"Igivetiefi "Books
)for. tie founding of a. ColUge in, this Colon f

'Y&lM'WMWMRmTTY'
• iLiiiBis^israr •

From the estate of
Miss Martha Day Porter
1923

THE SCOTTISH PULPIT
FROM
THE REFORMATION TO
THE PRESENT DAY

BY
WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, D.D., LL.D.
MINISTER OF THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE, NEW YORK CITY
AUTHOR OP "PETER THE APOSTLE" "ELIJAH THE PROPHET"
"DAVID, KING OP ISRAEL" ETC,

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1887

By THE REV. DR. WM. M. TAYLOR.

DANIEL THE BELOVED.
DAVID, KING OF ISRAEL.
JOSEPH THE PRIME-MINISTER

PETER THE APOSTLE.
MOSES THE LAW- GIVER.
PAUL THE MISSIONARY. IU'd

ELIJAH THE PROPHET.
12mo, Cloth, $1 60 per volume.

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.
t^" Harper & Beothrrb vnll send any of the above vtorjcsby mail, postage prepaid, to
any part of the United Slates or Canada, on receipt of the price.

Copyright, 1887, by Harper & Brothers.

All rights reserved.

TO
THE MEMBERS OP THE FACULTY
OF
THE THEOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT
OF
YALE UNIVERSITY
AND THE STUDENTS UNDER THEIR CARE
©ll ese fectttres
DELIVERED AS THE LYMAN BEECHER COURSE FOR 1880
2lre SLUbkateb
WITH HIGHEST KEGAK.D BT
THE AUTHOR

PREFACE.

The design of these sketches is neither to give a full
account of Scottish Ecclesiastical History nor to furnish
complete biographies of the men who have been promi
nent in the Scottish pulpit since the Reformation. My
aim has simply been to put the preachers in the environ
ment of their times, to bring out the characteristics by
which they were distinguished, and to give point to such
lessons from their work as may be useful in our own age.
The form in which the sketches are presented was de
termined by the fact that they were originally addressed
to the students of Yale Theological Seminary in the spring
of 1886, when I had the honor of holding, for the second
time, the- appointment of "Lyman Beecher Lecturer" in
that institution.
For reasons which are too obvious to need to be for
mally stated, I have not attempted to deal with living
Scottish preachers, many of whom are worthy of a place
beside the foremost of those whom I have specified ; and
if some names which might have been expected to find a
place in such a revie-w as I have attempted are not re-

6 PREFACE.
ferred to, I hope that the limits within which I felt myself
restricted in such a brief course will be deemed sufficient
to account for the omission.
The facts given and the dates mentioned have in all
cases been faithfully verified, but it is scarcely possible
that no error has crept in, especially as so many works,
most of them, alas ! without any index, had to be searched
for the purpose of insuring accuracy.
I have to acknowledge my obligation for valuable hints
as to sources of information which I received from my
honored friends, Principal Cairns, of Edinburgh; Pro
fessor William Graham, of the Presbyterian College, Lon
don ; and President McCosh, of Princeton.
The preparation of the volume has been throughout a
labor of love, into which perhaps there has entered also
somewhat of national enthusiasm and pride ; and if it shall
prove in any way serviceable to the great cause to which
I have given my life, I shall be abundantly rewarded.
WM. M. TAYLOR.
6 West THmiY-PDJTH Street,
New York, 1887.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
I. Introductory and Historical  9
II. John Knox as a Preacher ...... .45
III. Melville. — Rutherfurd. — Dickson. — Living
stone  73
IV. Archbishop Leighton. — The Field -preachers . 113
V. The Moderates and Evangelicals  148
VI. Thomas Chalmers  194
VII. The Pulpits of the Dissenting Churches . . 230
INDEX  281

THE SCOTTISH PULPIT
FROM
THE REFORMATION TO THE PRESENT DAY.

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL.
Foe an intelligent appreciation of the Scottish
Pulpit we must have some knowledge of the Scot
tish character, and some acquaintance with at least
the main lines of Scottish Ecclesiastical History.
Between the people and the pulpit of a nation
action and reaction are continuously operative.
Originally a man of the people, partaking in all
their national peculiarities, and educated in the
midst- of them, the preacher has been largely
moulded by what they are; while, on the other
hand, his influence tends to modify their disposi
tion, and in all times of crisis and agitation be
comes a potent factor in the settlement of affairs.

10 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
The leaves put forth by a tree do at length fall
from it and fertilize its roots; and the pulpit,
which is very largely the fruit of a nation's life,
comes ultimately to affect that life. Or, to bor
row the illustration of Mr. Gladstone, the preach
er receives from the people in vapor that which he
gives back to them in flood, but that flood carries
them away with it to enterprises which else they
had never undertaken. So in entering upon our
theme we must pause for a few moments to speak
of the distinctive features of the Scottish people.
These are not difficult to discover. Foremost
among them — indeed the very vertebral column of
the national character — is sturdy independence.
The Scotsman insists upon the right to be, and to
belong to, himself. He will let no one think for
him or dictate to him. This came out in the pa
triotic and political struggles of the people, and also,
as we shall see, in their ecclesiastical conflicts. But
it is just as characteristic of the individual as it is
of the nation as a whole. Their great poet has at
once expressed and strengthened it by the lyric
fervor of the glowing song in which these words
occur : "The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that."

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 11
Everywhere the people are jealous of any inter
ference with the great human birthright of private
judgment. The very national motto, with its dis
tinct individuality, " Nemo me impune lacessit," is
an assertion of this quality, and occasionally it has
run to seed into controversies which have brought
it wellnigh into ridicule. The youth who, when
asked why he was going to tlie debating society,
answered, " Oh, jist to contradic' a wee," was per
haps an exaggerated specimen, but the right to
have, to maintain, and to act upon his own convic
tion is one which every true Scotsman would de
fend to the utmost.
Behind this independence, as the hot-blast to the
furnace, is that intensity which has become prover
bial as the " prsef ervidum ingenium Scotorum," and
which makes him terribly in earnest in everything
that he does. It acts upon hkn as a convex lens
does on the rays of the sun, focusing him upon
that which he undertakes until it bursts into a
flame, which may either kindle a holy enthusiasm
or a destructive conflagration.
Then, strangely enough, in connection with that
fervor there is a persistence amounting almost to
dogged stubbornness which keeps the Scotsman

12 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
steadily at a thing until he has gained his end.
This quality of " ddurness " — to give it the vernac
ular name — makes the true Caledonian everywhere
pertinacious. He rarely, if ever, lets go that of
which he has taken hold, and all that he enters
upon he carries through. He has what I may call
the spirit -of " stick- to-it-iveness" in perfection ; and
that was a wise prayer which he is said to have
offered on one occasion: "Lord, grant that we may
be right, for thou knowest we are very decided."
Happily, with this indomitable firmness there is
combined a very large measure of caution, or what
is commonly ridiculed as "canniness." He leaps
with intensity, but he looks before he leaps. He
stands like a rock, because he has first taken care
to stand on a rock. The high average of intelli
gence in the nation consequent upon its excellent
system of education enables him to see with clear
ness where the right lies, and so his persistence,
which otherwise might have been fraught with mi&:
chief, has been mainly an immense power for good.
Then there is in him a poetic sense which en
ables him to appreciate the ideal, and halos even
common things for him with " the light which nev
er was on sea or land." That had its bright effio-

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 13
rescence and undying illustration in Robert Burns ;
for he was exceptional only in the fact that his
genius enabled him to express the feelings which
were struggling for utterance in his countrymen,
and to bring into light the poetry that was already
lying latent in their lives. In him it was creative,
in them it is receptive ; but it is in them, else they
could not appreciate him as they do — wellnigh to
the verge of idolatry ; and they who are most con
versant with the peasantry of the land will confirm
me when I say that in their ordinary conversation
there is not a little of that richness of simile and
that spirituality of insight which we associate with
poetry. Add to these a humor of a quaint, sometimes
grim, and occasionally playful sort ; not often bois
terous, but when it is, shaking the sides with laugh
ter ; frequently sly, or, as they call it, "pawlcie" and
when there is need, stinging and sarcastic too. Some
one has said that it requires a surgical instrument
to get a joke into the head of a Scotsman, but that
is a libel on the people which probably was never
meant to be seriously understood ; and every intelli-
' gent reader of Dean Eamsay's book will know what
value to put upon the assertion. Perhaps the au-

14 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
thor of it had forgotten to make allowance for the
fact that, as a rule, the Scotch are undemonstrative,
and would not be apt to show always that they did
appreciate a joke. And that reminds me to mention,
as a feature too important to be lost sight of in our
present department, the reticence, especially in re
gard to sacred things, by which they are character
ized. Even in secular affairs they
" Still keep something to theirsel's
They scarcely tell to ony " —
but this reserve is more marked in spiritual matters.
They feel a great deal more than they say, and they
are disposed to regard almost as irreverent any com
mon reference to personal religious experiences in
the presence of others.*
Some of these qualities have been modified in re
cent years, but, as a rule, they are still very largely
characteristic o? Scotsmen generally, and we shall
find continual illustrations of their influence on their
greatest preachers, as well as in their Ecclesiastical
History. Indeed, this last department, owing very

* This was well illustrated by the remark of the good old
gentlewoman who said to her young friend, when broaching
the subject of spiritual experience on the street, " Whist, lassie,
they are no causey cracks," i.e., subjects for street gossip.

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 15
largely to that sturdy individual independence of
which we have spoken, is to the uninitiated a laby
rinth in which they speedily lose themselves; and
even those who are at home in such matters find it
a tangled skein requiring both skill and patience for
its unravelment. Happily for our present purpose,
all that is necessary is some general acquaintance
with "the lie of the land," together with an accurate
knowledge of its water-sheds and divisions.
Speaking generally, then, we may say that mod
ern Scottish Church History may be divided into
three periods, each remarkable for its own conflict
running through it, and terminating with its own
victory. They may be styled the periods of anti-
popery, anti-prelacy, and anti-patronage. The first
of these, beginning with Patrick Hamilton, had its
formal termination in 1567, when the act of Parlia
ment which established Protestantism in the coun
try was put upon an unquestionable foundation.
To this period belong the names of Hamilton, Wish-
art, and Knox — by the last of whom, especiallj7, the
Reformation was effected and the Protestant Church
organized after the type of Genevan Presbyterian-
ism.

16 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
The anti-prelatic period began almost immediate
ly after the death of Knox, in 1572, and continued,
in one form or another, until the Revolution, in
1688. Its earliest phasis was closely connected with,
indeed almost grew up out of, the unwise arrange
ment which had been made in the matter of the
temporalities of the Roman Church, when it was
disestablished at the Reformation. Greatly to the
mortification of Knox, who wished to devote the
larger part of them to education, these were divided
into three parts, of which two were secured for life
to the Popish incumbents who had been displaced^
and one was divided between the Court and the
Protestant ministers. When, however, these Rom
ish life-renters died, the question arose what was to
be done with their emoluments, and the greedy no
bles, eager to get hold of them, fell upon a scheme
by which they might gain their end. They claimed
the right of presentation to the benefices, and put
into them under the old titles men who had first
pledged themselves to keep only a percentage of the
incomes, and pass the rest on to their patrons. The
presentees had the names, and the lords had the
money, and so the people, with a dash of that humor
to which I have referred, called them " Tulchan "

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 17
bishops — a tulchan being the name given among
them to the skin of a calf stuffed with straw and
set up beside a cow to induce her to give her milk
more freely into the dairy-maid's pail. All this was
ludicrous enough ; but it was the insertion of the
thin end of the wedge, and many efforts were made
at a later date to drive it home. When King James
Sixth of Scotland and First of England came — I
was going to say to years of discretion, but he never
really came to them, though he was styled "the
wisest fool in Christendom*;" let me rather say — to
mature age, he sought, with intervals of vacillation,
to act upon his favorite maxim, "No bishop ; no
king." By the issuing of edicts, the prohibition of
the holding of meetings of the General Assembly of
the Church, the appointment of bishops, and the
banishment of the Presbyterian leaders from their
native land, he endeavored to force Episcopacy in
Scotland. But the people were unwilling to receive
it, and he left his project as a legacy to his son
Charles. To this section of the anti-prelatic period:
belong the names of Andrew Melville, John Welsh,
and others.
When, in 1625, Charles the First came to the
throne, he entered with zest upon the work which

18 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
his father had been prosecuting, and calling to his
aid Archbishop Laud, he pushed matters to extrem
ities with an issue that was disastrous mainly to
himself. The act of Jenny Geddes, in- 1637, when,
in the old cathedral of St. Giles, she threw her stool
at the head of the Dean of Edinburgh as he be
gan to read the collect for the day from the new
liturgy, which was to be forced upon the people
by the sole authority of the king, and without any
consultation with them, was the spark that kin
dled materials already collected for the fire which
burned on until the Stuarts were banished from the
throne, and their divine right nonsense was finally
exploded. Whether such a liturgy should be used
or not was, perhaps, no great thing to dispute
about. Opinions will differ as to that. But wheth
er a liturgy of any kind, or, for that matter, any
thing at all, should be forced from without on, a
people, without any consultation with them, and
whether they would have it or not — that was a
great question, involving in it the liberty of the
nation; and to divert attention from that to the
bigotry, as some call it, of those who could dispute
over the reading of a collect is to evade the issue,
and mistake entirely the temper of the men who

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 19
raised it. People do not call John Hampden stin
gy because lie refused to pay the few shillings
which were demanded of him as ship-money by
the king without the concurrence of Parliament.
It was not a matter of shillings, but of constitution
al right, and in refusing to yield he stood upon the
principle which'secured the independence of these
United States — no taxation without representation.
The difference between liberty and slavery may
turn upon a little thing, but it is not a little differ
ence ; and in this case the emeute in which the
apple -woman of the High Street of Edinburgh
played such a prominent part led on and up to the
Parliamentary struggle and the Civil War, which
cost Laud and Charles their heads, and culminated,
for the time, in the Commonwealth and Protecto
rate of Cromwell. To this stage of the anti-prelatic
conflict belong the names of Alexander Hender
son, Samuel Rutherfurd, and George Gillespie, men
not unworthy to be the coadjutors of Selden, Yane,
Howe, Calamy, and others ;in England. " There
were giants in those days upon the earth," and
these were of them. Here also come in the sign
ing of the National Covenant in 1638, the adoption
of the Solemn League and Covenant in 1643, and

20 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
the sitting of the Westminster Assembly of Di
vines during the years 1643-1649.
Under Cromwell, who was himself an Indepen
dent, the Scottish Church, from 1651 to 1658, was
neither Prelatic nor Presbyterian. He dissolved
the General Assembly with as little ceremony as
he did the Long Parliament, and exercised auto
cratic power in a manner that brooked no inter
ference with his commands. But as one has said,
"The despot was intelligent and benevolent, and
no earnest minister was suffered to be molested
while engaged in any spiritual work." *
When, however, at the Restoration, in 1660, the
Stuart Dynasty returned to the throne in the per
son of Charles the Second, the cave of iEolus was
once more opened and
" Una, Eurusque Notusque ruunt creberque procellis
Aquilusi*
Everything that had been undone was done again
more offensively than before. Bishops were sent
down from England to push Episcopacy on the
land; ministers who would not conform were
ejected from their parishes ; the people were for-
* "Handbook of Scottish Church History, "p. 65. N. L.
Walker.

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 21
bidden to worship elsewhere than in the churches ;
and those who adhered to the covenant took to the
glens and the moors, where they held their con
venticles in defiance of the law, thereby entailing
upon themselves cruelties which can be paralleled
only by the deeds of the Inquisitors of Spain or
the Dragonades of France. These were the times
of persecution, "Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour,"
and which lasfed through the reigns of Charles the
Second and James the Second till the day on which
William of Orange landed at Torbay, on the invita
tion of the great majority of the English people,
to take the throne of their nation at the most crit
ical moment of its history. To this section of the
anti-prelatic period belong such men as Cameron,
Cargill, Renwick, on the one side, and, singularly
enough, a saint like Archbishop Leighton on the
other. But at its close prelacy received its death
blow in Scotland, where, ever since, it has been in
the main an exotic needing the protection of the
conservatory to keep it from the keen climatic
winds. The Revolution -settlement of Scottish ecclesi-

22 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
astical matters, however, was not absolutely satis
factory to any party, but it was accepted by all save
the rigid "Society-men," or Cameronians, as the
best which could be obtained under the circum
stances. It was the result of multitudinous nego
tiations between William and the Scottish leaders,
and was comprised in several acts of the Scottish
Parliament. It abolished Episcopacy, repealed the
statute by which the Royal supremacy in the Church
had been established ; restored the ministers who
had been ejected in 1662; opened the way for the
retention of such of the Episcopal clergy as were
willing to conform to Presbyterianism ; and legal
ized the Westminster Confession of Faith as that of
the Scottish Church. Over lay patronage, that is,
the vesting in laymen, principally land-owners, of the
right of appointing ministers to congregations, the
new king hesitated longest, and on that the whole
matter had nearly suffered shipwreck. William
was a latitudinarian, or perhaps, more correctly, an
indifferentist, in Church government, but he was a
stickler for patronage, regarding it as property be
longing to the patrons which should not be inter
fered with. At length, however, he gave way so
far as to consent that — the patrons being compen-

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 23
sated in money for what he counted their loss — the
right of proposing a minister should be vested in a
parochial council consisting of the Protestant land
owners and the elders of the parish, while the con
gregation should have liberty to object to the per
son proposed, and the Presbytery was authorized to
determine the validity of the objections. The union
of England and Scotland came in 1707, and by the
Act of Security it was ordained that the Confession
of Faith and the Presbyterian form of government
should "continue without any alteration to the
people of the land in all succeeding generations."
In spite of that guarantee, however, the govern
ment of Queen Anne, in 1712, introduced into
Parliament and carried a measure which took the
power of electing ministers from the parochial coun
cils, and vested it in the ancient patrons, being the
crown for above five hundred and fifty livings, and
gentlemen of landed property, town councils, etc.,
for the remaining five hundred. To this enact
ment all the secessions from the Scottish Church,
as by law established, are directly to be traced.
The result of the Revolution-settlement was that
at the beginning of the eighteenth century the
clergy of the Church were made up of what Dr.

24 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
McCosh has called* "a somewhat heterogeneous
mixture of covenanting ministers who had lived
in the times of the persecution ; of prelatic clergy,
whose convictions in favor of Episcopacy were not
sufficiently deep to induce them to abandon their
living; and of a race of young men zealous for the
Presbyterian establishment, but only 'half-educat
ed and superficially accomplished.' " The amalgam
proved to be a type of preachers who called them
selves Moderates, and ultimately became the domi
nant party in the Church; when, as Witherspoon
said, they showed themselves " very immoderate for
moderation." In their discourses the more highly
educated of them cultivated the graces of literature
and rhetoric to a great degree of excellence, but
avoided all distinctively evangelical topics, and con
fined themselves to the truths which are common
to both natural and revealed religion. They were
tolerant of everything but evangelical enthusiasm,
and it was not uncommon that ministers were
placed by them over congregations who were so
unwilling to receive them that the military had to
be called out to preserve the peace during the in-
* " The Scottish Philosophy," p. 17. James McCosh, DD.,
LL.D.

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 25
stallation services. For nearly a hundred years
they carried matters with a high hand, and the con
sequence of their ascendancy was — I quote again
from McCosh — that " the common people in rural
districts sank into a stupid ignorance of religious
truth, and, in the crowded lanes of the rising cities,
into utter ungodliness and criminality, except in so
far as " these evils were counteracted " by the rap
idly increasing Dissenters, or by the Evangelical
minority within the Established Church." *
But there was always a "remnant" which was
true to the doctrines of grace, and at length the
members of that "old guard," led by Sir Henry
Moncrief, Dr. Andrew Thomson, of Edinburgh, and
afterwards by Dr. Thomas Chalmers, increased in
numbers to 6uch an extent that they became the
majority. This created a great spiritual revival over
the land, led to extraordinary efforts for what Chal
mers called the " excavation " of the heathen at
home ; to the inauguration of missionary enterprise
among the heathen abroad ; and ultimately, through
an effort to get rid of the evils of patronage, and
the interference of the civil courts with the spiritual
* " The Scottish Philosophy," p. 18. James McCosh, D.D.,
LL.D. 2

26 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
independence of the Church, issued in the memora
ble Disruption of 1843, when, rather than submit to
things which were declared to be inseparable from
their connection with the State Church, more than
four hundred ministers left their manses and their
churches and formed the Free Church of Scotland.
To this period belong, on the Moderate side, Will
iam Robertson, the historian, Hugh Blair, the rheto
rician, Principal Hill, the theologian, Alexander Car-
lyle, commonly known as Jupiter Carlyle, and oth
ers ; and on the Evangelical, Dr. John Erskine, the
correspondent of Jonathan Edwards, John Maclau-
rin, John Witherspoon, Andrew Thomson, Thomas
Chalmers, and his trusty lieutenants, Candlish, Cun
ningham, Buchanan, and Guthrie. It may be said
to have come to an end with the passing of Dis
raeli's bill for the abolition, of Patronage, in 1874.
But within these recent years another period, which
will be known in history as the Anti:State-Church
period, has begun, and of that we may say that the
issue is not doubtful, though it may not be imme
diate. I have confined myself thus far, for the sake of
clearness, to the direct course of the Established

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 27
Church ; but now I must go back and trace the rise
and progress of the Dissenting denominations. The
Cameronians, or Society -men, known more lately
as the Reformed Presbyterian Church, never en
tered into the Church of the Revolution-settlement.
They insisted that the monarch and people should
accept and subscribe to the National Covenant, and
because they could not secure that, they declined to
perform all the duties of citizenship, though they
maintained a high standard of religious character.
Their Church never grew into much strength, and
latterly the larger number of their congregations
united with the Free Church, leaving not more
than half a score — if so many — to perpetuate the
name. The first Secession dates from 1733, and is con
nected primarily with the name of Ebenezer Ers-
kine. In that year a sermon was preached by Mr.
Erskine, as retiring moderator of the Synod of
Perth and Stirling, in which he protested both elo
quently and forcibly against the evils then existing
in the Church, and especially against that of Patron
age. For this he was by the Synod pronounced
worthy of censure, and on appeal to the General
Assembly he was, along with three other brethren

28 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
who by that time had placed themselves by his side,
summarily cast out of the Church. These four
formed themselves into a Presbytery, and pro
claimed the right of the members of the Church to
choose their own ministers and office-bearers. By
the year 1747 they had grown into a denomination
of forty -five congregations; but at that date an
unhappy controversy arose among them over the
lawfulness of taking an oath which was adminis
tered to those who became burgesses in certain cit
ies and towns of the country, and which pledged
the obtestant to uphold " the true religion present
ly professed within the realm." This- was supposed
by some to refer simply. to the Protestant religion,
and those who were of that opinion believed that
any Seceder might take the oath ; but by others it
was held to signify the Established Church of the
country, an*d those who maintained that construc
tion believed that no Seceder could consistently
come under such an obligation. Between these
two parties the contention was so sharp that they
parted asunder the one from the other, and the
former were popularly known as Burghers, the lat
ter as Anti-Burghers* These two denominations
* These names have been much ridiculed, and often very

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 29
grew up side by side, holding no communion with
each other, until in a spring-tide of prayerful fellow
ship they came together again in 1820, and formed
the United Secession Church, which numbered at
that date two hundred and sixtj'-two congregations,
and continued to increase until, in 1847, it aggre
gated more than four hundred congregations.
Meanwhile a second secession from the estab
lished Church had taken place. It was called the
Relief Church, and had its origin, in 1752, in the
deposition of Thomas Gillespie, minister of Carnock,
for refusing to obey the order of the General As
sembly commanding him to take part in the settle
ment over the parish of Inverkeithing of a minister
who was obnoxious to the people. Gillespie meek
ly retired to Dunfermline, where he gathered round

greatly misunderstood. An amusing instance of misappre
hension regarding one of them may here b3 given. Some
twenty years ago or more an application was made to a benev
olent committee in Edinburgh on behalf of a lady in reduced
circumstances, described as "the daughter" of an Anti-Burgh
er minister. The late Bishop Terrot, who was presiding, said,
in all good faith, " Gentlemen, I have lived many years in Scot
land, but I am ashamed to say I need to ask, Where is Anti-
Burgher?" The naivete with which the good bishop, while con
fessing to one sort of ignorance manifests another still more
dense, is exceedingly delicious.

30 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
him a congregation, and where for six years he
stood alone without any ecclesiastical connection.
At the end of that time he was joined by Thomas
Boston, son of the author of " The Fourfold State,"
and in 1761 a Presbytery was formed which took
the name of Relief, because its purpose was to fur
nish "relief " to those churches into which pastors
had been violently intruded by Patronage enforced
through the civil law. This purpose it carried out
so effectively that in 1847 it numbered seven Pres
byteries, with an aggregate of one hundred and
fourteen congregations ; and in that year these two
bodies — the United Secession and the Relief — came
together and formed what is now "known as the
United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. These
churches, even in their separate state, exercised a
great influence over the land. They kept the lamp
of truth aflame in many parishes where but for
them its rays had never shone, and the freedom of
their environment allowed room for development.
Adopting at first from necessity the practice of
supporting their ministers by the free-will offer
ings of the people, they came at length to the per
ception of the truth that this is the normal state
of a Church's life ; and now, as a matter of fact,

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 31
though it is not a term of communion among
them, they are almost without exception the advo
cates of Anti- State -churchism. They have out
grown, also, very largely the narrowness of mis
taking points for principles. The Relief Church
was the first Presbyterian Church in Scotland to
introduce the singing of hymns into the worship
of the congregation ; and the United Church has
led the way in the modification of subscription to
creeds by the adoption of a declaratory statement
which interprets the sense in which the West
minster Confession is accepted.* The next union
will probably be between the United Presbyterian
and Free churches; and if the Anti-State-Church
movement should be successful, it is not impossible
that after the wounds of the conflict have been
healed the union may include also that which is
now the Established Church.
To the dissenting bodies whose course I have
thus sketched belong the Erskines, Ralph and Eb-
enezer; the John Browns, father, son, and grand
son ; George Lawson, John Dick, William Ander
son, David King, John Eadie; and among living
* See note at the end of this lecture.

32 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
preachers, John Cairns, John Ker* and others,
who have contributed largely to the homiletical
and theological literature of their native land.
All these denominations came directly out of
the Established Church, retaining the Westminster
Confession as their doctrinal standard, and the Pres
byterian polity as their form of government. It
was otherwise, however, with the Congregational
ism whose existence in Scotland began about the
commencement of this century. It arose in the

* I leave this name to stand in the text as it was originally
written, though now, alas ! Dr. Ker has passed away, to the
great grief of the entire Scottish nation. His volumes of ser
mons may give to readers on both sides of the Atlantic some
idea of the place which he held as a preacher; but only those
who knew him in the familiar intercourse of private life can
form any adequate conception of the fulness of his informa
tion on all subjects, the soundness of his judgment, the warmth
of his heart, the fineness of his humor, or the depth of his pa
thos. It was worth going a long way to hear him read some
of the old metrical Psalms; and those who ridicule these pro
ductions would have altered their opinion could they have lis
tened to his recitation of them. As to his discourses, great as
they are, their greatness is not that of effort, for he never seems
to be putting forth his whole strength in them. They have all
the ease of spontaneity; they are, as it were, an efflorescence
exhaling of itself, and revealing something still greater in the
man himself.

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 33
north of Scotland, as Dr. Alexander* says, "not
in consequence of any departure on the part of its
leaders from the doctrinal standards of the Estab
lished Church, nor from any speculative preference
of a different form of church polity from that
which hereditary attachment and the memory of
past struggles and endurance, as well as conscien
tious conviction, had so endeared to the people of
Scotland. . . . Theirs was from the beginning a
movement of a purely spiritual kind. Like Meth
odism in England, the secession which they headed
had its source simply in a craving for more life,
more energy, more spiritual freedom and diffusive
ness, than they could find in existing systems. They
felt a need for a higher kind of spiritual nourish
ment than they had been accustomed to, and for
more of warmth and heartiness in the proclamation
of religious truth to men, than the fashion of pul
pit address at that time permitted."
The men who were most prominent in this move
ment were the brothers Haldane. Mr. James A.
Haldane, who had been a sea-captain, but had grown
into very intense spiritual convictions, came out as
* "Memoir of Ralph Wardlaw, D.D.," p. 38. W. L. Alex
ander, D.D.
2*

34 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
a lay- preacher, and visited several districts of the
country, addressing immense multitudes of people,
and awakening much spiritual interest by his fer
vent evangelical discourses. Mr. Robert Haldane
promoted the same cause by the erection of suitable
places of worship, the support of preachers in them,
and the institution of a seminary for the training of
ministers. .Rowland Hill, Matthew Wilks, and oth
ers, came from England to their assistance.. Crowds
attended wherever they preached, so that they had
often to meet in the open air, and sometimes as
many as from fifteen to twenty thousand persons
were computed to be present. This drew upon
them the antagonism of some of the other denom
inations, notably the Established Church and the
Anti- Burgher and Relief Synods, and their inde
pendent position was in a manner forced upon them
by this feck of wisdom in the older bodies. Their
success is thus accounted for by Dr. Alexander in a
passage which I quote, not only for its bearing on
the matter in hand, but also because it incidentally
corroborates from another point of view some of the
statements which I have made in other connections:
" In the National Church the long reign of Moder-
atism had done much to extrude all vital godliness,

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 35
and to reduce the Christianity of both pastors and
people to the lowest degree of attenuation com
patible with the retention of the name. The ma
jority of the ministers were avowedly Arminian, if
not Pelagian, in their doctrinal views ; not a few of
them were Crypto -Socinians, and it was even in
sinuated that some holding no mean place in the
Church were more than imbued with the scepti
cism of Hume. A few noble spirits still held aloft
the banner of Evangelical orthodoxy, and stood
valiantly by it, but they formed so slender a pro
portion of the whole that their efforts could do com
paratively little towards counteracting the unwhole
some influence of the majority. In the dissenting
churches the state of things was undoubtedly great
ly better, for in them no toleration was given to
unsound doctrine, and the tone of religious senti
ment and feeling was much higher than in the Es
tablishment. Still there was but little of energetic
piety even among them ; little of aggressive activi
ty in the propagation of the Gospel ; little of what
Shaftesbury derisively and yet most truly called
'the heroic passion of saving souls;' and along
with this there was a much too prevalent disposi-.
tion to set the mere apparatus of ecclesiastical order

36 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
above the great ends for which such alone is valu
able. And as religion shared in the general apathy
amid which the eighteenth century was advan
cing to its close, so it shared, also, in that 6udden
awakening which the startling events in the neigh
boring country [i.e., France] had produced. Men
roused out of their long repose became painfully
aware of necessities which craved immediate relief.
They felt that hunger of soul for suitable spiritual
food which naturally follows a long period of spir
itual destitution or inadequate supply. And as the
existing ecclesiastical bodies were not sufficiently
elastic — did not quickly enough expand — to meet
the new and enlarged capacities and wants of the
people, the latter impetuously rushed forth to find
elsewhere what was denied them at home. Hence
the crowds that followed Messrs. Haldane and Aik-
man on th#ir first tours, of preaching through Scot
land. Hence the thousands upon thousands that
covered the slopes of the Calton Hill to listen to
the preachers from England; and hence the al
most instantaneous rise into considerable strength
of a new religious body hitherto nearly unknown
in Scotland, and for which, as subsequent events
proved, the Scottish mind was not in reality cordial-

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 37
ly prepared. The new wine could not be stayed in
the old bottles, and so when it burst forth it was
caught and kept by those who alone at the time
were prepared to receive it." *
As the remark of Alexander near the close of the
above extract confesses, Congregationalism has not
grown into great proportions in Scotland, though
for the year 1886-1887 1 find one hundred churches
returned ; but no review of the Scottish Pulpit can
afford to leave out the denomination which num
bered among its preachers such men as Wardlaw
and Alexander.
In the wake of the Revival out of which Con
gregationalism arose in Scotland a Baptist contro
versy sprung up, and in many of the towns Bap
tist churches were formed ; but although some of
the preachers of that denomination have attained to
honorable place, it cannot be said that the denom
ination, at least until very recently, has greatly
flourished in Scotland. In many places its mem
bers evinced a disposition to dispute over little mat
ters, which led to divisions and subdivisions, while
* "Memoir of Ralph Wardlaw," ubi sup. , pp. 43, 44.

38 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
some of them adopted views opposed to the pay
ment of pastors and the education of the ministry,
which led among them to a "small-meeting-ism" not
unlike that of the Plymouth Brethren in England.
The Baptist Union of Scotland reported, however,
in 1884 an aggregate of eighty-nine churches, and
that organization is becoming a worthy sister of its
English namesake.
The Evangelical Union had its origin in the Atone
ment controversy which shook the United Secession
Church for years in the fifth decade of this cen
tury, and in the very hottest stage of which James
Morison, now so widely known as one of our great
est New Testament exegetes, was deposed from the
ministry for holding opinions on the extent of the
Atonement, the Divine decrees, and the work of the
Holy Spirit, akin to those of the Cumberland Pres
byterian Church of America. He was joined by
some ministers of the Secession Church who sym
pathized with his views, and by fifteen students who
had been expelled from the Congregational Theo
logical Seminary for maintaining the same doctrines.
This new organization speedily instituted a theo
logical seminary, and now it numbers about a hun-

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 39
dred churches which are independent in government.
It is not improbable that in the course of time this
denomination and that of the Congregationalists
will become one.
Such is a brief outline of the course of Church
History in Scotland since the Reformation. I have
not mentioned one or two of the smaller bodies lest
I should confuse you by going too minutely into
detail ; but I have said enough to make intelligible
to you those incidental references which must be
inevitable in the prosecution of our special theme,
and I conclude this prefatory Lecture with a descrip
tion of the curriculum of study required by these
different denominations as preparatory to entrance
into the ministry.
With the single exception of those small Bap
tist churches to which I have referred, and which
are gradually disappearing, they are all alive to
the importance of an educated ministry. There
have been exceptional times and cases in the his
tory of each of them when a university course
or a theological training — properly so called — was
dispensed with; but all the Presbyterian bodies
require a full arts course of four years at one or

40 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
other of the National Universities, and in addi
tion each insists upon a three years' course at its
own theological seminary. Up till 1876 the Theo
logical Seminary of the United Presbyterian Church,
alike in its separate branches and in its united
state, held its sessions for only two months of the
year, and students were required to attend it for
five sessions; while during the other ten months
of these years they were under the care of their
respective Presbyteries, before which they had to
perform specified exercises, undergo prescribed ex
aminations, and preach a certain number of dis
courses. This plan was suited to the circumstances
of the students in the early history of these denom
inations, and enabled them to support themselves
by teaching or otherwise in the intervals between
the sessions. But in the year above specified the
United Ptesbyterian Church came into line with
its sister denominations, and now its professors hold
no pastoral charge and teach for five or six months
annually. The Congregationalists and Evangelical Union
ists do not count a University curriculum essential,
though they prefer that it should be taken, and the
seminary of the latter still follows the old Secession

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 41
plan of a two months' session. Bursaries or scholar
ships are provided in the universities and in the sem
inaries, and are allocated for" the most part by com
petitive examination ; but they are few in number
compared with the number of students. There are
no Education Societies such as we have in this
country, and students have to push their way as
best they can, without the help that flows on this
side of the water from these sources ; but that does
not keep them back ; and there are few chapters
of " Self - Help " more heroic and spirit - stirring
than those which the histories of the early struggles
of many of our Scottish clergy would supply. The
result has been what we may call " a survival of
the fittest." The men who have gone through such
a pathway to the ministry are apt to stay in it
when they get there, and they are pretty sure to be
heard from to some purpose. Such a biography as
that of Dr. Robertson, first of Errol and afterwards
of Edinburgh, from the pen of the accomplished
Dr. Charteris, is typical of multitudes ; and the early
struggles of Thomas Carlyle on his way to his life
work were no greater, and no more resolutely and
bravely battled through, than those of many who
have said far less about them, and have made their

42 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
way to the foremost pulpits of their own or other
lands. Indeed, most of the Scottish clergy might
adopt the words of Edmund Burke with but a
single change, and say, " I was not swaddled and
rocked and dandled into a minister. 'Nitor in ad-
versum ' is the motto for a man like me." But they
have not been the worse for that ; nay, they have
been all the better for that, since knowing what
struggle is, they have been so much the abler to
speak " words in season " to those who are strug
gling, and that has been one element of their power.
Note. See page 31.
Declaratory Act of the United Presbyterian- Church.
As this Declaratory Act is the earliest attempt on the part
of any Presbyterian Church to define the sense in which the
Westminster Standards are understood to be subscribed by its
office-bearers, and as it is not very widely known on this side
of the Atlantic, we give it here in full :
" Wliereas the formula in which the Subordinate Standards of
this Church are accepted requires assent to them as an exhibi
tion of the sense in which the Scriptures are understood: Wliere
as these Standards, being of human composition, are necessarily
imperfect, and the Church has already allowed exception to be
taken to their teaching or supposed teaching on one important
subject: And whereas there are other subjects in regard to which
it has been found desirable to set forth more fully and clearly
the views which the Synod takes of the teaching of Holy
Scripture: Therefore, the Synod hereby declares as follows:

INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 43
" 1. That in regard to the doctrine of redemption as taught in
the Standards, and in consistency therewith, the love of God to
all mankind, His gift of His Son to be the propitiation for the
sins of the whole world, and the free offer of salvation to men
without distinction on the ground of Christ's perfect sacrifice,
are matters which have been and continue to be regarded by
this Church as vital in the system of gospel truth, and to which
due prominence ought ever to be given.
"2. That the doctrine of the divine decrees, including the
doctrine of election to eternal life, is held in connection and
harmony with the truth that God is not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance, and that He
has provided a salvation sufficient for all, adapted to all, and
offered to all in the gospel; and also with the responsibility of
every man for his dealing with the free and unrestricted offer
of eternal life.
" 3. That the doctrine of man's total depravity, and of his loss
of ' all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying sal
vation,' is not held as implying such a condition of man's
nature as would affect his responsibility under the law of God
and the gospel of Christ, or that he does not experience the
strivings and restraining influences of the Spirit of God, or that
he cannot perform actions in any sense good; although actions
which do not spring from a renewed heart are not spiritually
good or holy — such as accompany salvation.
"4. That while none are saved except through the mediation
of Christ, and by the grace of His Holy Spirit, who worketh
when, and where, and how it pleaseth Him; while the duty of
sending the gospel to the heathen, who are sunk in ignorance,
sin, and misery, is clear and imperative; and while the outward
and ordinary means of salvation for those capable of being
called by the Word are the ordinances of the gospel; in accept
ing the Standards, it is not required to be held that any who
die in infancy are lost, or that God may not extend His grace
to any who are without the pale of ordinary means, as it may
seem good in His sight.

44 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
" 5. That in regard to the doctrine of the Civil Magistrate,
and his authority and duty in the sphere of religion, as taught
in the Standards, this Church holds that the Lord Jesus Christ
is the only King and Head of the Church, and ' Head over all
things to the Church, which is His body;' disapproves of all
compulsory or persecuting and intolerant principles in religion;
and declares, as hitherto, that she does not require approval of
anything in her Standards that teaches, or may be supposed to
teach, such principles.
"6. That Christ has laid it as a permanent and universal obli
gation upon His Church, at once to maintain her own ordi
nances, and to 'preach the gospel to every creature;' and has
ordained that His people provide by their free-will offerings for
the fulfilment of this obligation.
"7. That, in accordance with the practice hitherto observed
in this Church, liberty of opinion is allowed on such points in
the StandardSj not entering into the substance of the faith, as the
interpretation of the ' six days ' in the Mosaic account of the
creation: the Church guarding against the abuse of this liberty
to the injury of its unity and peace."
The following question of the formula contains the terms in
which the Subordinate Standards are accepted by the office
bearers of the Chureh: "Do you acknowledge the West
minster Cqpfession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Cate
chisms as an exhibition of the sense in which you understand
the Holy Scriptures, this acknowledgment being made in view
of the explanations contained in the Declaratory Act of Synod
thereanent?"

II.
JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER.
We begin with John Knox, not only because
through his instrumentality under God the Refor
mation in Scotland was mainly secured, but also
because there are traces of his influence as a preach
er to be discovered in the discourses of his success
ors down almost to the present day. He inaugu
rated a style which to the readers of these times
seems much less antiquated than that of some sub
sequent periods, because at every era of crisis and
revival in the land the earnest evangelical leaders
who sought to conserve what he had gained went
back to him as their model, and drew inspiration
from his works. His " History of the Reforma
tion " holds its place to this day among the books
in the " cupboard libraries " of the Scottish peas
antry, and even so lately as the time of the Disrup
tion a volume of selections from his writings had a
circulation of forty-four thousand copies, principally
among the same class. Nor is it difficult from the

46 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
study of these to discover in what particulars he,
as it were, set the fashion for the preachers who
came after him. But before we attempt to point
these out we must first mark well the genesis of
this particular method in himself, and for that pur
pose we need to take a brief review of his personal
history. Knox did not become a preacher until he had at
tained the age of forty-two. Born in 1505, he is
found among the incorporated students of the Uni
versity of Glasgow in 1522 ; and after his education
was finished he seems to have entered the priest
hood of the Roman Catholic Church, and to have
continued in it up, at least, to 1543, for his name is
found as notary affixed to a document which is still
extant, and which bears that date. His first known
public appearance on the side of Protestantism was
in the beginning of 1546, when he attended George
Wishart to Haddington as the bearer of a large
two-handed sword to protect him from assault.
His proper vocation, however, at this time was that
of a teacher of youth, and to that, at Wishart's en
treaty, he returned on the night of that martyr's
apprehension. Up to that date, therefore, he had
not entered upon the Protestant ministry, and as

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 47
the manner of his call thereto had much to do with
the power of his preaching all through his later life,
we cannot afford to ignore it in this place.
It was " on this wise." After the assassination
of Cardinal Beaton the Castle of St. Andrews re
mained for a season in the hands of the men who
had planned and carried out the " removal " of that
prelate. It thus became a place of refuge for the
Protestants, even if they did not all approve of
the deed which had given them possession of the
stronghold. Knox had nothing to do with the
murder of the cardinal, but for his own safety
and that of his pupils he took them with him into
the Castle of St. Andrews about the Easter of 1547,
and there conducted his regular tutorial work with
them from day to day. What that was he has thus
described: "Beside their grammar and other hu
mane authors he read unto them a catechism, an ac
count whereof he caused them to give publicly in
the parish church of St. Andrews. He read, more
over, unto them the Gospel of John, proceeding
where he had left off at his departure from Long-
niddry, where before his residence was, and that
lecture he read in the chapel at a certain hour."
These public exercises were regularly attended by

48 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
a large number of those who were sojourning with
in the castle, and the result was that Henry Bal-
naves, a distinguished Scottish priest, Sir David
Lindsay, the poet, and others, recognizing his fit
ness for the work, urged him most earnestly to en
ter on the ministry of the Gospel. But he stren
uously refused, declaring that " he would not run
where God had not called him." They were not,
however, to be thus gainsaid, and therefore they
arranged that on a certain day John Rough, who
was pastor of the Castle church, should, in the name
and behalf of the Church, give him unexpectedly
a public call to the ministry. So, after having
preached a sermon on the election of ministers,
Rough, in the presence of all the congregation,
turned to Knox and said, " Brother, ye shall not be
offended, albeit that I speak unto you that which I
have in aharge, even from all those that are here
present, which is this : In the name of God and of
His Son Jesus Christ, and in the name of those that
presently call you by my mouth, I charge you that
ye refuse not this holy vocation, but that, as ye ten
der the glory of God, the increase of Christ's king
dom, the edification of your brethren, and the com
fort of me, whom you understand well enough to be

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 49
oppressed, by the multitude of labors, that ye take
upon you the public office and charge of preaching,
even as ye look to avoid God's heavy displeasure,
and desire that He shall multiply His graces with
you." Then turning to the congregation, he said,
"Was not this your charge to me?" They an
swered, " It was, and we approve it." The sudden
ness and solemnity of this call thoroughly un
manned Knox, who burst into a flood of tears and
hastened to his closet, where we may well believe.
that he sought light from God. The result was
that he was led to take up that work which he laid
down only with his life. Not from the impulse of
caprice, or because he desired the position of a
preacher, but because he could not otherwise meet
the responsibility which God. had laid upon him,
did he enter upon the work of the pulpit. He be
came a minister, not because he must be something,
but because he could not be anything else without
disobedience to God. He was to do a work for his
countrymen not unlike that which Moses did for
his kindred, and so, like Moses, he was called to it
in the full strength of his manhood, and' he en
tered upon it with the full persuasion that necessity
was laid upon him, and woe was unto him if he

50 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
preached not the Gospel. That not only made him
a preacher, but it also helped very largely to make
him such a preacher as he afterwards became.
Not long, however, was he permitted at this time
to continue in the work which was thus begun;
for in the month of July of that same year a
French fleet invested the castle, whose defenders
very soon surrendered, and Knox, being carried off
a prisoner to France, was held for nineteen months
as a galley-slave. After enduring great hardships
he was liberated in the early part of 1549, when he
went to England, where, under Edward the Sixth,
he labored for some years, first in Berwick, then in
Newcastle, and finally as a royal chaplain, with a
commission which sent him to preach in different
parts of the kingdom. After the accession of Mary
Tudor to the throne, however, it was no longer safe
for him»to remain in England; and in the end of
1553 he removed to the Continent, where, after
spending some time with Calvin in Geneva, he be
came one of the ministers of a church of English
refugees which had been formed in Frankfort-on-
the-Main. But troubles with the High - Church
portion of the congregation, on which we cannot
enter here, led him to return to Geneva, where he

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 51
was chosen to be one of the pastors of the English
Church that had been formed in that city. We
mention these particulars because there is no doubt
that the experiences through which Knox had
passed in these different circumstances, and the wis
dom which he had acquired through converse with
some of the greatest of the Reformers both in Eng
land and on the Continent, contributed very much
to the power of his ultimate ministry in Scotland.
With him everything he had and learned was made
to contribute to the pulpit. That was the throne
of his peculiar and pre-eminent power, and the
treasures of travel, as well as the accumulations of
study and observation, were made to minister to his
efficiency therein.
From the latter part of 1559 till his death in
1572 he continued to labor in Scotland. For the
greater portion of that time he was pastor of St.
Giles's Church, Edinburgh ; and it may be interest
ing to read the record of his stated labors there, at
least for the first few years. He preached twice
every Sunday, and three times during the week
besides. He met regularly once a week with his
elders for the oversight of the flock, and attended
weekly the assembly of ministers for what was

52 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
called " the exercise on the Scriptures." Add to
these that he was frequently appointed to perform
in distant parts of the country duties akin to those
of a superintendent, and we can understand how it
came that his people gave him a colleague in 1563
to relieve him of some of the work by which he
was oppressed.
Of his sermons only one complete specimen, print
ed under his own supervision, remains. He was too
busy a man to write much for the press ; and if he
had not been called in question by the Privy Council
for something in that discourse which had wounded
the pride of the young Darnley, who happened to
be present on the occasion of its delivery, we should
not have had even that from his own pen. He tells
us in the preface to it that " he considered himself
rather called of God to instruct the ignorant, com
fort the»sorrowful, confirm the weak, and rebuke
the proud by tongue and living voice, in these most
corrupt times, than to compose books for the age to
come ; and seeing that so much is written (and that
by men of most singular condition), and yet so little
well observed, he decreed to contain himself within
the bounds of that vocation whereunto he felt him
self specially called." But while all that is true,

-JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 53
we have in his letters to his old parishioners in
Berwick and Newcastle, and in some others of his
works, sufficient hints let fall to indicate how he
prepared for the pulpit, while in the statements of
his contemporaries we have one or two very graphic
descriptions of his manner in it.
He was a diligent student. In one of his letters
he describes himself as " sitting at his books " and
contemplating Matthew's Gospel by the help, of
" some most godly expositions, and among the rest
Chrysostom." In another he writes : " This day
ye know to be the day of my study and prayer to
God." And in one of his interviews with Queen
Mary ho excuses himself from going to her private
ly when he had occasion to condemn her policy, by
alleging that he was not appointed to go to every
man in particular, and, saying, "Albeit I am here
now at your Grace's command, yet cannot I tell
what other men shall judge of me, that at this
time of day am absent from my book and waiting
upon the court." He made good use, therefore, we
may be sure, of that "warm study with deals"
which was constructed for him at the expense of
the City Council- of Edinburgh, and which is still
to be seen in his house at the Netherbow.

54 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
He had a competent knowledge of Greek. He
brew he learned after he had passed his fiftieth
year, and while he sojourned in Geneva ; and the
mention of Chrysostom and other expositors in the
quotation just given shows that he was ready and
able to accept light from works which are still
sealed books to many.
But the fruit of his study was never a fully writ
ten out discourse. As we learn from an incidental
sentence in his " Faithful Admonition unto the
Professors of God's Truth in England," it was his
habit to speak from a few notes which were made
on the margin of his Bible, and which remained the
sole written memoranda of his discourse. He nev
er wrote his sermons before preaching, and seldom,
if ever, except on the occasions already alluded to,
wrote them after. Yet they were as carefully pre
meditated as if they had been written, and he could
apparently recall them, almost verbatim, for a long
time afterwards. Thus we find in some of his ad
dresses to his friends in Berwick, Newcastle, and in
England generally, long quotations from discourses
which had been delivered years before; and on one
occasion when he had been, as he claimed, misre-
ported to Queen Mary, he went over the whole

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 55
sermon there and then before her and the members
of her court, and his repetition was declared to be
accurate by those who had heard it in the church.
This indicates both that he prepared with care and
that he remembered with accuracy. He did not
speak extemporaneously, in the sense of never hav
ing thought upon his subject until he was required
to speak ; but he had fixed beforehand his line of
thought, and there is reason to believe, also, in
many cases, the very words in which he had deter
mined to express himself. Yet, though he premedr
itated very carefully, he was able also to introduce
what was given to him at the moment; for when,
on one occasion, Kirkaldy appeared in the cathedral
with a retinue of armed men, as if to intimidate
him, he did not hesitate to bring into the body of
his sermon a very stern rebuke of that which he re
garded as a serious offence on the part of one who
had been a companion with him in the galleys of
France. The form of his discourses was expository. This
is evident not only from that one which he printed
in self-vindication, but also from the others which
he has referred to and described in portions of his
writings. Ho set himself at first calmly, clearly,

56 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
and' fully to explain the meaning of the passage on
which he was engaged. He was particular to bring
out its application to the occasion in reference to
which it was employed by the sacred writer. In
this portion of. the discourse there was evidence of
considerable scholarship, immense familiarity with
Scripture, good acquaintance with ancient history,
and great fervor of spirit. Having thus brought
out the meaning of the passage, he then set himself
to enforce its practical bearing on the circumstances
of his hearers and his times, taking care first to
establish the parallelism between the original case
referred to by the sacred writer and that to which
he applied it. This was the tip of the arrow, to
which all else was but its feather ; and in the shoot
ing of that arrow he spared neither age nor sex,
neither rank nor class. Wherever he saw an evil
which tiio principle in his text condemned, he
brought it to .bear with all his might thereon. He
recognized the explanation of the present in the
old inspired record of the past; and reading Scot
tish history in the light of that of the Israelites, he
found constant opportunity for this kind of practi
cal application.
His expositions were frequently consecutive, and

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 57
carried on through a whole book of Scripture.
When the famous Parliament of 1560 was in ses
sion he was "lecturing" through the prophecies of
Haggai, and had suggested thereby many powerful
and pungent things bearing on the reorganization
of the Scottish Church, on which the States of the
Realm were then engaged. There is evidence, also,
that he favored as a general thing the practice of
continuous exposition, as being fraught with profit
both to preacher and hearer ; for in the First Book
of Discipline, which was drawn up mainly by him,
we have the following direction regarding the pub
lic reading of the Scriptures : " We think it most
expedient that the Scriptures be read in order — that
is, that some one book of the Old and the New Tes
tament be begun, and orderly read to the end. And
the same we judge of preaching, where the minister
for the most part remaineth in one place ; for this
skipping and divagation from place to place, be it
in reading, be it in preaching, we judge not so prof
itable to edify the church as the continual following
of one text."
In his style he was plain, direct, homely, some
times humorous, and always courageous. His lan
guage, however, would seem to have been purer
3*

58 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
and more free from solecisms than that of most of
his contemporaries, for one of his adversaries taunts
him with his " Southron tongue." But if, like Jef
frey, he had parted in any degree with his " broad
Scotch," it could not be said of him, as Cockburn
did of Jeffrey, that he had acquired only the " nar
row English ;" for he had not polished away any of
his power, and he never quailed before antagonism.
At a time when anonymous writings were freely
circulated against him he did not flinch, but aver
red that from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other inspired
writers, he " had learned, plainly and boldly, to call
wickedness by its own terms — a fig a fig, and a spade
a spade ;" thus using for the first time words which
have become proverbial in the language. Occasion
ally, too, he brought in withering irony to bear on
that to which he was opposed. His prologue to his
report of his disputation with the Abbot of Cross-
raguel reads like a bit of a sermon on the idolatry
Of the Mass, and is an excellent illustration of his
most trenchant manner.
Here is a specimen. He has been comparing the
making of what he calls the "wafer-god" to that of
the idols so sarcastically described by Isaiah in the
fortieth and forty-first chapters of his prophecies,

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 59
and after speaking of the workmen engaged in
both, he proceeds as follows : " These are the arti
ficers and workmen that travail in the making of
this god. I think as many as the prophet reciteth
to have travailed in making of the idols ; and if the
power of both shall be compared, I think they shall
be found in all things equal, except that'the god of
bread is subject unto more dangers than were the
idols of the Gentiles. Men made them ; men make
it. They were deaf and dumb ; it cannot speak, hear,
or see. Briefly, in infirmity they wholly agree, ex
cept that, as I have said, the poor god of bread is
most miserable of all other idols ; for according to
their matter whereof they are made, they will re
main without corruption for many years; but with
in one year that god will putrefy, and then he must
be burned. They can abide the vehemency of the
wind, frost, rain, or snow; but the wind will blow
that god to sea, the rain or the snow will make it
dough again ; yea (which is most of all to be feared),
that god is a prey, if he be not well kept, to rats
and mice, for they will desire no better dinner than
white, round gods enow. But oh, then, what be-
cometh of Christ's natural body? By miracle it
flies to heaven again, if the Papists teach truly, for

60 'THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
how soon soever the mouse takes hold, so soon flieth
Christ away and letteth her gnaw the bread. A
bold and puissant mouse, but a feeble and misera
ble god ! Yet would I ask a question : ' Whether
hath the priest or the mouse greater power?' By
his words it is made a god ; by her teeth it ceaseth
to be a god. Let them advise and answer!"
Thesesentences remind us of Latimer ; and there
are many passages in his History of the Reformation
which bubble over with humor of a similar kind ;
so that we may be sure that it found a way also
even into his sermons; and if it did, it is not difl>
cult to explain how "the common people heard him
gladly." The doctrinal substance of his discourses was that
which we now generally associate with the name of
Calvin, though he had attained to the perception
and acceptance of it long before he came into per
sonal contact with the Genevese divine. He held
fast by the Deity, atonement, and mediation of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Luther did not proclaim the
doctrine of justification by faith more energetically
than he; and in every appeal he made to his fellow-
men they were sure to see that "Jesus" was "in
the midst." He never put himself before his Mas-

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 61
ter, or sent his hearers away thinking more of him
than of his message. He seemed always to be ab
sorbed in or carried away by his subject, and that
is the explanation of the fervor of manner which
characterized his delivery. Who has not read that
graphic description of him in his last days by James
Melville? He had been constrained to leave Edin
burgh for a season, and was living, in broken health,
in St. Andrews, where Melville was at the time a
student. Thus he writes: "I heard him (Knox)
teach there the prophecies of Daniel that summer
and the winter following. I had my pen and my
little book, and took away such things as I could
comprehend. In the opening up of his text he was
moderate for the space of half an hour ; but when
he entered on application he made me so to shiver
(scottice 'grue') and tremble that I could not hold
my pen to write. He was very weak. I saw him
every day of his teaching go slowly and warily,
with a fur of martens about his neck, a staff in the
one hand, and good, godly Richard Ballantyne, his
servant, holding up the other armpit (scottice ' ox
ter'), from the abbey to the parish kirk, and by
the said Robert and another servant lifted up to
the pulpit, where he behooved to lean at his first

62 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
entrance, but before he had done with his sermon
he was so active and vigorous that it seemed as if
he would knock the pulpit in pieces (scottice ' ding
the pulpit in blads') and flie out of it."*
Here, then, were all the elements of pulpit pow
er, so far as they are. human, namely, competent
scholarship, careful preparation, scriptural exposi
tion, evangelical doctrine, plain speech, bold utter
ance, and impassioned fervor. And the effects pro
duced attest the reality of the power. At Berwick
a great transformation came over the place as the
result of his two years' ministry, and his effective
ness as a preacher, both there and in Newcastle,
raised him to the position of a royal chaplain.
Wherever he labored, indeed, his word was with
power, and the English ambassador at the Court of
Scotland was speaking of what he had himself seen

* We hope none of our American readers will fall into the
mistake of the Frenchman who thus ridiculously paraphrases
Melville's words: "Old and broken down, and so helpless as
to be hardly able to crawl along, he was raised to the pulpit
by two zealous disciples, where he began his sermon with a fee
ble voice and slow action ; but soon heating himself by the force
of his passion and hatred, he bestirred himself like a madman.
He broke his pulpit, and jumped into the midst of his auditors,
transported by his violent declamation, and words still more
violent."— See M'Crie's Life, p. 264 (note).

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 63
when he wrote to Cecil : " I assure yon the voice of
one man is able in an hour to put more life in us
than six hundred trumpets continually blustering in
our ears." But indeed the Reformation in Scot
land was itself very largely the result of his preach
ing. No doubt it was begun before he entered on
the work, and there were others laboring as well as
he ; but to him most of all are due the organization
and conservation of the work in the formation of a
National Church. By his ministry the entire face
and future of Scotland were changed. She has
made great progress in many directions since his
day, and outgrown many of the limitations within
which, perhaps, he would have restricted her, but
the success of his work made; it possible for her to
become what she is to-day. And it was as a preach
er mainly that he did his work. He was a states
man, indeed, as his great scheme of education clearly
proves; and the fact that his advice was sought by
multitudes in difficulties is an evidence that he was
a man of wisdom. But though different excellen
cies might come out in him on different occasions,
in the pulpit they were all in exercise and always
at their best. That was the glass which focussed
all his powers into a point, and quickened them into

64 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
an intensity which kindled everything it touched.
It brightened his intellect, enlivened his imagina-*
tion, clarified his judgment, inflamed his courage,
and gave fiery energy to his utterance. He was
never elsewhere so great in any one of these partic
ulars as he was when in the pulpit, in them all ; - for
there, over and above the fervid animation which
he had in such large measure, and the glow of en
thusiasm which fills the soul of the orator as he ad
dresses an audience, he had the feeling that he was
called of God to be faithful, and that lifted him en
tirely out of himself. He spoke because he could
not but speak; and his words went in to men.
Like those modern missiles which burst within the
wounds which they have made, so his words ex
ploded within the hearts of those who received
them, and set them on fire with convictions that
flamed forth in conduct. It was apparently impos
sible for any one to listen to him without being
moved either to antagonism or to agreement, or —
for he could be tender also — to tears.
It may be said, indeed, that he allowed himself
too great liberty in commenting in the pulpit on
public men and national affairs ; and we may readi
ly admit that in ordinary times and under altered

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 65
circumstances it would be unwise in most preachers
to do precisely as he did ; but we have to bear in
mind that the crisis through which his country was
passing at that time was as much religious as polit
ical, and that the pulpit was the only organ at his
command. To his credit bo it recorded, that he
was, if not the first, at least among the very first to
perceive the importance of making and guiding
public opinion aright. He saw that the people were
to be the ultimate arbiters of the great matters
that were then in debate, and he was determined to
-reach them. But the daily press was not then born,
few, comparatively speaking, could even read, so
that pamphlets were of little use, and the public
meeting had not yet come into existence. Only
the pulpit was his, and so, by his five sermons a
week in Edinburgh, and his frequent itinerancies
through different parts of the country, he did what
is now done by editors in their columns and by
statesmen in their campaigns, and the like. He
was not always wise, neither was he always discrim
inating in his utterances ; but he was always trans
parently honest, unflinchingly bold, and unselfishly
patriotic ; and when we add that all these qualities
in him were raised to the white heat of enthusiasm,

66 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
and fused into the unity of holiness by his devotion
to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
we are at no loss to account for the magnitude of
the work he did. He spoke and wrote and acted
as ever in His sight ; and more, perhaps, than any
other man in modern history, he might have taken
for the motto of his life the oft-repeated assevera
tion of Elijah, " As the Lord God of Israel liveth
before whom I stand." This was the secret of his
courage, the root of his inflexibility, and the source
of his power.
But now reverting to the statement with which
I began, let me pause for a few moments longer to
point out in what particulars especially the preach
ing of Knox impressed itself upon the pulpit of
Scotland. It did so, pre-eminently, in these three:
its expository character, its vehemence of manner,
and its Unflinching courage.
To his example Scotland owes the custom ob
served by, I believe, the majority of its ministers,
down even to the present day, of devoting at least
one of the discourses of the Sabbath to the regular
and consecutive exposition of some book of the
Scriptures. In the hands, indeed, of those who have
not had the diligence to go beneath the surface, or

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 67
the skill to make their work interesting, that meth
od has often degenerated into a mere apology for
preaching, consisting of the Bible and water — most
ly water. But in Scotland, for the most part, it has
been faithfully, laboriously, and acceptably done,
and there can be no doubt that it has largely con
tributed to the Biblical intelligence both of minis
ters and people. I can remember how, in the home
of ray boyhood, it was my father's regular custom,
on the morning of the first day of the week, to
spend the time between family worship and the
hour of public service in perusing a commentary
on the passage which was to form the subject of
exposition in the sanctuary, in order that he might
be the better fitted to follow and appreciate the
discourse which he expected from his pastor. A
preparation that, much more wholesome than the
reading of the Sunday newspaper, which, alas ! has
found its way into the homes of too many even of
our church-members in these days. This regular
exposition of the Scriptures in all the churches
made the Bible the hand-book of the people. It
made Scotland for long a nation of one book ; and
if the man who may be so characterized is proverb
ially dangerous, it is not wonderful that the nation

68 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
of whom that was true was terribly troublesome to
such rulers as it had sometimes to deal with ; for
the Bible and despotism cannot long live together,
and it is not usually the Bible that has to go. Thus
expository preaching is good for the welfare of the
nation as well as for the edification of the Christian,
and it were well if some American Knox, by the
influence of his instructive and successful example,
could bring it back to the pulpits of our land.
Not less potent on the Scottish ministry as a
whole was Knox's influence in the department of
manner. It is difficult, indeed, for one now, as he
reads that sermon which so enraged Darnley, to un
derstand how it could be delivered in a frenzy
like that which James Melville has described. It
is not nearly so strong in its language as are many
other separate passages which have been preserved
in othdr parts of his writings, and as we peruse it
now it seems calm enough. But probably the man
ner overawed Darnley, and communicated itself to
the matter, making it like red-hot shot, and putting
more into the words than Avithout it they would
have conveyed. Perhaps this will account also for
the fact that Knox's repetition in the palace to
Queen Mary of a sermon which he had preached

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 69
the previous day in the cathedral did not seem,
even to her, to warrant the assertions which had
been made to her concerning it by those who had
heard it the day before in public, for the vehe
mence of the pulpit would be wanting in the par
lor. But if that be, indeed, the explanation, it
only shows how important the manner is ; and in
any case the same contrast between the calmness
of the printed page and the passion of delivery
which we read of in Knox reappeared in Ruther
ford and Chalmers, and repeats itself to-day in such
living preachers as Cairns and Caird. But it would
be wrong to regard it as a mannerism, which is
either artificially acquired by the man himself or
capable of imitation by another. Whatever you
may call it — prmfervidum ingenium, or whatever
else — it is certainly not a mere external thing. It
is as far removed from that gesticulation which an
old friend of mine used to call "arm-work" as it
is from " the stare and start theatric practised at
the glass." It is nothing short of a " possession "
of the man for the time being by the Spirit of his
utterance, so that without any consciousness on his
part of what he is doing it speaks through him —
that is, not through his words only, but through his

70 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
entire personality — and bears him along as with an
overflowing flood. But, alas! with too many of
us the sermon does not possess even the voice —
perhaps because there is no spirit in it to become a
possessor, for that is the first requisite, and where
that is wanting we may say as the servant of Elijah
did, when he looked so often vainly for the cloud,
" There is nothing." But when a preacher is, like
Knox, sermon -possessed, the vehemence will seem
to be so natural that it will be lost sight of in the
experience of the power of which it is the concom
itant, and this has been true of all the best preach
ers in the land of Knox.
Finally, the courage of Knox seems to have been
for an inspiration to all the noblest ministers of
Scotland. . In him the independence of the nation
was sublimed, elevated, and glorified by Christian
faith. » Morton said of him with truth that he
" never feared the face of man." But James the
Sixth might have said the same of Andrew Mel
ville ; Charles the First might have repeated the
words over Alexander Henderson; and Richard
Cameron, whose blood reddened " the wild and lone
Airdsmoss," needs nothing more than such a death
to testify to his dauntless utterance of what he be-

JOHN KNOX AS A PREACHER. 71
lieved to be true. There have been, no doubt, in
Scotland, as elsewhere, degenerate men, who trim
med their sails to every breeze, and always faithful
ly consulted their own safety and interest, but still
the noble example of Knox has animated and in
fluenced the Scottish ministry all along, and his
name yet stirs the heart and quickens the pulses
of a Caledonian with an enfhusiasm akin to that
with which he hears those of Wallace and Bruce.
I have somewhere read of a political party who
wished to carry their purposes by all sorts of means,
and as one of these, endeavored by corrupting the
clergy to get them to support their views. This
they called " tuning the pulpits." But in a far
nobler sense, and in a manner at once pure and
lofty, Knox may be said to have " tuned " the
pulpits of his nation, for he struck the key-note to
which — however much, sometimes, it may have been
drowned by noisy clamor, or may have seemed to
become faint and almost inaudible — all that is best
in the preaching of Scotland to this hour has been
harmonious and true. Would God that it might
be heard here among you to-day with similar ef
fect on your life-work in this land !

III.
MELVILLE.— RUTHERFURD.— DICKSON.— LIVINGSTONE.
The greatest names in the history of the Scot
tish Church between the death of Knox and the
Revolution-settlement were those of Andrew Mel
ville, Alexander Henderson, Samuel Ruther-
furd, and Robert Leighton; though the last be
longed to the mediating party who sought to in
tervene between the extreme doctrinaires on either
side, and thus occupied a position different from
that of all the rest. Some of the field-preachers,
too, in the time of persecution deserve to be held
in honorable remembrance, and must in no wise
be overlooked ; hut in the main the history of the
times, ecclesiastically considered, might be written
in the biographies of those whom we have named.
With Andrew Melville we have comparatively
little to do here, since his work was more that of
the Educational Reformer and Ecclesiastical States
man than of the Pulpit orator, and he was a
preacher for but little more than three years. Still,

MELVILLE. 73
as he undeniably influenced the pulpit of his coun
try through his prelections as a theological instruc
tor both in the University of Glasgow and in that
of St. Andrews, we cannot pass him altogether by in
silence. He was a younger son of a landed proprie
tor in Angus who perished at the battle of Pinkie
while Andrew was yet a boy. After receiving
what education the Academy of Montrose and the
University of St. Andrews could then furnish, the
lad went to Paris, where he studied for two years.
Thence he removed to Poitiers, where, though then
only twenty-one years of age, he was made one of
the Regents of the College of St. Marceon. Here
he remained for three years, and thence he removed
to Geneva, where through the recommendation of
Beza he was appointed Professor of Latin, an office
which he held for five years. On his return to
Scotland, in 1574, two years after the death of
Knox, he was almost immediately appointed Prin
cipal of the University of Glasgow, where he in
augurated and carried out such reforms, alike in
the subjects taught and the manner of the teach
ing, that his nephew alleges, with perhaps a little
natural if not national exaggeration, that " there was
no place in Europe comparable to Glasgow for good

74 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
letters during these years — for a plentiful and good
cheap market of all kinds of languages, arts, and
sciences."* In conjunction with the office of Principal of
the University he held that of pastor of the neigh
boring parish of Govan for three years, and that
was the only portion of his life during which he
regularly occupied a pulpit. In 1580 ho was re
moved to St. Andrews, where he carried out the
same educational improvements as he had inaugu
rated in Glasgow ; and after having experienced in
many forms the penalty of opposing King James
in his darling project of fastening Episcopacy on
Scotland, he was imprisoned for wellnigh four
years in the Tower of London. On his liberation
he went to France, where he was appointed to a
chair in the Protestant College of Sedan, and where
he died in 16$2 at the advanced age of seventy-
seven. The Second Book of Discipline, which is still
of force in the Church of Scotland, is supposed
to have come mainly from his hand. He was a
ripe, and for these times a rare, scholar. In general
* See McCrie's "Life of Andrew Melville," p. 33.

MELVILLE. 75
literature he had few equals, and in the composi
tion of Latin poetry he had no superior. He was
the first to introduce the study of Greek into the
Scottish universities, and his Hebrew Bible was
his constant companion. He clearly saw and freely
said that the words npzafivrepog and 'ETriaKOtrog are
used interchangeably in the New Testament, and in
that all modern scholars will agree with him ; but
when he went so far as to allege the absolute Jus
Divinum of Presbytery, in such a sense that every
other form of Church government is contrary to
the Word of God, few even among Presbyterians
themselves will now care to follow him. Yet his in
fluence, more perhaps than that of any other single
individual, gave currency to that opinion, so that
there is a measure of truth in the saying that " Knox
made Scotland Protestant, but Melville made it
Presbyterian." His teachings and efforts, therefore,
gave intensity to the struggle between the king
and those who, as every one must allow, formed the
more spiritual party in the Church. He was a
brave, uncompromising, heroic man, and some of
his sayings at critical times in his history became
watchwords to those who came after him in the
conflicts of that stirring and controversial age. Like

76 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
those of Luther, they were in themselves " half-bat
tles," or rather, perhaps, to put it more strongly,
"half- victories" — for those who rallied to them
were on the way to success.
One or two examples may here be given. When
Morton, who was then Regent of the Kingdom, in
dignant at something which Melville had said, re
marked, in a most suggestive manner, " There will
never be quietness in this country till half a dozen
of you be hanged or banished from the land," Mel
ville replied, "Tush, sir, threaten your purple min
ions after that manner. It is all one to me whether
I rot in the air or in the ground. The earth is
the Lord's : Patria est ubiounque est bene. I have
been ready to give my life where it would not have
been half so well sacrificed at the pleasure of my
God. I have lived out of your country ten years
as well as in its Let God be glorified ; it will not
be in your power to hang in exile His truth." *
On another occasion he was sent by the General
Assembly as one of a deputation to lay a certain
remonstrance before the king; and when the pa
pers were read to the assembled council, the Earl
* McCrie's "Life of Andrew Melville," p. 69.

MELVILLE. 77
of Arran exclaimed, in a tone of indignation, " Who
dares subscribe these treasonable articles ?" where
upon Melville calmly answered, " We dare," and at
once took the pen and appended his name. Again,
in 1596, when a number of the clergy were admit
ted to an audience with the monarch, and his Maj
esty had accused them of holding seditious meet
ings (for so he characterized the meetings of the
Church for its own purposes), and of alarming the
country without reason, Melville was moved to
speak after this fashion : " Sir, we will always hum
bly reverence your Majesty in public, but since we
have this occasion to be with your Majesty in pri
vate, and since you are brought in extreme danger,
both of your life and crown, and along with you
the country and the Church of God are like to go
to wreck for not telling you the truth and giving
you faithful counsel, we must discharge our duty,
or else be traitors both to Christ and you. There
fore, sir, as diverse times before I have told you, so
now again I must tell you, there are two kings and
two kingdoms in Scotland ; there is King James,
the head of this Commonwealth, and there is Christ
Jesus, the King of the Church, whose subject James
the Sixth is, and of whose kingdom he is not a

78 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member. . . . We
will yield to you your place, and give you all due
obedience ; but again I say, you are not the head
of the Church ; yon cannot give us that eternal life
which we seek for even in this world, and you can
not deprive us of it. Permit us then freely to meet
in the name of Christ, and to attend to the in
terests of that Church of which you are the chief
member." * This has been called Hildebrandism
by Dean Stanley ; and even Cunningham is disposed
to look at it in that light. To my view, however,
what Melville argued for was not the subjection of
the State to the Church, but the autonomy of the
Church in the State.
I should not be disposed to stand sponsor for all
Melville's opinions, but in this scene and those oth
ers of which I have spoken he seems to me to take
his place with Luther, Latimer, and other witness
es for liberty of conscience, and for the spiritual
independence of the Churcli of Christ, which is
"the freest society in the world." The spirit of
Knox lived over again in Melville. He knew no
fear. Opposition only stimulated him to his full-
* McCrie's "Sketches of Scottish Church History," vol. i.,
p. 125.

HENDERSON. 79
est strength. It whetted his speech and gave edge
to his temper: though there was genius and some
thing more in the reply which he gave to one who
blamed him for being too fiery, when he said, "If
you see my fire go downward, set your foot on
it and put it out; but if it go upward, let it go
to its own place." * Such a man would be sure to
make deep and indelible impressions on his students.
His positivism would be to many in the place of per
sonal conviction, and his enthusiasm would kindle
in them all a kindred flame, so that though he was
not himself, for any length of time, a preacher, he
must have preached through them for years after he
had been driven into exile. Even yet there come
from his words sparks enough to kindle our souls
into eager loyalty to Christ, and that is greatness,
wherever and howsoever it may be manifested.

Alexander Henderson, the next after Melville
in the Scottish Evangelical Succession, was, in the
earlier part of his life, less a man of affairs than the
exile of Sedan, but he was more distinctively a
preacher. Born in 1583, in the county of Fife, he
* McCrie's "Sketches of Scottish Church History," vol. i.,
p. 126.

80 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
was educated at the University of St. Andrews,
where, after his graduation, he was chosen to a pro
fessorship of Philosophy and Rhetoric, which he
held about eight years. In 1612 he received from
Gladstanes, Archbishop of St. Andrews, a presenta
tion to the neighboring parish of Leuchars. He was
at that time a strenuous supporter of the Episcopal
innovations, and his settlement was so utterly op
posed to the will of the people that on the day of
his ordination they had nailed up the doors of the
church, and the clergy who were to take part in the
ceremonies had to enter the building through one
of the windows. Shortly afterwards, however, an
entire change was wrought, in a way quite remark
able, upon his convictions. Hearing that one of the
evangelical ministers, Robert Bruce, of Kinnaird,
who had then great reputation as a preacher, was to
occupy the pulpit of a parish church not far away,
he went under some sort of disguise and seated
himself in an obscure corner of the building to
hear him. When the text, which happened to be,
" Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not
by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up
some other way, the same is a thief and a robber,"
was given out, the words, so descriptive of his

HENDERSON. 81
own settlement at Leuchars, went, as he afterwards
said, " like drawn swords " into his heart. The ser
mon which followed was a message from God to
him, and resulted not only in the alteration of his
views on ecclesiastical principles, but also in his
true conversion to Christ.* From this time on till
1637 he lived in retirement, faithfully discharging
the duties of his office, and diligently prosecuting
the study of theology ; although even then he must
have been known for his defence of what he held
to be right, since one of Rutherfurd's letters, dated
in the year which I have just specified, indicates
that multitudes were looking to him to become
their leader. Nor did they look in vain, for when
the stool of Jenny Geddes ignited the match which
6et the land aflame, he came at once to the front.
His hand drafted the additions to the old covenant
of 1581, which made it into the National Covenant
of 1638 — a covenant the signing of which in the
Greyfriars Church and church -yard on the after
noon of a chill February day is one of the most
memorable scenes in Scottish history.
Two years later he was "called from his rural
* See McCrie's "Sketches of Scottish Church History," ubi
supra, vol. i., pp. 218, 219.
4*

82 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
retreat to the pastorate of that same Greyfriars
Church, which he continued to hold until his death.
He filled many important offices: was moderator
of the General Assembly more than once on criti
cal occasions; was repeatedly sent as representative
of the ministers to King Charles the First; and
was perhaps the leading member of the delegation
of six commissioners sent from Scotland to the
Westminster Assembly of Divines. He died im
mediately after his return from a conference with
the king at Newcastle, in 1646, and was buried in
that old church-yard to which the feet of so many
pilgrims are still attracted in the Scottish metrop
olis. At the Restoration of Charles the Second
the representatives of that party whose adherents
disentombed the bones of Cromwell, paid Hen
derson the compliment of effacing the inscription
from his monument ; but it was renewed at the
Revolution, and even if it had not been so, he
had graven his name too deeply in the annals of
his nation for it ever to be forgotten.
During his lifetime he published three of his
sermons; and so lately as 1838 a volume of dis
courses and prayers, apparently taken down from
his lips by some admirer, was given to the press

HENDERSON. 83
by the discoverer of the manuscript. These are
exceedingly interesting, as showing not only the
order of service which was then common among
the Scottish Presbyterians, but also as giving a
specimen of the ordinary weekly work of this dis
tinguished man. Some of the sermons belong to
a course which he was evidently delivering on
the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the He
brews, while there are others which as clearly
formed part of a series on the Christian armor as
described by Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians,
giving thus incidental corroboration to the state
ment which I have already made concerning the
expository character of Scottish preaching. In
their framework they are strictly textual, and in
their substance practical rather than doctrinal.
Like all the sermons of that period, they are too
largely broken up into minute subdivisions, al
though they do not err in that respect so griev
ously as those of the Puritans. They contain
numerous allusions to the questions and circum
stances of the times, but even when dealing with
these their language, though strong, is never bit
ter or envenomed. They were manifestly deliv
ered without notes, but they were just as mani-

84 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
festly the fruit of careful study, and they were
probably fully written out beforehand, but whether
they were verbally memorized there is no evi
dence to show. Their style is simple, sometimes
almost conversational, and frequently vernacular,
but in matter they are always rich in " that
which is good to the use of edifying, that it may
minister grace unto the hearers." The prayers
are particularly noteworthy for their simplicity,
directness, and comprehensiveness, and for the
pleading pathos, as of a son with a father, by
which they are pervaded.
But though his ordinary work was thus excellent,
Henderson seems to have been the great man of his
day in Scotland for special occasions. When any
thing was to be done which required peculiar wis
dom, calmness, dignity, and power, he was sure to
be selected for* the purpose, and he never failed.
His prayer at the signing of the Covenant in Grey
friars Church is characterized as "sublime," though
doubtless some of the sublimity was in the occasion
itself; for in a city to which sixty thousand people
had flocked from all parts of the country, and in
a pulpit which was surrounded by a dense crowd
that overflowed into and filled the church -yard,

HENDERSON. 85
there were already the influences out of which
such prayers as that of Solomon at the Dedica
tion of the Temple are born. They get as much
from the occasion as they give to it, yet when one
and another and another came forth immediately
after to write their names in their own blood, and
some appended the words "till death," we may
not doubt that the rapt fervor of the holy sup
plication in which they had just been led by Hen
derson had much to do with their enthusiasm. His
sermon at the opening of the memorable Assembly
in Glasgow in 1638, though hastily prepared, is full
of condensed power ; and the words with which he
dismissed that convocation, after it had formally de
molished Episcopacy in the Scottish Church, were
often afterwards remembered ; for he said,with some
thing like the sternness, and the prescience, too, of
an old Hebrew prophet, " We have now cast down
the walls of Jericho ; let him that rebuildeth them
beware of the curse of Hiel the Bethelite."
As a speaker, though Clarendon characterizes his
style as "flat and insipid," he must have been ex
ceedingly effective, since the same historian avers
that the king well knew Henderson to be " the prin
cipal engine by which the whole nation was moved."

86 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
In the judgment of others less prejudiced against
him, his speech was " quiet, grave, and weighty, yet
easy and fluent." He was a ready debater, as the
records of the Westminster Assembly show; and
we may well believe that he would not have been
selected to make one of the addresses before the
Houses of Parliament and the Assembly of Divines,
when they adopted the Solemn League and Cove
nant, if he had not been regarded as one of the
most prominent orators of his time. The following
extract from the discourse he made on that occasion
will give a good idea of the stately march of his
words and the solid weight of his ideas. Bear in
mind, as I read, that the Solemn League was direct
ed against Popery as well as Prelacy, and that the
latter was regarded as particularly odious, not only
in itself, but also and especially as leading on to the
former : •
" Had the Pope at Rome the knowledge of what
is doing this day in England, and were this Cove^
nant written on the plaster of the wall over against
him, where he sitteth Belshazzar-like in his sacri
legious pomp, it would make his heart to tremble,
his countenance to change, his head and mitre to
shake, his joints to loose, and all his cardinals and

HENDERSON. 87
prelates to be astonished. The Word of God is for
it, as you have been now resolved, by the testimony
of a reverend assembly of so many godly, learned,
and great divines. In your own sense and expe
rience you will find that although while you are as
saulted with worldly cares and fears your thoughts
may somewhat trouble yon, yet at other times, when
upon seeking God in private or in public, as in the
evening of a well-spent Sabbath, your disposition is
more spiritual, and, leaving the world behind you,
you have found access unto God through Jesus
Christ, then the bent of your hearts will be strong
est to go through with this good work. It is a good
testimony that our designs and ways are agreeable
to God if we affect them most when our hearts are
farthest from the world, and our temper is most
spiritual and heavenly, and least carnal and earthly.
As the Word of God, so the prayers of the people
of God in all the reformed churches are for us
and on our side. It were more terrible than an
army to hear that there were any fervent supplica
tions to God against us. Blasphemies, curses, and
horrid imprecations there be, proceeding from an
other spirit, and that is all."
After reading that passage we are prepared for

88 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
the statement of Grainger, who says of Henderson :
"Learned, eloquent, and polite, and perfectly versed
in the knowledge of mankind, he knew how to rouse
the people to war or to negotiate a peace. When
ever he preached it was to crowded audiences, and
when he pleaded or argued he was regarded with
mute attention." To which I would only add that
his knowledge of the Bible was equal, if not supe
rior, to his knowledge of men. He seemed to be
able to lay his hand on Scriptural illustrations just
as he required them, and there is always a certain
" curiosa felicitas" in his allusions to the characters
in the Word of God, and in his quotations from it,
which only absolute familiarity with it can account
for. In this respect, perhaps, he is most worthy of
imitation by the preachers of to-day.
Samuel RoTftEEFURD, the next great preacher on
our list, was born in Roxburghshire about the year
1600, and educated at the University of Edinburgh,
which he entered in 1617, and from which he re
ceived the degree of M. A. in 1621. He held the
office of Regent and instructor in Latin in the same
institution for two years, and then gave himself to
the study of theology. He was ordained in " An-

RUTHERFURD. 89
woth by the Sol way " in "1627, and labored there till
1636, when, having given offence to the Bishop of
Galloway by his utterances in ecclesiastical matters,
and by the publication of a work against Arminian-
ism, he was removed from his parish and ordered
by the authorities to confine himself within the lim
its of the city of Aberdeen.* There he remained
for nearly two years, silenced, indeed, as a preacher,
but writing those letters which, more than anything
else he ever said or did, have preserved his name
until this day. In February, 1638, he returned to
Anwoth for a brief space, but the famous General
Assembly of that year appointed him Professor of
Theology in St. Andrews, to which office, as well as
that of assistant pastor of the parish church of that
city, he was installed in the beginning of the follow
ing year. In 1643 he was sent to Loudon as one of
the commissioners to the Westminster Assembly,
* A natural mistake is very commonly made in regard to
this matter, from the fact that in his letters Rutherfurd so fre
quently speaks of his "prison," and of himself as " a prisoner,"
but he was never in prison, in the strict sense of that term. He
was banished to the city of Aberdeen, and was restricted within
its limits, mnch as Shimei was by Solomon in Jerusalem. He
could go where he pleased within the city, but was prohibited
from going beyond it, and was not allowed to exercise his min
istry in any form.

90 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
whence four years afterwards he returned to St. An
drews, and there he died in 1661. We have not to
do with him here as a man or as an author, but as a
preacher,* yet it is scarcely possible for us to ig
nore the two former in the third ; and when we in
clude them we are at once startled and perplexed,
for I frankly confess that no character even in that
stormy time seems to me so difficult to regard as a
unit as that of Rutherfurd. There were two men
in him, and the two were so distinct that you could
hardly call him a "strange mixture," for they did
not mix. The one of them seemed to have no ef
fect in conditioning or qualifying the other, but
each was just as unshaded by the other as if it had
stood alone. His letters rank in the literature of
devotion with the " Confessions " of Augustine or
the "Imitation" of Thomas a Kempis. One not
given to exaggeration has described them as "unsur
passed in holy rapture, breathing a spirit of such
devotion as if he had been a seraph incarnate, and
filled with such joyous transport as if he had been
* For an exhaustive list of Rutherfurd's theological works,
and a most judicial estimate of their value, see " The Theology
and Theologians of Scotland," chiefly of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, by James Walker, D.D. ; The Cunning
ham Lectures for 1870-71, pp. 8-12.

RUTHERFURD. 91
caught up into the third heaven, and his heart yet
throbbed with the unearthly sensation." * There is
perhaps a little too much of the luscious, and he
treats the marriage of the soul to God, which seems
to bo the central idea of his experimental theology,
with a realism like that of the Song of Solomon.
But the consolatory epistles are especially delight
ful, and the book keeps its place to this day as one
of the classics of the closet, despite, or perhaps in
consequence of, its leaning to the mystical. Rich
ard Baxter, who was far from agreeing with all
Rutherfurd's opinions, said of the Letters, "Hold
off the Bible, such a book the world never saw the
like ;" and Richard Cecil said of him, " He is one of
my classics, he is a real original." But his contro
versial works are often rabid and bitter in the ex
treme. Dr. Grosartf has said that in them "you
have, speaking generally, such assumption of per
sonal infallibility, such fierceness of contradiction,
such unmeasured vituperation, such extreme narrow
ness of sectarian orthodoxy, and such suspicion of
all who differed from him, as is alike wonderful and
* Dr. John Eadie, in "Mackenzie's Biographical Dictionary."
f "Representative Nonconformists," p. 202. Alexander B.
Grosart, LL.D.

92 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
sorrowful." Apparently he could not put himself
into the place of another, so as to see things from
his angle or understand his position ; and though
there may be truth in the traditional story which
tells of his entertaining Archbishop Usher unawares,
and hearing from his lips of the eleventh command
ment,* to wit, "A new commandment give I unto
you, that ye have love one toward another," he
seems to have very frequently ignored his obliga
tion to obey it. With him there was only one side
to every question, and that one his own and God's,
to oppose which was flat blasphemy and impiety.
He could make no distinction between essentials
and non-essentials; the form of Church government
was in his view of as much importance as the deity
of Christ ; and what he judged to be right was so
infallibly right that all men were bound to conform
thereto. It \fas such disputants as he who drew
from Cromwell the, for him, mild remonstrance,
" I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it
possible that you may be mistaken;" and there is
special reference to him by Milton in that scathing
sonnet, in the body of which are these lines :
* See Note at the end of this lecture.

RUTHERFURD. 93
" Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword
To force our consciences that Christ set free,
And rule us with a Classic Hierarchy
Taught ye by mere A. S. and Rutherfurd?"
Aud which concludes with the stinging words,
"New Presbyter is but old Priest, writ large."
This, then, was the Janus — the two men in one —
called Samuel Rutherfurd. To borrow the illustra
tion of Mr. Innes, " It was St. Thomas and St.
Francis under one hood," and the intensity behind
them made both of these the strongest of their
kind* Such being the case, both would get into his ser
mons, though, except when he made some "neces
sary digressions for the times," as he called them,
the venom of his controversial nature did not in
trude. At Anwoth, to which his heart always leaped
back with a peculiar affection, he was the most dil
igent of pastors. Men said of him there : " He
seemed to be always praying, always preaching, al
ways visiting the sick, always catechising, always
* By far the finest sketch of Rutherfurd that we have seen
is that of Mr. Taylor Inhes, from which we have just quoted,
and which is to be found in "The Evangelical Succession,"
Second Series, pp. 127-172. As a piece of historical criticism
and spiritual discrimination it is wellnigh unequalled.

94 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
writing and studying." It was his joy to preach
Christ to his hearers. During his banishment to
Aberdeen the silence which was imposed upon him
was his heaviest cross, and some of the allusions in
his letters to his pulpit and parish work are exceed
ingly pathetic, e. g. : " I am for the present thinking
the sparrows and swallows that build their nests at
Anwoth blessed birds ;" and again, " Oh ! if I might
but speak to three or four herd-boys of my worthy
Master, I would be satisfied to be the meanest and
most obscure of all the pastors in this land, and to
live in any place, in any of Christ's basest out
houses." Such was his earnestness for the good of
his people that he declares " his soul was taken up,
when others were sleeping, how to have Christ be
trothed with a bride in that part of the land ;" and
that " he wrestled with the angel and prevailed, and
woods and tregs and meadows and hills were his
witnesses that he drew on a fair match (marriage)
betwixt Christ and Anwoth."
In the writings of his contemporaries, and those
who immediately followed them, we get some in
teresting glimpses of the preacher and his manner.
Thus Patrick Simpson says, " He had two quick eyes,
and when he Avalked it was observed that he held

RUTHERFURD. 95
aye his face upward and heavenward. He had a
strange utterance in the pulpit ; a kind of skrieoh
(shriek or scream) that I never heard the like of.
Many times I thought he would have flown out of
the pulpit when he came to speak of Jesus Christ,
and he never was in his right element but when he
was commending him." * An English merchant,
during the Protectorate, describing some of his expe
riences in what was probably a business tour through
Scotland, said,f " I went to St. Andrews, where I
heard a sweet, majestic-looking man (Blair), and he
showed me the majesty of God ; after him I heard
a little fair man (Rutherfurd), and he showed me
the loveliness of Christ; I then went to Irvine,
where I heard a well-formed, proper old man, with a
long beard (Dickson), and that man showed me all
my own heart." That was a very remarkable and
a most accurate discrimination ; so accurate that, as
Wodrow says, " the whole General Assembly could
not have given a better character of the three men."
The ideal preacher, no doubt, should combine the
three in himself; yet we may not refuse the palm
to him who dwelt upon the loveliness of Christ, for
* Quoted by McCrie in his " Sketches," vol. ii., p. 64.
,t Ibid., pp. 61, 62.

96 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
that in the end will lead to the discovery of the
other two. Now that was Rutherfurd's distinctive
excellence in the pulpit. He might and did deal
with other themes, but these he only possessed ; this
one, on the contrary, possessed him, and whenever
he entered upon it he was carried away with it.
We read that, " One day when preaching in Edin
burgh, after dwelling for some time on the differ
ences of the day, he broke out with ' Woe is unto
us for these sad divisions that make us lose the fair
scent of the Rose of Sharon ;' and then he went on
commending Christ, going over all his precious
styles and titles about a quarter of an hour," upon
which one of his hearers said in a loud whisper,
"Ay, now you are right ; hold you there." * Gro-
sart says of his practical discourses that their one
merit is " that they are full of the exceeding great
and precious promises and truths of the Gospel,"
and that " they hold forth with wistful and passion
ate entreaty a crucified Saviour as the one centre
for weary souls in their unrest, and the one hope
for the world." f But, after all, is not that the " one
thing needful" in all preaching? And it is for that
* McCrie's " Sketches," vol. ii., p. 64.
t "Representative Nonconformists," pp. 199, 200. .

DICKSON. 97
especially that I would hold him up for an inspira
tion to you. Like him, preach the living, personal
Christ, once crucified, but now risen and reigning as
the Saviour and Sovereign of men. Unfold His
loveliness. Proclaim His merits. Hold up Himself.
Let the truth which you declare be the truth as it
is in Him. Let the faith to which you urge be faith
in Him. Let the loyalty which you enforce be loy
alty to Him. Let the heaven which you hold before
your hearers be to be with Him, and to be like Him.
" Hold you there," and let your words be such as
love to Him shall inspire, then you shall not lack
hearers, and shall not need to lament the absence of
results. But with all this forget not the " eleventh
commandment," and be sure to cultivate the grace
of charity.
Two other names belonging to this period cannot
be overlooked. The first is that of David Dick
son, who has been already incidentally alluded to in
the report of the English merchant as the preach
er "who showed him all his own heart." While
Rutherfurd was prosecuting his pastoral work at
Anwoth, Dickson was similarly engaged in the
little Ayrshire town of Irvine, where his name is
5

98 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
still held in loving and honorable remembrance.
Born in 1583, and educated at the University of
Glasgow, of which, immediately after his gradua
tion, he became one of the regents or professors in
philosophy, he was ordained at Irvine in 1618, and
there he continued to exercise his ministry until,
like Rutherfurd, he was banished to Aberdeenshire
for his opposition to the Episcopalian innovations.
Ultimately, however, he was restored to his parish,
where he remained until he was made Professor of
Theology, first in Glasgow and afterwards in Ed
inburgh. But on his refusal at the Restoration to
take the oath of supremacy he was ejected from his
office, and he died in 1663. He was of a poetical
temperament, for it is to him we owe the modern
version of the popular hymn, " O mother dear, Je
rusalem," and that quality no doubt lent a charm to
his discourses. But their chief attraction was their
simple, earnest, evangelic teaching. Unlike those
who were in the habit of exhausting both a text
and their hearers by a series of twenty or thirty
sermons on one passage of Scripture, he generally
took three or four verses for a single discourse, say
ing that " God's bairns should get a good blaud "
(that is, lump) " of his own bread." He compared

DICKSON. 99
a man's taking a text to his going to a tree and
shaking its branches, so that the ripest of the fruit
fell, while that which was green remained ; and he
did not think it wise to take from a text all at once
everything which it contained.* His discourses
were expository in their framework, evidently the
fruit of study, characterized by great simplicity,
and glowing with earnestness. As one of his biog
raphers has said :
" An apostolic brevity and simplicity in preaching
was what this good man not only cultivated in him
self but cordially recommended to others, and that,
too, in a style which they were not likely to forget.
That parade of extensive reading, therefore, which
indulges itself in showing all the different meanings
of the text before coming to the true one, he justly
condemned. ' This,' he said, ' was just like a cook
bringing up a piece of meat to the table, and saying,
" This is a good piece of meat, but you must not
taste it," and then he brings another and says the
same. The cook,' he added, 'should bring them

* For these and other particulars concerning Dickson I am
indebted to a sketch of his life prefixed to the first volume of
" Select Writings of Dickson," published by the Committee of
the Free Church Assembly, 1845.

100 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
no meat but what they are to eat.' In the same
strain of honest-hearted humor he condemned the
use of Latin sentences and scholastic phraseology
before a simple auditory. ' It is,' he said, ' as if a
cook should bring up the spit and raxes to the ta
ble ; these are fit to be kept in the kitchen, to make
ready the meat, but they are not to be brought to
the table.' " *
The simplicity of Dickson's discourses, therefore,
was not for lack of depth. It was the result of his
determination to be thoroughly understood. While
he was in Aberdeenshire he was, unlike Rutherfurd,
permitted to preach, but he found the people there
so ignorant and degraded that he had to subject
himself to a laborious course of preparation so as
to reach down to them in order that he might raise
them up. He was wont afterwards to say that the
people in the.. North were much worse than the
people in the West — for studying one day would
have served him at Irvine, but it required two days
of studying for preaching at Turiff. Remember
that, please, whenever you are tempted to think
that because an audience is rude and uncultivated
* Memoir of Dickson, prefixed to "Select Writings of Dick
son," p. xxx.

DICKSON. 101
you may speak to it without any great forethought,
for it takes labor to be simple.
It is in connection with Dickson's ministry that
we come upon what in our days would be called
a great revival, which lasted for five years, and
which was accompanied by singular manifestations
of Divine power. It began just after his return
from his banishment, when his own heart was en
joying the "afterward" of the great trial through
which he had been brought, and it may be regarded
as an illustration of the fact that the affliction of
a pastor issues often in the spiritual profit of his
people. Fleming, in his " Fulfilling of the Script
ures," speaks of that great awakening in these
terms : " By the profane rabble of that time it was
called, ' The Stewarton sickness,' for in that parish
first, but afterwards through much of that country,
particularly at Irvine, under the ministry of Mr.
Dickson, where it can be said (which divers min
isters and Christians yet alive can witness) that for
a considerable time few Sabbaths did pass with
out some evidently converted, or some convincing
proof of the power of God accompanying his word.
And truly this great spring-tide, as I may call it, of
the Gospel was not of a short time, but of some

102 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
years' continuance . . . which put a marvellous lustre
on these parts of the country, the same whereof
brought many from other parts of the land to see
its truth." * But Dickson — and to this I call your
special attention — was as remarkable for his learn
ing as for his fervor and simplicity in the pulpit.
Many speak now as if, like Saul's armor on the
stripling David, scholarship is a hinderance to an
Evangelist ; but that it needs never be ; and in any
case it was not so in this instance ; for, as wo have
seen, Dickson was accounted qualified to fill the
chair of a Theological Professor both in Glasgow
and Edinburgh, and besides he was devoted to sa
cred studies, for he devised and partly carried out an
exposition of the Scriptures, after the fashion of the
Speaker's Commentary in our own times. A writer
competent to express an opinion has said, regarding
him, "His plan was to assign particular books to
men competent for the work, and to him we owe
it that we have Ferguson, on the Epistles ; Hutchi
son, on the minor Prophets, Job, and the Gospel of
John ; and Durham, on the Song and the Book of
Revelation. Dickson himself put his hand to the
* Quoted in Hetherington's "History of the Church of Scot
land," vol. i., pp. 260, 261.

DICKSON. 103
work. We have his English notes on Matthew and
the Epistle to the Hebrews. His exposition of the
Psalms is not unknown to Christian readers still, and
besides we have from him annotations in Latin on
the whole of the Epistles." * In his earlier years
Rutherfurd and he were bosom friends, but after
1650 they took different sides in ecclesiastical poli
tics, Dickson being a Royalist, or, as the name of the
time was, a Resolutioner,f and Rutherfurd a rigid
Protester against placing any reliance whatever on
either Charles; and so he came in for some of his
old friend's invective. But his refusal to take the
oath of supremacy at the Restoration may be re
garded as a proof that he had come to see that, with
whatever narrowness and intolerance, the Protesters
had been the more far-seeing of the two ; and in
any case he had little in him of that overbearing
spirit which is so great a puzzle to us in the char
acter of the author of the famous Letters. He
preached frequently after he had become a profess
or, but not with the same power as before, so that
Sir Hugh Campbell, of Cesnock, gave the following
quaint account of the several stages of his pulpit
* Walker's " Scottish Theology and Theologians," pp. 14, 15.
f See Note II. at the end of this lecture.

104 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
eloquence. I tell the story for the sake of its warn
ing to all Professors of Theology : " The Professor
of Divinity at Edinburgh is truly a great man ; the
Professor of Divinity at Glasgow was a still greater
man ; but the minister of Irvine was the greatest
man of all ;" his greatness thus diminishing just as
his distance from the pastorate increased.
But I must hasten on to the other of the two
names to which I alluded. In the history of the
British House of Commons we come upon a man
who was nicknamed " Single-speech Hamilton," be
cause he had made only one address in Parliament,
but that one had made him famous. So we might
almost call John Livingstone "Single -sermon"
Livingstone ; not, indeed, because he had preached
only one sermon, or because he was eminent for
nothing else, for he had, even for those eventful
times, a stirring history, and was " the most popular
preacher of his time," but because his name now
is virtually preserved from oblivion by the effects
that followed a sermon of his at the kirk of Shotts,
near Glasgow, on the Monday after a Communion
Sunday in 1630. Born at Kilsyth in 1603, and ed
ucated at the University of Glasgow, he was li-

LIVINGSTONE. 105
censed to preach in 1625 ; but owing to the restric
tions then existing, he did not obtain a parish, and
in consequence went to Ireland, where he labored
for a year in Killinchy, but was then suspended for
nonconformity by the Bishop of Down. A year af
ter his sentence was reversed he entered anew upon
his labors, but in 1635 he was again suspended,
and no prospect of restoration appearing, he deter
mined to go to New England ; but he wa3 driven
back by storms to Ireland, and finding no opening
there, he returned to Scotland. For ten years sub
sequent to 1638 he was minister of Stranraer, and
thence, in 1648, he was transferred to Ancrum ; but
though he was one of those who were sent to treat
with Charles the Second at the Hague, he fell un
der the displeasure of the government after the
Restoration, and was banished from the country.
He found an asylum at Rotterdam, where he spent
the remainder of his days in preparing a Hebrew-
Latin Bible, which, however, was never published,
and where he died in 1672. He was for these
times a great Oriental scholar,* knowing Hebrew
and Chaldee, and something of Syriac and Arabic,

* See Note III. at the end of this lecture.
5*

106 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
so that, as one says, " he was such a scholar as we
shall not readily fall in with in these days in the
Church."* The history of his famous sermon is worth giv
ing, if for nothing else, at least for the illustration
which it furnishes of that Providence of the Holy
Spirit by which little things are made to lead up to
great results.
A carriage occupied by some ladies of rank broke
down near the parsonage of Shotts, and the minis
ter, having had some, slight previous acquaintance
with them, invited the travellers to alight and re
main under his roof until the damage was repaired.
As they sat they observed that the house was in a
very dilapidated state, and in return for his atten
tions they exerted themselves to secure the erection
of a new parsonage in a better situation. After he
had received this great kindness at their hands, the
minister asked them how he could testify his grati
tude to them, and they, being earnest evangelical
Christians, requested that he would invite to assist
him at his next sacramental season certain preach
ers whose names they furnished, and among these
* Walker's " Scottish Theology and Theologians," p. 21.

LIVINGSTONE. 107
was Livingstone, who was then chaplain to the
Countess of Wigton, and only twenty-seven years
old. The pastor was only too glad to give his con
sent, and the news spreading abroad, an immense
concourse of people assembled for the occasion.
The services on the Saturday and Sunday* had been
so unusually delightful that the people were un
willing to depart without holding a special thanks
giving on the Monday, and Livingstone was pressed
to preach. Here is his own account of the matter:
" The night before I had been with some Christians,
who spent the night in prayer and conference.
When I was alone in the fields, about eight or nine
of the clock in the morning, before we were to go
to sermon, there came such a misgiving of spirit
upon me, considering my unworthiness and weak
ness, and the multitude and expectation of the
people, that I was consulting with myself to have
stolen away somewhere and declined that day's
preaching, but that 1 thought I durst not so far dis-
* For an accurate description of the service of a Scottish
communion occasion of the olden time, see "Peter's Letters to
his Kinsfolk," by J. G. Lockhart, vol. iii., pp. 301-334. The
abuses connected with it were satirized by Burns in the "Holy
Fair," but the other side of the picture has been exquisitely de
lineated by Principal Suairp in "Kilmahoe, and Other Poems."

108 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
trust God, and so went to sermon and got good as
sistance about an hour and a half upon the points
I had meditated on: 'Then will I sprinkle clean
water upon you, and ye shall be clean : from all
your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse
you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new
spirit will I put within you : and I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you
a heart of flesh.' (Ezek., xxxvi. 25, 26.) And in
the end, offering to close with some words of exhor
tation, I was led on about an hour's time, in a strain
of exhortation and warning, with such liberty and
melting of heart as I never had the like in public
in all my life." It was almost like another day of
Pentecost. Some five hundred persons were con
verted through that one discourse ; and as one says,
" it was the sowing of a seed through Clydesdale, so
that many of tk,e most eminent Christians of that
country could date either their conversion or some
remarkable conformation of their case from that
day." * God takes long views, and by these two
revivals — one in Ayrshire and the other in Lanark
shire — he prepared a people for the terrible struggle
* Fleming, on the Fulfilment of Prophecy, quoted by Hether-
ington in " Church History of Scotland," vol. i., p. 262.

NOTES. 109
that was to come in Scotland ; for it is a remarkable
fact that from these two counties, within the next
thirty years, came a large part of the strength of
that covenanting party, the echoes of whose wor
ship are lingering yet in the glens and among the
hills of Scotland. The Gospel, dear young brethren,
is not yet effete. What it did in the seventeenth
century it can do again in the nineteenth. Be it
yours, therefore, to prepare yourselves, by scholar
ship, by study, by prayer, by deep, humble, fervent
trust in the help of the Holy Spirit, to preach it in
utter forgetfulness of self, and you, too, will have
reason to say with Paul, " I am not ashamed of the
Gospel of Christ : for it is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth."
Note I. See page 92.
Rutherfurd and Usher.
The best version which I have seen of this traditional story,
differing in one or two details from that given by Dean Stan
ley, but agreeing in every particular with that which I heard
often from my father's lips in the home of my boyhood, is that
given by Andrew Thomson, D.D. , in his delightful little volume
on Rutherfurd, which is one of the series " Men Worth Re
membering." It is to the following effect: "The devout and
learned Archbishop Usher was on his way from England to his
diocese of Armagh, and passing near Anwoth on a Saturday
afternoon, anxious to listen to the preaching of one of whose
piety and eloquence he had heard much, he assumed the dis-

110 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
guise of a wayfaring man, or mendicant, and turning aside to
Anwoth Manse, asked lodging for the night. According to the
custom and law of the good pastor's house, not to be ' forget
ful to entertain strangers,' he was readily received. It was the
practice of Mrs. Rutherfurd, while her husband was engaged
in finishing his preparations for the coming Lord's Day, to
gather together her servants and the ' strangers within her
gate,' for the purpose of catechizing them on some religious
subject ; and on this occasion the stranger in lowly garb readily
joined the little circle of catechumens. Probably for the pur
pose of testing the knowledge of the wayfarer, Mrs. Rutherfurd
asked him how many commandments there were? To which
he answered, ' Eleven.' Regarding this as evidence of unusual
ignorance, she expressed to her husband, at a later period in
the evening, her fears that the stranger was very ill-instructed
in religion, and mentioned as evidence of the fact that he did
not even know the number of the commandments. Rising
early on the Sabbath morning, and retiring for prolonged devo
tion to his sanctuary not far off among the trees, Rutherfurd
was astonished to find that there was one there already engaged
in solitary worship. It was the stranger who had been wel
comed the night before to his hospitality. Listening, he was
struck with the evidence which his words afforded of the re
ligious knowledge and the depth of devotion of the suppliant;
and as soon as the prayer was ended he accosted him, and told
him that he was certain that he was not the mendicant that he
appeared to be. Disguise was no longer necessary or possible,
and Usher, not unwillingly, revealed himself. The scene ended
in Rutherfurd's urging him to preach for him, to which Usher
assented, not averse to conform for the day to the simpler
forms of Presbyterian worship. He read out as his text those
words of the Master: 'A new commandment I give unto you,
that ye love one another.' This explained all. ' There,' whis
pered Rutherfurd to his wife, ' is the eleventh command
ment.' "

NOTES. Ill
Note II. See page 103.
Resolutioners and Protesters.
" The Resolutiouers and Protesters were two parties formed
in the Churcli of Scotland in consequence of certain resolu
tions agreed upon by the Commission of the General Assembly,
and afterwards approved of by the Assembly itself, with respect
to the admission into places of power and trust in the Army
and State of such as had by various Acts of Parliament been
excluded on account of their malignancy or opposition to the
covenant and liberties of the nation, provided they gave satis
faction to the Church. Those who approved of these resolu
tions were called 'Resolutioners;' those who were opposed to
them were called 'Anti- Resolutioners,' or 'Protesters,' from
their having given in or adhered to a protestation against the
lawfulness of the Assembly held Jul}', 1651, at St. Andrews,
and adjourned to Dundee, by which these resolutions were rati
fied. The protestation was given in by the famous Samuel
Rutherfurd, and signed by twenty - two members. Future
events showed the impolicy of these resolutions. The men
who were admitted by them into places of power and trust in
the Army and Slate became, as the Protesters always predicted,
the persecutors of the Church. Had the counsels of the Pro
testers prevailed, the twenty-eight years' persecution might not
have existed." — Note by Rev. James Anderson in the Martyrs of
tlie Bass, in "The Bass Rock," p. 181.
Note III. See page 105.
Education of Dickson, Livingstone, and Others.
" To explain the high attainments in learning which Dickson
and his illustrious contemporaries possessed, it may be neces
sary to advert to the Scottish education of this period, more
especially as it is frequently misunderstood and grossly misrep
resented. Andrew Melville had returned from the Continent,
not only richly furnished with all the learning of the age, but
with a complete acquaintance with the most effectual methods

112 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
of imparting it; and such was the admirable system which he
had organized for the universities of Glasgow and St. Andrews
that in literary reputation they were inferior to no colleges in
Europe. The curriculum of education for the ministry espe
cially was such as might justly put to the blush the superficial
acquirements of their modern representatives. The young
pupil at his admission was expected to be a thorough proficient
in Latin, otherwise he could not understand the prelections,
which were generally delivered in that tongue. In addition to
the higher Latin classics with which the course commenced,
the students were initiated into the Greek Grammar, and car
ried through the ample routine of the Greek poets and histo
rians. To these literary acquirements succeeded the study of
rhetoric, ethics, physics, geometry, and history; after which the
alumni were introduced to their more important work of study
ing theology as a science, in all its departments, and the East
ern languages with which it is connected. This course con
tinued for six years, and without those long vacations which
have crept into modern education. This rigid training was
by no means terminated with a six years' course in the case of
the most eminent of our Scottish divines. Such as had most
highly distinguished themselves by talents and acquirements
during that period were appointed professors, or regents, as
they were then called, and in this capacity they had ample
opportunities of maturing what they had already learned, as
well as of enlargmg the bounds of their knowledge, and after
regenting for eight years they were then admitted into the min
istry." — Life of David Dickson, prefaced to "Select Writings of
Dickson, pp. vi., vii." Publislied 1845 by the Committee of the
Free Church Assembly.

IY.
ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— THE PIELD-PREACHERS.
Before entering upon the special period to be
covered by the present lecture, we must pause a
moment or two for the purpose of taking in the
historical situation. After the union of the crowns
of England and Scotland it seems to have been one
great object of the ambition of the Stuarts to assim
ilate or unite the churches of the two kingdoms by
fastening Episcopacy upon Scotland. This they all
sought to accomplish by the mere force of civil au
thority, irrespective altogether of the preferences
of the people. Thus resistance to their dictation
became a struggle for civil freedom as well as, and
indeed ultimately perhaps fully more than, a, dis
pute about ecclesiastical government; and although
the Covenanters themselves would have been glad
enough to have effected a union of the churches by
making England Presbyterian, and even sought to
accomplish that end by force of law through the
Solemn League and Covenant, yet their efforts and

114 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
sufferings in opposition to their oppressors contrib
uted to the securing of a larger liberty than they
themselves would have approved. " They builded
wiser than they knew," and in the evolution of
God's providence they are seen to be among the
pioneers of civil and religious freedom. The de
sign of the Stuarts was largely checkmated in the
case of James the Sixth of Scotland and First of
England by the Scottish Parliament of 1792; and
in that of Charles the First by the Edinburgh riot
in 1637; the signing of -the National Covenant in
1638; the famous General Assembly which met in
Glasgow in the same year; the signing of the Sol
emn League and Covenant in London in 1643 ; the
execution of Charles himself in 1649; and the be
nevolent despotism of Cromwell during the Pro
tectorate. But with the restoration of Charles the
Second to thef throne of his ancestors a reign of ter
ror was inaugurated which has its parallel only in
the cruelties of Alva in the Low Countries and the
deeds of the Dragonades in France.
In December, 1661, four Scottish ministers —
James Sharpe, afterwards 60 foully murdered on
Magus Moor, James Hamilton, Andrew Fairfowl,
and Robeet Leighton — were ordained in London as

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 115
priests, and consecrated as bishops to the dioceses of
St. Andrews, Galloway, Glasgow, and Dunblane re
spectively, in order, if possible, to carry out the
royal programme. They started to go down with
great state in a new carriage to Edinburgh, intend
ing to make a formal entry into the northern capi
tal ; but Leighton, already disgusted with his com
panions, left them at Morpeth to carry out their
intention by themselves, and made his way quietly
to the house of a friend, near his former parsonage
of Newbattle.
Shortly after this, when the Earl of Middleton
came down to Scotland as the king's commissioner,
Fairfowl, the archbishop of Glasgow, complained to
him that none of the younger ministers of his dio
cese who had entered office since 1649 had attended
his ecclesiastical courts or would recognize his epis
copal authority, and suggested that an ordinance
should be made to the effect that unless within a
given date all who had begun their ministry subse
quent to 1649 should obtain presentations to their
parishes, and should apply to the bishops for colla
tion and admission, they should be ejected from
their homes, their pulpits, and their livings. Judg
ing others probably from himself, he supposed that

116 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
in the face of such a penalty all but a very few
would conform ; and in an evil hour the Council,
most of whose members were said to have been at
the time intoxicated, passed that drastic measure
which afterwards became infamous as the Glasgow
Act. Only one month's warning was given, and
soldiers were commanded to pull the preachers from
their pulpits if they should venture to disobey.
The result was that on the last Sabbath of October
in that year (1662) two hundred pastors took fare
well of their flocks, and soon after nearly two hun
dred more followed their example, thus anticipating
by almost two hundred years the memorable disrup
tion of 1843, but with this difference, that the Cov
enanters acted singly, each one for himself, while
the Free -Churcli men were sustained by mutual
counsel, and had taken measures for their future
organization.* These four hundred were the "outed
ministers " of whom we read so much in the histo
ries of the period ; and their noble self-sacrifice as
they went forth from their manses, not knowing
whither they went, but casting themselves upon
Him whom they were seeking to serve, was one of
the sublimest offerings ever laid upon the altar of
conscience. Not quite two mouths before, on St.

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 117
Bartholomew's Day, their act had been paralleled
in England, when two thousand clergymen had left
their parsonages and parishes rather than conform
to the Act of Uniformity which had been enforced
there ; and so within two years after his restoration
to the throne this was Charles's commentary on the
solemn declaration which he had made at Breda to
the following effect : " We do declare a liberty to
tender consciences, and that no man shall be dis
quieted or called in question for differences of opin
ion in matters of religion which do not disturb the
peace of the kingdom, and that we shall be ready to
consent to such an Act of Parliament as upon ma
ture deliberation shall be offered to us for the grant
ing of that indulgence." But then the Stuarts, like
the Cretians, were "always liars," and these and sim
ilar doings of theirs give point to the witty epigram
written as an epitaph for one of them :
"Here lies our sovereign lord the king, whose word no man
relies on,
Who never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one."
After these four hundred ministers had been thus
" outed " from their parishes, curates whom even
Bishop Burnet describes as taken from " the dregs
and refuse of the northern parts " were put into

118 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
their places, so that the people did not care to wait
upon their ministry, and sought the services of their
old pastors in conventicles which assembled in re
tired spots on the moors or among the hills, with no
roof above them but the sky. More than once, as
at Bullion Green, Drumclog, and Bothwell Bridge,
they defended themselves by an appeal to arms, and
the persecution to which they were subjected, and in
the course of which eighteen thousand people were in
one way or other put to death, lasted, with occasion
al lulls, more or less brief, throughout the reigns of
Charles the Second and James the Second, and was
terminated only by the Revolution, which placed
William of Orange on the British throne.
For the revolting details I must refer you to the
numerous monographs on the Scottish Covenanters,*
* The most reliable summaries of the history of the Cove
nanters are sucji works as the following: "The Scots Worthies,"
by John Howie, of Lochgoin — best edition that edited by Rev.
W. H. Carslaw. Edinburgh: Johnston, Hunter & Co., 1870;
"The Martyrs and Heroes of the Scottish Covenant," by
George Gilfillan. Edinburgh: Gall & Inglis ; "Fifty Years'
Struggle of the Scottish Covenanters," by J. Dodds. Edin
burgh : Oliphant & Co.; "The Scottish Covenanters," by
James Taylor, D.D. London: Cassell; "The Wigtown Mar
tyrs," by Rev. Alexander Stewart; the valuable volumes of the
late Dr. Simpson, of Sanquhar, entitled ' ' Traditions of the Cove
nanters ;" and "A Voice from the Desert ; or, The Church in
the Wilderness."

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 119
but I have said enough to give you an intelligent
idea of the situation when Leighton entered upon
the bishopric of Dunblane. That a man like him
should be found on the side of those who were driv
ing things to such extremities is as remarkable as
it is that, having taken that position, his memory
should now be regarded, even by Scotchmen gener
ally, with a veneration akin to that which they cher
ish for the martyrs to the cause to which he was op
posed. One can understand how Charles came to
press him into such a service, for his character for
saintliness was even then well known ; and just as
Jehu sought to give respectability to his unscrupu
lous deeds by getting Jehonadab the Rechabite to
ride with him in his chariot, so we may well believe
that Charles was glad to get some man of worth
identified with his enterprise. But it is more diffi
cult to account for Leighton's acceptance of such a
position. One thing, at least, is clear. He had no
hereditary reasons for being partial to the Prelatic
party, for his father had his ears cropped and his
nose slit, and was condemned to stand in the pil
lory, and to be put into prison, for having published
a work entitled " Zion's Plea against the Prelates."
It was not a very temperate book, for it had in it

120 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
not a little of the bitterness which was characteris
tic of the controversies of the period, and from
which not everl Milton can be said to have been
altogether free ; but it had nothing whatever in
it that could be a Justification of such cruel treat
ment. Robert was born, probably, in London, in 1611,
and at the age of sixteen he was sent down to Ed
inburgh University for his education, just about the
time at which his father was subjected to the igno
miny of the pillory. After finishing his student
course he spent ten years on the Continent, where
he came into close fellowship with some of the Jan-
senists,from whom it is conjectured that he received
those leanings in the direction of quietism which
marked his life. He returned to Scotland in 1641
— the year of his father's release from prison — and
after receiving license to preach he was ordained as
a Presbyterian minister at Newbattle, where he re
mained till 1653, when he was appointed Principal
of the University of Edinburgh. He held that po
sition for eight years, and was then consecrated
Bishop of Dunblane.
Up till that time he had been a Presbyterian,
but though he had signed the covenant with his

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 121
people in 1643, there is evidence that during the
latter part of his pastorate at Newbattle he was be
ginning to find himself out of sympathy with the
Divine right doctrines of his co-presbyters, and was
glad to find a retreat in the University. He did
not believe that any form of Churcli government
was laid down in Scripture, and he was indeed
largely indifferent to the whole matter of ecclesias
tical polity, so that he might have said, " that which
is best administered is best." Therefore he sacri
ficed no principle in accepting a bishopric, and yet
he was never perfectly happy in his position as a
bishop. He had really nothing in common in the
highest parts of his. nature with the Sharpes and
the Fairfowls, with whom he was officially associat
ed. He hated the intolerance which they mani
fested, and was so utterly opposed to the cruelties
which they practised that he went so far as to com
plain of them to the king, and declared that " he
could not concur in the planting of the Christian
religion itself in a country in such a violent man
ner, much less a form of Church government." *
* This is the opinion even of Episcopalians now. Lieuten
ant-colonel Alexander Ferguson, in his interesting monograph
on " Th? Laird of Lag," has said that "no fair-minded and in-
6

122 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
Even as early as 1665 he desired to resign his
office, but he allowed himself to be overpersuaded
again, and after laboring ten years in Dunblane he
was made Archbishop of Glasgow, but finally, in
1674, he gave up his charge, and retired to the
home of his sister in Broadhurst, Sussex, where he
lived in privacy for ten years more, and died,
strangely enough, according to a wish of his own,
in an inn, on the 25th of June, 1684.
He was apparently a man " born out of due time."
He had something of the ascetic, and something also
of the mystic in his nature. He sought to live above
the " mad whirl " and " dim confusion " of the world,
and was ever a lover of peace. With very definite
views of his own both in theology and other matters
he did not care to fight for their supremacy, and
was much of the same mind as he who said, " I had
as lief be a»martyr for love's sake as for truth's."

telligent Episcopalian can read the history of the period of re
stored Episcopacy under Charles the Second and James the
Seventh without a sense of shame and humiliation. ' It isn't
for men to make channels for God's spirit as they make chan
nels for watercourses, and say, ' ' Flow here, but flow not there, " '
quoth Dinah Morris, and it is true. .But at the period in ques
tion the current of common justice was held back, civil liberty
was lost. "— ' ' The Laird of Lag : A Life-sketch," p. xv.

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 123
He had not the qualities needed to fit him to bo
a leader even in the best of times, much less in
that seething and tempestuous age into the midst
of which he was sent. The temptation which al
lured him to consent to become a bishop was the
hope that thereby he might act as a mediator be
tween the two contending parties, with neither of
whom, owing perhaps to his long absence from
Scotland in his early manhood, was he in full sym
pathy. He honestly attempted to construct a plat
form on which both might stand, and he conducted
the affairs of his diocese in a way that was studi
ously conciliatory, while he held himself aloof from
all the cruelties which were committed by Sharpe
and others in the name of loyalty and religion.
But in all this he pleased neither party. By the
Presbyterians he was regarded as a traitor, and
by the Episcopalians he was treated as a trimmer.
But the fineness of his spirit and the thoroughly
evangelical character of his works have redeemed
his name from the reproach which contemporary
combatants had cast upon it; and now that the
smoke and din of the battle have passed away, his
influence as a preacher is felt by ministers of all de
nominations more than that of any man of his gen-

124 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
eration. Indeed his name marks the beginning of
a new era in the history of the Scottish Pulpit.
Not that he made anything like a new doctrinal de
parture, for he was a sincere Calvinist. Coleridge,
indeed, tries to make it appear that he was a Cal
vinist only in some private sense of his own ; but
it is impossible to read his Exposition of 1st Pe
ter without coming frequently into contact with
the doctrines that are usually identified with that
system. He held, as Blaikie * says, " that the ulti
mate authority and supreme judge of truth for man is
God, speaking to him in the Scriptures, and that the
simple fact that God has there proclaimed it, ought
to secure for any doctrine the unqualified accept
ance of all men." So far he was like his predeces
sors, but he held also " that to secure for truth its
fitting place and its due influence in the soul, it is
desirable to»remove prejudices, to appeal to what
ever in the soul comes nearest to it, to establish for
it a friendly relation to something which is there
already, and thus to get it to move sweetly and
freely among the springs and motives of our be
ing "f — and therein he was in advance of all who
* "The Evangelical Succession," Second Series, p. 204.
t Ibid.

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 125
came before him. He abode by the old truths,
but he put them in an attractive form, and brought
all the resources of a great learning, all the treas
ures of a fine fancy, all the ainction of a devout
heart, and all the beauty of an occasionally exqui
site style, to bear on their illustration and enforce
ment. He is the one Scottish preacher of that time whose
discourses can be read not only without difficulty,
but even with enjoyment by the modern student.
There is more or less of uncouthness in the lan
guage of all with whom, up till this point, we have
been dealing. Their dialect, if so we may call it,
was a decoction of Latin, which was the language
of the universities ; English, which was the language
of the press ; and Scotch, which was the language
of conversation.* Therefore they cannot now be
intelligently read by any of you without a glossary.
But Leighton was so far beyond his own age in
this respect that he is little behind ours. He has,
indeed, now to us here and there a flavor of the
antique, but so far from taking away from the in
terest with which we read him, that only adds to
* Blaikie, "The Evangelical Succession," Second Series,
p. 207.

126 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
the effect which he produces, just as a slight foreign
accent frequently gives increased fascination to a
speaker. But perhaps the most striking feature of
Leighton's discourses is to be found in the beauty
and appositeness of his illustrations. In this re
spect he is far ahead of the preachers of his own
times, and not surpassed by many of any time. He
brought his similes from the wide domain of his
reading, or from the realm of nature, or from the
sphere of common life, with a profusion that indi
cates the wealth of his resources, and with a point
that never leaves us in doubt as to that which he
meant to illustrate by them. He did not go off
away from his subject altogether like Jeremy Tay
lor, with a " So have I seen," and then come back
after a long digression to the matter which had been
wellnigh overlaid by his description. But when he
used a similar it did its work in a moment, like a
flash of summer lightning in the stillness of the
night; and when he employed a prolonged meta
phor, he never lost himself or befogged his hearers
by mixing incongruities. As an example of the
first, take this clause concerning the necessity of
composing our minds to due thoughts of God be
fore entering on prayer : " This would do much to

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 127
ballast our minds, that they tumble not to and fro as
is their custom ;" or this, which has become hack
neyed now, but was probably used for the first time
by Leighton : " These divine truths are like a well-
drawn picture (portrait) which looks particularly
upon every one of the great multitude that look
upon it." As an instance of the second, take this ex
quisite passage concerning the Old Testament proph
ecies : " This sweet stream of their doctrine did as
the rivers, make its own banks fertile and pleasant
as it ran by, and flowed still forward to after-ages,
and by the confluence of more such prophecies grew
greater as it went, till it fell in with the main cur
rent of the Gospel in the New Testament, both acted
and preached by the great Prophet himself, whom
they foretold to come, and recorded by his apostles
and evangelists, and thus united into one river clear
as crystal this doctrine of salvation in the Script
ures hath still refreshed the city of God, his Church
under the Gospel, and still shall do so, till it empty
itself into the ocean of eternity." All his writings
belong, as his latest editor has clearly made out,
to the Presbyterian portion of his life, and they are
evidence that he made very careful written prepa
ration for his pulpit. Whether he committed to

128 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
memory what he had written, and so gave it to the
people, is uncertain. But he did not read from a
manuscript, for as to that practice he said : " I
know that weakness of memory is pleaded in ex
cuse for the custom, but better minds would make
better memories. Such an excuse is unworthy of
a man, and much more of a father, who may want
vent, indeed, in addressing his children, but ought
never to want matter. Like Elihu he should be
refreshed by speaking." As to his manner, Baillie
speaks of it as " the new guise of preaching which
Mr. Hugh Binning and Mr. Robert Leighton be
gun ;" and Burnet says it was "rather too fine," but-
adds, " there was a majesty and beauty in it that left
so deep an impression that I cannot yet forget the
sermons I heard him preach thirty years ago."
When he left Newbattle he gave as a reason for
desiring to demit the pastorate " the extreme weak
ness of his voice ;" and there could at no time have
been in it the " skriech " of Rutherfurd ; while his
style as written seems entirely unsuited to the vehe
mence that we have marked in some of his prede
cessors. His personal appearance is thus described
by a poet-preacher who occupies to-day no mean
place in the Scottish pulpit :

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 129
"A frail, slight form — no temple he,
Grand, for abode of Deity ;
Rather a bush inflamed with grace,
And trembling in a desert place,
And unconsumed with fire,
Though burning high and higher.
"A frail, slight form, and pale with care,
And paler from the raven hair
That, folded from a forehead free,
Godlike of breadth and majesty —
A brow of thought supreme,
And mystic, glorious dream.
"Beautiful spirit! fallen, alas!
On times when little beauty was;
Still seeking peace amidst the strife,
Still working, weary of thy life;
Toiling in holy love,
Panting for heaven above.
"For none so lone on earth as he,
Whose way of thought is high and free,
Beyond the mist, beyond the cloud,
Beyond the clamor of the crowd;
Moving where Jesus trod,
In the lone walk with God." *
Somewhat of his own "higher life" there is in
these last lines, and an undue glorification of the
contemplative above the active, the devotional above
the militant, in the Christian character; for if God

* " The Bishop's Walk." Walter C. Smith, D.D.
6-"

130 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
puts a man into a Crowd, he does not ask him to
move above it, but to go through it. Still, the
whole description puts Leighton graphically before
us as he was, and with this knowledge of his envi
ronment I ask you, my young brethren, to give dil
igent study to his works. They will feed your
piety even while they quicken all your homiletic
powers. Put them in a prominent place upon
your devotional shelf, and take them often down
to fill in for you those fragmentary minutes which
otherwise would be lost. Ever and anon you will
come upon such nuggets as these : " The Sunday's
sermon lasts but an hour or two, but holiness of
life is a continued sermon all the week long ;" " The
master's mind is often more toiled than the serv
ant's body ;" " Where there is no feeling at all there
can be no patience ;" " The Church is the jewel in
the ring of the world." Frequently, also, as in his
treatment of the doctrine of election, or his com
ment on Christ's bearing our sins, you will find
the truth stated in a most striking and attractive
manner, and with such an appreciation of the very
point where the difficulty lies as enables him to do
much in the way of removing it altogether. He
has been for long to me one of the richest of my

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 131
classics for the closet ; and if you think that I have
"exceeded" in my eulogy, I can only say that I
have come honestly by iny admiration of the good
archbishop ; for Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, at
whose feet I sat when, like you, I was preparing for
the ministry, was most hearty and emphatic in his
praise, and has left on record the following testi
mony to his worth, behind which I am quite will
ing to shelter myself even when I adopt it as my
own. Speaking of the Exposition of 1st Peter, he
says : " That very remarkable work teaches a sin
gularly pure and complete theology — a theology
thoroughly evangelical, in the true sense of that
often abused epithet, being equally free from Legal
ism on the one hand and Antinomianism on the
other; in a spirit of enlightened and affectionate
devotion, love to the brotherhood, and charity to
all men, and in a style which, though very un
equal, indicates in its general structure a familiarity
with the classic models of antiquity ; and in occa
sional expressions is in the highest degree felicitous
and beautiful. As a Biblical expositor, Leighton
was above his own age, and as a theologian and
practical writer few have equalled, still fewer sur
passed him, either before or since his time. . . .

132 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
Laboring under more than the ordinary disadvan
tages of posthumous publications, through the ex
treme slovenliness with Avhich they, with but few
exceptions, were in the first instance edited, his
works are eminently fitted to form the student of
theology to sound views and a right spirit, and to
minister to the instruction and delight of the pri
vate Christian — possessing in large measure and
rare union those qualities which must endear them
to every Christian mind, however uncultured, and
those which are fitted to afford high gratification to
them in whom the knowledge and love of evangel
ical truth are connected with literary attainment
and polished taste." * When I first heard these
words from the lips of my revered instructor, I be
lieved them on his testimony, but I know their
truth now from my own experience, and I pass
them on to y8u that you may profit from them as
I did. It would not be good, perhaps, to read noth
ing but Leighton, for he lacks manliness, and would
not fit us for the sterner side of Christian duty ; but
in an age like ours, when all is stir and bustle and
push, his books furnish a first-rate alterative, and
* Preface to "Expository Discourses on 1st Peter." John
Brown, D.D.

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 133
help to restore the devotional to its true place in
the life of the soul.
But good as Leighton was, he did little or nothing
to bring the blessing of peace to his distracted coun
try. His plan of amalgamating Episcopacy with
Presbytery proved to be nothing better than " a
devout imagination ;" for during most of the years
of his bishopric and archbishopric, and indeed for
some considerable time after his death, the adhe
rents of the covenant were subjected to bitter per
secutions. Fines for non-attendance at the parish
churches were exacted until the victims were utterly
ruined. Soldiers were quartered upon the people
in such numbers that they absolutely devoured their
substance. The presence of any one at a conventi
cle, especially if he was a minister and had preached,
was held to be enough to warrant his apprehension,
and that usually issued in his imprisonment on the
Bass Rock, or in Dunnottar Castle, or elsewhere, or
in his banishment from the country, or in his exe
cution on the scaffold. It is not wonderful, there
fore, that those who were thus oppressed lifted the
' sword in their defence ; but that, after ihe failure of
the Pentland rising, only made matters worse for

134 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
the time, and heated the fire more fiercely than
ever. In 1669 the king, who did everything apparently
by his own will, and without troubling himself with
any Parliament, gave liberty to the Scottish Council
at its discretion to appoint the outed ministers to
vacant parishes under certain limitations. Many
among them, with whatever reluctance, submitted
to the terms imposed, and i-eturned to the labor
which they loved ; others, however, sturdily refused
to go back to their parishes on the conditions pre
scribed, and so the Covenanters were again divided,
this time into those who approved and those who
disapproved of the "Indulgence," as it was called.
Judged by the event, the more rigid and unbend
ing were fully justified in the course they took,
although it drew upon them a fieroer persecution
than ever ; frnt it is hard to blame with any severity
the men who, weary of what seemed to be a vain
resistance, allowed themselves to be allured back
to their pulpits and their people, even though the
terms on which they returned amounted almost to
the stultification of their former heroism. Indeed,
as to this whole struggle it is exceedingly difficult
to get at a perfectly unbiassed estimate of the men

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 135
who took part in it, and certainly I cannot pretend
to rigid impartiality in the case, for one of my own
direct ancestors, Captain John Paton, of Meadow-
head, was a prominent leader among the laymen,
and fought valiantly at Pentland and Bothwell
Bridge, ultimately laying down his life on the scaf
fold in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh for the cause
with which he was identified. But I am persuaded
that the "Poundtext" of "Old Mortality" is no
better a representative of the Indulged clergyman
of the period than the " Kettledrummle " is of the
field-preachers of these times.
In the "History of Kilmarnock " there is men
tion made of a Mr. Wedderburn, one of the In
dulged, who is said to have been much esteemed for
his worth, piety, and learning, and who drew upon
himself a blow from the musket of a soldier for at
tempting to remonstrate with the military on their
discreditable conduct in the pillaging of the people.*
On the other hand, the traditional descriptions of
those whose voices were so often heard on the open
moorland forbid us to regard them as unlearned and
ignorant mountebanks, after the type of "Muckle-
* "History of Kilmarnock," p. 49. Archibald McKay.

136 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
wrath," or half-insane fanatics, like "Ephraim Mac-
briar." They had all received a liberal education.
Some of them belonged to the best families of the
land, and the uncouthness of their speech and man
ners was that of their times, for which they are not
now more ridiculous than their contemporaries.
They had their faults, and it is not to be denied
that they had not attained to such views regarding
civil and religious liberty as those which are now
generally accepted among ourselves ; while there
were, perhaps, some things about them that might
by modern exquisites be made ludicrous; but there
was no comedy, nor anything that can by all the
efforts of genius be made to appear farcical, in their
sufferings. These were all tragic — nay, because they
were endured for conscience' sake they were sub
lime; and even those who have no sympathy with
their opinions* have been compelled to do homage
to the purity of their motives and the calmness of
their courage.
When, however, we go in search of the eloquence
which is ascribed to them as preachers, we must re
member that their discourses have come down to
us for the most part in fragments taken as notes by
their hearers amid many difficulties, and without

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 137
the aid of stenography, so that they give us but lit
tle idea of the sermons as a whole. Moreover, it
is not to be forgotten that much of the eloquence
that was ascribed to the preachers was really in the
very remarkable circumstances under which they
spoke. Their conventicles were held in places far
up amid the silence of the mountains, near the
sources of the Nith and the Clyde, in the uplands
of Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire, and Lanarkshire, or in
bleak morasses like " the wild and lone Airdsmoss."
The people came together sometimes in the early
morning, and sometimes amid the stillness of the
night, and many of the men were armed with mus
kets and short swords. Sentinels were posted at
points of vantage to give timely warning of the
coming of the enemy, and no one of them knew
but that he might be called within a few hours to
seal his testimony with his blood. Occasionally the
sacraments were administered. Little children were
in a very true sense "baptized for the dead" with
water taken from the purling brook, and the table
of the Lord was literally spread full often " in the
wilderness." The sound of praise at such times was
borne aloft and afar upon the breeze, and it was
from scenes like these that the old version of the

138 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
Psalms of David in metre acquired that peculiar
charm which they still have for every Scotchman,
indissolnbly associated as they are with the patriot
ism of his fathers as well as with the worship of his
God. They are thus to the pious peasantry of that
land very much what the " Battle Hymn of the Re
public" and other stirring songs are to the people
of these Northern States. Nay, they are more ; for
because he knows that his fathers marched to vic
tory at Drumclog to the music of its words, the
psalm which thus begins,
"In Judah's land God is well known:
His name's in Israel great.
In Salem is His tabernacle,
In Zion is His seat.
There arrows of the bow he brake,
The shield, the sword, the war;
More glorious thou than hills of prey,
More excellent art far,"
thrills his heart with an emotion that is all the
deeper because the love of country combines with
the love of God to give it power.
At such gatherings, therefore, there was eloquence,
and that, too, of a high order, in the mere occasion ;
and if to-day, in reading the reports of the sermons
of the field-preachers, we fail to find a full justifi-

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 139
cation of the terms in which they were described by
those who listened to them, we must remember that
not even the ablest stenographer could reproduce
the environment out of which the discourses grew,
and in which they were delivered. But as I have
looked carefully over them, I have been struck
with the fulness of their presentation of the Gos
pel, and the fervor of their appeals to sinners
to accept Christ and His salvation. The impres
sion among many still is the same as that which a
writer of the period has exposed regarding Came
ron, when he says, " I crave leave to tell you that
the common report of poor Mr. Cameron was that
not only did he preach nothing but babble against
Indulgence, but that he could do no other thing."
But the perusal of a work like Simpson's "Yoice
from the Desert ; or, The Church in the Wilderness,"
will be enough to substantiate the assertion in re
gard to all the preachers which the writer already
quoted makes concerning Cameron, when he adds,
" But by his coming hither, the reporters have lost
their credit of being easily believed in the future . . .
for here he was found a man of savory gospel spirit,
the bias of his heart lying towards the proposing
of Christ, and persuading to a closing with Him."

140 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
They are quaint words, but they give a true descrip
tion — for the climax to which all the discourses lead
is "the closing" of the individual soul "with Christ."
And you can see how naturally that came about.
For the ministers were preaching, as it were, with
halters round their necks, and each of their hearers
might have said with David, " There is but a step
betwixt me and death." It was no time, therefore,
for playing with Rhetoric, or for cultivating the
graces of style, or for dealing in matters of mere
speculation. They came to the point at once; and
while, as was to be expected, there were many ref
erences to the trials of their times and the tyranny
of their oppressors, the great object of all their ser
mons was the presentation of Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. Nothing can exceed the pathos with
which they besought their hearers to be reconciled
to God and to endure patiently in His cause. It is
not surprising, therefore, to learn that the ten years
during which a large portion of the Scottish nation
met thus from Sabbath to Sabbath in the hidden re
cesses of the country, and in defiance of the law,
were ever afterwards referred to as times of special
revival. I take two specimens belonging to the lat
ter portion of the persecuting era, but yet fairly

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 141
representative of the whole. What could be more
effective than such an appeal as this of Cameeon,
addressed to thousands on the mountain-side, from
the words, "Ye will not come unto me, that ye may
have life?"
" Ye that have been plagued with deadness, hard
ness of heart, and unbelief, He now requires you to
give in your answer — yes or no. I take instruments
before these hills and mountains around us that I
have offered Him unto you this day. Angels are
wondering at the offer. They stand beholding with
admiration that our Lord is giving you such an offer
this day. What shall I say to Him that sent me?
Shall I say, 'Lord, there are some yonder saying,
"I am content to give Christ my heart and hand,
house, land, and all I have, for His cause ?" ' Look
over to the Shawhead and all those hills — look at
them. They are all witnesses now, and when you are
dying they shall come before your face." " Here,"
says the reporter, "both minister and people fell
into a state of calm weeping ;" and after a long
pause Cameron, before again proceeding, offered up
a prayer for the tranquillizing influences of the
Holy Spirit. Truly such scenes as these are the
best attestation of eloquence, whether or not we

142 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
can explain or analyze the secret of its produc
tion. Take, again, these sentences from Alexander
Peden, which rise and fall with a plaintive chant,
followed ever and anon with a recurring refrain al
most as of a chorus : " Now, sirs, what is it that has
carried through the sufferers for Christ these twenty
years in Scotland ? It is ' the fellowship of His snf- ¦
f erings.' It is the filling up of His sufferings accord
ing to the ancient decree of Heaven. For my part,
I seek no more if he bids me go. He bade many,
from 1660 to the year of Pentland, go forth to scaf
folds and gibbets for Him, and they sought no
more but His commission ; they went, and He car
ried them well through. Then, in 1666, at Pent
land, He bade so many go to the fields and die for
Him, and so many to scaffolds and lay down their
lives for Him ; they sought no more but His com
mission ; they went, and He carried them well
through. Again, in 1679, at Bothwell, He bade so
many go to the fields and scaffolds and die for
Him ; they sought no more but His commission ;
they went, and He carried them well through. He
bade so many go to the seas, and be meat for the
fishes for Him ; they sought no more but His

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 143
commission ; they went, and he carried them well
through. And afterwards, in 1680, at Airdsmoss,
He bade so many go to the fields and scaffolds
for Him ; they sought no more but His commis
sion and went, and He carried them well through.
This cup of suffering hath come all the way
down from Abel to this year 1682 in Scotland.
Our Lord hath held this cup to all the martyrs'
heads wherever He had a Church in the world,
and it will go to all the lips of all the martyrs that
are to suffer for Christ, even to the sounding of the
last trumpet. But yet, people of God, it is only the
brim that the saints taste of. Be ye patient in be
lieving. . . . Our noble Captain of salvation hath
vanquished these bloody persecutors in Scotland
these twenty-two years, more by the patient suffer
ings of the saints than if He had threshed down
all in a moment. The patient suffering of the
saints, with their blood running, declares His glory
much abroad in the world, and especially in these
lands. As I came through the country there
was a poor widow whose husband fell at Both-
well. The bloody soldiers came to plunder her
house, telling her ' they would take all she had ; we
will leave thee nothing, either to put in thee or on

144 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
thee.' ' I care not,' said she ; ' I shall not want so
long as God is in the heavens.' That was a believ
er, indeed."
" They went, and he carried them well through."
What a sweet refrain that is! and can it be possi
ble that we have a faint echo of this old sermon in
the words put by Mrs. Cross intp the mouth of Adam
Bede regarding Moses, " He carried a hard business
well through ?" I cannot tell ; but this I know, that
no one who heard these oft-repeated words that day
would ever be able to forget them, especially when
we think of them as uttered by a man whose manner
is thus described by one who was often in his congre
gation : " Although every act of worship that Peden
was engaged in was full of divine flights and useful
digressions, yet he carried along with them a divine
stamp; and such was the weighty and convincing
majesty th'a^ accompanied what he spoke, that it
obliged the hearers both to love and fear him. I
observed that every time he spoke, whether con
versing, reading, praying, or preaching, between ev
ery sentence he paused a little, as if he had been
hearkening what the Lord would say unto him, or
listening to some secret whisper ; and sometimes
he would start as if he had seen some surprising

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 145
sight." * There was that about him, therefore, that
irresistibly suggested to men his communion with
the unseen. He spoke " as seeing Him who is in
visible," and there was the hiding of his power while
pleading with his fellow-men.
Then, in the midst of all, was evermore Jesus on
the cross. To Him these preachers pointed their
hearers ; from Him they drew their inspiration; and
out of love to Him they carried on the struggle in
which they were engaged. "Ye are bought with
a price, be not ye therefore the bond -servants of
men;" that was the principle by which they were
actuated. They sought independence from men,
that they might keep themselves entirely for Christ.
This was what they meant by their enforcement
of " the headship of Christ ;" and they contended
for Christ's crown because they felt that they had
been purchased on Christ's cross. We do not claim
for them the highest scholarship, the profoundest
thought, the most polished style, or the finest elo
quence, but we do claim for them that they preach
ed Christ most effectively, and that they drew for
themselves, and exhorted all their hearers to draw,
* Sergeant James Nisbet, quoted in "The Bass Rock," pp.
52, 53.

146 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
their motives for their daily conduct from the cross
of their Redeemer ; and to all their detractors they
might have said with Paul, " From henceforth let
no man trouble us, for we bear in our bodies the
marks of onr Lord Jesus."
I have given you from a living Presbyterian poet
a portrait of the good Archbishop Leighton; let
me gratify myself by concluding this lecture with
the description given by the Episcopalian Grahame
of the Covenanters' Sabbath gatherings, in his poem
on "The Sabbath:" "Long ere the dawn, by devious ways,
O'er hills, through woods, o'er dreary wastes, they sought
The upland woods, where rivers— there but brooks —
Dispart to different seas. Fast by such brooks
A little glen is sometimes scooped, a plat
With greensward gray, and flowers that strangers seem
Amid the heathery wild, that all around
Fatigues the eye. In solitudes like these
Thy persecuted children, Scotia, foiled
A tyrant's afld a bigot's bloody laws:
There, leaning on his spear, . . .
The lyart veteran heard the Word of God
By Cameron thundered or by Renwick pour'd
In gentle stream. Then rose the song, the loud
Acclaim of praise; the wheeling plover ceased
Her plaint; the solitary place was glad;
And on the distant cairn the watcher's ear
Caught doubtfully at times the breeze-borne note.
But years more gloomy followed, and no more
The assembled people dared in face of day

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.— FIELD-PREACHERS. 147
To worship God, or even at the dead
Of night, save when the wintry storm raved fierce,
And thunder-peals compelled the men of blood
To crouch within their dens. Then dauntlessly
The scattered few would meet in some deep dell
By rock o'er-canopied, to hear the voice —
Their faithful pastor's voice. He, by the gleam
Of sheeted lightning, ope'd the sacred book,
And words of comfort spake; over their souls
His accents soothing came, as to her young
The heath-fowl's plumes, when at the close of eve
She gathers in, mournful, her brood dispersed
By murderous sport, and o'er the remnant spreads
Fondly her wing. Close nestling 'neath her breast,
They, cherished, cower amid the purple blooms."
The lines have fallen unto us in pleasanter places ;
but as we sit under the spreading branches of the
goodly tree of liberty, it becomes us to remember
that the roots thereof were nourished long ago by
the blood of these men, and of the brethren and
companions of these men, of whom we have been
speaking. "With a great price" they purchased
this liberty that we might be "free-born." Let us
therefore " stand fast in the liberty wherewith,"
through them, " Christ has made us free."

Y.
THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS.
During the eighteenth century a marked change
came over the Scottish Pulpit. That was the peri
od generally described as the Reign of the Moder
ates, concerning whom opinions will differ, according
to the point of view from which they are contem
plated. If, for example, with Dean Stanley we
occupy the position of Broad -Churchism, we will
regard them as the advanced spirits of their age,
seeking that comprehension of all creeds and classes
in an Established Church which was the ecclesias
tical ideal of that accomplished author. But if we
have any love for definite theological teaching on
such subjects as the Fall of Man and the Atonement
of Christ, or anything like what seem to me to be
Scriptural views of the importance of Regeneration
and Conversion, we will look upon the age of their
ascendancy as one of dark and disastrous eclipse.
The name by which they are popularly denomi
nated was not one of reproach, given to them by

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 149
their antagonists, but was assumed and gloried in
by themselves ; so that we are guilty of no mere
appeal to prejudice against them when we employ
the term. We have already seen that at and af
ter the Revolution-settlement the Church of Scot
land, so far as the ministry was concerned, consisted
of a strange agglomeration of heterogeneous ingre
dients. The sixty survivors of those four hun
dred ministers who had been "outed" in 1662,
though they formed the nucleus of the reorganiza
tion, were in reality, after a few years, only a small
minority of the whole. The majority was made
up of those who, having held cures during the
years of Episcopacy, retained them through con
forming to Presbyterianism, and who were ready
to submit to patronage enactments, and everything
else, rather than give up their livings. These last
were men of no education, little versed in doctri
nal matters, and in some instances knowing nothing
of, and caring less than nothing for, the great prin
ciples which were so dear to the Covenanters. The
consequence was that they were averse to every
thing distinctively evangelical. They had nothing
but rebuke for those who were concerned in the re
publication and annotation of a book entitled "The

150 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
Marrow of Modern Divinity," which with some ex
travagance of statement here and there put in the
centre of its teaching the fact that God had made
a gift of His Son Jesus Christ for salvation to man
kind sinners as such ; and they deposed the fathers
of the Secession for their repudiation of Patronage.
But they tolerated for years the Socinian teachings
of Simpson, who was Professor of Theology in Glas
gow, and at length deprived him of his chair only
when his own imprudent publication of his opin
ions rendered it impossible for them with decency
to retain him. This does not look much like com
prehension, but it is only another illustration of the
fact which history has often attested — that the intol
erance of so-called liberals is frequently the worst
form of tyranny.
With this hatred of evangelical truth — I speak of
the party, not*of individuals — there was ultimate
ly combined a devotion to the graces of style and
rhetoric which was no doubt largely due to the law
of reaction. In the preaching of the latter half of
the seventeenth century little attention had been
paid to literary matters. As Rainy has said :
"Culture, development of literature, development
of taste, deliberate adaptation of means to ends, had

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 151
been wofully checked and marred. The peaceful
processes by which those who teach and those who
learn find out one another's meaning, the processes
by which mind in each generation is laid under
contribution for new and various services, had been
sadly interrupted. ... A man who preached as he
could and when he could, in a house or on a hill
side, was not likely to take much care of his style.
And the habit of the pulpit had retained in point
of fact much of the old dialect and much of the old
way of dividing and arranging topics, [and] it did so
at a time when in general literature the most rapid
improvement was taking place in these very partic
ulars, an improvement which that age was rather
disposed to overvalue." *
Now the Moderate party, as a party, gave itself as
siduously to the cultivation of these literary graces,
and much good would have come out of that if only
it had been subordinated to the higher end of the
proclamation of the Gospel. But the misfortune was
that the Moderates put the means into the place of
the end, so that in their hands the sermon became a
mere literary product rather than an instrument for
* "Three Lectures on the Church of Scotland," p. 77. Rob
ert Rainy, D. D., in reply to Dean Stanley.

152 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
the conversion and edification of souls. No more
striking exemplification of the sad influence which
such a practice must have upon the efficiency of the
pulpit can be found anywhere than in the history of
the Scottish Moderates. First, there was made by
them a modification of Christianity, so as to harmo
nize it with culture ; then there was developed a
tendency to dwell rather on those things which are
common to it with natural religion than on such
things as are and always have been " a stumbling-
block " to " the Jew " and " foolishness." to " the
Greek." This was followed by a merely moral
teaching, in which all doctrine was ignored, and dis
sertations on the virtues took the place of exposi
tions of the Scriptures, and that in its turn was
succeeded in some quarters by something that was
little more than the baldest Deism. The same de
velopment wa| seen, unless I have misunderstood
all that I have read upon the subject, in New Eng
land, at the time of the Unitarian defection, and the
two histories together utter a loud warning, which
I trust yon young men will heed, against allowing
the secondary to usurp the place of the primary,
and cultivating literature or scholarship to the neg
lect of that for the attainment of which alone in

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 153
the pulpit these things are of any value. " The
body is more than raiment." The raiment, indeed,
in its own place is not to be despised, and the cos
tume of a well-dressed gentleman is better by far
than the blanket of the Indian ; but as a covering
for the dead, neither is of any great consequence,
for it is only the living body that gives importance
to the raiment. So cultivate style, the style of your
own times, the best style of your own times, for
there is no need of adhering in that matter to any
Quaker-like, stereotypic anachronism ; but see to it
that the style clothes the living truth, and is meant
not only for the expression, but also for the protec
tion of that truth, else the result will be as disas
trous with yon as it was in Scotland. For the
preaching of virtue, alas! did not make men virt
uous, and those vices which are said to be most
common among the lower orders of the Scottish
people, became more prevalent than ever under
such instructors.*
Of the Moderates, as preachers, the only man
whose sermons have come down to us with any
* See "The Scottish Philosophy," p. 19. James McCosh,
D.D..LL.D. 7*

154 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
great prestige is Dr. Hugh Blaee. He was the
great-grandson of that Robert Blair of St. Andrews
whom the English merchant described as having
shown him " the majesty of God," and the son of an
Edinburgh citizen. Born in 1718, he was educated
at the university of his native city, and was licensed
as a preacher in 1741. Within a year after that he
was ordained to the charge of Colessie, in Fife ;
thence, in 1743, he was translated to Edinburgh,
where he labored first in the Canongate, then in
Lady Yester's, and finally in the High Church, until
his death in 1800, at the age of eighty-two. He
was distinguished in his literary course for an essay
" On the Beautiful," and at the taking of his mas
ter's degree for a thesis, "De fundamentis et obliga-
tione legis naturge," which his biographer says, with
great naivete, "exhibits in elegant Latin an outline
of the moral principles which have since been more
fully unfolded and illustrated in his sermons."*
During the early years of his pastorate of the High
Church he prepared and delivered a course of lect
ures on Rhetoric and Belles-lettres in the university,
and he was subsequently appointed as professor of
* James Finlayson, D.D., in sketch prefixed to the "Peo
ple's Edition " of Blair's Sermons, p. xii.

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 155
these subjects to a chair which was founded and en
dowed for him by the Crown. It is evident from
these facts that he had addicted himself, if not to
literary pursuits, at least to the pursuit of literature,
and that he belonged to that coterie of which the
historian Robertson was the head, and which had
the merit of originating and promoting that Renais
sance, as I may call it, of elegance and taste which
made the Edinburgh of that age so remarkable.*
Of his sermons, which were originally published
in five volumes, it may be said that they were un
duly praised at the time of their appearance, and
that they are as unduly neglected now. Samuel
Johnson called them " auro magis aurei ;" and King
George the Third, who was a great patron of Blair,
and who gave him a pension of two hundred pounds
a year, is reported to have often said that he wished
to hear that the Bible and Blair's sermons were in
the hands of every youth in the United Kingdom.
These opinions from the leader of literature and the
leader of fashion may perhaps account in some de
gree for the number of editions through which
Blair's sermons passed ; whjle the fact that the dis-
* See note at the end of this lecture.

156 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
tinctive features of the Gospel are largely absent
from them may explain the oblivion into which
now they have fallen. But for style and method
they may still be studied with advantage, though
they do not now, of course, hold the same relatively
high place in these respects which they did at the
date of their publication. They have a distinctively
modern cast, and his mode of opening up and di
viding a subject is often felicitous and suggestive.
In matter, however, they are exceedingly defective.
One is prepared to find that this will be the case
from the very terms employed by the editor of
the People's Edition in his preface, to this effect :
" They treat of life and death, hell and judgment ;
of the superintendence of an overruling Provi
dence who directs and governs all the affairs of this
life; of the certainty of the Rewards which await
the just who fulfil the precepts and obey the laws
of their Creator and Redeemer; and the tremen
dous punishment which the wicked will suffer in
another world who break His commandments and
despise His statutes in this life."
This is a fair representation of the contents of the
volumes, and, as you perceive, these are all doctrines
of merely natural religion ; for there is in the enu-

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 157
meration no allusion whatever to the Cross of Christ,
and the truths that either centre in or radiate from
that. But it would be unjust to say that Blair did
not believe in the Atonement, or that he absolutely
never preached about it. Out of the ninety-one ser
mons which he printed, six were preached on occa
sion of the administration of the Lord's Supper, and
in at least three or four of these we have such distinct
and unqualified statements of the expiatory nature
of the death of Christ as no Socinian could have
made. But there is little allusion to that subject
in the rest of the discourses. They treat of religion,
virtue, piety, vice, etc., as abstractions ; and we have
dissertations on " The Disorder of the Passions," on
" The Importance of Order in Conduct," on " Can
dor," on "The Love of Praise," on "Envy," on
"Friendship," and the like; but we have not a
word on Repentance, Regeneration, or Faith, and,
so far as I have discovered from a somewhat careful
examination, there is no allusion to the existence or
.agency of the Holy Spirit in the whole five volumes.
It would not be fair to say that he did not hold the
Doctrine of the Atonement, but judging from his
published sermons he certainly did not put it in
the place which it occupies in the New Testament,

158 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
and he did not hold it as Paul held it. His ser
mons were, for the most part, moral disquisitions
without the background of the Cross, and all the
beauty of style to which a man can attain will not
make amends for the absence of that; while, again,
the absolute ignoring of the Holy Spirit must have
deprived his utterances of power, for Keble has
written no truer lines than these :
"The spirit must still the darkling deep,
The dove must light upon the cross,
Else we should all sin on or sleep
With Christ in view — turning our gain to loss."
And if that be the case, even " with Christ in
view," it must be so, d fortiori, when he is studi
ously kept out of sight.
I remember hearing a shrewd Scotchman describe
a minister of the Blair stamp as "a very innocent
preacher," meaning thereby that he would do no
great damage to Satan's kingdom in the world, and
that was true ; but as far as the kingdom of Christ
is concerned, we can predicate no such innocence
of those who preach discourses of this type, for they
lull souls into false security, and they prepare the
way for still wider defection from the truth by oth
ers. And both of these effects were undeniably pro-.

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 159
duced by Blair and his associates ; for by-and-by the
people lost their relish for the Gospel in its purity,
and called its preachers " high-flyers," " enthusiasts,"
"zealots," and the like, because they asserted the
depravity of the heart, and said to their hearers, as
Jesus-said to Nicodemus, " Ye must be born again."
Nor was this all, for others began where Blair left
off, and things must have come to a poor pass
when David Hume could say to his friend Alexan
der Carlyle, the minister of Inveresk, after hearing
him preach a sermon in the pulpit of John Home,
the author of the tragedy of Douglas, " What did
you mean by treating John's people to-day to one
of Cicero's Academics? I did not think such
heathen morality could have passed in East Lo
thian." It was bad enough when such a charge
could be brought with truth against a preacher
of the Gospel by any man ; it was worse that
David Hume should have had it in his power to
bring it ; but that he against whom it was brought
should have esteemed it as an honor, and should
have recorded it in his diary as such, was worst
of all*
* "Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle," edited by J.H.
Burton, p. 276.

160 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
Even in this time of darkness, however, there
were some who were " faithful found among the
faithless ;" and of these the first in time, and among
the foremost in influence, was Thomas Boston, au
thor of " The Fourfold State," a work which was
for nearly a century a household hand-book of the
ology among the Scottish peasantry. Born at Duns
in 1676, he had, as a little boy, kept his father com
pany when he was suffering in the jail of his native
town for nonconformity. He was early brought
under the power of the truth through the instru
mentality of Henry Erskine, the father of the
brothers Ebenezer and Ralph, who afterwards be
came the leaders of the Secession. He studied at
the University of Edinburgh, and was licensed to
preach in 1697, ordained over the little parish of
Simprim in 1699, and transferred in 1707 to the
parish of Ettrgck, where he labored till his death,
in 1732. His sermons, of which a large number
were published, had few of the graces of style,
either in composition or delivery, though here and
there in them we come upon epigrammatic and
suggestive sentences. They were cast, withal, in the
mould of the times, beginning with a painful open
ing up of the text and a statement of the doctrine

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 161
to be insisted upon ; then proceeding to an exposi
tion of that through four or five heads, each having
under it a series of particulars, and the whole fol
lowed by an application in which was a series of
uses — as, for example, in one case, taken almost at
random — use first, for information ; use second, for
trial ; use third, for motive. They show also, in
the prominence which they give to the covenant of
works and the covenant of grace, the influence of
that close intercourse between the Church of Scot
land and the Church of Holland which was main
tained before, during, and for some little time after
the era of the Persecution. They are not, there
fore, very attractive reading now, and will be resort
ed to only by those who are impelled to study them
for some specific historic purpose. But they are
full of Christ, and they are particularly noteworthy
for the fulness and the freeness with which they
press the offer of Christ and His salvation upon
men. While visiting one of his parishioners he came
upon a book called " The Marrow of Modern Divin
ity," which had been written by one Edward Fish
er, an Oxford scholar, and which had been brought,
no one could tell how, when, or by whom, to the

162 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
place immediately beneath the thatch in which it
was discovered. There it had lain long, like the
grain of wheat in the mummy's hand, but in the
heart of Boston it took root and germinated. It
was republished by one of Boston's friends, and
twelve of the ministers of the Church were rebuked
by the Assembly for giving their sanction to what
Principal Hadow of St. Andrews alleged to be its
errors. In the words of the elder McCrie, " The
Marrow doctrine, while it holds forth a complete
salvation, presents a revealed ground — call it an
offer, or promise, or deed of gift, or grant from
God, warranting sinners as such, irrespective of any
decree, or any qualification connected with the de
cree, to believe in, receive, and rest upon Christ for
all they need for their recovery and happiness." *
Its author sometimes indulged in language which,
unless qualified by what he had elsewhere said,
might have been taken as implying that assurance
is of the essence of faith, and that believers are not
under obligation to obey the law. But from all
such ambiguities and errors the Scottish "Marrow
men," as they were called, kept themselves free,
* "The Evangelical Succession," Second Series, p. 95.

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 163
and the controversy which resulted from their pub
lication of the book only issued in giving a wider
publicity to the truth which Boston and his breth
ren proclaimed. "Christ," said he, "is given to
mankind sinners indefinitely ; not to the elect alone,
but to sinners indefinitely elect or non-elect — sin
ners of the race of Adam, without exception." *
Along with this he insisted most strenuously on the
necessity of the agency of the Holy Spirit, and on
the absolute essentialness of holy living as the fruit
and evidence of regeneration ; and the result was
seen in the quickening and sanctifying of many
souls, not only in the parishes of the Marrow men,
but all over the country.
And the wine of this new life burst the old wine
skin within which it was confined. For the Mar
row controversy had really as much to do with the
first Secession from the Scottish Church as Patron
age, and the doctrines which I have just described
were from the beginning the leading characteristics
of the theological teachings of the Seceders. By
the brothers Ebenezee and Ralph Eeskine, especial-
* "The Evangelical Succession," Second Series, p. 94.

164 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
ly, they were proclaimed with such power that they
not only leavened the new denomination of which
they were the leaders, but also did much to keep
the lamp of truth from going out in many quarters
of the land. The Secession itself dates from 1733 ;
but Ebenezer Erskine had been in the ministry first
at Portmoak, on the shore of Loch Leven, and after
wards at Stirling from 1703 ; and Ralph had been
ordained in Dunfermline in 1711. They were, as I
have already stated incidentally, the sons of Henry
Erskine, who had been a sufferer both in England
and Scotland from the tyranny of the Stuarts. They
were educated at the University of Edinburgh, and
were in every respect the peers of the ablest of their
contemporaries. I have said enough about their
secession in my introductory lecture, and must here
confine myself to their influence as preachers. Of
Ebenezer's discourses I have three volumes, and of
Ralph's works ten, and all that I have said regard
ing Boston's sermons is equally true of these. Of
the two, Ebenezer is the more stately, dignified, and
measured, and Ralph the more fervid and full of
unction, especially in the closing appeals, which ex
cel everything of the kind which I have read of
that age, except it may be those of Baxter ; not cer-

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 105
tainly in literary style, but in the wonderful fine
ness and power with which he presses sinners to
accept of Christ. One said of Ebenezer : " If you
have never heard him preach, then you have never
heard the Gospel in its majesty ;" and after reading
these applications at the end of Ralph's discourses
I am almost disposed to say that if you have never
read them, you have never read the Gospel in its
freeness. The sermons of both were fully written out, and
were delivered memoriter ; for Ebenezer says in the
preface to one of them which he published, because
he had been accused of saying something in it which
he had not said, " It is my practice to write all that
I have a mind to say in public. It is true, indeed,
I do not pretend to such an exact memory as that
I can confine myself in the delivery to everything
in my notes without varying a word, but yet I used
to be pretty exact that way." Of Ralph, one of his
biographers says that, " for the most part, he wrote
all and kept close to his notes " (that is, delivered
memoriter precisely as he had written), " though if
anything was given him in the moment of utterance
he could avail himself of that also." He had a
metaphysical mind, and excelled in making accurate

166 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
distinctions — a quality which especially comes out in
his work entitled "Faith no Fancy" — which even
such philosophers as Hamilton and McCosh have
spoken of with approbation. Singularly enough, in
combination with that philosophic acumen, he had
something also of the poetic faculty, and his Gospel
Sonnets, despite the uncouthness of the rhymes and
the oddness of the conceits which are constantly re
curring, do yet contain some ingenious and strik
ing thoughts, rising up, as in his verses on the " Con
test in Heaven," to at least the verge of the sub
lime. They used to be very popular in rural Scot
tish homes, and in my boyhood I have heard them
quoted with much unction by ministers in their ad
dresses at the communion-table.
But for the Secession the influence of these two
brothers would have been confined mainly to their
own immediate neighborhoods ; but the travels and
preachings incidental to the planting and organiz
ing of new congregations in the new denomination
took them to districts in all quarters of the land,
and wherever they went their word was with pow
er. Thus the very efforts of the Moderates to
stamp out the flame only scattered the sparks in
different directions, where the hearts of the people

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 167
being already prepared for their reception, caught
fire from them and burned with a devout enthusi
asm.

While the Erskines and their coadjutors were
laboring thus outside of the National Church, there
were some eminent men of devoted Christian spir
it and earnest Evangelical faith who deserve to
be held in honorable remembrance for their noble
work within its pale. Among these, perhaps the
foremost place must be given to John Maolauein,
who was born in Argyleshire in 1693, educated in
Glasgow and Leyden, and ordained at Luss, on the
banks of Loch Lomond, in 1719, whence he was trans
ferred to the North-west parish in Glasgow, where
he labored till his death, in 1754. Some of his ser
mons were given to the world by his son-in-law af
ter his death, and they must be classed among the
greatest which were published in the eighteenth
century in -the English language. They are thor
oughly evangelical in their substance, but much
more attractive in their style than those of Boston
and the Erskines. They have a grandeur and mas-
siveness about them which are quite remarkable, and
they abound in original, profound, and suggestive

168 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
thought. Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, was fond
of quoting from them, and he usually introduced
his citation by styling Maclaurin " the first of our
Scottish theologians," or " the profound Maclaurin ;"
and of his discourse on " Glorying in the Cross,"
which Dr. Eadie has called " one of the noblest in
the language," Dr. Brown has said 'that it exhibits
" the glories of the cross of Christ with a depth of
spiritual understanding and feeling, and a force of
argument and eloquence, seldom equalled, and still
more seldom combined." It is free from all the
mannerisms that were so common in the preaching
of that age, and marches on with a stately step and
solemn cadence worthy of its theme. Ornate in
language without being diffuse, it is literally packed
with meaning and lustrous with clearness. We
have no description of his manner, and cannot tell
whether he read,his discourses or delivered them
from memory, but if given with anything like the
condensed power with which it is written, such a pas
sage as the following must have produced a great
effect upon his hearers: "Here shine spotless jus
tice, incomprehensible wisdom, and infinite love, all
at once. None of these darkens or eclipses the oth
ers ; every one of them gives a lustre to the rest.

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 169
They mingle their beams with united eternal splen
dor — the just Judge, the merciful Father, and the
wise Governor. No other object gives such a dis
play of all these perfections ; yea, all the objects we
know give not such a display of any one of them.
Nowhere does justice appear so awful, mercy so
amiable, or wisdom so profound." See how every
word tells. There is not a superfluous syllable.
No epithets are used for padding. Every clause is
a distinct thought. Thus the discourse moves on,
gathering force as it goes, and well sustaining the
weight even of such a theme. Indeed, if Maclaurin
errs at all, it is in the condensation of his thought
into the briefest expression. We do not feel that
he is obscure as we read, but some of his listeners
complained that he was difficult to follow as they
heard; and we must not forget Whateley's cau
tion, that " bulk is needful to digestion," and that
judicious expansion is sometimes as powerful as
a condensed epigram.
Maclaurin wrote also some valuable essays on
such subjects as " The Prejudices of men against
the Gospel" and "The Scripture Doctrine of Di
vine Grace ;" and perhaps most interesting of all to
us here is the fact that he was a correspondent of

170 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
Jonathan Edwards, and was, like him, distinguished
for the part he took in the revival of religion.
When the fathers of the Secession so strangely
quarrelled with Whitefield, because, during his visit
to Scotland, he would not confine his ministrations
to their pulpits, Maclaurin was full of joy at his
work, and personally co-operated with those who
carried on the movement which he began at Cam-
buslang. He was the chief contriver and promoter
of the " concert for prayer " which had been acceded
to by numbers both in Great Britain and America,
and for which Edwards wrote one of his Treatises.*
There can be no doubt, therefore, that the influence
of Maclaurin was very largely effective in keeping
the truth before the minds of the people in the
west of Scotland during the early portion of the
Moderate ascendancy. His writings have been re
cently republished under the editorship of the Rev.
Dr. Goold, of Edinburgh, and they may still be
studied with advantage by those who are preparing
for or actually engaged in the work of the ministry.

* The title of Edwards's treatise is, "An humble Attempt to
promote explicit Agreement and visible Union of God's Peo
ple in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and
the Advancement of Christ's Kingdom on Earth."

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 171
Another of the earnest spirits in the Scottish
Church at this time was John Witheespoon, a lineal
descendant of John Knox. He was born in 1722,
educated at the University of Edinburgh, and set
tled first at Beith, in Ayrshire, then at Paisley, in
Renfrewshire. He was an effective and popular
preacher. His works on Justification and Regen
eration are not unknown even in these days, and
show the manner of man he was in the pulpit.
But there was a vein of satire in him which came
out in his volume entitled "Ecclesiastical Charac
teristics," in which the Moderates were held up to
ridicule in the raciest style. But the sting of the
wit was mostly in its truth, and that made him
many enemies, who were in no degree mollified by
a second volume, which he issued in defence of the
first. On one occasion, however, his zeal outran
his discretion, for hearing that ou the night pre
vious to the communion a set of youths held a
meeting in Paisley, at which they travestied the
preaching and praying and the dispensation of the
Supper, he delivered and published a sermon on
the matter, giving the names of the offenders.
This subjected him to an action at law in which
he was cast in costs ; and shortly afterwards, hav-

172 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT."
ing received an invitation to succeed Edwards in
the presidency of Princeton College, he transferred
himself to this country, where he did admirable
service both in Church and State, and where his
name is still held in honor as that of. one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence. In
him, as in John Mason, the pulpits of Scotland and
America touched each other. As in the vine of
Joseph the branches ran over the wall, so the Scot
tish pulpit, through these noble men, spread over
into this land and enriched it with its fruit.
Mention ought also to be made of such men as
Willison of Dundee, the elder Sir Henry Mon-
ceieff, and others, but we must pass over them to
make room for Dr. John Eeskine, of Edinburgh —
not to be confounded with the Secession brothers
of the same surname. Born in 1721, he was the
son of a distinguished Scottish lawyer,* and was
educated at the University of Edinburgh. He be
came minister of the parish of Kirkintilloch in
1744, and was transferred in 1758 to Edinburgh,
where he was pastor first of New Greyfriars and
finally of Old Greyfriars, in the latter of which he
* He was the author of the "Institutes of the Law of Scot
land," and is still frequently called " The Scottish Blackstone."

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 173
was the colleague of Principal Robertson, the his
torian. He was for long the leader of the Evan
gelicals in the Assembly, as Robertson was of the
Moderates, and was distinguished alike for his abil
ity as a preacher, his earnestness as a Christian, and
his zeal for liberty as a citizen. He, too, was a cor
respondent of Edwards, and his was the first voice
raised in Scotland against the monstrous injustice
of the war which the government of Great Britain
entered upon with her North American colonies,
and which resulted in the independence of these
United States. Hugh Miller says that his tract,
" Shall I go to War with my American Brethren ?"
is among the most powerful of his productions.*
He published many able works in practical and doc
trinal theology, and died in 1803. The father of
Sir Walter Scott was one of his elders, and the
most accurate and striking description of his public
ministrations is given by the great novelist, very
evidently from personal familiarity with that which
he portrays, in the following paragraph, which I
extract from " Guy Mannering :" f " The colleague
* See the volume of Miller's works entitled ' ' Headship of
Christ," p. 147.
{ "Guy Mannering," chap, xxxvii.

174 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
of Dr. Robertson ascended the pulpit. His exter
nal appearance was not prepossessing. A remark
ably fair complexion, strangely contrasted with a
black wig without a grain of powder; a narrow
chest, and a stooping posture ; hands which, placed
like props on either side of the pulpit, seemed nec
essary rather to support the person than to assist
the gesticulation of the preacher — no gown, not
even that of Geneva, a tumbled band, and a gesture
which seemed scarce voluntary, were the first cir
cumstances which struck a stranger. ... A lecture
was delivered, fraught with new, striking, and enter
taining views of Scripture history — a sermon in
which the Calvinism of the Kirk of Scotland was
ably supported, yet made the basis of a sound sys
tem of practical morals which should neither shelter
the sinner under the cloak of speculative faith or of
peculiarity of opinion, nor leave him loose to the
waves of unbelief and schism. Something the"re
was of an antiquated turn of argument and meta
phor, but it only served to give zest and peculiarity
to the style of elocution. The sermon was not
read — a scrap of paper containing the heads of the
discourse was occasionally referred to, and the
enunciation, which at first seemed imperfect and

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 175
embarrassed, became, as the preacher warmed in
his progress, animated and distinct ; and although
the discourse could not be quoted as a correct speci
men of pulpit eloquence, yet Mannering had seldom
heard so much learning, metaphysical acutcness, and
energy of argument brought into the service of
Christianity. 'Such,' he said, going out of the
church, 'must have been the preachers to whose
unfearing minds and acute though sometimes rude
ly exercised talents we owe the Reformation.' "
The era of Moderate ascendancy was now ap
proaching its zenith. It culminated in the famous
debate on Missions in the General Assembly of
1796, of which Hugh Miller has given a graphic de
scription in a series of valuable articles,* and which
ended in the defeat of the friends of missions, who
were led by Dr. Erskine, of whom wo have just
spoken. But a reaction was at hand, and the fore
most place in the production of that must be given
to Andrew Thomson, whose name is still venerated
in his native land. He was born at Sanquhar in
1779, where his father was then minister of the
* See "The Headship of Christ," vbi supra.

176 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
parish church ; and after some years spent at Mar-
kinch, in Fife, to which his father had removed, he
was educated at the University of Edinburgh, and
ordained to the ministry in 1802 at Sprouston,
whence in 1808 he was removed to Perth, and
thence in 1810 to Edinburgh, where he labored first
in the New Greyfriars Church, and afterwards in
St. George's, until his death on his own door-step in
1831, at the comparatively early age of fifty-two.
We have seen that the early Moderates devoted
their attention to the cultivation of the graces of
literature to the exclusion of the Gospel, and that
the early Evangelicals, with but few conspicuous
exceptions, confined themselves almost exclusively
to the presentation of the Gospel, after a certain
stereotyped and systematic fashion, with little or no
regard to elegance of style or manner. Their dis
courses were bfld in illustration, and broken up
into fragments by numerous divisions and subdi
visions, which prevented their attaining anything
like climatic force. They were, besides, frequently
delivered in a drawling, sing-song chant — a kind of
" holy tone," as some irreverently called it— which
was exceeding unnatural. Thus both parties had
run into an extreme ; and though, of the two, that

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 177
of the Moderates was by far the worse, yet it has to
be noted that the habits into which the Evangelicals
had allowed themselves to fall, tended to alienate
the cultivated and refined from their ministrations.
However unnecessary it may seem to some in
these days, there was then undeniable occasion for
the protest against divorcing evangelical truth from
literary culture, which was so forcibly uttered by
John Foster in his " Essay on the Aversion of Men
of Taste to Evangelical Religion," and it must be
confessed that in Scotland the Evangelicals had
grievously erred in this particular. Even Ralph
Erskine, whose general scholarship might have en
abled him to excel in this department, instead of
attempting to conciliate or attract cultivated minds
by his attention to literary elegance, accounted it as
an evidence of spiritual defection in the community
that, as he said, " a world of people that come under
the name of wits, and people of fine taste, are pleased
with no sermons but such as are artificially decked
with the flowers of gaudy rhetoric and tricky ora
tory, and this comes to be preferred to plain, pow
erful, spiritual preaching." * The good man refers
* "Works, "vol. ii., p. 250.
S*

178 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
to Paul's allegation to the Corinthians, that he had
not come to them with " wisdom of words ;" but in
the same Epistle the same apostle declares that " he
was made all things to all men, that he might by
all means save some," and he would have been vast
ly wiser if, without in any way concealing the truth
from view, he had striven by the " craft " of literary
grace to catch such men with " guile."
Now it was the merit of Andrew Thomson that
he brought back culture into the pulpit without in
the least degree obscuring the Cross. The Gospel
was always in the central and highest place in his
discourses, but he clothed it in attractive forms, and
was as eminent for the beauty of his composition
as any of the best writers of his day; while the
force of his eloquence was not surpassed save by
the irresistible oratory of Chalmers. In point of
fact, he began tlfe work which Chalmers carried for
ward to its consummation, and there are few nobler
names in the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland than
those of these two men who were for a time con
temporaries and friends. Neither of them would
have placed literature above the Gospel, but both
believed that they should serve the Lord with their
best, and that it was their duty to set forth the

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 179
doctrines of the Cross in the form best fitted to se
cure the attention of their hearers. It had come to
be the belief of a large part of the community that
to be an Evangelical was a mark of intellectual
weakness and literary uncouthness ; but in Thom
son they beheld one who in both of these respects
was equal, if not superior, to the ablest lawyer or
author in the land, and they were in a manner com
pelled to respect the position which he took.
While, therefore, the history of the Moderate pul
pit gives emphatic warning of the evil which must
ensue from the cultivation of the means as if they
were the end, that of the Evangelical pulpit thus
far is no less emphatic in its exposure of the danger
of neglecting altogether the proper adjustment of
means to the end. There is here a case for the ap
plication of the Saviour's words, " This ought ye to
have done, and not to have left the other undone."
The primary obligation is to preach the Gospel — that
ought to be done ; the secondary is not to neglect all
proper means for so preaching it that people will
be drawn to listen to and believe it — that ought not
to be left undone. There will be always offence in
the cross to the natural heart, but the preacher's aim
ought ever to be to secure that he does not add to

180 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
that by any negligence or slovenliness or ungrace-
fulness of his own either in writing or in utterance.
Reverting to the illustration which we have already
used, " the body is more than raiment," but the
raiment is not, therefore, of no consequence. With
the Moderates too often there was nothing but rai
ment, and the result was a " tailor's dummy " — the
garments exquisitely cut and admirably made, but
no living form within them. With the Evangeli
cals far too frequently the raiment was ragged and
torn, evoking the ridicule of the spectators, and
leaving the living body bare in many places to the
sarcasm of the scorner. Between these two ex
tremes the ideal preacher will choose to adopt that
dress for his message which shall best commend it
to all classes, and defend it from all assault.
This was the course Dr. Andrew Thomson adopt
ed, and for sucdess in it he was singularly well en
dowed. He had a fine, manly presence, a wonder
ful ear for music, in which he was a great proficient,
a voice of surpassing power and flexibility, and an
exquisite sense of rhythmic harmony m the selec
tion of words. He had a commanding intellect, a
thorough knowledge of the world, unwavering faith
in the great principles of the Gospel, and unflinch-

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 181
ing boldness combined with wonderful tact in the
advocacy of unpopular truth. As Lord Moncrief
said lately, " he was one of those orators who made
your heart palpitate to hear." * Up till the time of
his entering on the ministry of St. George's he had
not been in the habit of writing his discourses, but,
after premeditation, had trusted to his natural flu
ency, when heated by the fire of the pulpit, to sup
ply him with the expressions which he needed.
But when he went to his new charge, and sought
to gather round him the best minds in the city, he
changed his method and wrote two discourses every
week, which he read from his manuscript in the
pulpit. But the freedom of his off-hand manner
remained, so that even when reading his eye was
everywhere among the people, and he kept himself
thoroughly en rapport with them. It was of im
mense consequence just then, not only that he
should give diligent preparation to his discourses,
but also that it should be seen and known of all
that he had done so, and the result showed that he
had judged wisely, for the effect of his attention to
these matters was very soon apparent. Lockhart, in
* Address at the Centenary of Chalmers in 1880.

182 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
his " Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk," has described
it thus: "I am assured that church -going was a
thing comparatively out of fashion among the fine
folks of the New Town of Edinburgh till this man
was removed from a church he formerly held in
the Old Town, and established under the splendid
dome of St. George's. Only two or three years
have elapsed since this change took place, and yet,
though he was at first received with no inconsid
erable coolness by the self-complacent gentry of the
new parish, and although he adopted nothing that
ordinary people would have supposed likely to over
come this coolness, he has already entirely subdued.
their prejudices, and enjoys at this moment a de
gree of favor among all classes of his auditors such
as very seldom falls to the share of such a man in
such a place." * And having seen the great efficacy
of this alteration of his method of preparing for
the pulpit and preaching in it, he would not allow
himself to be tempted back by any considerations
of personal ease to his former practice. Perhaps
he had begun to discover, even before his removal
to St. George's, that there may be a fluency which
* "Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk," vol. iii., pp. 79, 80.

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 183
is ultimately fatal to pulpit power. In any case,
he prepared to the last with utmost care ; and a
good story is told of him in this connection which
I repeat here because it may fix in your memories
this great lesson of his example. A minister who
was a keen angler once said to him, " I wonder you
spend so much time on your sermons, with your
ability and ready speech. Many's the time I've
both written a sermon and killed a salmon before
breakfast." " Well, sir," replied Thomson, " I would
rather have eaten your salmon than listened to your
sermon !" *
He believed in the utilization of the press as
well as of the pulpit, and through the pages of
The Christian Instructor — a monthly magazine
of which he was the founder and first editor, and
in which he was greatly assisted by his Dissent
ing friend, Dr. Thomas McCrie, the biographer of
Knox — he did much to mould the religious opin
ion of his time, and to secure the ultimate triumph
of the Evangelical party in the Scottish Church.
But it was on the platform that his most splendid
oratorical victories were won. For that kind of
* "Life of Andrew Thomson, D.D.," p. 24. Jean L.Watson.

184 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
eloquence he had many qualifications. He had a
clear perception of the weak points in an adversa
ry's case and the strong positions in his own. He
had great fluency of speech and thorough command
of himself. He had the richest humor, and a stock
of anecdotes of the raciest sort, which seemed to
come up just where they could be most effectively
employed, reminding us in this of Guthrie more
than any other of his successors. He had a keen
vein of satire, too, which could be playful and
harmless on occasion as summer lightning, but
which was often also forked and deadly, like the
bolt that rends the forest oak. Frequently in the
Assembly and on the platform he spoke for two or
three hours at a stretch ; and when some one re
marked on the length of time he had in one such
instance kept up the attention of the people, he
replied, " Whenever I see them get dull I throw
in a story. I consider a story has an effect for
twenty minutes." * Sometimes he gave way to ir
ritability and vehemence, for he had the sensitive
organization of the orator ; but he was always
ready to make reparation or retraction if he had
* "Life of Andrew Thomson, D.D.," ubi supra, p. 82.

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 185
been unjust, for he had the spirit of the Christian.
He took a prominent part in the once famous
Apocrypha controversy, occasioned by the circu
lation in certain places by the British and Foreign
Bible Society of the Apocrypha bound up with the
Word of God, and he was the fearless advocate of
the emancipation of the slave. Indeed, one speech
made by him on that subject became historic, and
long as this lecture has been, I must detain you a
very few minutes more while I give you some idea
of its power.
It was in October, 1830. A great public meet
ing had been convened in Edinburgh, with a view
to the securing of the gradual abolition of slavery
in the British Colonies, and Francis Jeffrey had
made a speech in which he moved that a petition
be sent to Parliament praying that every child of
slaves born after the 31st of December, 1831, should
be declared free. Thomson was present, but to the
surprise of every one he had taken his seat in the
body of the house and not on the platform. When
the motion was put he rose, and was immediately
requested by the Lord Provost, who was in the
chair, to go upon the platform ; but with a look
of drollery on his face he said, " I cannot do that,

186 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
for I am going to speak against your resolutions."
The audience could not understand his opposing
the abolition of slavery ; but when he went on to
explain that he was opposed to gradual emancipa
tion, and insisted on its being immediate, enforcing
that view with a power and pathos quite beyond
his usual eloquence, he fairly captured the meeting.
He was importuned to make a motion for imme
diate emancipation, but the confusion became so
great that the Lord Provost left the chair, and after
a while it was agreed to adjourn to another day,
when both parties should have it out. When the
appointed time arrived he had to confront a divided
house. There were some who were sincerely op
posed to his proposal, and there were others, prin
cipally young men from the University, who were
simply bent on mischief. But one who was present
says, " In less titan twenty minutes the entire meet
ing was with him, including the youthful malcon
tents, whom I was amused and delighted to observe
laughing as heartily at his bright and genial humor,
and cheering as enthusiastically his reiterated bursts
of eloquence, as any in the hall."* He continued
* "Life of Andrew Thomson, D.D.," ubi supra, pp. 113,
114.

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 187
for a long while, and he concluded with the follow
ing passage — a speech which was so irresistible in its'
force that not only Edinburgh but the whole conn-
try was moved, and the cry for immediate emanci
pation, which he was the first to raise, was echoed
and re-echoed until it entered the British House of
Commons, and that Act was passed which will stand
in history forever, side by side with the Emanci
pation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, as the
beginning of justice to the colored race.
Here is the peroration : "As a proof of the neces
sity of gradual emancipation, Mr. C  tells us the
old story of a man who had been confined for thir
ty years in the Bastile, and who, when liberated at
the destruction of that horrid State-prison, became
more miserable by the suddenness of his transition,
and adds that his liberators would have been more
rational and more humane had they provided an asy
lum to receive him. This I agree with Mr. C 
in thinking they ought to have done ; but the anal
ogy does not hold, for instead of proposing that
the slaves should be turned adrift and cared for no
more, we propose that such arrangements shall be
made as are suited to the exigencies of their con
dition. This is what our petition prays for along

188 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
with their emancipation. It is what they are en
titled to in equity as well as in compassion, and far
be it from us to say or do anything that would
disparage such a claim. But really Mr. C  does
not seem to entertain adequate ideas on the sub
ject. 'His eye,' says he, 'could not bear the ef
fulgence of day, because its physical structure had
accommodated itself to the glimmering of a gloomy
cell.' It is really trifling with the subject to talk
thus gravely on the man's eye being unable to bear
the daylight, for that is the plain meaning of the
words. Why, sir, a green shade would have an
swered the purpose ; and then, sir, I would infinite
ly rather be a free man with rny eyes hermetically
sealed against all the beauties of the earth, and all
the magnificence of the firmament, than I would be
a slave with my eyes wide open to look upon my
chains that wer% never to be broken, and upon my
taskmasters who were never to have done with op
pressing me, and upon my dearest kindred, who
were either enjoying a blessing from which I was
forever excluded, or to be my fellow-sufferers with
out hope, under the basest and bitterest of all hu
man degradation.
" But if you push me, and still urge the argu-

THE MODERATES AND EVANGELICALS. 189
ment of insurrection and bloodshed, for which you
are far more indebted to fancy than to fact, as I
have shown you, then I say, be it so. I repeat that
maxim, taken from a heathen book, but pervading
the whole Book of God, ' Fiat justitia ruat ccelum.'
Righteousness, sir, is the pillar of the universe.
Break down that pillar and the universe falls into
ruin and desolation ; but preserve it, and though
the fair fabric be dilapidated — it may be rebuilt and
repaired — it will be rebuilt and repaired, and re
stored to all its pristine strength and magnificence
and beauty. If there must be violence, let it even
come, for it will soon pass away ; let it come and
rage its little hour, since it is to be succeeded
by lasting freedom and prosperity and happiness.
Give me the hurricane rather than the pestilence.
Give mo the hurricane, with its thunder, and its
lightning, and its tempest; give me the hurricane,
with its partial and temporary devastations, awful
though they be ; give me the hurricane, with its
purifying, healthful, salutary effects ; give me that
hurricane infinitely rather than the noisome pesti
lence whose path is never crossed, whose silence is
never disturbed, whose progress is never arrested
by one sweeping blast from the heavens; which

190 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
walks peacefully and sullenly through the length
and breadth of the land, breathing poison into every
heart and carrying havoc into every home ; enerva
ting all that is strong, defacing all that is beautiful,
and casting its blight over the fairest and happiest
scenes of human life ; and which, from day to day,
and from year to year, with intolerant and inter
minable malignity, sends its thousands and its tens
of thousands of hapless victims into the ever-yawn
ing and never-satisfied grave." *
After hearing one read such an outburst of elo
quence we are reminded of the saying of JEschines :
"If such be its effect when repeated by another,
what must it have been to have heard it from his
own burning lips ?"
Note. See page 155.
Tlie Literary Eminence of the Moderates.
The highest estimate of the literary service rendered by the
Moderate party to Scotland that I have seen is that of Dr. Peter
Bayne, in his "Life and Letters of Hugh Miller," which I here
append, that I may not seem to be guilty of doing them an in
justice. I cannot agree with all that Dr. B. has said in their
behalf, and as I rewrite his sentences I try to imagine what
Hugh Miller himself would have exclaimed had he dreamed
that such a panegyric on them should have found a place in a
memoir of him; but let it be allowed "quantum valeat."
* "Life of Andrew Thomson, D. D.,"ubi supra, ^. 85-88.

NOTE. 191
" One knows not where to look in ecclesiastical history for
a party of which the nucleus consisted of clergymen so loyal
to the higher aims of the human spirit, so ardent in its love of
knowledge, so free from sectarian bigotry, so genial and toler
ant in its habits of thought and feeling, as the Scottish Moder
ates. Under their influence the rugged face of old Scottish
Presbyterianism mantled with a smile of calm and bright in
telligence, which drew upon Scotland the astonished gaze of
Europe. Robertson was in his own day known in Paris al
most as well as in Edinburgh ; his books had an honored place
in the library of Voltaire, and there is no university in Europe
at this hour in which his name is not held in high esteem. He
was the friend and historical rival of Hume, who, except in his
speculative philosophy, was a true Moderate. If it is to be
held a disgrace to the party that its chiefs were in friendly in
tercourse with the prince of iconoclasts, we ought to remember
that there went out also from the Moderate camp those cham
pions who, both in the field of pure philosophy and in that of
apologetic divinity, challenged Hume to the combat, and in
the judgment of a world certainly not prejudiced in favor of
parsons and against philosophers, put Hume to his mettle. I
allude, of course, to Principal Campbell and Dr. Reid. The
philosophy of Reid assaulted Hume along his whole line of bat
tle. Interpreted as Hamilton interprets it, that philosophy is
one in fundamentals with every great constructive system of
spiritual thought from that of Plato to that of Kant. It con
sists, in one word, of an intelligent and critical appeal to the
common spiritual nature — call it communis sensus, call it reason,
call it intuition, call it what you will — of the human race.
This remains, and must remain, whatever the dialect in which
you express it, the sole philosophical refuge from universal
scepticism. It is characteristic of the noble tolerance and can
dor and high intellectual serenity of those old Moderates, that
Reid forwarded to Hume in manuscript his reply to the philos
opher. A finer proof of a desire to deal fairly with an oppo
nent, and of an absolute rejection of every weapon of personal

192 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
or vituperative controversy, cannot be imagined. But the Mod
erate party of the Scottish Church can claim not only Campbell,
Reid, and Robertson, but one who would now be placed by
many higher than either of the three — the author of " The
Wealth of Nations." Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments"
is a thoroughly Moderate book; moderate in its eloquent and
high-toned moralizing, moderate in its lucidity aud logical co
herence, and also, perhaps, in its want of intensity, enthusiasm,
and penetrating, exhaustive power. It was under the genial
auspices of the Moderate party that the Scottish universities
attained to such renown that young Palmerston and Russell
went from England to study in their halls. It was under the
auspices of the Moderate party that Edinburgh became the
Weimar of Great Britain, that the most important publications
of the time in Europe— the Edinburgh Review and Blackwood
and the Quarterly— arose. When John Murray conceived the
scheme of the Quarterly, his first step was to start for the north
to confer with Scott and the literati of Edinburgh. The lead
ers of Moderatism showed a wise and nobly patriotic spirit in
never trying to exclude Seceders from the universities. They
indulged the shrewd preference of the Scottish commonalty
for " college - bred ministers," and spared their country the
stunted and acrid growths of illiterate Dissent. It may doubt
less be argued that Moderatism was itself but part of a wider
phenomenon, to wit, the prevalence and predominance through
out society, not Scottish and English alone, but European, dur
ing the eighteenth century, of literary and scientific tastes and
ambitions as contrasted with those of a religious nature; but
the truth of this statement does not neutralize the fact that,
under the reign of Moderatism, a' literary and philosophical
lustre was thrown over Scotland, for which, in the mere epoch
of dominant Evangelicanism, we look in vain."— "Life and
Letters of Hugh Miller," vol. ii., pp. 187-189.
There is much in these sentences to provoke criticism and
challenge dissent. They give an exaggerated impression, not
so much by putting in that which did not exist as by leav-

NOTE. 193
ing out a great deal which subtracted from the undeniable
excellencies of the party in many respects. One needs not go
further than the volume of Miller's own articles on "The
Headship of Christ " in proof of what we have said ; but the quo
tations already given in these pages from McCosh, Lindsay, and
Alexander, put some deep shadows into the picture which Dr.
Bayne has drawn. In literature and philosophy the Moderates
were worthy of all the praise they here receive, but they were
a religious party, and must be finally judged by their influence
on the religious life of the land.
9

VI.
THOMAS CHALMERS.
At the time of Dr. Andrew Thomson's death,
Thomas Chalmees, the greatest of Scottish preach
ers, had been for some years Professor of Theology
in the University of Edinburgh, and had, indeed,
finished that unique and most instructive succession
of pastorates which comprised what may be termed
the ministerial portion of his wonderful career. He
was born in Anstruther, in the county of Fife, on
the 17th of March, 1780, and after an ordinary
course of instruction at the parish school he entered
the University of St. Andrews at the age of twelve.
His juvenilfty made it impossible for him to take
the full advantage of the classical portion of the
curriculum, which then extended over the first two
years of the college course, and it was not until the
third year of his undergraduate life that his intel
lect really awoke. The first study which thorough
ly interested him was mathematics, in which he be
came highly proficient, and for which he retained a

THOMAS CHALMERS. 195
liking till the last. But ho was drawn almost as
eagerly to the departments of ethics and politics,
for it was the seething time of the French Revolu
tion, and he was well-nigh swept from his moorings,
such as they wrere at that time, by Godwin's work
on Political Justice.
From such. a fate, however, he was saved by the
influence on him, in the first year of his theological
course, of Jonathan Edwards's famous " Treatise on
the Freedom of the Will," which gave him such
views of the personality, the greatness, the love, the
wisdom, and the all-pervading energy of God, that
he described himself long after as having "spent
a twelvemonth in a sort of mental elysium," and
said " that not a single hour elapsed in which the
overpoweringly impressive imagination did not stand
out bright before the inward eye ; and that his cus
tom was to wander early in the morning into the
country, that amid the quiet scenes of nature he
might luxuriate in the glorious conception." It
was at that time the custom in the University of
St. Andrews that all the members assembled daily
in the public hall for morning and evening prayers,
which were conducted by the theological students
in regular order ; and such was the eloquence with

196 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
which on these occasions Chalmers was accustomed
to express his sense of the glory of the Divine at
tributes, that the citizens of the place flocked into
the assembly-room when they knew that it was his
turn to pray. But though there was in these effu
sions a great coruscation of eloquent dissertation,
there was no sense of spiritual need. They were
sincere so far as they went ; but they were the in
tellectual efforts of a Deist, and they had nothing
in them of the humble supplications of a sinner,
or of the lofty communion of a saint.
After passing through his theological curriculum
he was licensed to preach the Gospel on the 31st of
July, 1799, while he was yet but nineteen years of
age. The law of the Church at that time required
that a licentiate should be twenty-one years old, but
it was set aside in his case on the ground that "he
was a lad of pregnant parts ;" and he virtually ob
served the law, after all, for though thus early ap
proved by his Presbytery, he does not seem to have
been in any haste to preach. He spent two sessions,
after license, at the University of Edinburgh in the
study of mathematics and chemistry, and it was not
until the 2d of November, 1802, that he was advanced
to the pastorate of the parish of Kilmany. Before

THOMAS CHALMERS. 197
that date he had been for a few months assistant to
the minister of Cavers, but he did not reside in the
parish, and satisfied his conscience with a weekly visit
for the purpose of preaching the sermon that was
required of him. Nor were things much better af
ter his ordination. His ambition at that time was
entirely academical. Ho had set his heart on be
coming Professor of Mathematics in the University
of St. Andrews, and during the first year of his
ministry he officiated as assistant professor, doing
all the work of the chair, and then repairing to Kil
many on the Saturday to go through the round of
Sabbath duty, after which he returned to St. An
drews on the Monday morning. The second year
the mathematical professor dispensed with his ser
vices — Chalmers thought from jealousy- — and there
fore he set up for himself as an extra -mural
lecturer. But though he keenly felt what he be
lieved to be a personal slight in the matter of the
professorship, his conscience was no way sensitive,
as yet, concerning the demands of the pastorate.
He believed that after the satisfactory discharge of
his parish duties he might have five days of the
week uninterrupted for the prosecution of any sci
entific work to which his taste might incline him.

198 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
In short, he looked upon his ministerial labors as
lighter things, to which he might devote the lei
sure which he could command from more important
pursuits. But a wonderful revolution from all this was soon
to be effected. A speech delivered by him in the
General Assembly of 1809, on the subject of the
augmentation of the stipends of the clergy, attract
ed general attention for its ability, its humor, its
" canniness," and its indications of genius and pow
er, so that Andrew Thomson asked him to write for
the Christian Instructor, and Brewster requested
him to contribute to the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia.
For the latter of these publications he undertook to
write the article " Christianity," and the preparation
of that dissertation, following close upon a series of
severe bereavements and a long and serious illness,
in the course of which he had become deeply im
pressed with the importance of spiritual concerns,
led to a change in his religious sentiments which,
after his perusal of Wilberf orce's " Practical Yiew
of Christianity," resulted in his conversion to Christ.
From that moment his whole character and work
were transfigured and glorified. He laid himself
upon the altar, and the altar not only sanctified but

THOMAS CHALMERS. 199
energized and ennobled the gift. Formerly the Bi
ble was scarcely ever in his hand, now it was the
theme of his constant and delighted study. No
longer now did he regard the work of the ministry
as a sort of extra to which he might turn as a relax
ation in the interludes of more important labors,
but it became the one great, absorbing enterprise of
his life. And whereas before he had restricted him
self to the enforcement of the precepts of morality,
and had assured his people " that all the deficiencies
of their imperfect virtue would be supplied by the
atonement and propitiation of Christ," he was now
convinced that "in the system of ' Do this and live '
no peace, and even no true and worthy obedience
can ever be attained ;" it is " Believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
The result was that now the great feature of his
sermons was the earnestness with which he held
forth Christ and his salvation as God's free gift,
which it was the sinner's privilege and duty at once
and most gratefully to accept. Nay, not satisfied
with doing that in the body of his discourse, he
would often, after the concluding devotional exer
cises, and before the benediction, break out anew
into entreaty, as if unwilling to let any one go until

200 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
he had laid hold of Jesus Christ as freely offered
to him in the Gospel. Those who have recovered
from a long illness know how new and fresh every
thing looked to them when they first went out to
gaze upon the face of nature. Now, after his con
version, something like that in the case of the Scrip
tures and that gospel which is the main burden of
their testimony, was experienced by Chalmers, and
that fresh newness he caught and preserved in the
sermons which he wrote at that time, and which
were afterwards given, just as they were originally
written, to rapt and awe -struck hearers in Glas
gow and Edinburgh. He devoted himself wholly
to this work, and very soon the profiting appeared
unto all men. For not only did the church become
crowded with hearers drawn from all the parishes
around, but conversions were frequent, and that
which he did'not succeed in accomplishing by mere
ethical teaching was wrought by the spirit of God
through his uplifting of the cross of Christ before
his hearers.
This was " a crucial instance." If any man could
have succeeded in the improvement of his fellows
by the simple enforcement of morality it was Chal
mers ; for he was great on all sides of his nature,

THOMAS CHALMERS. 201
and had, besides, that subtle, indescribable thing
which we call genius, and which makes everything
magnetic which it touches. But even in his case
the effort was a failure ; while, on the other hand,
so soon as he began to proclaim the Gospel as Paul
preached it, he found it to be " the power of God
unto salvation unto every one that believeth."
Here is his own testimony in his parting address to
the inhabitants of Kilmany, which I quote not only
as a specimen of his well-known style, but because
it has fallen a little out of sight in these last days,
and we need to be anew reminded of the truth
which it emphasizes. The passage is somewhat
long, but its importance will justify me in giving it
in full :
"And here I cannot but record the effect of an
actual though undesigned experiment which I pros
ecuted for upward of twelve years among you.
For the greater part of that time I could expatiate
on the meanness of dishonesty, on the villany of
falsehood, on the despicable arts of calumny ; in a
word, upon all those deformities of character which
awaken the natural indignation of the human heart
against the pests and the disturbers of human soci
ety. Now, could I, upon the strength of these warm
9*

202 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
expostulations, have got the thief to give up his
stealing, and the evil speaker his censoriousness, and
the liar his deviations from truth, I should have felt
all the repose of one who had gotten his ultimate
object. It never occurred to me that all this might
have been done, and yet the soul of every hearer
have remained in full alienation from God; and
that even could I have established in the bosom of
one who stole such a principle of abhorrence at the
meanness of dishonesty that he was prevailed upon
to steal no more, he might still have retained a
heart as completely unturned to God, and as totally
unpossessed by a* principle of love to Him as before.
In a word, though I might have made him a more
upright and honorable man, I might have left him
as destitute of the essence of religious principle as
ever. But the interesting fact is that during the
whole of that period, in which I made no attempt
against the natural enmity of the mind to God;
while I was inattentive to the way in which this
enmity is dissolved, even by the free offer on the
one hand, and the believing acceptance on the oth
er, of the Gospel salvation ; while Christ, through
whose blood the sinner who by nature stands afar
off is brought near to the heavenly Law-giver whom

THOMAS CHALMERS. 203
he has offended, was scarcely ever spoken of, or
spoken of in such a way as stripped Him of all the
importance of His character and His offices, even at
this time I certainly did press the reformations of
honor and truth and integrity among my people,
but / never once heard of any such reformations
having been effected among them. If there was
anything at all brought about in this way, it was
more than ever I got any account of. I am not sen
sible that all the vehemence with which I urged the
virtues and the proprieties of social life had the
weight of a feather on the moral habits of my pa
rishioners. And it was not till I got impressed by
the utter alienation of the heart in all its desires
and affections from God ; it was not till reconcilia
tion to him became the distinct and the prominent
object of my ministerial exertions ; it was not till I
took the Scriptural way of laying the method of
reconciliation before them ; it was not till the free
offer of forgiveness through the blood of Christ was
urged upon their acceptance, and the Holy Spirit
given through the channel of Christ's mediatorship
to all who ask him was set before them, as the unceas
ing object of their dependence and their prayers ;
in one word, it was not till the contemplations of

204 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
my people were turned to these great and essential
elements in the business of a soul providing for its
interests with God, and the concerns of its eternity,
that I ever heard of any of those subordinate refor
mations which I aforetime made the earnest and the
zealous, but I am afraid, at the same time, the ulti
mate object of my earlier ministrations. Ye serv
ants whose scrupulous fidelity has now attracted
the notice of, and drawn forth in my hearing a de
lightful testimony from your masters, what mischief
you would have done had your zeal for doctrines
and sacraments been accompanied by the sloth and
the remissness, and what in the prevailing tone of
moral relaxation is accounted the allowable purloin
ing, of your earlier days ! But a sense of your
heavenly Master's eye has brought another influ
ence to bear upon you, and while you are thus striv
ing to adorn*the doctrine of God your Saviour in
all things, you may, poor as you are, reclaim the
great ones of the land to the acknowledgment of
the faith. You have at least taught me that to
preach Christ is the only effective way of preaching
morality in all its branches, and out of your humble
cottages have I gathered a lesson which I pray God
I may be enabled to carry with all its simplicity

THOMAS CHALMERS. 205
into a wider theatre, and to bring with all the pow
er of its subduing efficacy upon the vices of a more
crowded population."*
" What shall the man do that cometh after the
king ?" You can never repeat Chalmers's exper
iment under more favorable circumstances, and
why should you try to go again through that part
of it which on his own showing was an absolute
failure? Take his word for it. This is the con
clusion of the whole matter, " To preach Christ is
the only effective way of preaching morality in all
its branches;" and when you enter on your minis
try, begin it on that principle. Leave all philoso-
phizings, and speculations, and reasonings about
science, falsely so called, and preach Christ. The
theme is old, but the new man makes everything
new; and that old theme, enforced by a new man
who has passed through an experience like that of
Chalmers, will be as fresh as the most advanced
thought of the age with which multitudes are so
enamored. A few years ago there was a consider
able outcry for a revival of ethical teaching in the
pulpit, because of the occurrence of repeated in-
* "Memoir of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers,
D.D.," vol. i., pp. 434-430. Rev. William Hanna, LL.D.

206 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
stances of defalcation and defection among those
connected with Christian churches. But that was
not what was needed. The doctors were all agreed
that these violations of trust were a symptom of
something ; but as to what that something was they
differed. In the light of this experience of Chal
mers, however, those were right who affirmed that
their dishonesties were an indication not of too lit
tle preaching of ethics, but of too little preaching
of Christ, and I rejoiced in the brave and ringing
words on that aspect of the case which came from
the beloved and honored brother who then sat in
the homiletic chair of this seminary.* May I en
treat you to bear this test case of Chalmers's contin
ually in mind, and never to allow yourselves to be
diverted by any influence whatever from the insist
ence upon those great central truths which revolve
around the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
From Kilmany Chalmers was called to Glasgow,
where, on the 21st of July, 1815, he was installed as
pastor of the Tron Church, and whence in August,
1819, he was transferred, in the same city, to the
new parish of St. John's, which was virtually cre-
* The Rev. Professor Hoppin, in The New Englander.

THOMAS CHALMERS. 207
ated for him. In the former of these he did in his
own way a work very similar to that which was ac
complished at the same time by Thomson in Edin
burgh. He brought back the cultured and refined
into the allegiance of the Cross without alienating
the common people. His discourses were, in their
leading thoughts, intellectual and abstract, and so
fitter for the educated than the uneducated; but
the Christian experience with which they were per
vaded, the vivid imagination by which they were
occasionally illuminated, and the whirlwind of ear
nestness with which they were delivered, carried
the most untutored in his audience with him as if
by storm ; and the stories which are told of their
effects would seem almost incredible but for the
character of the witnesses who agree in their attes
tation of them.
It was at this time that he delivered his famous
Astronomical Discourses, which, whatever may be
said either of the objection which he sought to meet,
or of the argument by which he met it, must be
pronounced unrivalled for the grandeur and ampli
tude of their sweep through the depths of space,
and for what John Foster called " the brilliant glow
of a blazing eloquence " with which they displayed

208 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
the sublime poetry of the heavens. They were first
preached on Thursday afternoons, and they drew
merchants from their places of business at the most
important hour of the day in such numbers that
there was often no standing room to be obtained
within the church. Dr. Wardlaw has given the fol
lowing description of the scene: "Suppose the
congregation assembled — pews filled with sitters,
and aisles to a great extent with standers. They wait
in eager expectation. The preacher appears. The
devotional exercises of praise and prayer having
been gone through with unaffected simplicity and
earnestness, the entire assembly set themselves for
the treat, with feelings very diverse in kind, but all
eager and intent. There is a hush of dead silence.
The text is announced, and he begins. Every coun
tenance is up, every eye bent with fixed intentness
on the speaker. As he kindles, the interest grows.
Every breath is held, every cough is suppressed,
every fidgety movement is settled ; every one, riv
eted himself by the spell of the impassioned and
entrancing eloquence, knows how sensitively his
neighbor will resent the very slightest disturbance.
Then, by-and-by, there is a pause. The speaker
stops to gather breath, to wipe his forehead, to ad-

THOMAS CHALMERS. 209
just his gown, and purposely too, and wisely, to give
the audience as well as himself a moment or two of
relaxation. The moment is embraced; there is a
free breathing, suppressed coughs get vent, postures
are changed, there is a universal stir, as of persons
who could not have endured the constraint much
longer. The preacher bends forward, his hand is
raised, all is again hushed. The same stillness and
strain of unrelaxed attention is repeated, more in
tent still, it may be, than before, as the interest of
the subject and the speaker advance. And so for
perhaps four or five times in the course of a ser
mon there is the relaxation and the ' at it again,'
till the final winding up." *
To many, no doubt, he was in all this only like one
" who had a pleasant voice, and could play well on
an instrument," but Dr. Wardlaw adds that there was
abundant proof " that in the highest sense his labor
was not in vain in the Lord, and that the truths
which with so much fearless fidelity and; impas
sioned earnestness he delivered went in many in
stances farther than the ear or the intellect; that

* "Memoir of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers,
D.D.," uU supra, vol. ii., p. 158.

210 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
they reached the heart, and by the power of the
Spirit of God turned it to God."
In St. John's Church he inaugurated and super
intended what was perhaps the greatest and most
effective parochial organization which the Christian
Church has ever seen in operation. His idea was
that the poor of the parish, that is, all the poor resi
dent within its boundaries, should be supported, not
by local rates, but by the voluntary contributions
of the inhabitants as they entered the churcli ; and
though the population numbered more than ten
thousand, and most of them were weavers, laborers,
and factory workers, he yet succeeded for three
years not only in supplying the wants of the poor,
but also in erecting and supporting most excellent
schools ; and, indeed, after he had left the parish,
and so long as the machinery which he originated
remained ifl operation, the results were such as to
astonish all beholders. His. church was a perfect
bee -hive, without any drones — the realization of
John Wesley's ideal, " at work, all at work, and al
ways at work;" and busiest of all was the pastor
himself, so that an assistant was engaged to relieve
him of some of his onerous duties.
This assistant was the famous Edward Irving,

THOMAS CHALMERS. 211
whose name has once more come into prominence
through the recent publication of the Carlyle Rem
iniscences, Letters, and Memoirs, and whose reputa
tion is the only one, in my judgment, that comes un
sullied out of the mess which these revelations have
made. Indeed there are few passages in modern lit
erature more touching than that which describes him
sitting by his friend on the lone Scottish moor, and
coming to the sad discovery that his companion had
drifted away from his faith in Christianity as a su
pernatural revelation. Willingly would I linger a lit
tle over that gifted son of genius, not unworthy in
many respects to stand by the side of Chalmers, and
whose juxtaposition to him here serves to bring out
so marked a contrast, and to point so significant a
warning. Chalmers, with all his soaring imagina
tion, always walked in the practical, but Irving was
visionary and romantic, to the entire neglect of the
practical and practicable. His mental as well as his
physical vision was oblique, and he was always apt
to fly off at some tangent of truth, because he was
not centripetally balanced. When he went to Lon
don to begin his work there he said, " There are a
few things which bind me to the world, and but
very few; one is to make a demonstration for a

212 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
higher style of Christianity, something more mag
nanimous than this age affects, God knoweth with
what success." And for a time, despite some ec
centricities and mistakes, he was a great power in
the metropolis on the side of truth and righteous
ness, gathering round him multitudes of men of
highest culture and influence in that great city.
But, by-and-by, he became connected with the
Albany Conference, and devoted himself almost
exclusively to prophetic studies, becoming editor
of the Morning Watch, and taking a foremost place
among those who gave themselves to the map
ping out of " times and seasons." From that hour
his influence began to wane. Then came the sad
scenes of the Tongues, then the organization of the
Catholic Apostolic Church, and then his death, as of
one burned up with some inner volcanic fire. Thus
an influenc% which might have been lasting for
good went out in the origination of a new denomi
nation which has attempted to combine the symbol
ism of the Old Testament with the doctrine of the
New, but has had little or no effect upon the solu
tion of the great questions or the guidance of the
great movements of the age. The contrast between
that denomination, which is the outcome of Irving's

THOMAS CHALMERS. 213
work, and the Free Church of Scotland, which is
the outcome of the work of Chalmers, is suggestive
of many things, but of none to you more useful
than of the danger of losing sight of the duty of
the present in the exclusive study of the future.
Had Irving set himself with anything like the
devotion of Chalmers to the "excavation" of the
heathen in some district of London, instead of curi
ously prying into the unfulfilled prophecies of the
future, there might have been no tongues, but
there would have been more good effected, and the
Churcli might not have had to mourn over the aber
ration of one of her noblest sons. It is the aggres
siveness of the Church that is to keep it orthodox,
and whenever schemes of prophetic fulfilment, or
indeed speculations of any sort, take the place of
efforts for the evangelization of the unconverted,
we may look out for the uprising of some form of
Irvingism. But I must return to Chalmers. The continuous
strain and excitement of his work at St. John's be
gan to tell upon his strength, and that moved him,
much to the regret of all the citizens of Glasgow,
to accept the chair of Moral Philosophy in the Uni
versity of St. Andrews, where he spent the years

214 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
from 1823 till 1828, and whence, at the latter date, he
was transferred to the Professorship of Theology in
Edinburgh, an office which he held till the disrup
tion of the Church in 1843.
This is not the place to enter upon a discussion
of what came afterwards to be known as " The Ten
Years' Conflict " between the courts of the Church
and the civil courts of the land, which issued in the
formation of the Free Church. Let it suffice for
me to state that Chalmers had entered most hearti
ly into the prosecution of an effort for church ex
tension whereby two hundred new churches had
been erected. in destitute localities; and now out of
the struggle which he and his coadjutors maintained
there came a yet larger measure of church exten
sion, though not precisely in the way that he first
anticipated. The effort to secure the spiritual in-
dependence_of the Church, wasyespecially in its later
stages, fullj' more a- religious revival than a politi
cal conflict ; and it was because he valued the spirit
ual as the end to the attainment of which the es
tablishment was regarded by him as only a means,
that he became so willing at length to sever the
connection which bound him to the State. So late
as the spring of 1838 he had delivered in London,

THOMAS CHALMERS. 215
amid great eclat, and with the countenance of bish
ops and statesmen, a course of lectures in defence
*of the establishment of the Church by the State,
and many have accused him of inconsistency in se
ceding only five years later from the State Church
himself; but there was in reality no change in his
way of looking at the subject. At a later date he
said, " Who cares about the Free Church compared
with the Christian good of the people of Scotland ?
Who cares about any Church but as an instru
ment of Christian good ?" * and these were his senti
ments all through. He valued the establishment of a
Church by the State only as a means of securing the
spiritual welfare of the people; and when he found
that he. was baffled in his efforts to get at the. peo
ple for tfieir good by an interference from the civil
courts; which was declared to be an inevitable con
sequence of the establishment of the Church by the
State, then, with characteristic earnestness and de
cision, and with perfect consistency, he severed his
connection with the State Church, that he might
thereby the better accomplish the great spiritual
end which he had in view. Personally I believe
* "Memoir of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers,
D. D. , " p. 168. Norman L. Walker.

216 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
that the connection of a church with the State is
always and everywhere pernicious, and I have no
sympathy with the arguments of Chalmers's famous
lectures on the subject, but that does not prevent
me from doing justice to his position, or from per
ceiving his thorough consistency with himself in the
course which he adopted.
At the Disruption Chalmers became Professor of
Theology to the Free Church, and to the end of his
days he had around him a circle of loving and de
voted students, all of whom were fired with enthu
siasm which they had caught from his lips. Indeed
that, next to his thorough grasp and clear exposition
of the great doctrines of experimental theology,
was his special forte as a teacher. He did not deal
in learned disquisitions or subtle discussions. He
was not so much an instructor as a quickener. The
other professors laid the materials in the minds of
the students, but he brought and struck the match
which kindled these materials into a flame that
burned with an energy kindred to his own. Each
of them went forth not only with an ardent affec
tion for his teacher in his heart, but also eager to
follow him in his great work for the Christian wel
fare of the people of Scotland — nor of Scotland

THOMAS CHALMERS. 217
Only, but of the world; for at St. Andrews Duff was
fired with missionary zeal under his influence, and
in Edinburgh some of the greatest of our modern
ministers and missionaries were stirred into conse
crated enthusiasm by his fervid utterances.
But his most interesting enterprise was yet to
come. Still yearning to get " the common people "
into the Church, he set about the "excavation," af
ter his own territorial plan, of that district of Edin
burgh in which the West Port was situated. That
was the name of a narrow alley running into the
Grassmarket, and it had come into notoriety in the
early part of the century as the place in which was
the house where Burke and Hare perpetrated those
diabolical murders which gave a new verb — to burke
— to the English language. The plan of Chalmers
was to select a district of manageable compass, to
cover it with volunteer workers from the churches,
to have it thoroughly explored, and to have every
individual in it personally invited to come to
hear the preaching of the Gospel in a church close
at hand. He found a tanner's loft, which he
rented for a hall, and there himself commenced
preaching operations. The issue was the building
of a church, the setting of a pastor over it, and the
10

218 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
gathering in of numbers of the most depraved and
outcast of the population. Nor that alone, for now
the example has been followed in many of the
largest cities of Great Britain, and wherever the ex
periment has been wisely and perseveringly carried
out, it has been attended with success. Dr. Chal
mers never seems to me so great as when I think of
him standing in that tanner's hall preaching to the
people who came thither in their common attire to
hear the Gospel from his lips. And I can under
stand the gusto with which he used to tell how one
of his visitors, on entering into the room of a poor
woman, and asking if she ever went to church, re
ceived for answer, " Yes." Where ? " Oh just to
the tannery hall ower by — ane Chalmers preaches
— I like to encourage him, puir body !"
Only a month before his death the first commun
ion was observed in the new building, which had by
that time been erected, and the following extract
from a letter to Mr. Lennox, of New York, will bet
ter show the heart of the man on this subject than
any words of mine: "I wish to commemorate what
to me is the most joyful event of my life. I have
been intent for thirty years on the completion of a
territorial experiment, and I have now to bless God

THOMAS CHALMERS. 219
for the consummation of it. Our church was opened
on the 19th of February, and in one month my anx
ieties respecting an attendance have been set at rest.
Five-sixths of the sittings have been let ; but the
best part of it is that three-fourths of these are from
the West Port, a locality which two years ago had
not one in ten church-goers from the whole popula
tion. I presided myself on Sabbath last over its
first sacrament. There were one hundred and thirty-
two communicants, and one hundred of them from
the West Port." * On the day after that first com
munion he wrote to Mr. Tasker, the West Port
pastor, "I have got now the desire of my heart —
the church is finished, the schools are flourishing,
our ecclesiastical machinery is about complete, and
all in good working order. God has, indeed, heard
my prayer, and I could now lay down my head in
peace and die."
And indeed the end was near. In the month
of May following he had been up in London giving
testimony before a committee of the House of Com
mons, and had returned to his home, when, on the
morning of the 31st, the day on which he was ex-
* Hanna's "Memoir of Life and Writings of Chalmers,"
vol. iv.,p. 404.

220 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
pected to give before the Assembly the report of
the College Committee, it was announced that he
had died during the night, apparently in his sleep,
and without so much of a struggle as to disarrange
in the least the drapery of his couch.
" Servant of God, well done !
Rest from thy loved employ;
The battle fought, the victory won,
Enter thy Master's joy.
"The voice at midnight came;
He started up to hear;
A mortal arrow pierced his frame,
He fell, but felt no fear.
" Tranquil amidst alarms,
It found him in the field,
A veteran slumbering on his arms
Beneath his red-cross shield.
"His sword was in his hand,
Still warm with recent fight,
* Ready that moment at command
Through rock and steel to smite.
" His spirit with a bound
Burst its encumbering clay;
His tent at sunrise on the ground
A darkened ruin lay."
There was in the mind of Chalmers a wonderful
equipoise of opposites. With great mathematical
ability there was combined keen metaphysical acu-

THOMAS CHALMERS. 221
men, so that he was both a man of science and a
mental philosopher. He was at home in political
economy, but his hearty sympathies with his fel
low-men, not to speak of his Christian love for
all men, kept it in him from being the "Dismal
Science" which it was to Thomas Carlyle. Grasp
ing the greatest principles, he was at the same time
alive to the importance of the minutest details.
With the glowing imagination of the poet, he had
all the practical sagacity of the wisest of his coun
trymen. And with the unwavering confidence of
a great man, he had the simplicity — I had almost
said the unconsciousness — of a little child. These
qualities, so finely balanced, were all sublimed by
genius, and heated to a constant incandescence by
the consecrating influence of the Holy Spirit.
In person he was stout and almost stocky. His
countenance when in repose was mild, his eye wa
tery, almost dull, with a far-off look in it, as if he
were gazing on things invisible to others, but when
he became excited it lighted up as if with celes
tial fire, and shone with the lustre of genius. His
speech bewrayed him everywhere. It was not mere
ly Scottish, but it was roughly provincial, and with
al he read his discourses closely. Yet over all these

222 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
disadvantages the force of the orator triumphed so
that even the cool, critical Jeffrey said of his elo
quence that "it reminded him more of what one
reads of as the effect of the eloquence of Demosthe
nes than anything he ever saw;" and again, that " he
could not believe more had ever been done by the
oratory of Demosthenes, Cicero, Burke, or Sheri
dan." To me it seems as if the force of his speech
were due not merely to the qualities which I have
enumerated, but also to two characteristics which
he possessed in an almost unparalleled degree, and
which enabled him to make use of all these others
in any circumstances and at all times. The first of
these was his power of abstraction. No matter
where he was, he could withdraw himself from sur
rounding occurrences, and apply himself to the mat
ter which he had in hand. Some of the sermons
which, according to the critics, smelled so much of
the lamp were written by snatches on his journey
ings, in inns, and in the houses of his friends. It
seemed as if at will he could withdraw into an in
ner chamber of his soul, where he could defy all in
terruption, and follow out the theme on which he
was engaged. Then, akin to that abstraction, and
along with it, he had the power of concentration.

THOMAS CHALMERS. 223
Whatever he was prosecuting, he was for the time
" totus in illo." His motto always might have been
" this one thing I do." Whatever he took up with
he could separate from all other things, and he could
concentrate himself upon it. If it were mathemat
ics, he was for the time exclusively devoted to that ;
if it were church extension, he gave himself wholly
to that ; if it were territorial missions, he saw noth
ing but them ; and so, being the man he otherwise
was, he achieved great things in every department
upon which he entered.
But it was in his sermons that the qualities of
which I have spoken wrought the most remarkable
results, for he saw only one thing in his text, and
he devoted his discourse entirely to the enforce
ment of that. Robert Hall complained of him that
he made no progress as he went on, but that he
kept continually reproducing the same truth, only
with added intensity of utterance and exuberance
of illustration. But that was owing to the nature
of the man. Other preachers seek to make differ
ent impressions in different portions of their ser
mons, Chalmers was content to make no more than
one by the whole sermon ; but when he had made
that, it was indelible. No man who ever heard him

224 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
could help seeing what he would be at, or could ever
forget the importance which he gave it. His itera
tions and reiterations and re-reiterations were but
like the whirlings of the sling from which at length
the stone was sent whizzing to its mark ; or like the
gyrations of the eagle as it circles round and round
in order only the more unerringly to swoop down
upon its prey. His style was not meant for the
eye, and so one soon tires of reading him ; but for
the ear it was most effective ; and wherever, to this
day, you meet with one who was privileged to listen
to him from the pulpit, you will be sure to find him
repeating to you the essence of the sermon which
the great orator had distilled into a phrase that
could not be misunderstood, and that would not
allow itself to be forgotten.
Andrew Fuller visited him shortly after his con
version, andtubsequently wrote thus to him : "After
parting with you, I was struck with the importance
which may attach to a single mind receiving an
evangelical impression ;" and the life whose course
I have so imperfectly traced is an admirable illus
tration of the sagacity of that remark as applied to
Chalmers. But when the same eminent divine, be
wailing what he regarded as Chalmers's slavery to

THOMAS CHALMERS. 225
the manuscript, said, " If that man would but throw
away his papers in the pulpit, he might be king of
Scotland," he was not quite so accurate, for Chal
mers kept his papers, and yet became the King of
Scotland. But, as the old Scotch woman said, " It
was fell readin' thon," and the earnestness of the
man went through his " papers " into the souls of his
hearers. Every man must do in that matter what
he can do best, and it is not the mere presence of
the papers, but what is on them, and what is behind
them, that must determine whether they shall be a
help or a hinderance.
It has been a life-long regret to me that, though
I was eighteen years of age when Chalmers died, I
never had the privilege of looking on his face, so
leonine and yet so loving, or listening to his voice.
I cannot, therefore, describe him to you as from per
sonal observation ; but as the best of many delinea
tions of his appearance and eloquence in the pulpit
which I have seen, I ask your indulgence while I
read to you that of John Brown, M.D., the delight
ful author of " Rab and his Friends." It is taken
from the second volume of his " Horse Subsecivae :"
"We remember well our first hearing Dr. Chal
mers. We were in a moorland district in Tweed-
10*

226 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
dale, rejoicing in the country after nine months
of the High -school. We heard that the famous
preacher was to be at a neighboring parish churcli,
and off we set, a cartful of irrepressible youngsters.
'Calm was all nature as a resting wheel.' The
crows, instead of making wing, were impudent and
still; the cart-horses, without knowing why, were
standing, knowing the day, at the field gates, gos-
sipping and gazing, idle and happy; the moor was
stretching away in the pale sunlight — vast, dim,
melancholy, like a sea ; everywhere were to be seen
the gathering people, ' sprinklings of blythe com
pany;' the country-side seemed moved to one cen
tre. As we entered the kirk we saw a notorious
character, a drover, who had much of the brutal
look of what he worked in, with the knowing eye
of a man of the city — a sort of big Peter Bell.
'"He had a hardness in his eye,
He had a hardness in his cheek.'
He was our terror, and we not only wondered but
were afraid when we saw him going in. The kirk
was as full as it could hold. How different it looks
to a brisk town congregation ! There was a fine
leisureliness and vague stare; all the dignity and
vacancy of animals; eyebrows raised and mouths

THOMAS CHALMERS. 227
open, as is the habit with those who speak little and
look much, and at far-off objects. The minister
comes in, homely in his dress and gait, but having
a great look about him, 'like a mountain among
hills.' The High-school boys thought him like ' a
big one of ourselves.' He looks vaguely round
upon his audience, as if he saw in it one great ob
ject, not many. We shall never forget his smile —
its general benignity ; how he let the light of his
countenance fall on us ! He read a few verses
quietly; then prayed briefly, solemnly, with his
eyes wide open all the time, but not seeing. Then
he gave out his text ; we forget it, but its subject
was, ' Death reigns.' He stated slowly, calmly, the
simple meaning of the words : what death was,
and how and why it reigned; then suddenly he
started and looked like a man who had seen some
great sight, and was breathless to declare it. He
told us how death reigned — everywhere, at all
times, in all places ; how we all knew it, how we
would yet know more of it. The drover, who had
sat down in the table-seat [square pew] opposite,
was gazing up in a state of stupid excitement ; he
seemed restless, but never kept his eye from the
speaker. The tide set in ; everything added to . its

228 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
power ; deep called to deep, imagery and illustra
tion poured in, and every now and then the theme
— the simple, terrible statement — was repeated in
some lucid interval. After overwhelming us with
proofs of the reign of death, and transferring to us
his intense urgency and emotion, and after shriek
ing, as if in despair, these words, '¦Death is a tre
mendous necessity /' he suddenly looked beyond,
as if into some distant region, and cried out, ' Be
hold ! a mightier 1 Who is this ? He cometh from
Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, glorious
in his apparel, speaking in righteousness, travelling
in the greatness of his strength, mighty to save.'
Then iii a few plain sentences he stated the truth
as to sin entering, and death by sin, and death pass
ing upon all. Then he took fire once more, and en
forced with redoubled energy and richness the free-
ness, the simplicity, the security, the sufficiency of
the great method of justification. How astonished
and impressed we all were! He was at the full
thunder of his power ; the whole man was in an
agony of earnestness. The drover was weeping like
a child, the tears running down his ruddy, coarse
cheeks, his face opened out and smoothed like an
infant's, his whole body stirred with emotion. We
had all insensibly been drawn out of our seats,

THOMAS CHALMERS. 229
and were converging towards the wonderful speak
er ; and when he sat down, after warning each one
of us to remember who it was and what it was that
followed Death on the pale horse, and how alone
we could escape, we all sunk back into our seats.
How beautiful to our eyes did the thunderer look ! —
exhausted, but sweet and pure. How he poured
out his soul before his God in giving thanks for
sending the Abolisher of Death ! Then a short
psalm, and all was ended.
" We went home quieter than we came. We
did not recount the foals, with their long legs and
roguish eyes, and their sedate mothers ; we did not
speculate upon whose dog that was, and whether
that was a crow or a man in the dim moor. We
thought of other things — that voice, that face, those
great, simple, living thoughts, those floods of resist
less eloquence, that piercing, shattering voice, that
' tremendous necessity.' "
One knows not whether to admire more the de
scription or the thing described ; but one thing is
clear, the eloquence which inspired that descrip
tion, even after the lapse of the years between boy
hood and middle life, must have been eloquence
indeed, combining in itself the force of the torrent
and the fulness of the sea.

YII.
THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES.
Foe the sake of clearness and continuity, we have
thus far confined ourselves almost entirely to the
pulpit of the Scottish Church as by law established;
but now, in bringing these sketches to a close, we
must devote a little attention to the representative
preachers of the Dissenting denominations.
Of the smaller bodies, the oldest was that known
in recent years as the Reformed Presbyterian
Church. It represented the " Society Men," or
" Covenanters," who never really joined the Church
of the Revolution -settlement, because it had not
insisted oti everything that was required in the
National Covenant and the Solemn League. For
a considerable time this honorable remnant had no
ordained ministers, but as the years went on it
grew in numbers and in strength, though it never
became large, and finally, about fourteen or fifteen
years ago, it united, all but a very small minority,
with the Free Church. But its record was excel-

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 231
lent, and one at least of its ministers deserves a
high place among the great preachers of Scotland.
Dr. William Symington, born at Paisley in 1795,
and educated at the University of Glasgow and the
Theological Seminary of the Reformed Presbyte
rian Church, was ordained at Stranraer in 1819, and
transferred to Glasgow in 1838, where he labored
till his death in 1862. He was a man of magnifi
cent presence, fine culture, exquisite taste, great
strength of mind, and admirable common -sense.
While faithfully attending to his pastoral work, he
was a diligent student, and his sermons were all
carefully prepared. Clear in his style, logical in
his arrangement, elegant and impressive in his de
livery, he drew around him men of intelligence and
weight of character, and he had an influence far
beyond the limits of the small denomination of
which he was an ornament. His works on "The
Atonement and Intercession of Jesus Christ," on
" The Mediatorial Dominion of Jesus Christ," and
on "Messiah the Prince," some of which have been
reprinted in this country, are still valued by stu
dents of systematic theology; and his courses of
monthly evening lectures on such subjects as the

232 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
history of Joseph and the Book of Daniel are still
remembered for their eloquence and power by mul
titudes who heard them from his lips. His meth
od of preparing these last is thus described by one
of his sons : " They were the fruit of much careful
premeditation — not fully written out, much less
read, but thoroughly studied and digested, the be
ginning of each sentence and references to texts
being put down in neat and orderly form. Not
read, certainly, for no one understood more thor
oughly the true theory of preaching as a concio ad
populum — an address in which the speaker is in
full electric communication with his hearers. The
larger writing was reduced to notes on a thin slip.
These he went over again and again until his mind
was familiar with the whole process of thought ;
by prayer his soul was brought up to the level of
the Divine* message he was charged to utter, and
thus were secured the pellucid clearness, the ob
vious mastery, the unaffected unction which made
his preaching so attractive and so useful." * His
name may not be so familiar to you on this side of
the Atlantic as those of others in the larger denom-
* Biographical sketch prefixed to " Messiah the Prince." 1881.

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 233
inations, but in a day when the pulpits of Glasgow
were filled by some of the ablest men of their time,
he was the equal, and in one or two respects per
haps the superior, of them all. He was remarkable
above most for the combination of manliness with
grace which appeared both in his thinking and in
his manner; and if he had been in the Established
Churcli he would most assuredly have taken a place
among the foremost leaders on the side of spiritual
independence. Another of these smaller denominations was the
Original Secession Church. I need not go into' the
history of its formation ; indeed I am not sure that
I could give it with entire accuracy in every partic
ular ; but it was connected with some difference of
opinion between the members of one branch of the
Seceders in regard to the principle of a State
Church. None of them, in practice, were State-
churchmen, but some of them, in theory, maintain
ed that the ideal Church was a State Church, while
others repudiated State-churchism as altogether and
everywhere pernicious, and that led to a separation.
Of this little denomination of theoretical State-
churchmen, the great man — and he was a great

234 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
man — was Dr. Thomas McCrie, the famous biog
rapher of John Knox. Born at Duns in 1772, edu
cated at the University of Edinburgh and the The
ological Seminary of the Anti -Burghers, he was
ordained at Edinburgh in 1796, and labored in that
city till his death, in 1835. Though his forte was
historical investigation, of which his works on the
Reformation in Italy and Spain, as well as his biog
raphies of Knox and Melville, were the rich fruits,
yet he was no mean preacher. A volume of his
sermons is preserved in the collected edition of his
works, and, like the man, they are weighty and
solid, somewhat heavy in style, but always lumi
nous, and invariably Jesus is in the midst. His
lectures on Esther are among the finest specimens
of the best sort of practical exposition of the his
torical portions of the Scriptures; and together
with Pedftie's Jonah and Dick's lectures on the
Acts of the Apostles, they may be regarded as
models for that class of discourses. McCrie had a
singular charm for Hugh Miller, who in his early
stone-mason days was a frequent attendant on his
ministry, and who has left a delightful sketch of
him in his miscellaneous works. I extract the fol
lowing sentences: "We were struck by the great

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 235
simplicity of his manner and style, and listened
rather soothed and pleased by his lucid statements
of important truths, grounded, if we may so ex
press ourselves, on a deep substratum of serious
feeling, than surprised by any marked originality
of view. By-and-by, however, when the first ob
vious principles were laid down, he began to draw
inferences. Ah ! thought we, as we sat up erect in
the pew, there now is something we never heard
before. The discourse, simple and quiet at its com
mencement, had assumed a new character. The
unquestioned but common truths were but the
foundations of the edifice. . . . There were remarks
on human nature that from their graphic shrewd
ness reminded us of Crabbe, and yet the mode was
entirely different. There were gleams of fancy
that, falling for a moment on some of the remoter
recesses of the subject, lighted them up into sudden
brightness, and when fully shown the gleam dis
appeared. There were strokes of eloquence, con
densed at times into a single sentence, that found
their way direct to the heart, and far conclusions
attained by a few steps through vistas of thought
unopened before."* This is high praise coming
* " Headship of Christ," p. 97. Hugh Miller.

236 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
from such a quarter, and the reader of McCrie's
sermons will have to confess that it is not exag
gerated. Coming now to the United Secession Church,
and seeking in it mainly for epoch-marking men, I
mention first John Beown, D.D., of Edinburgh.
There were great and good preachers in both
branches of the Secession before his day, but their
style was patterned largely after that of the Ers
kines and the Marrow men. Their discourses were
systematic in form, after a stereotyped method, and,
unless in exceptional cases, without much beauty of
style or felicity of illustration, or any pretension to
exegetical exactness. But in the last of these par
ticulars the name of John Brown marks the begin
ning of an era not only in his own denomination,
but in Scotland generally. He was in that country
very much what Moses Stuart was in New England
— the regenerator, if not the father, of exact Script
ural exegesis, and for that he deserves to be held
in lasting honor. Born at Whitburn in 1784, and
educated at the University of Edinburgh and the
Theological Seminary of the Burghers, he was or
dained at Biggar in 1806, and removed to Edin-

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 237
burgh in 1822, where he continued till his death, in
1858. He was the third in direct succession of
what his son has called the " dynasty " of the
Browns. His grandfather was the famous John
Brown of Haddington, the author of the " Self-In
terpreting Bible," and the venerable man of whom
David Hume said that he preached as if the Lord
Jesus Christ were at his elbow. His father was
John Brown of Whitburn, a simple-hearted man,
without any striking mental qualities, whose good
ness was his greatness, and who was an effective
preacher as well as an earnest evangelist. His son
was John Brown, M.D. , facile princeps, the most
delightful essayist of his age.
The theological instructor of Dr. Brown was Dr.
George LaWson, of Selkirk, a man of great learning,
profound sagacity, and catholic spirit, whose lect
ures on Ruth, Joseph, Esther, and " The Book of
Proverbs " are still worthy of study, and whose in
fluence as a professor in moulding the ministry of
his denomination for more than twenty years cannot
well be overestimated. His students, some of whom
I met in my earlier days as venerable old men, all
but worshipped his memory, and the impression pro
duced by him on John Brown was seen in many

238 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
ways, but principally in the ultimate tendency of
his mind to critical studies, in the desire which he
evinced to simplify the style of theology and go
back from human systems to Scripture, in the prom
inence given by him to moral teaching as an inte
gral part of the Gospel, and in his liberal views as
to Christian forbearance and the freedom of the
Church from secular control.
His gifted son has told us, in that admirable let
ter to Dr. Cairns which is the gem of his works,
how Dr. Brown came, after his great, and crushing
bereavement, to "take up with" Yitringa and oth
er German expositors; and the studies thus com
menced in Biggar were continued in Edinburgh,
where for more than twenty years he combined the
work of a professorship of theology with that of
the pastorate. Even before he entered on his profes
sorship, hoVever, he had instituted for the students
attending his congregation, and such others as chose
to be present with them, a weekly class for the study
of the Greek New Testament — and among these
early pupils were William Cunningham, afterwards
principal of the Free Church College, and David
Brown, the commentator on the first six books of
the New Testament, in the well-known work by

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 239
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, and quite recently
the moderator of the Free Church.
As a preacher Dr. Brown's power lay in the clear
statement and cogent enforcement of the meaning
of the Scriptures. His great aim seemed to be to
bring his hearers face to face with the Word, and
to make them feel that they had to do with God as
its author. But to do that he had to make very
clear what the Scriptures really said, and to discover
that he brought all the resources at his command to
bear upon the investigation of the portion which he
had in hand. His Expository Discourses were per
haps a little too learned for the pulpit, and a little
too popular for the professor's chair — a thing almost
inevitable from the fact that they had to pay a
double debt by doing duty in both ; but they were
always clear, honest, independent, and for the most
part satisfactory. He never needed any one to in
terpret his meaning, and he shrank with his whole
soul from handling the Word of God deceitfully.
A very common formula with him was this : "That
is truth, and very important truth, but it is not the
truth taught in this passage." He did not interpret
the Bible so as to make it suit his system, but he
modified his system so as to harmonize it with the

240 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT. i
Scriptures; and no matter how many authorities
might be ranged on either side of a controverted
interpretation, he would judge for himself, and take
that which for good and satisfactory reasons com
mended itself to his own acceptance. His discourses
now may seem to be in some degree superseded by
the labors of later commentators, who are better
furnished for their work than it was possible for
him then to be ; but the impulse given to that gen
eral forward movement in exegetical theology by
which he has himself been somewhat superseded,
came first and mainly from himself, and remember
ing my own obligations to him, it is with peculiar
veneration and affectionate gratitude that I have
dwelt thus upon his work. When I sat at his feet
lie seemed to me to be one of the finest-looking
men I had ever seen. His face was beautifully
chiselled, .almost like marble; his forehead was
high and bare ; his thin white locks flowed lengthi
ly over his ears and collar ; his eye was black and
piercing like an eagle's ; it seemed as if it were look
ing you through ; and his voice was clear and ring
ing, sometimes trumpet-like. He read closely, and
as his writing — very foolishly, as I think — was al
most microscopic in its neat minuteness, he had to

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 241
bend very low over his manuscript. But even with
all these disadvantages, his reading, as his son has
said, was " a fine and high art, or rather gift," and
when he was thoroughly roused the effect was great.
But exposition was his passion, and it was scarcely
possible to be a member of his class without catch
ing the infection of his enthusiasm. He had little
of the gift of insight or of the faculty of imagina
tion, but he made up largely for the want of these
by indomitable industry, and it was said that one
could not live a month under his roof without
learning to be a student. Later writers have de
veloped his principles further than he could carry
them, but his works will remain a noble monument
to the industry, no less than to the reverence, with
which he studied the Word of God.
The revival of exegetical study inaugurated by
John Brown was carried a long way forward by
John Eadie, a minister of the same denomination,
and for more than thirty years a professor in the
same theological seminary. Born at Alva in 1810,
he studied at the University of Glasgow, and was
ordained to the ministry in that city in 1835. He
was appointed to the professorship of Biblical Lit
erature in 1843, and held both offices until his death,
11

242 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
in 1876. It was my privilege to be a member of
his congregation during my student life in Glas
gow, to attend his classes in the theological semi
nary, and, in later days, to know him as a friend
and counsellor. He was never a " popular" preach
er, in the current sense of that phrase. His man
ner was not elegant. His utterance was thick, and
there was in it an occasional " click," like that
which characterizes certain South African languages.
There was nothing of the showy or sensational
about him. The first time you heard him you were
struck with the clear, fresh, striking explanation
which he gave of some passage which had hereto
fore been obscure to you, but you were not at all
attracted by his elocution. You went again, how
ever, and this time you saw less that was objection
able and heard more that was satisfying, and so it
went onf week by week, until you could not per
suade yourself to go elsewhere. I never heard him
without having something added to my stock of
knowledge, or some difficulty removed out of my
mind, or some new interest given to some particu
lar portion of the Word of God. He had the habit
of reading in the morning service consecutively
through some book of the Bible, and of comment-

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 243
ing on the portion read in a brief and simple man
ner. I had the privilege of hearing him thus go
over the larger part of the prophecies of Isaiah, and
though his comment was thrown into the service as
a kind of extra, for it was followed after singing
with a discourse proper, it was so truly a feast of
fat things that it would have been worth going a
long way to hear, even if there had been nothing
more. He had great versatility, and, with the ex
ception of mathematics, he intermeddled with all
knowledge. He read voraciously. His memory
was so retentive that he forgot nothing, and so
ready that he could always recall that which he
wanted. His scholarship was perhaps more exten
sive in area than accurate in detail, although even
in the latter respect he was all the time improving,
so that at length, without having the advantages,
earlier and later, of these English dignitaries, he was
the worthy compeer of Alford and Ellicott, even in
the departments in which they are acknowledged
masters. His commentaries differ from most other
exegetical works in the glow of unction by which
they are pervaded ; a quality which is, perhaps, to be
traced to the fact that while he was preparing them
for the press in the study, he was also, at the same

244 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
time, engaged in the public exposition of the same
books in the pulpit. Latterly he did not write his
discourses fully out, but, like Elihu, he was always
" full of matter," and seemed to be " refreshed by
speaking." His industry was prodigious, and by a
careful disposition of his time he was able to car
ry on the work of his pastorate most efficiently,
even while he was enriching his brethren with his
learned expositions. He had the advantage of Dr.
Brown in his familiarity with the German language
and in the possession of a rich imagination, but he
lacked the forceful utterance of his venerable col
league, and he rarely if ever became impassioned ;
but along with James Morison, also a pupil of John
Brown, and whose commentaries on Matthew, Mark,
and the third chapter of the Epistle to the Romans
are unsurpassed by any in the English language, he
helped t<» keep Scotland abreast of other lands in
the important department of Scripture exegesis.
But perhaps, as regards pulpit efficiency, in all the
comprehensiveness of that phrase, the man who did
most to modernize and to energize the preaching of
the Secession Church was David King, whose biog
raphy has been recently issued from the press.
Born at Montrose in 1806, and educated partly at

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 245
Aberdeen and partly at Edinburgh, he was ordained
at Dalkeith in 1830, and transferred to Glasgow in
1S33, where he held one of the foremost places
among its preachers for twenty years. Then came
a break down in health, from which he never fully
rallied, for after brief pastorates in London and
Edinburgh he retired into private life, and died in
1883. He was an admirable organizer, and made
his Glasgow churcli a model in this regard to all
around. He was intensely public-spirited, and took
an active part upon the platform in all efforts for
liberty and benevolence. He managed also to find
time for scientific investigation, so that he became
an authority in all questions affecting the relations
of modern discovery to theology. But the pulpit
was with him supreme. Every Lord's Day was to
him a great occasion, and he always endeavored
to serve God with his best. In the words of an
other, " One might 6ay he inaugurated a new era
in the preaching of the Seceders. Before that it
had been mainly theological, . . . abounding in well-
worn phrases and distinctions, earnest, no doubt, but
as a whole in a somewhat cumbrous, conventional,
and formal style, scarcely ever losing. sight of cer
tain safeguards and subtleties. Dr. King, certainly

246 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
not alone, but in a prominent and powerful way,
put the breath of modern life and thought through
this. He had a strong philosophical tendency. He
was eloquent, imaginative, polished, and classic in
style, and, beyond all question, intense. He was
among the first of our preachers of any sort who
had the modern attraction of shortness." * His dis
courses were delivered at first without notes, but
latterly he used a manuscript, through which, rather
than from which, he gave his thoughts to the peo
ple. His sermons were remarkable for their cli
mactic structure, rising from stage to stage, as one
has beautifully said, " Like a succession of terraces
in an Alpine road," and at. each turning the great
theme stood forth before you in new freshness and
interest. Students of all denominations were at
tracted to his congregation, and his influence went
far beyond the limits of his own church, and is felt
to this hour in the hearts of many who are still
preaching the Gospel in his native land.
The preaching of the ministers in the Relief
branch of the United Presbyterian Church was dif-
* "Memoir and Sermons of Dr. David King," pp. 45, 46.

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 247
ferent from that of those in all the other denomi
nations. I have failed to find an explanation of the
fact, but it is certain that it was rhetorical, ornate,
almost florid, alike in matter and in manner. - These
preachers did not hide the truth by any means.
They were thoroughly evangelical. They preached
Christ in all the comprehensiveness of the apostolic
sense of these words, but they did so in a style
which sometimes tended to divert attention from
the subject to the manner. They seem to have
formed themselves after the great French preachers
more than any others. They wrote their discourses
with great care, committed them to memory with
infinite pains, and practised elocution with great
success. Such a discipline as, that of Bourdaloue,
described by Bungener in " The Preacher and the
King," represents the sort of training to which, I
judge, they must have subjected themselves, and
the result was seen in the immense popularity at
tained by some of them whose names, quite un
known on this side of the sea, are now all but for
gotten in their own land.* But they were more
* Thus it is told of a young man, the Rev. Mr. Struthers, of
South College Street Church, Edinburgh, that during his brief
ministry there the young " advocates " of the Parliament House
flocked to his ministrations just to study his elocution.

248 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
than mere rhetoricians, for they did effective serv
ice in the land. They deserve to be held in honor
not only for their proclamation of the truth as it
is in Jesus, but also because they were the first in
Scotland to welcome Christians as such, irrespective
of denominational differences, to the fellowship of
the Lord's Supper with them, and because, wher
ever there was a wrong to be redressed, or a right
to be maintained, or an abuse to be condemned, they
were invariably in the front.
The man of most mark among them,not because he
represented them in the rhetorical peculiarity which
I have just specified, but for his genius and dis
tinctive individuality, amounting even to eccentric
ity, was Dr. William Anderson. Born at Kilsyth
in 1799, and educated at the University of Glasgow,
he was licensed to preach in 1820, and shortly after
was called*to the pastorate of John Street Church,
Glasgow, in which he continued till his death, in
1872. His ordination was delayed for upwards of
a year because of a controversy which arose be
tween him and the Presbytery. He had quoted
Shakespeare in the pulpit (!), and above all, and
worse than all, he read his sermons ; therefore the
Presbytery refused to ordain him unless he prom-

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 249
ised to give up these practices. But although he
was then only in his twenty-second year, he firmly
withstood that demand, and after a while the Pres
bytery yielded. As a preacher, Anderson was,
before all other things, evangelical, but he was
not, therefore, commonplace. His discourses were
marked by originality of thought, raciness of illus
tration, and fervor of appeal. They brought the
Gospel to bear on the experiences of every-day life,
and on the great questions which happened to be at
the moment before the public mind. He stood al-
ways at the foot of the cross, but from that centre
he swept the circumference of active life, and dis
cussed the first Reform Bill, the emancipation of
the slaves, the iniquity of the Corn-laws, the condi
tion of the masses, and the controversies between
capital and labor. Indeed, whatever " the present
truth" might be, one was very sure to hear some
ringing and suggestive utterance upon it from the
John Street pulpit. More than any other man in
Scotland he vindicated the liberty of the pulpit to
deal with any subject that concerned the welfare of
humanity. The cannon monnted on his battery
was no fixture which could be fired only through
one embrasure, but, like the turret-gun of an iron-
11*

250 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
clad, it could sweep the whole horizon, and could be
brought to bear on the enemies of truth and liberty
wherever they were. He was not afraid, either,
to make use of humor in his sermons. He had
a quaint way of putting things, which was often
heightened by his mode of snuff-taking, a habit to
which he was greatly addicted* After uttering
some of his cutting sarcasms or pungent reproofs,
he would bring his finger and thumb, with the
naughty dust between them, from his vest-pocket,
and convey it to his nostril with a sniff which could
express at will either contempt or scorn or triumph,
so that it was amusing to see how he could turn an
act in itself disagreeable to excellent oratorical ac
count. Two volumes of his sermons have been
published, and there is not a discourse in either vol
ume which is not in some way remarkable ; but his
ablest production — I consider it, indeed, the great
est book on the subject in our language — is his
treatise on Regeneration. It has been republished
in this country, and is very dear, to me because of
the comfort and guidance which it brought me at
a critical time in my own history. Possibly I am
for that reason prone to exaggerate its merits, but I
very earnestly commend it to your studious perusal.

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 251
Passing now to the Congregationalists, a word
ought to be said in honor of David Russell, of
Dundee, whose Treatise on Infant Salvation was
the earliest presentation of what is now the com
mon faith on that subject which Scotland produced.
Its publication almost of itself brought round the
Christian opinion of the land to its conclusions,
and broadened out "elect infants" into all children
dying in infancy. That was a service to theology
too signal to be quite overlooked.
But the two men whose names as preachers stand
highest among Scottish Congregationalists were
Ralph Waedlaw and William Lindsay Alex-
andee. Wardlaw was born at Dalkeith in 1779,
was educated at the University of Glasgow and at
the Theological Seminary of the Burgher denom
ination, then under the charge of Dr. Lawson, of
Selkirk ; but becoming convinced of the scriptural-
ness of Congregational independency, he publicly
identified himself at the end of his theological
course with the Congregational body, and was ulti
mately ordained over the newly formed North Al
bion Street church, Glasgow, in 1803. With that
city his name and ministry are thoroughly identi
fied, and for a period of fifty years, up till his death

252 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
in 1853, he was one of the foremost citizens and
one of the ablest preachers in the western capital
of Scotland. He was in his last decade before I
had the privilege of looking on his face or listen
ing to his words, and much of the vigor of his
earlier days had gone, but there were still the calm
dignity, the clear style, the logical cogency, the ju
dicial candor, and the acute analytical power for
which all through life he was remarkable. He had
never much of the impassioned, and rarely became
animated or intense, but his reading was exqui
sitely beautiful, and it was a delight to hear him
preach. It was his lot throughout his public life to ap
pear very frequently as a controversialist. He did
good service in that way by his writings on the So-
cinian, the Baptist, the Voluntary, and other discus
sions of hi# day, and one of the latest works which
came from his pen was a vindication of Congrega
tionalism. His contest was never so much for vic
tory as for truth, and his spirit was always that
of charity. He never reasoned disingenuously, or
sought to make an argument carry more weight
than it could honestly bear. He never mistook a
bad name for good argument. He never imputed

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 253
unworthy motives to his antagonists, and he took
good care always to put their case as accurately and
as strongly as it could be stated. He was emphat
ically a Christian gentleman, and though often
sorely provoked, he never allowed his temper to af
fect his pen The result was that, without giving
unnecessary pain to his adversaries, his writings
were all the more powerful with the public jury to
whom they were addressed ; and often, in times of
strife and debate, when the odium theologioum is
running high, I have wished that the combatants
on both sides had come under the influence of
Wardlaw in these respects.
His pulpit method is thus described by his biog
rapher : " It was his habit in the early period of his
ministry to deliver his discourses from memory af
ter he had written them fully and carefully out ; or
from meditation, after having put down in writing
an outline of what he meant to say, the latter being
by much the more frequent plan with him. Dis
courses so delivered were probably wanting in that
minute accuracy and grace of expression which
characterized his later compositions after he adopt
ed the plan of reading whatever he uttered from
the pulpit; but I have heard those who were in the

254 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
habit of listening to him at this time express their
regret at the absence from his later discourses of
that pungency and animation which his earlier dis
courses seldom wanted." * One worthy member of
his congregation said that for long after he began
to "use the paper" he always felt ready to cry out
the words of the Lord regarding Lazarus — " Loose
him and let him go." But when he adopted the
manuscript, the care which he took to become a
good reader, and the advantage which he possessed
in a naturally musical voice and carefully modu
lated enunciation, tended to overcome prejudice^
and made his reading ultimately perhaps more ac
ceptable than his free speech had been. In the
forenoon service he generally gave himself to expo
sition, and his works on the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
the Prophecies of Zechariah, the Epistle to the Ro
mans, and the Epistle of James, are the evidences
of his diligence and ability in that particular de
partment. There was little of what could be term
ed genius about him, but he had a strength and
beauty of his own. His strength lay in the critical
and ratiocinative faculties, and his beauty came
* " Life of Wardlaw," p. 77. W. L. Alexander, D.D., LL.D.

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 255
from his exact and elegant taste. His sense of the
becoming was rarely, if ever, at fault, and his appre
ciation of the beautiful, whether in nature or senti
ment, was quick and just. He had also a playful
wit, but that he kept rigidly out of the pulpit,
reserving it entirely for moments of social inter
course, and even then never allowing it to trespass
beyond the limits of propriety. His biography, by
Dr. Alexander, is one of the most instructive books
of its class, combining in itself almost a course of
theology and a treatise on homiletics. It gives not
only the outline of Dr. Wardlaw's works, but also
Dr. Alexander's criticisms on them, so that we have
the best of both men on the subjects treated. The
course thus followed by Dr. Alexander was severe
ly commented on by many, but the spirit in which
his criticisms were made, and the value of the criti
cisms themselves, give a permanent importance to
the book, which I very earnestly commend to your
attention. But we must say a few emphatic words concern
ing William Lindsay Alexandee himself. Born
at Leith, on the 24th of August, 1808, he was edu
cated at schools there and in East Linton, and after
three years at the University of Edinburgh he went

256 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
for two years to the University of St. Andrews,
where he came under the iufluence of Dr. Chalmers,
for whom, throughout his life, he cherished the
greatest affection and admiration. After a brief at
tendance at the theological academy of the Con
gregationalists, in Glasgow, he was called to the
Classical Tutorship of the Independent College,
Blackburn, England. From this, with a brief inter
val, during which he made trial of his preaching
gifts in sundry places, he passed to Liverpool, where
for a year and a half he supplied the pulpit of New-
ington Chapel. His ministry in Edinburgh began
on January 1, 1835, and there, first in the Argyle
Square Chapel and afterwards in Augustine Church,
which he was himself instrumental in erecting, and
which he named after the Christian Father who of
all others was held by him in highest veneration,
he ministered till within a year of his death, in 1884.
He was a ripe scholar, especially in Greek and He
brew ; his attainments in the former enabling him
to rank with the best Grecians of the day, and his
eminence in the latter securing him a place in the
Old Testament Company of the Westminster Re
visers. His works are numerous and weighty, and
by his editorship of the best edition of Kitto's Cy-

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 257
clopsedia he has laid all Bible students under heavy
obligation. His industry was unflagging. He had
no faith in pastoral visitation, and little aptitude
for it, hence he left that to others ; but he was dili
gent at his desk, and in the pulpit he always fed his
people with the finest of the wheat. I recall him
as he was in those days, now nearly forty years ago,
when, during my seminary course, I was regularly
to be found in his morning audience. He preached
then in the old Argyle Chapel, to a congregation
more remarkable for weight of character than for
numbers. As he took his place in the pulpit, one
could not but be struck with the breadth and lofti
ness of his lordly brow and the firm expression of
his mobile mouth. As he looked abroad upon his
audience you marked also the keen searching glance
of his eyes ; but when he began the service, you
forgot everything else in the devotional absorption
into which, whether you would or not, you were
withdrawn by him. His prayers lifted the very
petitions which you were wishing to present, and
there was no misgiving in the "Amen " with which
you responded. His sermons were generally on
great subjects. One, I remember with a vivid dis
tinctness, was on the Eternity of God ; another,

258 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
from the text, " Be sure your sin will find yon out,'?
burned indelibly into me the difference between the
expressions "Your sin will be found out " and "Your
sin will find out you." They were all remarkable
for the weight of their thought, the clearness of their
style, and the earnestness of their appeal. His pa
thos was a power. It never unmanned him, but it
always affected you. And sometimes when he was
roused, his indignant scorn of wrong-doing, or his
withering sarcasm in the exposure of some specious
infidel objection, was positively tremendous.* In
* His sarcastic humor came out in these days very freely,
and some very droll instances of it are related by his biog
rapher in the admirable memoir recently issued. I give two
others that were current among the students of my genera
tion. One morning an unusual number of pulpit notices had
been sent to him from all quarters to be read at the public
service. The thing had become a nuisance, and he wished to
rebuke it. So, arranging the pile in such a manner as to make
his act effective, he lifted them up, and let them fall in a long,
fluttering series to his feet, saying the while, in his most with
ering style, "Do they mean to turn this pulpit — such as "it is —
into a column of the North British Advertiser ?" The manner
in which he alluded to the pulpit, which he used jokingly to
call ' ' the horse-box," and which was ugly enough in all con
science, was inimitably grotesque. He was not often troubled
with a drowsy audience, but he could not tolerate a deliberate
employment of the pew as a sleeping-place. One day, just as
he was giving out his text, he saw a man in the front seat of
the side galleiy, almost within reach of him, carefully fold his

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 259
his later days some of these qualities were absent,
and the mellowness of experience came in their
stead to give a new charm to his addresses. I nev
er heard him in a regular series of expositions
through any one book, but indeed the groundwork of
every sermon he preached was exposition ; for the
first thing he always did was to show the meaning
of his text, and lift his subject naturally out of it.
He read his sermons from manuscript, but such
was the hold he took of you from the first that
you forgot in a few moments all about the "pa
per." Often, in the heat and intensity of his men
tal action, the discourse "boiled over" into extem
pore speech, and then you might expect some terse
and pungent sayings. Sometimes, too, after he had
shut the book, he lingered to say a few tender
words or to make a last solemn appeal, beautiful in
the calmness of its love, and bearing the same re
arms upon the book-board and lay his head upon them, as if
settling himself for a snooze. He could not let such an act pass
unnoticed, and the way in which he reproved it was character
istic. He stood still and silent for what seemed quite a while,
until the culprit, wondering what the matter was, raised his
head a few inches and looked up. This was all the doctor
was waiting for, and gracefully bowing to the offender, he
said, " Good-night, my friend." Needless to say there was no
sleep for him throughout that service.

260 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
lation to the discourse as the motion of a vessel, af
ter the engines have ceased their action, does to its
propulsion by the screw. He was like an extra
professor to me while I was at the United Presby
terian Seminary, and not unfrequently the great
majority of my fellow-students were present in his
congregation. In the brilliant galaxy of preachers
who made Edinburgh famous during the fifth and
sixth decades of this century he had a place dis
tinctively his own, and they who heard his dis
courses wondered no less at their excellence than at
the number and ability of his published works.
Reverting now to the Established Church since
the date of the Disruption, I have room here for
but the briefest mention of Norman Macleod. Af
ter the departure of the Free Churchmen there was
for a time* a great scarcity of men of mark in the
Establishment ; and as one of its leaders of to-day
has remarked, " third-rate men were in several in
stances brought from the obscurity to which they
were born,. and in which they should have been al
lowed to die, to occupy prominent pulpits,"* so
* "Scottish Divines," Third Series, p. 393.

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 261
that perhaps it was easier for one possessed of
ability to find his way to the front than in other
circumstances it might have been. But in any cir
cumstances Norman Macleod would have become
a leader. Born at Campbelton in 1812, he was
educated mainly at the University of Glasgow, but
went for two years in his theological course to Ed
inburgh, that he might enjoy the prelections of
Chalmers. He was ordained to the ministry in Lou
doun, Ayrshire, in 1838, was transferred to Dalkeith
in 1843, and thence to the Barony parish, Glasgow,
in 1851, where he labored till his death, in 1872.
In his early Loudoun days his form and features
were familiar to me. I was then a boy at the Kil
marnock Academy, and he was one of the most pop
ular of the neighboring clergy who used to come to
its annual examinations, for he was sure to request
before he left that a special holiday should be given
us because of the good appearance we had made.
He was always an assistant at the communion in
the parish church, and I have still a distinct recol
lection of hearing and enjoying his evening ser
mons on such occasions. His parish was only a
few miles from my home, and the report of his
successful effort to fill his church at a special even-

262 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
ing service with the people in their working garb,
was told with a kind of wonderment, as something
utterly unheard of before, by the farmers of the
district when they came to market. He was then
distinctly evangelical in his teachings, and whatever
may be said of his opinions at a later day, he never
lost the fervor of spirit by which, at that time, he
was characterized.
But it was during his Barony pastorate that he
came most prominently into view; and in that,
splendid as in many other respects it was, nothing
was so great as his work among the laboring classes,
whom, after the plan which he had followed in
Loudoun, he gathered into the house of God on the
evening of the first day of the week in large num
bers, and in their " white jackets," and multitudes
of whom were admitted by him, after careful ex
amination, to the membership of his church. He
was a great, full-rounded, whole-souled man, and his
thorough humanness was the substratum of his pow
er. Add to that his joyous love of nature, his Cel
tic temperament, with its poetic, susceptibility and
its occasional weird out-flashings of mystic might,
his devotional fervor, which, to the surprise of so
many — though Dr. Flint says it was no surprise

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 263
to him — came out so fully in his diary, his deep
well of tender sympathy with suffering, of which
his " wee Davie " may be taken as a specimen, and
his intense desire to do good to all with whom he
came into contact, and you have the qualities which
were most distinctive in his character. The hack
neyed words of Terence, "Homo sum; humanum
nil a me alienum puto," were exactly appropriate to
him, and he could make himself equally at home
in the palace of the Queen and in the workshop
of a Newmilns weaver. In private he had a
great fund of humor, some of it even rollicking
in its heartiness, and a great wealth of anecdote.
And in the pulpit, when he was great he was great
indeed. But he was like all men of his tempera
ment, unequal in his discourses. When he was "in
full flood," however, he carried all before him.*

.. * He could be also provokingly beneath himself. The last
time I heard him he " expatiated " (to use Chalmers's word) over
three chapters in the latter part of the book of Genesis, and the
manner in which he went from paragraph to paragraph remind
ed me of the reason given by an old pulpit worthy for prefer
ring to expound a long passage of Scripture, to the effect that
"when he was persecuted in one verse he could flee to anoth
er." Norman, as he was always affectionately and familiarly
called, must have. undergone a good deal of such "persecution "
that morning, for he did a good deal of such "fleeing." But

264 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
When he was in his prime, I rather think that he
wrote his discourses fully out, and either delivered
from memory or read from the manuscript, as suit
ed him best on the occasion. But in his later days,
while giving much premeditation to his sermon, he
left himself free to take the language which came
to him at the moment, so that he combined " the
self-control of the prepared discourse with the di
rectness of extemporaneous effort," and the address
approached the conversational, which, in the estima
tion of some — though I confess that I am not one
of them — is the true ideal of a sermon. Theologi-
cally he slipped from his moorings considerably, so
that latterly he might be ranked with the English
Broad Churchmen. He adopted the views of Mac
leod Campbell on the Atonement, those of Arnold
on the Church, and, unless I have mistaken his
meaning jn some of his letters, those of the Resto-
rationists on eschatology. How he reconciled the
last of these with his acceptance of the Westmin
ster Confession I am unable to say, and I fear that
perhaps the fault was my own. I should have taken the advice
of the " candid friend " in the church porch, who, when I asked
if Dr. Macleod was to preach that morning, made reply, "Ay,
sir, but if I was you I wudna gang in noo, he's aye far best in
the efternun."

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 265
his influence has had much to do with the strength
ening of that current which has set in towards the
opinions advocated by some of the contributors to
the volume of Scotch sermons which was published
a few years ago. Undeniably, he never could have
advocated such rationalistic doctrines as are to be
found in one or two of these discourses, but his
views on the significance of subscription to a creed
may have encouraged their authors to put them
forward. In the Free Church, just subsequent to the Dis
ruption, there was a group of remarkable men, who
may be called the lieutenants of Chalmers, to at
least two of whom, before we conclude, we must di
rect your attention. These two are Robert Smith
Candlish and Thomas Guthrie. Candlish was
born in Edinburgh in 1803, educated at the Uni
versity of Glasgow, and after some years spent as
an assistant, first in Glasgow and latterly in Bonhill,
he was ordained to the ministry of St. George's, Ed
inburgh, in 1834, where, first in the Established and
afterwards in the Free Church, he labored till his
death, in 1873. He was one of the great debaters
in the Disruption controversy. His speeches were
12

266 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
like trumpet-calls for the mustering of the hosts to
battle, and "one blast upon his bugle -horn was
worth ten thousand men." But it is mainly as a
preacher that we must speak of him here. In per
sonal appearance he was peculiar. I question if any
one ever saw him for the first time without being
tempted to smile. His body was diminutive, but
what it lacked appeared to have been given to the
head, which for size would not have sat amiss upon
the shoulders of a giant. His hair hung all around
it in tangled luxuriance, sometimes almost like a
mop. His mouth was large, with the under jaw
slightly protuberant. His eyes were restless and
flashing, and his forehead full. He went up the
pulpit stair with a hurried step, and running his
fingers through his hair, he gave out the psalm in a
defiant tone, as if he meant to let some one know
that he would not be put down. When he came to
the sermon, he indulged unconsciously in all man
ner of convulsive movements, twisting and writh
ing like one in agony. He clutched at his gown,
he took hold of the Bible as if he would lift it and
throw it at his audience, he grasped the pulpit like
one who feared he was about to fall. But all this
while he had been opening up his text in a maimer

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 267
so clear, so comprehensive, so suggestive, that, as he
proceeded, you forgot his eccentricities of manner,
and felt only the power of his words. His forte
was in exposition arid practical appeal, and he was
never so great as when he was engaged in the analy
sis of some Scripture character, and the enforce
ment of the lessons which it conveyed to modern
times. Sometimes he was exceedingly subtle, and
it was difficult to follow him, but in general the
lines of his thought were well defined, so that while
his discourses were an intellectual treat to the most
refined, they were also enjoyed by the plainest and
least educated of the audience. He had none of
the pictorial or illustrative power of Guthrie, but
his appeals had a more searching character and a
more incisive edge. He grappled at once with the
intellect and the conscience, and made every one
feel that he had to do with God. Listening to him
at such a time was like being subjected to a sort of
spiritual vivisection. Like Chalmers, he read his
discourses, even to slavishness ; but, as in the case
of Chalmers, it was " fell reading." Sometimes he
preached without a manuscript, but on such occa
sions he was very unequal, and in later years it was
but rarely that he attempted that manner of ad-

268 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
*
dress. He was an instance of a man pushing his
way into the very front of pulpit orators, in spite
many positive blemishes, by the pure force of his
intellectual pre-eminence, spiritual insight, and im
passioned fervor, and there were not wanting many
imitators who thought that they had clothed them
selves in. the strength of their model when they
had succeeded only in putting on one of his weak
nesses. Thomas Guthrie was not, like Candlish, a great
debater and ecclesiastical statesman, but he was the
popular orator, carrying all before him, not so much
by the power of logic as by the appositeness of his
illustrations, the force of his humor, and the depth
of his pathos.
He was born at Brechin in .1803, and educated
.first at the schools of his native place, and after
wards at«the University of Edinburgh. He was
licensed to preach in 1825, but being disappointed
in obtaining a parish, he went to Paris, where he
studied medicine for a time. On his return to his
native place he conducted a. Bank Agency for two
years, and at length, in 1830, he was ordained to
the pastorate of Arbirlot. Thence he was trans
lated to the collegiate charge of New Greyfriars,

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 269
in Edinburgh, in 1837 ; and from that he was trans
ferred to the parish of St. John's, in the same city,
in 1840. After the Disruption, he became minister
of Free St. John's, which charge he held till 1864,
when he became pastor emeritus. During the last
years of his life he was editor of the Sunday Mag
azine, in the pages of which most of his works
first appeared, and the supervision of which was
his chief labor till his death, in 1873.
His pastorate of St. John's took him down into
the dens of the Cowgate, and stirred him up to do
his utmost for the elevation of the degraded people
who lived in them. Thus began his efforts for
Ragged Schools. In the same line, he took up a
work like that of Chalmers in the West Port, and
was instrumental in rearing more than one church
among the poor. It was in connection with such
evangelistic work that his sermons on " The City,
its Sins and Sorrows," were first preached and pub
lished, and full details of the different departments
of these enterprises will be found in the appendix
to the early editions of these discourses. His en
ergy as a philanthropist was equalled only by his
earnestness in the pulpit.
As a preacher, he did not so much belong to any

270 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
class as he constituted a whole class by himself.
Since his appearance he has had many imitators,
but when he rose to fame he was, in Great Britain
at least, the only one of his kind. He was not an
expository preacher, neither could he be called
dogmatic or doctrinal. He did not deal very liber
ally either in what has been termed the hortatory
method. But he was what Dr. McCosh has called
him, " the pictorial preacher of his age."
In his earlier years he gave much attention to
elocution. He believed that " the manner is to
the matter as the powder is to the ball ;" and he
tells us that during his student life in Edinburgh
" he attended elocution classes, winter after winter,
walking across half the city and more, fair night
and foul, and not getting back to his lodgings till
about half-past ten. There he learned to find out
and correct many acquired and more or less awk
ward defects in gesture — to be, in fact, natural ; to
acquire a command over his voice so as to suit its
force and emphasis to the sense, and to modulate it
so as to express the feelings, whether of surprise, or
grief, or indignation, or pity." The wisdom of this
course at that particular stage of his history was
great. If he had deferred his lessons in elocution

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 271
until after he had begun to preach he would have
become stilted, self-conscious, and unnatural. But
taking them just then, they passed into and became
part of himself, so that he acted upon them un
consciously and, as it were, automatically, and he
thought no more about them when he was in the
act of speaking than a practised writer does about
spelling when he is in the heat of composition. If
we wished to spoil a minister who is in actual work,
we would send him to learn elocution; but if we
wished to prepare a youth for doing effective work
in the pulpit, we would take care that while he is as
yet, so to say, in the gristle, with his habits unset,
he should be sent to a wise teacher to learn how to
6peak. Dr. Guthrie's sermons were generally fully writ
ten out.* He set himself "to use the simplest and
plainest terms, avoiding anything vulgar, •'but al
ways, where possible, employing the Saxon tongue.
He spared no pains, nor toil, nor time in making his

* I have said generally, for I was informed recently by Dr.
McCosh that he frequently, in the heat of utterance, put in pas
sages which were not in the manuscript. But how he was able
to resume his prepared discourse at the point at which he broke
away to make such a digression is to me a mystery.

272 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
descriptions graphic, his statements lucid, and his
appeals pathetic." For years after his settlement
in Edinburgh he spent three hours — those between
six and nine in the. morning— every day in rumi
nating on, digesting, and doing the utmost on his
sermon. He wrote his discourse with his audience
in his imagination before him. He even spoke
aloud the words which he was inditing ; thus, as it
were, writing to his own dictation. After the ser
mon was finished he spent hours in correcting it,
having left in later years for that purpose a blank
page opposite every written one. His corrections
consisted, as he has told us, in "cutting ont dry
bits, giving point to dull ones, making clear any
obscurity, and narrative parts more graphic ; throw
ing more pathos into appeals, and copying God in
his works by adding the ornamental to the useful."
The substance «f the sermons, as we have said, was
mainly pictorial. In his early preaching days at
Arbirlot he had a young people's class, which as
sembled on the Sabbath evenings, and part of the
exercise of the pupils was to give an account of the
discourse which they had heard in the earlier part
of the day. From the answers of the young peo
ple he discovered that they always remembered the

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 273
illustrations best, and that determined him to give
more attention to what he calls " the likes " in his
discourses. It is noteworthy here that illustration
was not originally his forte, but was acquired by
steady, earnest, and persistent effort. Indeed, he
went so far with it that at length the sermons came
to be almost all illustration together.
And here is the place where the critic finds him
most vulnerable. He overdid the pictorial. Very
often the thing which he wanted to illustrate was
forgotten in the wondrous beauty of his description
of the illustration. In this respect there was a
wide difference between him and his friend Will
iam Arnot,* greatly to the advantage of the latter.
Guthrie elaborated the illustration until it stood
out a perfect word-painting before the eyes of the

* It is a mortification to me that I had to omit, owing to the
time at my command for the delivery of these lectures, any de
tailed reference to Mr. Arnot. He was a real genius. A rough
diamond, but still a diamond. A clear head, a warm heart,
an awkward yet strangely expressive manner, a fine fancy,
strong common-sense, and pawkie humor were his outstanding
peculiarities. He was the most Scotch of Scotchmen, but of
him, too, it was true that he was best on the platform. The
raciness and appropriateness of his anecdotes were equal to
those of Guthrie. The one was all nature, the other's art had
become natural.
12*

274 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
people ; Arnot flashed his simile for but a brief
moment before the hearer, but the effect was to
light up the whole subject, and that was all of which
the audience was conscious. Neither of them was
master of that use of the metaphor which was so
characteristic of Bushnell, and which packs an illus
tration into a single word. That may sometimes
be too condensed for effectiveness ; but Guthrie, on
the other hand, was often too diffuse for the high
est power. Besides, a sermon that is all illustration
together cannot but be defective in instruction. In
Guthrie's case it was fortunate that he had Dr.
Hanna so long for a colleague, for that which was
lacking in the one was plentifully supplied by the
other, and the two were the "complements" of each
other. Flowers are good, but we like a little fruit
as well ; and though it be true, as Sir William
Hamilton said^that Guthrie's illustrations had the
force of logic which had only one step between the
premise and the conclusion, yet a discourse that is
all illustration will soon wither in the memory, and
become as neglected as one of last week's bouquets.
In his delivery Dr. Guthrie preached memoriter.
The " committing " of his discourses cost him little
trouble. Even in his early days he wrote only one

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 275
a week, and in some later years he was very far
from accomplishing that; but his morning hours
were abundantly sufficient to fix that in his mind,
and "use so bred the habit in him" that latterly
his memory retained his sermon almost without
any effort of memorizing, so that when he was
speaking he had nothing of the appearance of one
who was remembering, but all the freedom, without
any of the hesitancy or anxiety, of an extempore
speaker. He was calm, self-possessed, deliberate,
but rarely, if ever, impassioned. Intensely dra
matic, he reproduced in action that which he was
describing, often with such effect as to make the
people forget that he was only describing. There
is a passage in "the Gospel in Ezekiel" descrip
tive of the battle between David and Goliath, and
one who heard it delivered told me that when the
speaker launched the stone from the stripling's
sling every one seated in the gallery opposite the
pulpit dodged his head to elude the missile !
It was a remarkable audience that regularly wor
shipped in St. John's Free Church, Edinburgh,
when Guthrie was in his power. There might have
been seen, with his profuse whiskers, shaggy head,
and plaided shoulders, Hugh Miller, the Cromarty

276 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
stone-mason, who became one of the foremost jour
nalists and geologists of his day. Not far away
was seated Dr. James Y. Simpson, the discoverer
of chloroform, with his leonine face lighted up
with interest as his eyes were fixed intently on
the preacher. There, too, sometimes, was the rest
less, erratic Blackie, Professor of Greek in the Uni
versity, who came, as he said, to hear the most Ho
meric descriptions which this age has ever listened
to. There, also, not seldom, right in front of the
pulpit, was Lord Cockburn, the friend of Jeffrey
and the favorite of all Scotland, whose delight it
was to "have a greet wi' Guthrie." While he
was able, too, the keen metaphysician, Sir William
Hamilton, was occasionally seen within these home
ly walls; and week by week the passages were
thronged with strangers . from all quarters and
from many lands, who timed their visits to the
metropolis of Scotland so that they might be there
on the Sabbath and " hear Guthrie."
What the results of such preaching were spirit
ually we are not able to say. We read little in the
autobiography and memoir of conversions or growth
in Christian character among the people that waited
on his ministrations. This may, however, be large-

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 277
ly owing to Scottish reticence on such subjects, and
must not be taken as indicating that effects of that
sort were few. But whatever else he secured, he
gained and held the hearing of the people ; and if
they were so ready to follow him, as we know they
were, in his philanthropic schemes, we may well
believe that many were led by him to choose " the
good part that could not be taken from them."

But now our task is done, and I sum up my hom
iletic lessons for this whole review in two advices.
First, be yourselves. Pulpit efficiency is not a
matter of method. There have been great preach
ers in all methods, with the paper and without it,
extempore and memoriter, expository and topical.
The efficiency is not in the method, but in the man.
As one has said, that which all great preachers have
in common to make them great preachers " is, along
with intellect, force of character, an energetic nat
ure, — will. A great preacher is not a mere artist,
and not a feeble suppliant ; he is a conquering soul,
a monarch, a born ruler of mankind. He wills, and
men bow." * Thus pulpit efficiency is only one of
* "Lectures on the History of Preaching," p. 119. John A.
Broadus, D.D.

278 THE SCOTTISH PULPIT.
the forms of the efflorescence of character. Keep
that in mind, and it will save you from the artifi
ciality of imitation, while it will lead you to see
that you will best cultivate homiletics through at
tention to character. Be yourselves, but make the
best of yourselves, that you may be your highest
selves. And while you are thus careful to be yourselves,
do not peeaoh youeselves. Preach Christ. Be
ware of hiding Him behind yom-selves; rather hide
yourselves behind Him ; and while your audience
hear the voice, let them "see no man but Jesus
only." Do not make the sermon an end: use it
only as a means ; and let your end be, not the gath
ering of a multitude, nor the making of a name for
yourselves, but the saving of them that hear you,
and then you will not lack success.
It has been a joy to me to come once more thus
closely into fellowship with you and your teachers,
but the most joyful thing of all is that now my
work is done. Nay, that is not the most joyful
thing, after all ; for it will be the highest of all
joy to me to know that I have done anything, how
ever small, to quicken your enthusiasm for that no
ble work to which you have given yourselves, or that

THE PULPITS OF THE DISSENTING CHURCHES. 279
I have laid up in you some memories which you
can recall when haply he who has addressed you
has passed within the veil to the companionship of
those of whom he has been honored to speak in
the midst of you.

INDEX.

Alexander, Rev. W. L., D.D., LL.D., quoted from or re
ferred to, 33, 37, 254; biography of Dr. Wardlaw by, char
acterized, 255; characteristics of, as a preacher, 255-260.
Anderson, Rev. William, LL.D., 31; as a preacher, 248-250.
Anne, Queen, patronage enactment under, 23.
Anti-burghers, the, 28.
Anti-papal period of Scottish Church History, 15.
Anti-patronage period of Scottish Church History, 21-26.
Anti-prelatic period of Scottish Church History, 16-23.
Arnot, Rev. William, 273.
Baptist churches in Scotland, 37.
Baxter, Richard, on Rutherfurd's Letters, 91.
Bayne, Dr. Peter, quoted from, 190.
Binning, Hugh, referred to, 128.
Blackie, Professor, 276.
Blaikie, Rev. Dr. W. G., quoted, 124, 125.
Blair, Dr. Hugh, 26, 154-158.
Blair, Rev. Robert, 95.
Boston, Rev. Thomas, 160-163.
Boston, Rev. Thomas, Jr., 30.
Breda, declaration of Charles the Second at, 117.
Brown, Rev. John, of Haddington, 237.
Brown, Rev. John Whitburn, 237.
Brown, Rev. John, D.D., 31; remarks of, on Leighton, 131; on
Maclaurin, 168; characteristics of, as a preacher, 236.

282 INDEX.
Brown, John, M.D., description of Chalmers by, 225-229; re
ferred to, 237, 239.
Buchanan, Rev. Dr. Robert, 26.
Burghers, the, 28.
Burnet, Bishop, quoted from, 119, 128.
Burns, Robert, 10, 13, 14, 107.
Caied, Rev. Principal, 69.
Cairns, Rev. Principal, 69.
Cameron, Richard, 21, 70, 139; sermon by, 141.
Cameronians, the, 27, 230.
Campbell, Sir Hugh, quoted, 103.
Candlish, Rev. Dr. R. S., 26, 265-268.
Cargil, Donald, 26.
Carlyle, Rev. Dr. Alexander, 26, 159.
Carlyle, Thomas, 41, 211, 221.
Caution, Scottish, 12.
Cecil, Richard, on Rutherfurd's Letters, 91.
Chalmers, Rev. Dr. Thomas, 25, 69, 194-229 ; astronomical dis
courses of, 207; influence of, as a theological professor, 226;
work of, in the West Port, 217; characteristics of, 220-225.
Characteristics of the Scottish people, 9-14.
Charles $he First, 17, 19, 82, 114.
Charles the Second, 20, 82, 114, 119.
Clarendon, Lord, on Alexander Henderson, 85.
Cockburn, Lord, 58*276.
Coleridge on Leighton's Calvinism, 124.
Congregationalism, Scottish, origin of, 32.
Conventicles, open-air, description of, 137.
Covenant, the National, 19, 84.
Covenant, the Solemn League and, 19, 113, 114.
Cromwell, Oliver, 19, 20, 82, 92.
Cunningham, Rev. Dr. John, referred to, 78.
Curriculum of Scottish students for the ministry, 39.
Dick, Rev. John, D.D.,'31, 234.

INDEX. 283
Dickson, Rev. David, 95, 97-104; scholarship and education of,
111.
Disruption of Scottish Church, 26.
Dourness, Scottish, 12.
Eadie, Rev. John, D.D., LL.D., quoted from, 91, 168; charac
teristics of, 241-244.
Education of early Scottish ministers, 111.
Edwards, Jonathan, Scottish correspondents of, 170, 173; influ
ence of, on Chalmers, 195.
Erskine, Rev. Ebenezer, 27, 31, 163-167.
Erskine, Rev. Dr. John, 26, 172 ; description of, by Sir Walter
Scott, 174.
Erskine, Rev. Ralph, 31, 163-167, 177.
Evangelical Union, the, 38.
Evangelicals, the, some characteristics of, 176; lessons from,
179, 180.
Faibfowl, Archbishop, 114, 115.
Ferguson, Alexander, Lieutenant-colonel, quoted, 121.
Finlayson, James, D.D., quoted, 154, 156.
Fleming's "Fulfilling of the Scriptures," quoted from, 101, 108.
Foster, John, referred to, 177.
Free Church of Scotland, the, 26.
Fuller, Andrew, on Chalmers, 224.
Geddes, Jenny, 18, 19, 81.
Gillespie, George, 19.
Gillespie, Thomas, 29.
Glasgow Act, the, 116.
Grahame's, James, " The Sabbath," quoted from, 146.
Grosart, Rev. Dr. A. B., quoted, 91, 96.
Guthrie, Rev. Dr. Thomas, 26, 265, 268-277.
Hadow, Principal, 162.
Haldane, James A., 33, 36.

284 INDEX.
Haldane, Robert, 33, 36.
Hall, Robert, criticism of, on Chalmers, 223.
Hamilton, Bishop, 114.
Hamilton, Patrick, 15.
Hamilton, Sir William, 274, 276.
Hampden, John, 19.
Hanna, Rev. Dr. William, Life of Chalmers by, quoted from,
201-205, 208, 209, 219; colleague of Guthrie, 274.
Henderson, Rev. Alexander, 19, 70, 72, 78-88; sermons of, 82;
prayers of, 84.
Hetherington's "History of the Church of Scotland," quoted
from, 102, 107.
Homiletic lessons, 277, 278.
Hoppin, Rev. Professor, 206.
Hume, David, 35, 159, 191.
Independence a characteristic of Scotchmen, 10.
Innes, Mr. Taylor, quoted, 93.
Intensity a characteristic of Scotchmen, 11.
Irving, Rev. Edward, 210, 213.
James the Sixth, 17, 74, 114.
Jeffrey, Lord, 58, 222.
Keble, John, quoted, 158.
Ker, Rev. John, D.Lf, 32.
Kilmany, Chalmers's address on leaving, 201-205.
"Kilmarnock, History of," by A. McKay, referred to, 135.
King, Rev. David, LL.D., characteristics of, as a preacher, 244-
246.
Knox, John, 15, 45-71 ; influence of, on Scottish pulpit, 66-71 ;
characteristics of, as a preacher, 52-66; description of, by
James Melville, 61 ; Witherspoon a descendant of, 171.
Laud, Archbishop, 18, 19.
Lawson, Rev. Dr. George, 31, 237.

INDEX. 285
Leighton, Archbishop, 21, 72, 114, 119-133.
Literary services of the Moderates to Scotland, 190.
Livingstone, Rev. John, 104-109; learning of, 105, 111.
Lockhart's, J. G., "Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk" quoted
from or referred to, 107, 182.
Maclaurin, John, 26, 167-170.
McCosh, Dr. James, quoted from or referred to, 24, 25, 166, 271.
McCrie, Rev. Dr. Thomas (the elder), quoted from or referred
to, 62, 74, 76, 162, 183; characteristics of, as a preacher, 233-
236.
McCrie, Rev. Dr. Thomas (the younger), quoted from or referred
to, 79, 81, 95, 96.
McLeod, Dr. Norman, characteristics of, as a preacher, 260, 265.
Marrow of modern divinity, the, 161.
Mason, Rev. John, 172.
Melville, Andrew, 17, 70, 72-79, 111.
Melville, James, description of John Knox by, 61 ; description
of Glasgow University by, 73.
Merchant, an English, description of Blair, Rutherfurd, and
Dickson by, 95.
Middleton, Earl of, 115.
Miller, Hugh, quoted from or referred to, 173, 175, 235, 236, 276.
Milton, John, quoted from or referred to, 93, 120.
Missions, debate on, in 1796, 175.
Moderates, the, 24, 36, 148-175; literary eminence of 190.
Moncrief, Lord, 181.
Moncrief, Sir Henry, 25, 172.
Morison, Rev. Dr. James, 38, 244.
Morton, Regent, 70, 76.
National Covenant, the, 19; signing of, 84.
" Old Mortality," ministerial characters in, 135, 136.
Outed ministers, the, 116.

286 INDEX.
Paton, Captain John, 135.
Patronage law enacted, 23; abolished, 26.
Peden, Alexander, quoted from, 142.
Peter's "Letters to his Kinsfolk," by J. G. Lockhart, quoted
from or referred to, 107, 182.
Poetic sense in Scotchmen, 12.
Protesters and Resolutioners, 111.
Psalms, Scottish metrical version of the, 138.
Pulpit and national character, connection between, 9.
Rainy, Rev. Robert, D.D., quoted from, 150.
Ramsay, Dean, 13.
Reformed Presbyterian Church, 230.
Relief Church, 29 ; characteristics of its preachers, 246-248.
Renwick, James, 21.
Resolutioners and Protesters, 111.
Restoration of the Stuarts, 20.
Reticence of the Scotch on religious subjects, 14.
Revolution-settlement of Scottish Church, 21-23.
Robertson, Dr. James, Errol, 41.
Robertson, Rev. Principal, 26, 173, 191.
Rough, John, 48.
Russell, Rev. David, 251.
Rutherfurd, Samuel, 19, 69, 72, 88-97; letters of, 90; works of,
90; anecdote of Usher and, 109, 110.
Scott, Sir Walter, quoted from, 173; referred to, 135.
Scottish characteristics, 9-14.
Scottish Ecclesiastical History, summary of, 15-42.
Secession, first, from the Scottish Church, 27; second, 39; third,
26.
Shairp, Principal, 107.
Sharpe, Archbishop, 114.
Shotts, Kirk of, sermon by Livingstone at the, 106-108.
Simpson, Patrick, quoted, 94.
Simpson, Robert, D.D., 118, 139.

INDEX. 287
Simpson, Sir James Y., 27^.
Smith, Rev. Walter C, D.D., quoted, 129.
Society-men, the, 27; union of, with Free Church, 27, 230.
Solemn League and Covenant, 19, 113, 114.
Stanley, Dean, 78, 109, 146, 151.
" Stewarton Sickness, The," 101.
Stuarts, the, character of, 117.
Symington. William, D.D., 129.
Terrot, Bishop, anecdote of, 29.
Thomson, Dr. Andrew, 25, 175 ; characteristics of, 180-185;
great speech of, on immediate emancipation, 185 ; connec
tion of, with Chalmers, 198.
" Tulchan " bishops, 16, 17.
United Presbyterian Church, 30; curriculum of study in, 40;
declaratory statement of, as to subscription to standards, 42.
United Secession Church, 29.
Usher, Archbishop, anecdote of, and Rutherfurd, 92, 109.
Walker, Rev. James, D.D., quoted from or referred to, 90, 103,
106.
Walker, Rev. N. L., quoted, 20, 215.
Wardlaw, Rev. Ralph, D.D., 37; description of Chalmers by,
208, 209; characteristics of, as a preacher, 251-255.
Watson, Jean L., quoted from, 183, 184, 186.
Welsh, John, 16.
Westminster Assembly of Divines, 20, 82, 89.
Wilks, Matthew, 34.
Wishart, George, 15, 146.
Witherspoon, John, D.D., 24, 171.

THE END.