instance of the unlikely means and the minute inci- dents by which God not unfrequently works out his great designs, especially for the advancement of his kingdom among men. How little did Luther dream when he found a copy of the Latin Bible in the Augustinian monastery at Erfurth, and began to read it, that he was " the monk whom God had chosen to shake the world," and that this discovery was to be the first step in his training for his glo- rious mission. The way of Boston's finding the " Marrow," though greatly inferior in importance, be- longs to the same class of providences. We shall best give the narrative of the finding of the " Marrow " in Boston's own quaint words : — " As I was sitting one day in a house of Simprin, I espied above the window-head two little old books, which when I had taken down I found entitled, the one ' The Marrow of Modern Divinity,' the other ' Christ's Blood Flowing Freely to Sinners.' These, I reckon, had been brought home from England by the master of the house, who had been a soldier in the time of the civil wars. Finding them to point to the subject I was in particular concern about, I brought them both away. The latter, a book of 82 THOMAS BOSTON. Saltmarsh's, I relished not, and I think I returned it without reading it quite through. The other, be- ing the first part of the ' Marrow,' I relished greatly, and purchased it, at length, from the owner, and it is still to be found among my books. I found it to come close to the points I was in quest of, and to shew the consistency of these which I could not reconcile before, so that I rejoiced in it as a light which the Lord had seasonably struck up to me in my darkness." It is not difficult to understand how, in looking at the doctrine of election by itself, apart from the uses and connections in which it is presented in Scripture, Boston in his earlier years at Simprin should sometimes, to use his own words, have found himself confused, indistinct, and hampered in his proclamation to men of the free, open, and universal liberty of access to God in Christ for salvation. But when he was brought to see, from a hundred passages in the " Marrow," that the gospel was the fruit and expression of God's love to every " man of woman born," that " God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son," or, to quote the words which be- came the recognized formula of "Marrow" theology, that "Jesus Christ was God the Father's deed of gift and grant unto all mankind lost," the morning mists passed away, he saw God's wondrous method A NEW LIGHT. 83 of mercy in its full-orbed light and radiance, and began from that hour to sound " the gospel trumpet's heavenly call " with a new energy and delight which his people and those in the surrounding parishes were not slow to recognize and relish. " The time of the singing of birds had come." There is one statement in an early passage of his autobiography, probably having reference to this very period, in which our young minister describes him- self as conversing with a visitor about " the measure of humiliation requisite in a sinner before he can come to Christ." If up to this time he had been hampered by this question, which has made so many to stumble and hold back on their way to Christ and peace, we may well believe that the teaching of the " Marrow " would tell him how to deal with such an inquirer. He would insist on an immediate and unqualified closing with the message of heaven's love. He would assure the anxious one that he would never become better, but worse, by waiting. Why should you linger, even for a day, when the gate stands wide open, and the feast is ready, and the King is waiting with open arms to welcome you in ? The only way to be made clean is to go to the fountain; the only way to be made warm is to go to the fire. In this way had Boston come to plead with men when preaching on such texts as 84 THOMAS BOSTON. " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest " — " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters," on which the lamp of the "Marrow" had shed a new light. During the following fifteen years, the " Marrow " doctrine spread far and wide over many of the fairest provinces of Scotland ; it became incorporated with the preaching of not a few of its best ministers; and multitudes of sincere believers were so quickened by it that their experience seemed like a new conversion ; while myriads of careless professors and open sinners entered with joy into the kingdom of the saved. There is truth in the remark that the Marrowmen, first of all among our Scottish divines, entered fully into the missionary spirit of the Bible, and were able to see that Calvinistic doctrine " was not inconsist- ent with world-conquering aspirations and efforts." We return to our narrative. From the time that Boston had drunk of the reviving waters of the " Marrow," his work in Simprin was carried on with increased freedom and crowned with greater success. Conscious that he had been put in trust with a divine message which was fitted for all, needed by all, and commanded to be proclaimed to all, he preached with an enlarged hope and earnestness. And Simprin was not only improved but visibly transformed. There was a new face upon everything. " Instead REMARKABLE TRANSFORMATION. 85 of the thorn there had come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier there had come up the myrtle tree." When he entered on his ministry in Simprin there was not a single house in which family wor- ship was observed : within a period of less than seven years there was not a single home in all the parish without its family altar and its morning and evening sacrifice of praise and prayer. As it had been with Baxter at Kidderminster, when at the stated hours every house resounded with the voice of psalms, so it had come to be the experience of Boston in the cottages of this rural parish. And these are among the surest signs of thriving religious life among a people, just as there are certain flowers on the Alps which are sure to appear at a high elevation. Moreover, in the later years of his Simprin pas- torate, and especially on extraordinary communion occasions, multitudes came streaming from the neighbouring parishes to be "present at the feast;" and many carried away with them in their hearts the memory of words and thoughts that never died, their awakened interest giving an increased enthu- siasm and fervour to Boston's preaching, so that his lips seemed touched with hallowed fire, and he rose above himself. Writing in his diary at the recollec- tion of one of those sacramental seasons, we find him testifying, " If I ever preached, it was on that day ;" 86 THOMAS BOSTON. " I will ever remember Simprin as a field which the Lord had blessed." In speaking of such successes as thus crowned and rewarded the ministry of Boston even at this early period, while we must look for the explanation mainly in the divine adaptation of the gospel and doctrine which he preached, we must look also at the personality of the preacher. Such a man preached to his people in his daily life. They beheld the witness to the divinity of his message, in its divine fruits, as he lived and moved before them. They could not doubt regarding such a man that he " be- lieved, and therefore spoke." We have already quoted his own testimony that he preached his sermons to his own heart before he preached them to his people. And then they were studied in an element of prayer. His was the prayer ardent which " Opens heaven, and lets down a stream Of glory on the consecrated hour Of man, in audience with the Deity." With what an intensity of gratitude do we find him recording in his diary instances of blessing in answer to prayer : " My soul went out in love flames to the Advocate with the Father." This was emphatically a formative period in Bos- ton's life. As an instance of this, we may mention the habit which he had already formed of daily SPIRITUAL LESSONS. 87 meditation on the ways of Providence, especially in connection with his own spiritual life and ministry, and his extracting from these experiences the les- sons which they suggested. By this means, the divine word and the divine ways were made to shed mutual light, and often the moral which they suggested was condensed into a proverb and pre- served. In this manner his autobiography becomes even at this early stage of his life like his manse garden, a place abounding with wholesome fruits and medicinal plants. We shall enrich our narra- tive with a few of these : — " Spiritual decays suck the sap out of mercies." " There may be an enlargement of affection where there is a straitening of words." " The way of duty crossing people's way is a safe way." "When the Lord means a mercy to a people he helps them beforehand to pray for it." " A depending frame is a pledge of mercy desired." " Satan is sure to lay hold of us in a special manner when there is some great work that we have to do." " There is no keeping foot without new supplies from the Lord." Early in the beginning of 1706, Mr. Boston was surprised by receiving the news of his having been 88 THOMAS BOSTON. called to be minister of the parish of Ettrick in Selkirkshire. It was not a welcome surprise. No doubt, Simprin was a little parish with a scanty population, by no means equal to his capacity of work and oversight ; but during those seven years of his pastorate over that rustic flock, it had entwined itself around his affections. It was his " first love." There was not one among his parishioners whom he did not know, and the short and simple annals of whose family life, in which " the dews of sorrow were lustred o'er with love," which he could not have repeated. We are re- minded of Goldsmith's lines : — " Even children followed with endearing wile And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile." And his ministry had been singularly blessed among them. They were indeed his " living epistles." How could he endure to be severed from a people who, in so many simple forms and ways, reciprocated his affection ? Moreover, when the call from Ettrick came at length into his hands, " his health," as he records in his diary, " was so broken that he looked rather like one to be transported to another world than into another parish." But still " the Call " was there. It was a reality. It had come to him un- sought and undesired. He was conscious in his CALLED TO ETTRICK. 89 own heart that he would not have so much as lifted up a finger to bring it forth ; but now that it had come to him, he must look it full in the face, and endeavour to ascertain what was the will of his Master in heaven. Unbiassed by any poor am- bitions or mercenary motives, this would be the only factor in determining his decision. He tells us that, " leaving all in God's hands, he was willing from the first to go or stay as the Lord might give the word." And " when the eye was thus single, the whole body was full of light." At the same time, while he was thus prepared to obey the divine will, it was necessary that he should do his utmost to ascertain what this will was. He could not hope to hear a voice from heaven saying, " This is the way, walk ye in it." For this end he visited Ettrick, preached to the people, and sought by personal observation and otherwise to inform himself, especially regarding the moral and religious condition of the parish. Up to this time, his heart's preference had been to remain in Simprin. But what he saw and heard during those days in " the Forest " made him hesitate, and even incline to make it the object of his choice, not because his work would be easy, but because the crying wants of the people were so great. " The desolation in that parish," he says, " ever since I saw it, hath great weight on me, 90 THOMAS BOSTON. and I am convinced I should have more opportunity to do service for God there than here ; but success is the Lord's." Still, like Moses in the wilderness, who would not move with his myriad host until the pillar of cloud and fire moved, he would take no step until Providence gave its sign. " The Lord helped me to believe that he would clear me in the matter in due time, and to depend on him for the same ; while the word, ' He that believeth shall not make haste,' was helpful to me." Well know- ing, as he tells us, that " several who had interest with God at the throne of grace were concerned to pray for light to him," he at length determined to wait for the action of the synod in whose bounds the congregations both of Simprin and Ettrick were placed, and to accept its decision as the indication of the divine will. And on the 6th day of March 1707, the synod having met, transferred Mr. Boston to Ettrick, a place with which his name has continued to be linked by many sacred associations in the minds of Christians throughout Scotland and in many other lands, up to the present day. m Grey-headed elders were there from Simprin, weeping much at the thought of his being severed from them ; and when he beheld their unfeigned grief, " how," says he, " could my eyes fail to trickle down with tears ? " FAREWELL SERMON AT SIMPRIN. 9 1 On the 1st day of May 1707, Mr. Boston was for- mally inducted as minister of Ettrick — a day, as he did not fail to note, remarkable in after ages as " that in which the union of Scotland and England commenced according to the articles thereof agreed upon by the two Parliaments." On the Sabbath after his admission, he began his ministry at Ettrick by preaching from the text 1 Sam. vii. 12 : "Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." It was not until the 15th day of June that he preached his farewell sermon to his Simprin people on John vii. 37 : " In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink." It was characteristic of the man to choose that grand evangelical text for such an occasion, when all the associations and incidents were likely to prepare and attune the hearts of the people for hearing. The multitude was very great, consisting not only of his sorrow- ing Simprin flock, but of thousands besides, who had come crowding from all the surrounding parishes to listen to a voice which the greater number of them knew they would hear no more. The place was at once a Bochim and a Bethel. He notices with glowing gratitude that " the Lord who had 92 THOMAS BOSTON. been with him in his ministry there, was with him at the close, and much of God's power appeared in it." It might have been said that " that last day was the great day of the feast." There was a holy awe over the hushed and expectant multitude ; and though many a face that was turned to the preacher was suffused with tears, there was a pre- vailing element of joy which the text and the words which were spoken on it did not fail to produce and sustain. It was like the drawing of the loaded net by the disciples on the Sea of Galilee at the morning dawn, which they could scarcely drag to the land because of the multitude of fishes. On the Thursday following, Mr. Boston with his wife and two children, Jane and Ebenezer, arrived at their new mountain home among the green hills of Ettrick. No doubt there were some momentary misgivings and regrets on that eventful day, but he was borne up by the consciousness that it was an overpowering sense of the divine call and lead- ing that had brought him there. " Thus," says he, " I parted with a people whose hearts were knit to me, and mine to them ; nothing but the sense of God's command that took me there making me to part with them." The times were not few in later years when he looked back with wondering CHOSEN CLERK OF SYNOD. 93 gratitude, and even with fond heart-longings, upon his " halcyon days at Simprin." We must not omit to mention that, in October 1702, Mr. Boston was chosen to the important office of Clerk to the Synod of Merse and Teviotdale, and that he held that office till 1711. Probably his suitableness for conducting the business of church courts had already in some measure revealed itself in the narrower sphere of his own presbytery, which was within the jurisdiction of the synod. The clerk's special duties were the recording of the proceedings of the synod in its minute-book, maintaining its correspondence with the presbyteries and sessions within its bounds, helping in the education and over- sight of students within the bounds of the synod who were preparing for the work of the Christian ministry ; as well as the visiting of presbyteries and sessions in which the interference and advice of the synod were needed. Very different this from the routine duties of a quiet pastoral charge such as that to which he had been accustomed. But he did not shrink from the responsibility, all the more that the call to it had come unsought. Moreover, he knew that the work would only come to him at intervals ; while perhaps he was not altogether un- conscious that the parts of it which were most difficult were those for which he had a natural 94 THOMAS BOSTON. liking, and, as often happens in such cases, a peculiar fitness. His habits of order had been early formed. And the synod was not long in discovering that it had made a wise and happy choice. We find good men thus recording the traditions regarding him which they had received from his contemporaries : " He had a great know- ledge and understanding of human nature, of the most proper methods of addressing it, and the most likely handles for catching hold of it. And he had an admirable talent at drawing a paper." We gather from passages in his diary that not unfrequently, when the synod was about to vote upon a question on which it appeared from the previous discussions there was not entire unanimity among the members, he succeeded in preparing such a minute as, by its happily-chosen words and well-balanced phrases, pro- duced in the end entire harmony where, a little be- fore, this issue had seemed very unlikely. But the testimony of Lord Minto, an eminent statesman, who had also been a judge, confirmed and exceeded all the others — that " Mr. Boston was the best clerk he had ever known in any court, civil or eccle- siastical." CHAPTER V. MR. BOSTON'S FIRST TEN YEARS IN ETTRICK. Ettrick scenery, history, and people — Great names— Con- dition of the parish — The Abjuration Oath — Rebellion — False alarms— Call to another parish — Mr. Boston pleads against his removal — Retained in Ettrick — Universal joy. THE parish of Ettrick is in the south-west of Selkirkshire. Its surface has been described as a " sea of hills," which are finely varied in appear- ance, beautifully rounded at the top and covered with green grass to the summit. Some of its hills, such as Ettrick Pen, rise more than 2,000 feet above the level of the sea, and form part of the highest mountain range in the southern highlands of Scot- land. Some centuries before the days of Boston, the whole of that tract of land which stretches along the margin of "lone St. Mary's Loch," and, including both Ettrick and Yarrow, extends northward to the Tweed, was covered by the Ettrick forest. But now there is scarcely a straggling tree with its naked branches to suggest traditions of what once had been. 96 THOMAS BOSTON. " The scenes are desert now and bare, Where flourished once a forest fair, When these waste glens with copse were lined And peopled by the hart and hind." But in the interval of less than two centuries, since the days of the good pastor of whom we are writing, what changes have come over Ettrick and its twin- sister Yarrow ! Over the whole region there has been spread the mantle of romance, and it has be- come classic ground. In common with the lake district in Cumberland across the borders, where Wordsworth and Coleridge and Southey found a congenial retreat, and did much to enrich the litera- ture of the world, this district of Scotland, with its green hills, and lonely glens, and sparkling streams, became the favourite haunt and home of poets. More than once Wordsworth was drawn to it from his own Rydal Mount and Grasmere, and in his " Yarrow Visited " and " Yarrow Revisited " he has owned the power of its fascination over him. Sir Walter Scott received impulse and inspiration alike from its scenery and its Border ballads and teeming traditions of war, and love, and chivalry, gradually becoming what Wordsworth called him in the enthu- siasm of his admiration, "the favourite of the world." But Ettrick claimed one as emphatically her own, as having been born and bred within her boundaries — James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD. 97 His birth-place was in a half- ruined cottage in the little village of Ettrick, not far from the old parish church and its straggling retinue of trees. With no advantage of education or social position, with every influence against him except his indomitable courage and perseverance, and after many struggles and many failures, he rose at length to a first place among the poets of Scotland. His sphere was unique, but within it he was a master and stood unapproached. In expressing and depicting human passions and affections, Burns stood far above him ; but in the region of pure imagination, especially in the world of the supernatural, he was in his element In the beautiful picture of Kilmany, for instance, we feel, while reading, as if he must have actually lived with her in the enchanted land. In the hands of others who, in their own departments, are great poets, their supernatural characters are found after all to be real flesh and blood. But in such poems as the " Queen's Wake " and others we are carried away to fairyland, and feel for a time as if we were in it. As has been happily said, " we find ourselves walking in an enchanted circle, on a cloudless land, in a sunless world " {Delta . But we must now turn back to the year 171 1, and resume the story of him who, before the days of James Hogg, had made the name of Ettrick sacred, 9S THOMAS BOSTON. and won for himself also, by other and undying claims, the designation of the " Ettrick Shepherd." Mr. Boston's first impressions of the people of Ettrick as he found them were not encouraging, but the reverse. Nothing indeed but the sense of his divine call to this new sphere and his faith in Him who could "make his strength equal to his day," could have kept him from fearing and even fainting at the prospect which opened before him. The discouraging causes came from more than one quarter. First, the parish had been without a minister, or the regular observance of the public ordinances of religion of any kind, for the previous four years. It was impossible that a people num- bering many hundreds, and left for so long a time to wander as sheep without a shepherd, should not, in such circumstances, have greatly degenerated. The neglected and apparently forsaken parish had become morally and spiritually like an unploughed field which was covered with tangled weeds and thorns, and sheltered many foul creatures. The new minister notes in his diary, in his own charac- teristic manner and with observant sagacity, that " he did not find the people's appetite for ordin- ances to have been sharpened by the long fast which they had got for about the space of four years ; on the contrary, they were cold and indiffer- FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ETTRICK. 99 ent about divine things, but keen about worldly gains to a proverb." Speaking of his parishioners in their characteristic moral features, and perhaps thinking the while of the quieter and less self-asserting people whom he had left behind him in the Merse, he describes them as " naturally smart and of an uncommon assurance, self-conceited and censorious to a pitch, and using an indecent freedom both with church and state." At the first, when he came among them, and for some time after, he was greatly shocked and dis- couraged by the indecent and disorderly behaviour of many of the people during divine worship, some of them rising with rude noise and seeming impatience, and others who had never entered the church, walk- ing up and down in the surrounding churchyard with loud talking while the service was proceeding. So common was this unseemly outrage that two of the elders were at length appointed in rotation to watch against the offenders, and to see that no one withdrew from the church during the service without adequate reason, or occasioned noise and confusion around the church doors. It was also not a little painful to the sorely-tried pastor to notice that, " during his preaching," the majority among his hearers gave little heed to what was spoken on divine themes, but pricked their ears IOO THOMAS BOSTON. and were all attention when there was any allusion to public affairs, or to the current news of the day. Two other scandals filled up this dark and repulsive picture. One was the prevalence of profane swear- ing even among those who frequented public ordin- ances, "the same fountain sending forth sweet and bitter," and the frequent occurrence among church members of sins of impurity, even in their grosser forms. When would this Augean stable be cleansed and turned into a temple of God ? There was only one power in the universe that could do it. Another circumstance which tended not a little, in the earlier years of Mr. Boston's Ettrick ministry, to disturb his peace and to hamper him in his work, was the presence in his parish of Mr. Mac- millan, the minister and leader of a party among the Presbyterians who had refused to " go in " with the Revolution Settlement of 1688, or to swear allegiance to the new dynasty which began with William of Orange. Without questioning the sin- cerity and conscientiousness of Mr. Macmillan and his followers, of whom there was a considerable number in the parish, it is easy to understand how their presence and constant agitation of points of difference in which Mr. Boston was the frequent object of attack, must have acted as an irritant upon his sensitive nature ; while malcontents and PUBLIC AND PRIVATE TRIALS. IOl fugitives from discipline were apt to seek refuge in the hostile camp. Still, in the face of all these frowning discouragements, he never regretted his having come to Ettrick ; and while he may some- times have thought of Simprin with a sigh, and written of himself in dark moments in his diary as " like a bird shaken out of its nest, or an owl in the desert," he believed that a kindly hand was leading him amid the encircling gloom, and that the time was surely coming when " at eventide there would be light." With these public trials in the first years of his ministry in Ettrick, there were mingled others of which the home was the scene. Within the brief period of eleven months, Mr. Boston was called to lay two infant children in the grave. After the cus- tom of many of the Old Testament saints, who often made the name given to their children a memorial of blessings, or an expression of consecration and faith, he named the first-born of these Ebenezer, as at once a testimony of gratitude and an act of dedi- cation. And when the second was born soon after the death of the first, the hallowed name was trans- ferred to it with much earnest pleading in prayer that its young life might be spared. But it was not long ere sovereign Wisdom removed this little flower also to His upper garden. This second bereavement not 102 THOMAS BOSTON. only pierced the tender father's heart, but for a little time stumbled his faith, as if the dedication of his child had been rejected. One scene in the death -chamber has been de- scribed by himself in words of pathos which can scarcely be read without tears : " When the child was laid in the coffin, his mother kissed his dust. I only lifted the cloth off his face, looked on it, and covered it again, in confidence of seeing that body rise a glorious body. When the nails were driving, I was moved, for that I had not kissed that precious dust which I believed was united to Jesus Christ, as if I had despised it. I would fain have caused draw the nail again, but because of one that was present I resented and violented myself." His later reflections reveal the riper fruits of his parental sorrow, and have been profitable to many who have been similarly called to hear " deep calling unto deep." " I see plainly that divine sovereignty challenges a latitude, and I must stoop and be content to follow the Lord in an untrodden path ; and this made me, with more ease, to bury my second Ebenezer than I could do rny first. That Scripture was very profitable to me, ' It was in my heart to build a house unto the Lord.' I learned not to cry, How will the house be made up ? but being now in that matter made a weaned EARNEST PULPIT MINISTRATIONS. IOJ child, desired the loss to be made up by the presence of the Lord." At length, the anxious pastor began to be cheered under his frowning discouragements, by being told of some who had spoken of his sermons as " ripping up their case and discovering the secrets of their hearts." This was like the ploughshare turning up the hard soil for the reception of the seed. Those rousing sermons were seasonably followed by others unfolding to his hearers the divine method of salva- tion, the "still, small voice" coming after the thunder and the tempest. In these there were already to be seen some of the germs of his " Fourfold State," which, in due time, was to be given to the world, and to be one of the life-books of his own and suc- ceeding ages, by means of which myriads were to be brought into the kingdom of God. Along with this, he associated catechetical lectures on Christian doc- trine, as he had previously done in Simprin, using the Shorter Catechism as his text - book, as had been the common practice some generations before among the English Puritans such as the saintly Flavel and others. And mingled with these were occasional sermons against the besetting sins of his parish, such as profane swearing and impurity; for he was not slow, when occasion called for it, to aim his winged arrows at a mark. 104 THOMAS BOSTON. Alongside of Mr. Boston's ministry in the pulpit there were all the appliances of an enlightened and earnest pastorate — twice in the year catechizing groups of his people in the various districts of his parish, and once in the year visiting each of his families, like Paul at Ephesus, from house to house. In such a parish as Ettrick, extensive and moun- tainous, abounding also in mountain streams whose channels were often his only pathway, this part of his work proved to be laborious and dangerous, even when at length he provided himself with a pony. Moreover, it was no uncommon experience for him to be overtaken with darkness, or shrouded in mist, or arrested by a mountain stream which violent rains had rapidly swollen into the dimensions of a river and made for the time impassable. On some occa- sions, when he had become bewildered and lost his way, he would throw the bridle upon the neck of his sure-footed steed, and wait until its sagacious in- stincts brought him once more upon known ground. Then would the gratitude of the saintly pastor, re- cognizing in all the hand of Him without whom a sparrow cannot fall to the ground, find utterance in the suitable words of a psalm, and awaken, as he sang, the echoes of some lonely glen, — " Lord, thou preservest man and beast. How precious is thy grace ! CHRISTIAN ELDERS. 105 Therefore in shadow of thy wings Men's sons their trust shall place." And so he persevered in this part of his sacred work, notwithstanding all its toil and peril, as mak- ing him better acquainted with the character of his people, with their modes of thinking, their spiritual wants, and their family history in its joys and sorrows; and thus giving him, as in the often remembered Simprin, a warmer place in their hearts, suggesting to him many a seasonable text for his sermons, doubling his moral influence, and making his " pulpit the preacher's throne." Nor was he slow in surrounding himself at an early period with a body of Christian elders, who strengthened him much with their experience and friendly counsel, and aided him in many ways in the spiritual oversight of his flock, forming a living link between him and his people ; helping him, moreover, in guarding the entrance of unsuitable members into the sacred fellowship of the church, and, by faithful discipline, in purifying the church from members who had proved themselves, by their ungodly and immoral lives, to be the servants of another master than Christ. The eldership is the strong point in the Presbyterian system, and the minister of Ettrick was not slow to recognize and appreciate the fact. In one page of his diary we 106 THOMAS BOSTON. find him giving relief to his affection for some of those elders who had " obtained a good report," by embalming their names in glowing and grateful testimonies, as Paul writes of Gaius, and Aquila and Priscilla, and a whole constellation of workers who had "helped him much in the Lord." He speaks of one as " a most kindly, pious, good man, and most useful in his office." And he prays for another who, " with his family, had been the most comfortable to him in his ministry. So it was all along, and so it continues to this day. May the blessing of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, rest on them from generation to generation. May the glorious gospel of his Son catch them early, and continue with them to the end, of the which I have seen some comfortable instances already." And he writes of yet another elder in the follow- ing words, in which the pen-portrait is traced with admirable discrimination : "He was always a friend to ministers. Though he was a poor man, yet he had always a brow for a good cause, and was a faithful, useful elder ; and as he was very ready to reprove sin, so he had a singular dexterity in the matter of admonition and reproof, to speak "a word upon the wheels " so as to convince with a certain sweetness, that it was hard to take his reproofs ill." It was not till more than three years after his REINSTITUTING THE LORD'S SUPPER. 107 settlement in Ettrick that Mr. Boston, with the advice of his elders, ventured to celebrate the Lord's Supper in his parish. It had long been a neglected ordinance, and like the Passover at one dark period in the history of the Israelites, had become " as a thing out of mind." But the faithful pastor knew that it was only those who were true disciples and could make a credible profession of their faith in Christ that had right and welcome to the sacramental feast, with all its thrice holy memories, and he concluded that his wisest course would be to reconstruct the congregation from the beginning. Acting on this conviction, he conversed, personally and alone, with every " intending com- municant." And these interviews were designed, not only to act as a winnowing fan for separating the chaff from the wheat and so keeping the church pure, but for conveying instruction to the young inquirer, strengthening holy resolution, correcting mistakes, and suggesting rules and maxims for cheering the timid and guiding the inexperienced. Lessons and counsels given in such circumstances are likely to be remembered ever afterwards by the sincere dis- ciple. The earnest Christian pastor, on such occa- sions intensely feeling the burden of the care of souls, may assure himself that he is not labouring in vain. For weeks before, this man of God looked forward 108 THOMAS BOSTON. to the divine festival with anxious fears ; but the nearer it came, he was the more carried above dis- couragement. He notes the fact that the sermons preached on the Lord's day that preceded the com- munion seemed to have weight, and that he found his soul particularly pressed to follow that day's work with prayer. " As for the work itself, it was •more comfortable than I expected, and there seemed to be some blowings of the Spirit with it. I never saw a congregation," he adds, " more remarkably fixed and grave than they were. In all, there were about fifty-seven persons of our own parish com- municants ; few indeed, yet more than I expected amongst them." From that time onward, the Lord's Supper contin- ued to be observed annually in the parish of Ettrick, and its recurrence became a sort of vantage-ground from which its minister could stand and look back, and measure the religious progress of his people from year to year. The heart of the anxious pastor watched for signs of the presence and working of the Holy Spirit among his parishioners as the hus- bandman watches for the rain-clouds to refresh his parched fields, or as the mariner looks up to the stars to guide his course ; and year after year, he was cheered by tokens which sent him to his knees in thanksgiving. For though there was nothing as yet SIGNS OF REVIVING LIFE. IO9 like a pentecostal effusion in which his whole parish, with its thousands, received a new life and impulse, and every individual was devoutly conscious of a bap- tism of fire, yet interest in divine things was deepen- ing, the circle was widening, and there were convic- tion and anxious inquiry in many hearts. Men who had not observed the Lord's Supper for twenty years came seeking to handle and taste the sacred symbols of Christ's redeeming love, and those who had long been deserters of Christian ordinances in every form hastened to renew the times when it was better with them than now. Writing of the fifth of the annual communions, Mr. Boston records, in his own homely style of narrative, that "there were 150 communi- cants who sat down at the sacred feast. At this time there were ten tables, though we used to have about seven, and the tables were longer than ordinary, and people came from a far distance." The gratification which the true-hearted pastor derived from these signs of reviving life in his parish was disturbed by the action of Queen Anne's Parlia- ment in framing an oath termed the " Oath of Ab- juration," which was required to be taken by every minister of the church, on pain of his incurring a heavy and almost ruinous pecuniary penalty in the event of his refusal, and in case of his persistence in this refusal, his being compelled to vacate his pas- IIO THOMAS BOSTON. toral charge. This startling and arbitrary decree naturally produced suspicion and alarm over the whole church. It was felt to be unnecessary as a pledge for the loyalty of men who, on their entrance on the ministry, had taken the oath of allegiance to the crown ; and then its terms were so vague and ambiguous as to be perplexing to men of tender consciences, who could not be sure to what extent its language would commit them, and shut their mouths against faithful testimony-bearing, when the liberty or purity of the church might be tampered with by the civil power. The more ambiguous its terms, the more likely were they to conceal a snare. The oath was accordingly refused to be taken at all hazards by many of the best ministers, and not a few of those who bore the infliction with painful scruples deeply felt that " an enemy had done this." When the day of decision came, the fear of consequences held back the hands of the rulers from inflicting what would have been a most cruel and crushing penalty, and the pastor of Ettrick remained in possession of his manse and glebe. And when, at a later period, it was attempted to make the oath more palatable by gilding it with some modifying clauses, Mr. Boston stood before his people prepared to suffer the loss of all things rather than* sin, openly declaring in characteristic words that " the "PLAYING THE MAN IN THE FIRES. Ill oath could not be cleansed, and that, like the leper's house, it needed to be taken down." It remains, however, to be noticed that there were many among Mr. Boston's parishioners who had all along refused to believe that he would stand firm in the hour of decision, who even prophesied that at the end when he stood face to face with conse- quences he would swallow the obnoxious oath, and who watched and waited jealously for his fall. The heart of the anxious minister was pained by the knowledge of this. But they did not know the man, and judged of his conscience by their own pliancy when conscience and duty gave way before self- interest. But when the news came and spread over the parish that their minister had " played the man in the fires," and had hazarded every worldly inter- est at the call of conscience, it was impossible any longer to withhold an involuntary approbation, and his moral power over the disaffected among his pa- rishioners was increased from that day. It was one of God's movements for preparing the way for the wider triumphs of his servant's ministry in Ettrick. Beyond the circle of his own mountain parish, Mr. Boston found encouragement and sympathy in some of the ministers in neighbouring parishes who, in the matter of Christian belief and religious experience, were like-minded with himself. It was the conscious 112 THOMAS BOSTON. unity of Christian brotherhood which, like a silent magnetic influence, drew them together, so that each was made stronger by the other. He had found this in his recent perplexities and troubles connected with the attempt to enforce upon ministers the Ab- juration Oath. Among these "brethren beloved" he names Mr. Henry Davidson of Galashiels and Mr. John Simson of Morebattle, whom he praises for " his heavenly oratory," and Gabriel Wilson of Maxton, the last named of whom stood in the innermost circle of his affection. In his diary, he expatiates on his character with manifest delight, saying, with his keen perception and pleasing felicity of phrase : " Whatever odds there was in some re- spects between him and me, there was still a certain cast of temper by which I found him to be my other self He was extremely modest ; but once touched with the weight of a matter, very forward and keen, fearing the face of no man. In the which mixture, whereby he served as a spur to me and I as a bridle to him, I have often admired the wise conduct of Providence that matched us together." It is worthy of remark that, ages after those excellent ones of the earth had ascended to their heavenly reward, their names continued to live in hallowed traditions in the parishes in which they had dis- charged a faithful ministry, and shed a halo upon "THE 'FIFTEEN." H3 their graves. " The righteous shall be held in ever- lasting remembrance." The sky of Providence seldom continues long with- out its clouds. After a brief and welcome interval, in which the heart of Mr. Boston was lifted up with joy by the signs of extending and deepening reli- gious life in his parish, a new trouble suddenly arose to disturb the peace of the kingdom, in which Ettrick and its pastor were called to share. I refer to the outbreak of the rebellion in the latter end of August 17 1 5, the design of which was to upset the present dynasty, and to place upon the throne of Britain a descendant of the exiled house of Stuart. A few sentences will be sufficient to explain how the good pastor and his people, dwelling among those remote hills and glens, were brought into unwelcome contact with this most unwise and reckless movement. The outbreak began with the Earl of Mar, who, at Brae- mar, in the north of Scotland, raised the standard of rebellion, and proclaimed the Pretender to be the rightful heir to the British throne. Immediately fol- lowed by other Highland chiefs and their clans, he began his march southward, obtaining numerous ac- cessions on the way, until he reached Perth. Here it was determined by the rebel leaders that their army should be divided into several contingents, which should march into England by different routes, and TT4 THOMAS BOSTON. that one of the companies should proceed through the district in which Ettrick lay. It is at this point that Mr. Boston comes upon the scene. When the news became known, the effect was to produce an extensive panic over the whole region. Every new day brought with it its alarm. Companies of kilted Highlanders had been seen on the neighbouring hills. Others had been discovered skulking near quiet Ettrick homes after sunset, as if bent on mischief or violence of some kind. The alarmed people waited to hear of houses set on fire, or flocks scattered and slaughtered, or lonely dwellings entered and robbed, or human blood shed. From week to week this panic continued, to the great distress of the anxious pastor. Then the trouble took a different form which vexed him with new anxieties. The local authorities sent forth a sum- mons to every man in Ettrick from sixteen to sixty years of age, requiring him to appear in Selkirk on a certain day, in order to his being enrolled in a tem- porary militia for the defence of the parish ; and Mr. Boston was required to read this summons from the pulpit, to produce and supply to the magistrates a roll of all the capable men in the parish, and to urge upon his parishioners universal obedience to the call. But there was a universal refusal. Many of the people had come to believe that the alarm was ex- NEW TROUBLES AND ANXIETIES. 115 cessive, or that the dangers might be met by the forces which were already in the hands of their rulers, and probably also, unlike their ancestors in earlier generations, they held back. The men of Ettrick had learned to prefer the shepherd's crook to the sword. The popular resistance became all the more resolute when a tax was levied for the purpose of meeting the expenses that might be incurred in the antici- pated conflict with the rebel invaders. It was a bitter cup which was thus given to Mr. Boston to drink; and one of the bitterest ingredients in it was that he was compelled to make the obnoxious com- munication to his parishioners, in whose affections he desired to live, the anger of the people falling far more upon him than upon its authors. The unreason- able estrangement, sometimes expressed in bitter words, was no doubt temporary, but while it lasted it was hard to bear. At length the unwelcome insurgents, having been joined by the English rebels at Kelso, disappeared, and marched southward to Preston, of which they took immediate possession, and began to fortify it. Rut in a few days the place was invested by General Willis, the leader of the royal troops, who soon com- pelled the rebels unconditionally to lay down their arms. Many of them were imprisoned, many persons of rank were subjected to a galling and ignominious Il6 THOMAS BOSTON. treatment, and some who were Scottish noblemen were executed with a cruel severity. We must look back to Scotland to behold the last scene in the drama. The Earl of Mar had meantime pressed forward to Dunblane, and there, on the neighbouring Sheriffmuir, he received a serious check from the Duke of Argyle, who had moved northward to resist his progress. When his affairs had become irretrievable and desperate, and when it was therefore too late to be of any service, the Pretender sailed for Scotland from Dunkirk in France, and, dressed in disguise, and with only six gentlemen in his train, landed not far from Aberdeen. Soon after, he was joined by the Earl of Mar and a little band of nobles and gentlemen at Fetteresso. For some weeks he spent his time in enacting the king, and received homage from his dispirited but devoted followers, without one shred of power to give the semblance of reality to the ceremonial. And then, weary of the ragged pageant, and declaring to those who had clung to him to the end with a wondrous chivalry his sense of the utter hopelessness of his enterprise, he set sail from the neighbourhood of Montrose in a small ship, accompanied by a few faithful adherents, arriving within five days at Grave- lines in France, and returning to the obscurity from which he had so recently emerged. How WALKING WITH GOD. 117 rapidly had tragedy been turned into comedy and farce ! It is time that we should now see something of Mr. Boston's inner life. During all those years of varied incident and experience which have passed under our notice in this chapter, he continued to maintain a close walk with God. His closet was his refuge and his sanctuary. Every event in his individual and family life was turned into food for devotion. Self-examination, sometimes accompanied with fast- ing, was his frequent practice, in which, as he tells us, he " thought it safe and wise to antedate the judgment." The records of some of these exercises which he has left behind in his diary are of singular value, and may be of use to some in our own days who perchance are seeking to know the truth and the worst about themselves. The following are some of his notes drawn from his own experience, on what he terms " evidences for heaven " : — " My soul is content with Christ for my king ; and though I cannot be free of sin, God knows that he would be welcome to make havoc of my lusts and to make me holy. I know no lust that I would not be content to part with. My will bound hand and feet I desire to lay at His feet; and though it will strive whether I will or not, I believe that whatever God does to me is well done." Il8 THOMAS BOSTON. " When may we be sure that afflictions are the evidences of God's love to us, and of our love to him ? Though afflictions of themselves can be no evidence of the Lord's love, yet forasmuch as the native product of afflictions and strokes from the Lord is to drive the guilty from the Lord, when I find it not so with me, but that I am drawn to God by them, made to bless the Lord and accept the punishment of my iniquity, to love God more and to have more confidence in him and kindly thoughts in his way, and find my heart more closely cleaving to him, I cannot but think such an affliction an evi- dence of his love." I shall quote another passage descriptive of Mr. Boston's experience which belongs to the period of which I am now writing ; not so much as a help to self-examination as for the purpose of " comforting sorrowing hearts by the same comforts by which he was comforted of God." It expresses a hope full of immortality, which made the cloud luminous and his heart submissive. His youngest child, Catherine, had died, and a thought was given to the tender- hearted father which had not been so present to his mind under any similar bereavement. He says: " 1 never had such a clear and comfortable view of the Lord's having other uses for our children, for which he removes them in infancy, so that they are not WORDS OF CONSOLATION. I 19 brought into the world in vain. 1 saw reason to bless the Lord that I had been the father of six children now in the grave, and that were with me but a short time ; but none of them is lost. I will see them all at the resurrection. That clause in the cove- nant, ' I am the God of thy seed,' was sweet and full of sap." By suggesting a similar thought a hundred years earlier, and in his own manse of Anwoth, Samuel Rutherford had helped others to drink at the same well of comfort. He thus writes to a bereaved mother weeping for her lost child : " Do you think her lost who is sleeping in the bosom of Almighty love ? Think not her absent when she is in such a Father's house. Is she lost to you who is found to Christ ? Oh now, is she not with a dear Friend, and gone higher upon a certain hope that you shall in the resurrection see her again ? Let our Lord pluck his own fruit at any season he pleaseth. They are not lost to you ; they are laid up so well as they are coffered in heaven, where our Lord's best jewels lie." Reverting now to Mr. Boston's practice of self- scrutiny, and to the invaluable benefit which he derived from this, we think it necessary to introduce the qualifying statement that probably this habit of mental introversion was sometimes carried by him to excess, and that he " wrote bitter things against him- 120 THOMAS BOSTON. self without cause." There were moods of spiritual depression which he ascribed to divine desertion, " the hidings of his Father's countenance," when perhaps, in some instances, the real cause of his mental gloom and sadness was to be found in a disordered body, or a shattered nervous system which needed to be re- stored by rest from excessive mental labour, or by change of scene, or by a bracing walk among his own Ettrick hills. When, as sometimes happened, the changes in his moods from cheerfulness to depression, or the reverse, took place more than once on the same day, fitful as the notes of the yEolian harp, might not the state of the body have had more to do with this than any spiritual cause, and might not the presence of the physician have been more needed than that of any spiritual counsellor ? " The silver bells were all out of tune." There was something suggestive in the acknowledgment of an eminently good man that "he had least enjoyment in his religion when the wind was in the east." There are times when the in- nocent sufferer sees — " Too clearly, feels too vividly, and longs To realize the vision with intense And over-constant yearning — there, there iics The excess by which the balance is destroyed." Of course, where the man's conscience accuses him of recently contracted sin, or the voluntary exposure SPIRITUAL DEPRESSION. 121 of his heart to blighting spiritual influences, or the partial neglect of the means of grace, the explana- tion is to be sought in the sense of divine displeasure, when the daughters of music in the soul are brought low. The same depression of spirit having its root in the same physical cause, and leading our good pastor to form mistaken and unfavourable conclu- sions about himself, occasionally showed itself in his imagining that the divine blessing was being withheld from his ministry, and that like the moun- tains of Gilboa on which the curse of barrenness fell, the dew of heavenly grace had ceased to fall upon his heaven-sent message. He has himself left behind him in his diary the record that, in one instance, after the interval of a few days, the bruised reed was revived, and the gentle rebuke from heaven for his dark thoughts came in the news of multitudes of his people consciously quickened and gladdened as with a fresh soul-baptism by those very sermons which had seemed to him as " water spilt upon the ground." But those moods of depression were com- paratively rare experiences. We find him more fre- quently recording happy weeks of a heavenly life. We now pause for a moment to cull from this period of Mr. Boston's biography some of those semi-proverbial sayings which grew out of his Chris- tian experience during his first decade in Ettrick. 122 THOMAS BOSTON. Some of these, as we have found in earlier quota- tions, are medicinal plants, others are sweet-scented flowers : — " Unto the trials which God brings in men's way, they often add much of their own which makes them far more weighty and bulky than otherwise they are in very deed." " Satan watches to prevent the good of our afflic- tions : how much need is there to watch against Satan." '* I saw it was vain to empty the heart of what was its carnal choice, unless it was filled with some- thing better than what was taken from it." " I have often found it good to follow duty over the neck of inclination.'' " I endeavoured to antedate my reckoning with my Judge." " It is the usual way of Providence with me that blessings come through several iron gates." " They have great need to take heed to their feet who are let within the veil, for our God is a jealous God." " I have found the Lord easy to be entreated, and recovery to be got without long onwaiting." " Melancholy is an enemy to gifts and graces, and a great friend to unbelief." In 171 5, Mr. Boston found time, at the urgent request THE "EVERLASTING ESPOUSALS." 1 23 of many of his ministerial friends, to publish a little book under the title of the ' Everlasting Espousals," the flower of his people, who had probably heard the substance of the book in the form of a sermon or ser- mons, heartily seconding the request. It was founded on Hosea ii. 19, and was the heavenly Bridegroom's address to his bride the church. " I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in loving-kindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness : and thou shalt know the Lord." It was his maiden publication since he became a minister, the first sheaf in a long and con- tinuous harvest of religious books which he was to give to the church, and in which were already to be seen more than one of the characteristic excellences of his later and riper works. Among other things, its publication gave him an opportunity of testing his acceptance as an author with the Christian public. And the result was encouraging. Within compara- tively short intervals, the little volume passed through three editions, finding many readers far beyond the glens of Ettrick, especially in Edinburgh, who were not slow to express their desire for a greater number of refreshing draughts from the same newly-opened fountain. And who can tell but that such com- munications as these may have given hint and im- pulse to the preparation of that opus magnum which 124 THOMAS BOSTON. was, in a large measure, to engross the thoughts and anxieties of his life. He felt that his mission was not to build a house for himself but a temple for God. It falls to be noticed here that a few years before the time of which we are now writing, a Hebrew Bible had come into Mr. Boston's hands, upon the study of which, assisted by Cross's " Tagmical Art," he entered with an enthusiasm and zest which con- tinued with him to the end of his life. There was no dryness to him in those Hebrew roots of which the author of " Hudibras " complained in his day. Even the mystery which hung about the " accents " charmed him. At the period of which we are now writing, he met with another learned work, by Wasmuth, on Hebrew accentuation, which quickened his curiosity, and made that a delight to him of which many would soon have wearied. He seemed to himself always to be on the verge of some new discovery. Unquestionably these inquiries, into which he threw his whole heart, served as a useful mental alterative in connection with his weekly preparations for the pulpit. And he never hesitated to affirm that they shed much new light to him on many parts of the Old Testament scriptures. He even hoped that he would, by persevering research and thought, be able to help in solving some of ANOTHER "CALL." 125 those problems in that branch of sacred literature which were perplexing scholars both on the con- tinent of Europe and in the English universities. We shall meet with the Hebrew " accents " again. We have now to notice an event of no little moment, both in itself and in its consequences, in the history of Mr. Boston and his parish. In the month of September 1716, a call was addressed to the pastor of Ettrick by the church and parish of Closeburn in Dumfriesshire, inviting him to become their minister. This was soon after followed by the appearance of commissioners from Closeburn and the presbytery to which it belonged, urging upon him the claims of the church in Nithsdale, especially on account of the largeness of the con- gregation and its distracting divisions, which, it was believed, the ministry and oversight of Mr. Boston would be sufficient to heal ; while it was more than hinted that the stipend would exceed that of his present charge. The same unwelcome strangers were also seen by the quick - sighted parishioners, once and again visiting the manse at Ettrick ; and their errand was readily guessed. All this filled the mind of Mr. Boston with anxiety and alarm, and drove him to his wonted and un- failing resource of prayer. But from the first, he was strongly averse to his removal from Ettrick. 126 THOMAS BOSTON. His heart and his conscience alike rose against the thought of his leaving that people " as sheep with- out a shepherd," notwithstanding much that had happened to chill his affection and loosen the bonds that had bound him to them. He thought of the spiritual desolation which he had found among them nine years before when he had come to be their min- ister; of the little flock which he had gathered around him in the first years of his anxious labours ; and how, in the nearer interval, and in the face of much and varied discouragement and opposition, it had increased by hundreds. But he thought also of their inexperience and imperfection, with scarcely any man among them qualified to lead them at such a crisis as his removal would be certain to produce; and he was convinced that the certain effect of his leaving them at such a time would be to undo much of his work in all the past, while it would be the signal to those who were watching for their halting and discord, and ready to enter in like ravening wolves to bite and devour. Moreover, the good pastor, with his keen observa- tion and moral sensibility, could not overlook the likelihood that, in the event of his accepting the in- vitation which held out to him the promise of larger emolument and higher social position, his Ettrick people would ascribe his action to mercenary mo- A TOUCHING INCIDENT. \2J tives ; the moral power of his past life among them would thus be withered in a night, and the character of the Christian ministry would suffer at his hands. He therefore determined that nothing would tear him from Ettrick, already sacred to his heart by many hallowed associations and tender memories, but the distinct indications of Providence that this mountain home was no longer to be his rest. And the state of mind and action of his people did much to confirm him in this conviction and resolution. The value with which they saw their pastor regarded by others did much to heighten their own estimate of his excellence ; and blessings are likely to acquire a higher price in our estimate when they seem about to be lost. Even little and undesigned incidents sometimes revealed much to the observant minister, who was a thoughtful student of the book of Providence, — as when he was walking one day along the public road with one of the elders from the competing congregation in Nithsdale, some poor women meeting them on the way, and fearing how all these visits and interviews might end, stood still and wept aloud. One of the wealthiest heritors in his parish, who had up to that time remained dis- affected and never entered his church, now began to attend with regularity on the public ordinances of religion, and continued the practice to the end of 128 THOMAS BOSTON. his life. And many whom he had comforted in times of sickness or sorrow, or helped in their struggles with poverty, or won back to Christ from a life of ungodliness or vice, came to plead with him, even with tears from eyes unwont to weep, to remain among them. At length a fast was pro- claimed, to which multitudes not only of com- municants but of parishioners came, swelling the stream of worshippers from every quarter in Ettrick, that they might avert, by confession of sin and prayer, the threatened deprivation. It was impos- sible that the love to Ettrick and its people of this man of simplicity and godly sincerity should not have been greatly strengthened and riveted by these natural and unforced utterances of their ven- eration and attachment. We shall not minutely trace the history of this " call," in which Closeburn, " coveting earnestly the best gifts," sought to unsettle Mr. Boston's connec- tion with Ettrick and to obtain him as its pastor, and Ettrick, with awakened enthusiasm, did its ut- most to retain him whom the very effort had not unnaturally led it to value more than ever. It would be a dreary and tangled narrative were we to describe the call in its various stages in sessions, and presby- teries, and synods, " dragging its slow length along " through a period of nearly twelve months. We BEFORE THE COMMISSION. 1 29 shall come at once to its final issue before the Commission of the General Assembly in 17 17, to which its settlement was committed. Learned ad- vocates, according to the custom in such cases, had already spoken on either side, and when their dialectics were ended, the minister of Ettrick, who was the most deeply interested, and, so far at least as Ettrick was concerned, knew the facts and merits of the case best, rose and asked permission to speak. Naturally bashful and timid, yet when he was moved by a sense of duty, he rose above the fear of man ; while his yearning love for his people, from whom he dreaded the very thought of being severed, made him speak with a holy fervour and a tender per- suasiveness as if his lips had been touched with celestial fire. We have only space for a few closing paragraphs : — ■ " Moderator, will the justice of the Reverend Commission allow them to lay a congregation deso- late which was planted with so much difficulty, has been managed with so much uneasiness, and upon the event of this transportation must become the very seat of separation in the country, and which there is so little hope of the comfortable supply of, they in the meantime so vigorously reclaiming, and all this in a time wherein there is so very little need of transportations, but the parish pursuing may be 9 I30 THOMAS BOSTON. otherwise settled to far greater advantage ? Will their respect to the peace of this church suffer them to give such ground of irritation to a congregation in the circumstances I have narrated ? Will their compassion allow them to take one whose spirit is already shattered with the effects of this divisive temper, and cast him into another place where it must be far more so? or to lead out one and set him upon the ice where he knows no way how to keep his feet, and when he falls must fall for nought, — I mean, no advantage to the church gained thereby. Nay, Moderator, I cannot believe these things. " I have been twice settled already, and I bless the Lord who was pleased in both convincingly to show me his own call coming along with the call of his church. And I have felt so much need of the former, its accompanying the latter, that it would be most inexcusable to venture on removing to another parish without it. I was persuaded in my conscience of the Lord's calling me to Ettrick, and my clearness as to my call to that place was never overclouded, no, not in my darkest hours ; and had I not had that to support me there, I had sunk under my burden. Now, I have endeavoured, according to the measure of the grace bestowed on me, to set aside my own inclina- tions and the consideration of the ease and satis- FERVENT AND PERSUASIVE APPEAL. 131 faction of my own heart, and to lay this matter before the Lord for light, to discover his mind about it, labouring to wait upon him in the way cf his word and works. But I sincerely declare after all, that I have no clearness to accept the call to Closeburn, nor a foundation for my conscience in this transportation, which ought not to rest on human authority. I have ail deference for the authority of this church, and my ministry is very dear to me ; so I cast myself at your feet, begging that you will not grant this transportation, which has been refused by the presbytery and synod whereof I am a member, and who are best acquainted with the state of the parish of Ettrick and what concerns me, whereas both that parish and I are known but to very few of our now reverend judges. But if it shall please the holy wise God to surfer me, for my trial and correction, to fall under your sentence transporting me from the parish of Ettrick to the parish of Closeburn, since it is a charge I have no clearness to undertake, I resolve, through grace, rather to suffer than to enter on it blindfolded. Though, in the meantime, I cannot help thinking it will be hard measure to punish me because I cannot see with other men's eyes." When Mr. Boston began his speech, the impression among the members of the Commission itself, as T32 THOMAS BOSTON. well as among onlookers, was that by far the pre- ponderating majority of votes would be in favour of his translation to Closeburn. But as he pro- ceeded in his arguments and appeals, it was not difficult to read in the countenances of many of the reverend fathers that they were becoming un- settled in their preferences, and that the vote would finally fall on the side of Ettrick. And so it turned out to be. " By a vast majority," the grateful man himself reports, " the sentence passed in our favour ; and others as well as I were convinced that the speech I delivered was that which influenced the Commission and moved their compassion I must say that the Lord was with me in the management, giving me in that hour both what to speak and courage to speak it ; and even when I ran, he left me not to stumble." The good tidings carried joy into every farm- house and shepherd's shieling and poor man's cot- tage in Ettrick. We can imagine bonfires to have been kindled on every mountain throughout the wide parish, such as the men of a few generations back were wont to kindle when the people had heard of an invasion from the other side of the Border. On the following Sabbath the church could not contain more than a fraction of the multitudes that came from every quarter of the BLESSED RESULTS. 133 parish to thank God for the happy termination of their months of anxiety. The event marked an epoch, not only in Mr. Boston's life and ministry, but in the religious history of the parish. Cold- ness and distrust seemed to have vanished. By that disinterested act, in which he had so earnestly pleaded for his retention in Ettrick, he had placed his noble unselfishness beyond doubt, and revealed a love to his people which many waters could not quench. He had won the hearts of all. The people now understood their minister. The personality of the man would henceforth more than ever enhance the power of his message. He had the conscious- ness that he was now to preach to a united people, and it was not long ere his increased influence and usefulness began to show themselves in many forms. He did not flatter himself that he would never again meet with inconsistencies among his people, and even discouraging falls. But it was now, in com- parison with much of his past experience, as if the ship had passed outside the region of frequent storms, and were sailing calmly before the trade- winds to the destined haven. CHAPTER VI. The "Fourfold State" — Incidents — Vast circulation- Communion festivals — Strangers from afar — "Laying ly in store" — a great sorrow. WITH the affection and confidence of his parishioners now gathered around him, and delivered from the distracting and depressing cares produced by division and alienation, Mr. Boston now proceeded to the composition of his " Fourfold State," with which his own name and that of Ettrick were to be permanently and indissolubly associated. It is probable that the writing of the book did not occupy more than two years in the earlier part of the second decade of his Ettrick ministry, but from various causes long intervals of years intervened more than once to hinder further progress, and almost indefinitely to arrest publication. Moods of self-diffidence again and again held him back from this decided step ; and a desire to bring the book nearer to his ideal of what it ought to be, THE "FOURFOLD STATE.' 1 35 when treating of themes of such transcendent im- portance and interest, had greatly increased delay. In addition to this, his modest estimate of the probable success of his book, along with his knowledge of his scanty income, made him dread pecuniary diffi- culties in case of failure. But this impediment, as it became known, was promptly met by the promise of all necessary help from those brethren in the minis- try whom we have already named, and whose appre- ciation of the author and his book was very much higher than his own. As for Dr. Trotter, his "be- loved physician" and "inner friend" both at Simprin and Ettrick, who had thrown out the first hint of writing such a book as the " Fourfold State," and who loved him with all the chivalrous affection of Jonathan to David, he would have been ready, out of his own resources alone, to meet all difficulties; but he had died during those irritating and irk- some delays. And so a publisher in Edinburgh was at length sought for and secured, and the printing of the " Fourfold State " proceeded with. At the very beginning, however, an incident oc- curred, not without its ludicrous features, but which must have sorely tried the temper and strained the patience of the much -enduring pastor. It appears that one of the civic dignitaries of Edin- burgh had, in some way or other, assisted in business I36 THOMAS BOSTON. negotiations connected with the procuring of a suit- able printer and publisher of the " Fourfold State." But not satisfied with this act of kindness, which would have been of some use to the author, he had spontaneously offered the further and un- sought service of revising the proof-sheets of the book as it passed through the press, making his amendments and suggestions immediately after they had passed from the printer's hands, and before they had been sent out to Ettrick. And in his overween- ing self-conceit, this gratuitous censor had imagined that his revision was to extend, not only to the accuracy of the printer, but to the style and even to the thought of the author, so as to introduce foreign sentences, or portions of sentences, into the composition. What, then, must have been the as- tonishment and mortification of Mr. Boston when he found the first proof-sheet, as revised by the city Treasurer, blotted and blurred all over with corrections, and changes introduced which extended not only to printers' blunders but at times to senti- ment and style, toning down pithy sayings into vapid inanities, or substituting magniloquent com- monplace for strong words of fearless earnestness, which were meant and fitted to arouse and alarm the conscience. It was like advising a racer to mend his pace by mounting upon stilts, or putting into THE "FOURFOLD STATE." 1 37 a warrior's hand a sword that was wrapped in ivy. This presumption was too much even for the en- durance of the Ettrick pastor. Sending to the printer for a clean " proof," he intimated at the same time to his too officious patron that he would dispense with his further aid. This practice of using unjustifiable liberties with authors and their writings did not die out with Boston's age. The poet Montgomery, who did so much to enrich by his hymns the hymnology of the churches, complained that, in many instances, the compilers of hymn-books, not content with re- ceiving from him liberty to appropriate his hymns without any remuneration, altered them at their pleasure, and almost always for the worse, destroy- ing the rhythm and cadence of the lines, substitut- ing some prosaic word for an expression that had a picture in it, and sometimes not only changing the thought but making the author say what he did not believe. The comprehensive and felicitous title of the book was in these words, " Human Nature in its Four- fold State of Primitive Integrity, Entire Depravity, Begun Recovery, and Consummate Happiness or Misery." This sufficiently indicated that the author was to present his readers with a complete system of Christian theology, intended to describe the divine 138 THOMAS BOSTON. method of human redemption, to be a compact statement of " the glorious gospel of the blessed God," to show the way back from "Paradise lost" to " Paradise regained." There was one important and outstanding feature of the book in which the author's manner of treat- ment distinguished it from the greater number of those systems of theology which had been given to the world both in his own and in earlier times. Those systems were usually too scientific in their structure and style for common readers, being overlaid with learning, deficient in the practical clement, and too often also rendered repulsive by distracting and un- profitable controversy about comparative trifles. The aim of the pastor of Ettrick, who was brought into daily contact with the common people and knew their modes of thinking and feeling, was, while presenting Christian truths in systematic form, and in such a manner as to show their mutual rela- tion and dependence, to adapt his language to the general capacity of his readers, and to bring the whole to bear upon men's greatest wants and their eternal well-being. As has been happily said, " He took the bewildered child of trespass familiarly by the hand, and descending to the level of his untutored capacity, gave him a clear and consecutive view of the innocence from which he THE "FOURFOLD STATE." 1 39 had fallen, the misery in which he was involved, the economy of restoration under which he was situated, and the hope which, by submitting to that economy, he might warrantably entertain. His eye, as he wrote, was upon the unawakened sinner, that he might arouse him from his dangerous lethargy; upon the anxious inquirer, that he might guide his steps into the right way ; and upon the young convert, that he might guard him against devious paths and perilous delays. He never failed to show the bearing of Christian doctrine upon the conscience, the affections, and the life, and to mingle with the light of systematic arrangement beseech- ing tenderness and practical appeal " (the late Dr. Young of Perth). Once and again, while reading the " Fourfold State," we have been struck with the author's felic- itous application of Scripture sentences, so fitting them to surrounding circumstances as if they had been placed in the Bible for that very occasion. In like manner, we have been charmed with his skilful adaptation of Scripture incidents to passing events, and also with the ingenuity with which he struck new thoughts out of familiar texts, having all the effect of a new discovery, or of a pearl found upon the trodden highway ; and all this expressed in happily chosen words like " apples oi [40 THOMAS BOSTON. gold in baskets of silver," reminding us of Philip Henry in his more genial and happy moods. While, at other times, we have been astonished when he has seemed to read our very heart, and to give a wondrous reality to the things which are unseen and eternal, and we have felt as if he had inherited the rare power of Richard Baxter as seen in his " Now or Never " and his " Saints' Everlasting Rest." We have Mr. Boston's own testimony, more than once repeated in his diary, that his "Fourfold State" was written throughout in connection with much prayer. And there is a tradition which can be traced up to his own times, that the last chapter of his book, on the congenial subject of Heaven, was literally written by him on his knees. And when we read that part of the book, the tradition becomes the more credible. There is a singular elevation in his thoughts and grandeur in his words which transcends all that had been previ- ously written. It then seems as if, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, he had been walking in the land of Beulah, had seen the angels, and heard the sound of the heavenly minstrelsy. The following are his words on Mutual Recognition in Heaven :— "There we shall see Adam and Eve in the heavenly paradise, freely eating of the tree of life ; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the holy patriarchs, no ON MUTUAL RECOGNITION IN HEAVEN. 141 more wandering from land to land, but come to their everlasting rest ; all the prophets feasting their eyes on the glory of Him of whose coming they prophesied ; the twelve apostles of the Lamb sitting on their twelve thrones ; all the holy martyrs in their long white robes, with their crowns on their heads ; the godly kings advanced to a kingdom which cannot be moved ; and them that turn many to righteousness shining as the stars for ever and ever. There shall we see our godly friends, relations, and acquaintances, pillars in the temple of God, to go no more out from us. " And it is more than probable that the saints will know one another in heaven — that, at least, they will know their friends, relatives, and those they were acquainted with when on earth, and such as have been most eminent in the church. This seems to be included in that perfection of happi- ness to which the saints shall be advanced there. If Adam knew who and what Eve was at first sight, when the Lord God brought her to him, why should one question that husbands and wives, parents and children, will know each other in glory ? If the Thessalonians, converted by Paul's ministry, shall be his 'crown of rejoicing in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming,' why may not one conclude that ministers shall know their 142 THOMAS BOSTON. people, and people their ministers in heaven? And if the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration knew Moses and Elias, whom they had never seen before, we have ground to think that we shall know them too when we come to heaven. The communion of saints shall be most intimate there : ' they shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.' Lazarus was ' carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom,' which denotes most intimate and familiar society." On November 6, 1720, Mr. Boston received from his publisher in Edinburgh the first bound copy of his " Fourfold State." The next morning, he remained for many hours in his study engaged in continuous thanksgiving and in prolonged prayer. Not long before, he had written this record in his diary : " I had much to stand the thought of publishing that book, being tossed betwixt two, namely, venturing such a mean piece into the world, while many, whose books I was not worthy to carry, are silent ; and the fear of sitting the call of Providence." But in a few months, the heart 01 the too diffident author was cheered by the news from Edinburgh of the rapid sale of a second and even a third edition. And years before his death, he was able to record, with mingled humility and thanksgiving which rose to adoring wonder, that A WONDERFUL COOK. 1 43 the treatise had won the hearts of all classes and conditions of men. We have already noted, in our introductory remarks, that by means of his " Fourfold State," which he had hesitated for years to launch on the uncertain sea of public opinion, Mr. Boston was virtually preaching the gospel of heaven's great love, not only to his people in Ettrick, but to the south and south-eastern provinces of Scotland. In all the counties watered by the Tweed, the Nith, the Annan, the Dee, and the upper districts of the Clyde, it was literally read by all, and converts were made by thousands. We find him mentioning in the last chapter of his diary that, far beyond the sphere in which the "Fourfold State" had borne its earliest harvests, he had received a " comfortable account " of its ac- ceptableness and usefulness in remote places, par- ticularly in the Scottish Highlands. And not only in the cottages of the poor and in the homes of the middle classes, but equally in the mansions of the wealthy and in the castles of the noble, it was welcomed, and came with healing on its wings. On the little book-shelf in the lonely cottage in remote glens it lay a cherished thing side by side with Bunyan's immortal allegory. And this con- tinued through more than one or two generations. It was one of those books which God had 144 THOMAS BOSTON. chosen by which to work his miracles of grace. Even the everyday conversation of the common people came at length to be enriched by many of those proverbial and pithy sayings with hooks upon them, in which the "Fourfold State " abounds. Its frequent and delighted perusal made many of them not only enlightened Christians, but able theo- logians ; and even ministers of religion of a certain class, who were more familiar with current litera- ture than with the epistles of Paul, have been known, in disputing on religious questions with those Border wrestlers, to receive an ugly fall. It would be impossible for any man fitly to write the religious history of Scotland during the greater part of the eighteenth century and the earlier part of the nineteenth, without acknowledging that, dur- ing all that long period, this book had been one of the mightiest factors in leading men into the kingdom of God. It is not even at this day an exhausted power. There was another new experience which began to yield much holy enjoyment to the heart of Mr. Boston, and which probably continued to gladden his spirit to the end of his life. I refer to the multi- tude of people who came in streams from other parishes, and even travelled from distant parts of Scotland, to be present at the annual observance COMMUNION FESTIVALS. 145 of the Lord's Supper, and to join with the Ettrick worshippers in the week of holy festivities that were associated with it. This practice found its explana- tion, not only in the attraction of Mr. Boston's eminent gifts as a preacher, as well as of other ministers of kindred spirit whom he was accus- tomed to associate with him in those annual gather- ings, but also, and even yet more, in the fact that, in too many of the parishes of Scotland, ministers had begun to preach " another gospel which was not another," and to substitute the husks of a shallow and sapless philosophy, or of dry moralities, for that divine message which they had been com- missioned to preach, and by which God saves souls ; and that their dissatisfied hearers came crowding annually to those communion festivals like thirsty pilgrims in a desert to a fountain of living waters, often beguiling the tediousness of the journey and making the glens and mountain-sides vocal by the singing of psalms. " They chant their artless notes in simple guise ; They tune their hearts — by far the noblest aim : Perhaps 'Dundee's' wild warbling measures rise, Or plaintive ' Martyrs,' worthy of the name ; Or noble ' Elgin ' beets the heavenward flame — The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays." It often reminded them of the Jewish pilgrims in 10 I46 THOMAS BOSTON. Old Testament times ascending in companies to Jerusalem to keep their Passover. Mr. Boston welcomed those annual visitants as if he had heard the words of an apostle, " Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." He led the van in the ever-enlarging hospitality which extended over many days ; at length adding, at his own ex- pense, two new and spacious rooms to his manse, for the increased accommodation of strangers, many of whom he knew to be true brethren in Christ, and others earnest inquirers after the way of life, and not far from the kingdom of heaven. And the happy Ettrick people were in full sym- pathy with their minister, with enlarged hearts more and more devising liberal things. There was more than one Phebe, or Gaius, or Priscilla in those lonely glens and beside those mountain streams, waiting and longing to give full scope to their hospitality and love. Mr. Boston writes of one Isabel Biggar. " a singular Christian," as on one occasion " entertain- ing a great weight of strangers." And, writing of another week of sacred festival, he places it on pleas- ant record that " in the one district of Midgehope alone there were about ninescore strangers, four- score of whom were entertained by William Blaik, husband of Isabel Biggar aforesaid;" adding, with SYSTEMATIC GIVING. 1 47 homely detail, " having before baken for them half a boll of meal for bread, bought four shillings and tenpence sterling of wheat bread, and killed three lambs, and made thirty beds. And I believe their neighbour, Robert Biggar, Isabel's brother, would be much the same. This I record, once for all, for a swatch of the hospitality of the parish ; for God hath given this people a largeness of heart to communicate of their substance on these and other occasions also. And my heart has long been on that occasion particularly concerned for a bless- ing on their substance, with such a natural emotion as if they had been born of my body. Those within a mile of the church still had the far greater weight on solemn occasions." There are reasons for thinking that it v/as at this period that Mr. Boston began the practice of setting apart a fixed proportion of his annual in- come for religious and benevolent objects, acting in the spirit of Paul's direction to the members of the church at Corinth : " On the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered him." Dr. Paley, and others in his times, have been credited with being the first to hold up this apostolic sugges- tion to the notice and imitation of the churches ; but the practice had long before been anticipated, at 148 THOMAS BOSTON. least in its principle and spirit, by the good pastor of Ettrick. The words in which he records this, in writing to his family, are characteristic in their minuteness of detail, and they mark the beginning of a practice which was cheerfully continued to the end of his life : — " A part of my stipend coming in about that time, I did, on the 30th March 17 18, lay by fifty merks thereof for pious uses. And all along since that time I have kept a private box, making up into yearly portions the said sum of fifty merks ; laying it in mostly by parcels, and giving out of it as occasion requires, and I always keep of it in my left side pocket. The dealing to the poor at the house for their food continues as formerly without respect to this ; only what wool is given them in the summer, since I have none of my own, is bought out of this fund ; out of which also our Sabbath's contributions are taken. This course 1 have found to be profitable to the poor, and affording much ease to myself; for I have thereby been in case to give considerably on special occasions, and that with more ease to myself than otherwise I could have had, always looking on that part of my yearly income as not mine, but the Lord's." It will be noticed that in those words the good pastor not only states the commencement of this A LIFE-LONG SORROW. 149 practice, but his satisfaction in it after some ex- perience. It secured deliberation and system in his giving, and rendered it more likely that his income would both be laid aside and distributed under religious influence and motive. It guarded him alike against improvident excess and grudging restraint, when conscience and charity were joined hand in hand in the stewardship of his worldly means. And it even helped to foster a healthful religious spirit when looking at his annual deposits, in thinking of them as consecrated things, which were no more his than the gift of the worshipper in the temple after he had laid it on the altar of God. In the midst of these notices of events and ex- periences, which must have opened many a spring of gratitude and joy in the heart of this devoted minister of Christ, we are now called to mention one event which became to him a life-long source of anxiety and sorrow. In the summer of 1720, his be- loved wife, whose character we found him depicting, at an early period of his married life, with so much glowing appreciation and beauty, began to show un- mistakable symptoms of insanity. To quote his own words, " Her imagination was vitiated in a partic- ular point, to her great disquietment, accompanied with bodily infirmities and maladies exceeding great 150 THOMAS BOSTON. and numerous." And this dark eclipse of the spirit, though sometimes diminished, seldom wholly passed away; while in later years the gloom became darker still. The once sweetly - sounding lute sent forth only discords. It touched Mr. Boston on his tenderest point. Certainly, if he had been allowed, like David, to choose between various forms of suffering, this was the last which he would have chosen. At length the dear sufferer was confined entirely to one apartment, which her husband touchingly called " the inner prison," and there she spent months and years, the subject of a mental malady which no science or human device could even mitigate. Allusions to this great sorrow appear again and again in Mr. Boston's diary, and as we read them we seem to hear his groans and sighs. Was this the Refiner's fire into which he had once more cast his gold for its seventh refining ? His ministry and work, along with his unfailing re- source of prayer, brought the sufferer his best relief. The affliction was one of those mysteries of Pro- vidence to which many of God's saints are no strangers, and which wait for the explanations of that glorious world where " in God's light we shall see light." JfntcJ*i on . LIS* yrSt l^C .~*n jU+i sr?jtslVHjo£u£&-- U<&$ l .£*zflt*J*.C>t4 So Vfrtif*! *** &»L fajr fa ff r^'ty ^cuJl J***r &»rto -&# ic Awi ft+Msyt fay, toA*.?°*y *,&. (f^¥c^ J tt»-fij~ti&^ not cr&vtn-f Ltr /I? ^A^^ , M^ ' *** rty 4,c kc atie^io / r£xt hnh& "Hvl^ vcux£ol4$- af£ u 9y-r tkjh'no Jo-cu.tx!y Koct it c &»-h*v*y-#tLaMoo$MfrY' ft*. h£Sl$- hjdom tVWw^ Jitar^oOton- i-nh> o- V.J5 Jo-con}^ y&U rfnxJL^fl-^ o_ v»rfpzc of -to &rt* forte a/ IpiriOM. fisrlt, Jo fAMr hiio &*£$ flte&zioKtihrtflrpoHb. h&Y$oVo-r dr ajp/fovrf, cuu> cAn. -tv,M ' j&c: Xi^ &y 'ufa . 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