Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

evening service at Charlotte Street was attended by the élite of the city. He took a deep interest in our Irish Mission, to which he was a generous contributor. His little work, "The Ancient Irish," is valuable and interesting even now; and his "Annals of the English Bible" gave him a high position in that department of Biblical literature. He held some peculiar views on the constitution of a Christian church-maintaining that it was a family, and the pastor was to be regarded as its father. His rule was a mild form of despotism; but, though mild, it was, nevertheless, absolute. He fully believed that this system was the only one to secure permanent peace. Both he and it were, however, sorely tried in his latter days. No one who knew Mr. Anderson can think of him but with profound respect; and all my subsequent intercourse deepened my first impressions of his mental superiority and high moral excellence.

Scarcely a day had passed before I met my late honoured and revered friend, the Rev. Jonathan Watson. He must have been known to some of our readers, and they, and those who did not know him, can form a just estimate of his character and worth from the testimony borne to him, after his death by his ministerial brethren and the public press. Of an active, penetrating intellect, aided by untiring industry, his capability for work exceeded that of most men. Spare in form, and sharp and keen in feature, of a frank and open temper, strong affections, and deep sympathies, resolute in asserting his convictions, indefatigable in the discharge of duty, orthodox to the core without narrowness, ever ready to unite with fellow Christians of every section of the Church to extend the Kingdom of Christ at home and abroad-he was a power, first as pastor in Cupar, where he carried on business as a chemist, and then in Edinburgh, where his consistent, blameless life and high character commanded universal respect. The late Mr. Gurney and other friends in London were anxious for his appointment as second secretary to our Mission. But when Mr. Watson, on coming to London, saw what the nature of the work was, he felt that it was one for which he was not adapted, and the project fell to the ground. Often his guest, I saw much of his private family life, and knew something of his sorrows as well as of his joys. His latter days were passed in harmony with the sentiments expressed in his book, Preparing for Home," and in the state of mind so exquisitely described in the language of the Patriarch, "All the days of my

[ocr errors]

appointed time will I wait, until my change come." Thus terminated, in perfect peace, a public career unusually prolonged, which was, amidst all its vicissitudes and trials, bright with honour and usefulness. His memory will not soon die.

What a contrast was presented by his colleague, the late Dr. Innes! Calm, placid, gentle, with quiet, graceful manners and a countenance beaming with benignity, he seemed the embodiment of goodness. It is very remarkable how well persons, who are contrasts to each other, get on, both in domestic and public life. This was eminently the case with Dr. Innes and Mr. Watson. Their diverse qualities assisted and balanced each other, and rendered their united pastorate harmonious and happy. When first I knew them they were working together in Edinburgh in an inconvenient kirk, in an obscure situation. The erection of the handsome edifice in Dublin Street was a worthy outcome of their ministry. Dr. Innes was greatly beloved as a pastor and a friend. During the latter part of his life especially, he was an incessant and successful distributor of tracts, "on the decks of steam-boats, in stage-coaches and railway trains, which even the indifferent and the hostile could not refuse to accept from the hands of one whose very look and voice conquered opposition." He would offer them, not only to the poor, but to persons of culture and position. If any sign of displeasure appeared, he would quietly remark, "I have been doing this work for years, and do you know I have never yet had an angry word addressed to me." Who could be angry after that? In carrying on this work Dr. Innes displayed great prudence and skill -qualities far more needed by those who engage in it than is generally supposed. But his urbanity and politeness disarmed hostility. He had passed to his rest before my acquaintance with Edinburgh was so intimate as it subsequently became. I remember him, however, with great distinctness. Once seen and known, he could not be forgotten. He glided about Edinburgh with soft and noiseless steps, but with indefatigable diligence in the prosecution of his work. Men who are gentle and retiring in temperament and habit do not attract much public attention. Yet few pastors of churches were better known, and few were more often seen in the streets and lanes of the city than was Dr. Innes. He must have been a most happy man if one might judge from his countenance, which was always radiant with a sunny

gladness. I recall his memory with feelings of profound respect. There was in his character such a blending of unfaltering adherence to his convictions with the utmost Christian charity, that he appeared to me strikingly to resemble the ideal one is apt to form of the Apostle John.

Subsequent visits gave me the privilege of an acquaintance with Dr. John Brown, who then lived in Gayton Square. A more striking person I never saw. His fine manly form, his dark piercing eyes, and snowy white hair, his singularly handsome countenance, ruddy with health and beaming with intelligence, his stately bearing yet courteous manners, so impressed me that it was some little time after I had entered his study ere I could make known to him the object of my visit, which was to solicit the use of his church, and a collection, on behalf of our Irish Mission. The request was promptly and kindly granted. The attendance at the service was large; but the collection, being taken at the doors, before I had any opportunity of giving information, bore no proportion to the numbers present. Had they previously known more about our operations, the result would undoubtedly have been different. But when it was proposed to deduct from the collection the incidental expenses, I intimated that I must have all or none.

"Weel, then, as the whole is nae muckle, and ye will nae tak less, we maun gie ye the whole," which only amounted to forty shillings!

The pleasant interview with Dr. Brown, and the friendly talk we had together, distinguished on his side by vigorous, sparkling intelligence and manly, cordial frankness, not only made amends for any disappointment I felt in regard to the smallness of the collection, but left a reminiscence whose bright and variegated hues have not yet faded away.

THE GRATEFUL CONSCIOUSNESS OF SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. WHEN one looks back, one seems ready to acknowledge one's life to have been one failure. Yet I do not acknowledge the truth of it, for there are attainments gained, there is progress made. By the grace of God, the world can be overcome, Satan can be resisted. Yes! there are conquests achieved, there are trophies gained; and it is not the deepest humility when these are denied.

J. HARRINGTON EVANS.

Home Relations.*

BY DR. C. J. VAUGHAN, DEAN of Llandaff.

"Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named."-EPH. iii. 15.

HERE can be no doubt that the right rendering is "every family." And there is a further point unavoidably lost in the word "family" itself. St. Paul says, "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every

fatherhood, in heaven and upon earth, is named "-i.e., derives that name of " fatherhood." The force of the saying lies in the pater and the patria. Every human family is such by virtue of a Divine Father. Every little section of the great society which is the sum total of rational, moral, and spiritual being is combined and cemented into its separate unity by the fact that it has a Father in heaven, the Spring and Source of all being, and the Designer and Founder of each single knot and group of being.

[ocr errors][merged small]

Our subject is the brief compound, "Home Relations." One passing word may be given to the question, "What is home?" St. Paul tells us that it is a Society which has God for its founder; and we have only to add to this that it is a Society of which each individual father is the human centre. The parental presence is the home. Place is no part of it. We may speak of the home of our childhood, or of our youth; and may mean by this the particular house in which days full of delightful memories were spent, and from which to have been uprooted by circumstances adverse or prosperous was a trouble and a sorrow never to be compensated. But, after all, the home itself moves with the parents, and the essence of it is still, amidst all change, the parental presence.

Now, the home, thus defined, may be of various, even of opposite, characters. There are good homes and bad homes-homes of beautiful example, of tender affection, and of entirely beneficent influence; and

The substance of a sermon preached to the Undergraduates of the University of Oxford on Sunday, October 27, 1881.

homes of mere self-indulgence, teaching no better lesson than that of the utter unsatisfactoriness of a life lived to itself-homes of pitiable discord, where the best hope of the best of sons is that he may be the gentle and persuasive mediator, determined to veil what he cannot honour, and to do his difficult duty alike and equally towards two incongruous characters whose one chance of harmony lies in him. Home does not cease to be home because its characteristics are not home-like; and it has its relations still, even where pain and grief are the sum of them.

The question has suggested itself whether Christianity, whether Christ Himself, makes much of home duties-whether the new relationship of redemption and grace has not superseded, or thrown into the background, the old tie of the human sonship. It cannot be denied that the new duty of testifying and witnessing has been made to justify, and even to sanctify, the uttermost disregard of parental requests, wishes, and feelings. Nor can it be denied that a few strong expressions fell from our Lord's lips, which, standing alone, and taken literally, might seem almost to abolish the natural for the spiritual relationship. "If any man come after Me, and hate not his father and mother, he cannot be My disciple." Of course, a better instructed interpreter sees in such expressions nothing more than a strong utterance of the principle that, in comparison with duty to Christ, every other relationship must stand aside. And we have no need to interpret for Him what He has so emphatically interpreted for Himself in three ways. First, His own example of filial duty. "He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them”—continuing, till the age of thirty years, the humble dweller in a village and cottage home, without one assertion of Divine claim or mission as making Him independent of the commonest home relations. Secondly, His keen and indignant reproof of those who would withhold from father or mother one single thing which might be for profit or comfort to them, on the plea that it was "Corban "¿.e., a consecrated offering. Thirdly, and, to my mind, far above all, His taking the earth by relationship of father and son as the one sufficient type of the superhuman relationship of man to his God— always speaking of God Himself under that title, and making this the address of all the prayers of His people, "When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven." With such expressions of His mind and will, we need scarcely carry on the inquiry into the writings of

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »