Part 10 (1/2)

I doubt not my father regarded this little worn old book, the sword of the Spirit which his ancestor so n.o.bly won, and wore, and warred with, with not less honest veneration and pride than does his dear friend James Douglas of Cavers the Percy pennon borne away at Otterbourne. When I read, in Uncle William's admirable Life of his father, his own simple story of his early life-his loss of father and mother before he was eleven, his discovering (as true a _discovery_ as Dr. Young's of the characters of the Rosetta stone, or Rawlinson's of the cuneiform letters) the Greek characters, his defence of himself against the astonis.h.i.+ng and base charge of getting his learning from the devil (that shrewd personage would not have employed him on the Greek Testament), his eager, indomitable study, his running miles to and back again to hear a sermon after folding his sheep at noon, his keeping his family creditably on never more than 50, and for long on 40 a year, giving largely in charity, and never wanting, as he said, ”lying money”-when I think of all this, I feel what a strong, independent, manly nature he must have had. We all know his saintly character, his devotion to learning, and to the work of preaching and teaching; but he seems to have been, like most complete men, full of humor and keen wit. Some of his _snell_ sayings are still remembered. A lad of an excitable temperament waited on him, and informed him he wished to be a preacher of the gospel. My great-grandfather, finding him as weak in intellect as he was strong in conceit, advised him to continue in his present vocation. The young man said, ”But I wish to preach and glorify G.o.d.”

”My young friend, a man may glorify G.o.d making broom besoms; stick to your trade, and glorify G.o.d by your walk and conversation.”

The late Dr. Husband of Dunfermline called on him when he was preparing to set out for Gifford, and was beginning to ask him some questions as to the place grace held in the Divine economy. ”Come away wi' me, and I'll expound that; but when I'm speaking, look you after my feet.” They got upon a rough bit of common, and the eager and full-minded old man was in the midst of his unfolding the Divine scheme, and his student was drinking in his words, and forgetting _his_ part of the bargain. His master stumbled and fell, and getting up, somewhat sharply said, ”James, the grace o' G.o.d can do much, but it canna gi'e a man common sense;”

which is as good theology as sense.

A scoffing blacksmith seeing him jogging up to a house near the smithy on his pony, which was halting, said to him, ”Mr. Brown, ye're in the Scripture line the day-'the legs o' the lame are not equal.'” ”So is a parable in the mouth of a fool.”

On his coming to Haddington, there was one man who held out against his ”call.” Mr. Brown meeting him when they could not avoid each other, the non-content said, ”Ye see, sir, I canna say what I dinna think, and I think ye're ower young and inexperienced for this charge.” ”So I think too, David, _but it would never do for you and me to gang in the face o'

the hale congregation!_”

The following is a singular ill.u.s.tration of the prevailing dark and severe tone of the religious teaching of that time, and also of its strength:-A poor old woman, of great worth and excellent understanding, in whose conversation Mr. Brown took much pleasure, was on her death-bed. Wis.h.i.+ng to try her faith, he said to her, ”Janet, what would you say if, after all He has done for you, G.o.d should let you drop into h.e.l.l?” ”E'en's (even as) he likes; if he does, _He'll lose mair than I'll do_.” There is something not less than sublime in this reply.

Than my grandfather and ”Uncle Ebenezer,” no two brothers could be more different in nature or more united in affection. My grandfather was a man of great natural good sense, well read and well knowledged, easy but not indolent, never overflowing but never empty, homely but dignified, and fuller of love to all sentient creatures than any other human being I ever knew. I had, when a boy of ten, two rabbits, Oscar and Livia: why so named is a secret I have lost; perhaps it was an Ossianic union of the Roman with the Gael. Oscar was a broad-nosed, manly, rather _brusque_ husband, who used to snort when angry, and bite too; Livia was a thin-faced, meek, and I fear, deceitfullish wife, who could smile, and then bite. One evening I had lifted both these worthies, by the ears of course, and was taking them from their clover to their beds, when my grandfather, who had been walking out in the cool of the evening, met me. I had just kissed the two creatures, out of mingled love to them, and pleasure at having caught them without much trouble. He took me by the chin, and kissed me, and then _Oscar and Livia_! Wonderful man, I thought, and still think! doubtless he had seen me in my private fondness, and wished to please me.

He was forever doing good in his quiet yet earnest way. Not only on Sunday when he preached solid gospel sermons, full of quaint familiar expressions, such as I fear few of my readers could take up, full of solemn, affectionate, appeals, full of his own simplicity and love, the Monday also found him ready with his every-day gospel. If he met a drover from Lochaber who had crossed the Campsie Hills, and was making across Carnwath Moor to the Calstane Slap, and thence into England by the drove-rode, he accosted him with a friendly smile,-gave him a reasonable tract, and dropped into him some words of Divine truth. He was thus _continually_ doing good. Go where he might, he had his message to every one; to a servant la.s.s, to a poor wanderer on the bleak streets, to gentle and simple-he flowed forever _pleno rivo_.

Uncle Ebenezer, on the other hand, flowed _per saltum_; he was always good and saintly, but he was great once a week; six days he brooded over his message, was silent, withdrawn, self-involved; on the Sabbath, that downcast, almost timid man, who shunned men, the instant he was in the pulpit, stood up a son of thunder. Such a voice! such a piercing eye!

such an inevitable forefinger, held out trembling with the terrors of the Lord; such a power of asking questions and letting them fall deep into the hearts of his hearers, and then answering them himself, with an ”ah, sirs!” that thrilled and quivered from him to them.

I remember his astonis.h.i.+ng us all with a sudden burst. It was a sermon upon the apparent _plus_ of evil in this world, and he had driven himself and us all to despair-so much sin, so much misery-when, taking advantage of the chapter he had read, the account of the uproar at Ephesus in the Theatre, he said, ”Ah, sirs! what if some of the men who, for 'about the s.p.a.ce of two hours,' cried out, 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians,' have for the s.p.a.ce of eighteen hundred years and more been crying day and night, 'Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord G.o.d Almighty; just and true are all thy ways, thou King of saints; who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy.'”

You have doubtless heard of the story of Lord Brougham going to hear him. It is very characteristic, and as I had it from Mrs. Cuninghame, who was present, I may be allowed to tell it. Brougham and Denman were on a visit to James Stuart of Dunearn, about the time of the Queen's trial. They had asked Stuart where they should go to church; he said he would take them to a Seceder minister at Inverkeithing. They went, and as Mr. Stuart had described the saintly old man, Brougham said he would like to be introduced to him, and arriving before service time, Mr.

Stuart called, and left a message that some gentlemen wished to see him.

The answer was that ”Maister” Brown saw n.o.body before divine wors.h.i.+p. He then sent in Brougham and Denman's names. ”Mr. Brown's compliments to Mr. Stuart, and he sees n.o.body before sermon,” and in a few minutes out came the stooping shy old man, and pa.s.sed them, unconscious of their presence. They sat in the front gallery, and he preached a faithful sermon, full of fire and of native force. They came away greatly moved, and each wrote to Lord Jeffrey to lose not a week in coming to hear the greatest natural orator they had ever heard. Jeffrey came next Sunday, and often after declared he never heard such words, such a sacred, untaught gift of speech. Nothing was more beautiful than my father's admiration and emotion when listening to his uncle's rapt pa.s.sages, or than his childlike faith in my father's exegetical prowess. He used to have a list of difficult pa.s.sages ready for ”my nephew,” and the moment the oracle gave a decision, the old man asked him to repeat it, and then took a permanent note of it, and would a.s.suredly preach it some day with his own proper unction and power. One story of him I must give; my father, who heard it not long before his own death, was delighted with it, and for some days repeated it to every one. Uncle Ebenezer, with all his mildness and general complaisance, was, like most of the Browns, _tenax propositi_, firm to obstinacy. He had established a week-day sermon at the North Ferry, about two miles from his own town, Inverkeithing. It was, I think, on the Tuesdays. It was winter, and a wild, drifting, and dangerous day; his daughters-his wife was dead-besought him not to go; he smiled vaguely, but continued getting into his big-coat. Nothing would stay him, and away he and the pony stumbled through the dumb and blinding snow. He was half-way on his journey, and had got into the sermon he was going to preach, and was utterly insensible to the outward storm: his pony getting its feet _balled_, staggered about, and at last upset his master and himself into the ditch at the road-side. The feeble, heedless, rapt old man might have perished there, had not some carters, bringing up whisky casks from the Ferry, seen the catastrophe, and rushed up, raising him, and _dichtin'_ him, with much commiseration and blunt speech-”Puir auld man, what brocht ye here in sic a day?” There they were, a rough crew, surrounding the saintly man, some putting on his hat, sorting and cheering him, and others knocking the b.a.l.l.s off the pony's feet, and stuffing them with grease. He was most polite and grateful, and one of these cordial ruffians having pierced a cask, brought him a horn of whisky, and said, ”Tak that, it'll hearten ye.” He took the horn, and bowing to them, said, ”Sirs, let us give thanks!” and there, by the road-side, in the drift and storm, with these wild fellows, he asked a blessing on it, and for his kind deliverers, and took a tasting of the horn. The men cried like children. They lifted him on his pony, one going with him, and when the rest arrived in Inverkeithing, they repeated the story to everybody, and broke down in tears whenever they came to the blessing. ”And to think o' askin' a blessin' on a ta.s.s o'

whisky!” Next Presbytery day, after the ordinary business was over, he rose up-he seldom spoke-and said, ”Moderator, I have something personal to myself to say. I have often said, that real kindness belongs only to true Christians, but”-and then he told the story of these men; ”but more true kindness I never experienced than from these lads. They may have had the grace of G.o.d, I don't know; but I never mean again to be so _positive_ in speaking of this matter.”

When he was on a missionary tour in the north, he one morning met a band of Highland shearers on their way to the harvest; he asked them to stop and hear the word of G.o.d. They said they could not, as they had their wages to work for. He offered them what they said they would lose; to this they agreed, and he paid them, and closing his eyes engaged in prayer; when he had ended, he looked up, and his congregation had vanished! His shrewd brother Thomas, to whom he complained of this faithlessness, said, ”Eben, the next time ye pay folk to hear you preach, keep your eyes open, and pay them when you are done.” I remember, on another occasion, in Bristo Church, with an immense audience, he had been going over the Scripture accounts of great sinners repenting and turning to G.o.d, repeating their names, from Mana.s.seh onwards. He seemed to have closed the record, when, fixing his eyes on the end of the central pa.s.sage, he called out abruptly, ”I see a man!”

Every one looked to that point,-”I see a man of Tarsus; and he says, Make mention of me!” It must not be supposed that the discourses of ”Uncle Ebenezer,” with these abrupt appeals and sudden starts, were unwritten or extempore; they were carefully composed and written out,-only these flashes of thought and pa.s.sion came on him suddenly when writing, and were therefore quite natural when delivered-they came on him again.

The Rev. John Belfrage, M. D., had more power over my father's actions and his relations to the world, than any other of his friends: over his thoughts and convictions proper, not much,-few living men had, and even among the mighty dead, he called no man master. He used to say that the three master intellects devoted to the study of divine truth since the apostles, were Augustine, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards; but that even they were only _primi inter pares_,-this by the bye.

On all that concerned his outward life as a public teacher, as a father, and as a member of society, he consulted Dr. Belfrage, and was swayed greatly by his judgment, as, for instance, the choice of a profession for myself, his second marriage, etc. He knew him to be his true friend, and not only wise and honest, but preeminently a man of affairs, _capax rerum_. Dr. Belfrage was a great man _in posse_, if ever I saw one,-”a village Hampden.” Greatness was of his essence; nothing paltry, nothing secondary, nothing untrue. Large in body, large and handsome in face, lofty in manner to his equals or superiors;[28] homely, familiar, cordial with the young and the poor,-I never met with a more truly royal nature-more native and endued to rule, guide, and benefit mankind. He was forever scheming for the good of others, and chiefly in the way of helping them to help themselves. From a curious want of ambition-his desire for advancement was for that of his friends, not for his own, and here he was ambitious and zealous enough,-from non-concentration of his faculties in early life, and from an affection of the heart which ultimately killed him-it was too big for his body, and, under the relentless hydrostatic law, at last shattered the tabernacle it moved, like a steam-engine too powerful for the vessel it finds itself in,-his mental heart also was too big for his happiness,-from these causes, along with a love for gardening, which was a pa.s.sion, and an inherited competency, which took away what John Hunter calls ”the stimulus of necessity,” you may understand how this remarkable man-instead of being a Prime Minister, a Lord Chancellor, or a Dr. Gregory, a George Stephenson, or likeliest of all, a John Howard, without some of his weaknesses, lived and died minister of the small congregation of Slateford, near Edinburgh. It is also true that he was a physician, and an energetic and successful one, and got rid of some of his love of doing good to and managing human beings in this way; he was also an oracle in his district, to whom many had the wisdom to go to take as well as ask advice, and who was never weary of entering into the most minute details, and taking endless pains, being like Dr. Chalmers a strong believer in ”the power of littles.” It would be out of place, though it would be not uninteresting, to tell how this great resident power-this strong will and authority, this capacious, clear, and beneficent intellect-dwelt in its petty sphere, like an oak in a flower-pot; but I cannot help recalling that signal act of friends.h.i.+p and of power in the matter of my father's translation from Rose Street to Broughton Place, to which you have referred.

[28] On one occasion, Mr. Hall of Kelso, an excellent but very odd man, in whom the _ego_ was very strong, and who, if he had been a Spaniard, would, to adopt Coleridge's story, have taken off or touched his hat whenever he spoke of himself, met Dr. Belfrage in the lobby of the Synod, and drawing himself up as he pa.s.sed, he muttered, ”high and michty!”

”There's a pair of us, Mr. Hall.”

It was one of the turning-points of my father's history. Dr. Belfrage, though seldom a speaker in the public courts of his church, was always watchful of the interests of the people and of his friends. On the Rose Street question he had from the beginning formed a strong opinion. My father had made his statement, indicating his leaning, but leaving himself absolutely in the hands of the Synod. There was some speaking, all on one side, and for a time the Synod seemed to incline to be absolute, and refuse the call of Broughton Place. The house was everywhere crowded, and breathless with interest, my father sitting motionless, anxious, and pale, prepared to submit without a word, but retaining his own mind; everything looked like a unanimous decision for Rose Street, when Dr. Belfrage rose up and came forward into the ”pa.s.sage,” and with his first sentence and look, took possession of the house. He stated, with clear and simple argument, the truth and reason of the case; and then having fixed himself there, he took up the personal interests and feelings of his friend, and putting before them what they were about to do in sending back my father, closed with a burst of indignant appeal-”I ask you now, not as Christians, I ask you as gentlemen, are you prepared to do this?” Every one felt it was settled, and so it was. My father never forgot this great act of his friend.

This remarkable man, inferior to my father in learning, in intensity, in compactness and in power of-so to speak-_focussing_ himself,-admiring his keen eloquence, his devotedness to his sacred art, rejoicing in his fame, jealous of his honor-was, by reason of his own ma.s.sive understanding, his warm and great heart, and his instinctive knowledge of men, my father's most valued friend, for he knew best and most of what my father knew least; and on his death, my father said he felt himself thus far unprotected and unsafe. He died at Rothesay of hypertrophy of the heart. I had the sad privilege of being with him to the last; and any n.o.bler spectacle of tender, generous affection, high courage, child-like submission to the Supreme Will, and of magnanimity in its true sense, I do not again expect to see. On the morning of his death he said to me, ”John, come and tell me honestly how this is to end; tell me the last symptoms in their sequence.” I knew the man, and was honest, and told him all I knew. ”Is there any chance of stupor or delirium?” ”I think not. Death (to take b.i.+.c.hat's division) will begin at the heart itself, and you will die conscious.” ”I am glad of that. It was Samuel Johnson, wasn't it, who wished not to die unconscious, that he might enter the eternal world with his mind unclouded; but you know, John, that was physiological nonsense. We leave the brain, and all this ruined body, behind; but I would like to be in my senses when I take my last look of this wonderful world,” looking across the still sea towards the Argylls.h.i.+re hills, lying in the light of sunrise, ”and of my friends-of you,” fixing his eyes on a faithful friend and myself. And it was so; in less than an hour he was dead, sitting erect in his chair-his disease had for weeks prevented him from lying down,-all the dignity, simplicity, and benignity of its master resting upon, and, as it were, supporting that ”ruin,” which he had left.

I cannot end this tribute to my father's friend and mine, and my own dear and earliest friend's father, without recording one of the most extraordinary instances of the power of will, under the pressure of affection, I ever witnessed or heard of. Dr. Belfrage was twice married.

His second wife was a woman of great sweetness and delicacy, not only of mind, but, to his sorrow, of const.i.tution. She died, after less than a year of singular and unbroken happiness. There was no portrait of her.

He resolved there should be one; and though utterly ignorant of drawing, he determined to do it himself. No one else could have such a perfect image of her in his mind, and he resolved to realize this image. He got the materials for miniature painting, and, I think, eight prepared ivory plates. He then shut himself up from every one, and from everything, for fourteen days, and came out of his room, wasted and feeble, with one of the plates (the others he had used and burnt), on which was a portrait, full of subtle likeness, and drawn and colored in a way no one could have dreamt of, having had such an artist. I have seen it; and though I never saw the original I felt that it must be like, as indeed every one who knew her said it was. I do not, as I said before, know anything more remarkable in the history of human sorrow and resolve.

I remember well that Dr. Belfrage was the first man I ever heard speak of Free-trade in religion and in education. It was during the first election after the Reform Bill, when Sir John Dalrymple, afterwards Lord Stair, was canva.s.sing the county of Mid-Lothian. They were walking in the doctor's garden, Sir John anxious and gracious. Dr. Belfrage, like, I believe, every other minister in his body, was a thorough-going Liberal, what was then called a Whig; but partly from his natural sense of humor and relish of power, and partly, I believe, for my benefit, he was putting the Baronet through his facings with some strictness, opening upon him startling views, and ending by asking him, ”Are you, Sir John, for free-trade in corn, free-trade in education, free-trade in religion? I am.” Sir John said, ”Well, doctor, I have heard of free-trade in corn, but never in the other two.” ”You'll hear of them before ten years are gone, Sir John, or I'm mistaken.”

I have said thus much of this to me memorable man, not only because he was my father's closest and most powerful personal friend, but because by his word he probably changed the whole future course of his life.

Devotion to his friends was one of the chief ends of his life, not caring much for, and having in the affection of his heart a warning against the perils and excitement of distinction and energetic public work, he set himself far more strenuously than for any selfish object, to promote the triumphs of those whom his acquired instinct-for he knew a man as a shepherd knows a sheep, or ”_Caveat Emptor_” a horse-picked out as deserving them. He rests in Colinton churchyard,