Letters to Mr. and Mrs. Watson and Others
Kilmany Manse, 16th December 1814.
MY DEAR SIR, — Agreeably to a promise I made to Mrs. Watson, whose interest in the matter I feel myself much indebted to, I have to inform you that I have at length sent a letter of concurrence in my late appointment to one of the churches of Glasgow. The prospect of my departure gives me a greater tenderness than ever for all my friends, and especially do I feel a very deep interest in all those clergymen who are placed around my much-loved and much-regretted parish. Were I taking leave of the world I would feel myself released from all those delicacies which are so apt to restrain the converse of human beings upon their greatest concern. Now I feel something of the same kind of emancipation upon merely leaving the neighbourhood, and you will therefore bear with me when I express the pleasure I have often felt in witnessing the decided tendency of your mind towards pure and Scriptural Christianity. It is my earnest prayer that you may abound more and more; that you may obtain grace to be found faith ful; that you may be enabled manfully to hold forth the Word of Life in the midst of all the contempt and resistance it may meet with; and that rising superior to all the disgust which the peculiarities of the Christian faith excites in the unrenewed heart, you may give a single and well-sustained aim to the great work of fitting a people for eternity. May God pour down such a blessing on your parish that there may not be room to receive it; but that flowing over into other parishes, it may prove a leaven for good beyond the field of your immediate exertions.
Give the assurance of my friendship and my prayers to Mrs. Watson. She has been beyond measure kind and indulgent to me, and I have every reason to be thankful for the privilege of her countenance and society. Let her persevere in seeking earnestly after the way of peace, and she will find it. God never said to any “Seek my face in vain;” and if she betake herself to the guidance of His Spirit, and the faithful reading of His Word, she will find all the perplexities which darken the outset of every anxious and inquiring Christian to merge at length in the delightful sunshine of a mind resting upon the promises of God, and running with enlargement and pleasure in the way of all His commandments. — May she long live with you as a fellow-heir of the grace of life; may the influence of her example be felt and followed by all her relations; may her children rise and call her blessed; may she have a part in the resurrection of the just, and be a bright and shining star in that heavenly region where there is no sorrow and no separation. — Yours most affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. CCX. — To THE REV. MR. WATSON.
Glasgow, 26th January 1818.
MY DEAR SIR, — Though it be long since I received your last letter, and I have since seen you personally, yet I assure you that I have too much value for a friendly connexion with you and your relations to let down our correspondence. I was much pleased and impressed with the contents of your last communication, in as far as they went to exhibit your own earnest desire for a warmer spirit of Christianity in your neighbourhood, though I fear that your representation of it in this respect is but too just; that the most satisfactory thing that can be said of it is, that all is comfort and quiet in the enjoyment of the good things of this life. How strikingly does this express the prevailing character of all neighbourhoods in our land; how much does an interest in time predominate every where over any interest in eternity; how little, alas! do the objects of the latter excite a real earnestness and a real seeking after them; and how faithfully do I describe the heart of every natural man when I say, that it is altogether occupied with the cares, and the interests, and the objects of the world to the exclusion of Him who formed it. The great problem is, how to set up this in our own souls and in those of our neighbourhood; and I am sure that no truth comes more forcibly recommended to us by all experienced in the utter powerlessness of man in this business. Our faith stands not in his wisdom, but in the power of God. And this truth, instead of quelling our activity, ought just to give the right direction to it — even that of preaching His Gospel, or dealing out as faithful stewards the treasure which He has been pleased to put into earthen vessels; and praying in faith for a blessing from Him who alone giveth the increase under all the discouragements there of an unpromising soil. Know that your labour in the Lord shall not be in vain, and forget not the rnaxim which a devoted missionary, Elliot, transmitted to us as the fruit of his own experience, “that prayers and pains can do anything,” &c.
I cannot express to you how much I feel interested in the best concerns, both of yourself and of dear Mrs. Watson. I spent an evening with much enjoyment lately at Pilmuir. God grant that all of us may so believe and so abound in those fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, that we may be found to praise, and honour, and glory in the day of reckoning. — Yours most affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. CCXL — To MR. FORTUNE.
Glasgow, 1823.
MY DEAR SIR, — I have just received your most distressingintimation, the more severe as it was wholly unexpected. In Mrs. Fortune I have lost one of the most intimate and most interesting associates of my early life, and I received the intelligence of her death as a solemn and aifecting admonition offered to my own heart of the vanity of all that is below.
I beg that you will compose your feelings under the overwhelming dispensation; and still more do I entreat, that from the tomb of her that is nearest and dearest to you, you will hear that voice of wisdom which bids us cease from time, and give all our hopes and preparations to eternity.
It is my earnest prayer that this awful visitation may work a saving and a sanctifying influence, both to your own heart and to the hearts of those related to her and most interesting to myself. May this deep sorrow shut us all up unto Him who alone can open for us the gates of that city where sin and suffering and separation are unknown. Do remember me in the language of truest sympathy to Mrs. Rankine, Mrs. Watson, and Mrs. Brown. — 1 am, my dear Sir, yours very sincerely, No. CCXIL — To MRS. WATSON.
Glasgow, 9th June 1823.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I have recently heard, and with great tenderness and grief, of the increased illness of poor Mrs. Brown. I think much of the dear sufferer, and it is my cry and prayer to God that she may be upheld in the sore struggle through which God is pleased to bring her to Himself; that grace may prevail over nature, and her affliction — which, after all, is light in the high reckoning of eternity, because but for a moment — may indeed work out for her an exceeding weight of glory. In her and in Mrs. Fortune I feel that two of my most interesting ties with Fife are broken; and I do feel more solicitous than ever that you should spare yourself as well as you can the agitations of that trying scene where you are now called to watch and to witness the agonies of one who is in every way so dear to us all.
There is a text that perhaps Mrs. Brown might feel a preciousness in; it is Deuteronomy xxxii. 36. It upheld the peace and patience of one of my old hearers on his deathbed. He had lost the power almost of thinking, and felt that the sickness and the pain made such inroads upon his mind that he could not be satisfied with any of its exercises; and so he simply laid it all upon God. He ceased even to try a right process of meditation, but lay still in a sort of resigned abeyance, hoping at the same time, that though his powers of thought, and sentiment, and even prayer, were altogether gone, yet God’s power and God’s pity were unfailing.
There is a song of triumph that awaiteth all those who die in Christ, and have come out of great tribulation; and even here the rapture and the glory of it may be partially felt; it is “unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His blood.” Oh, there is a charm in the thought of its cleansing and peace-speaking power, and that by it the way of access for j the guilty is now a consecrated way — consecrated by the blood i of a Divine expiation — and in which if we are found, the jus- j tice of God will not overtake us, and His mercy will rejoice over us.
I should be sorry to fatigue the mind of your much-loved sister by too great a variety of topics. One text may perhaps be her aliment for hours together. One precious clause is often enough to uphold a dying Christian, and more might distract and annoy her. When Fletcher died, it was after many hours of spiritual exultation, through which he constantly reiterated that “God is love,”
Say all that is tender in my name to her on whom the hand of God has been laid. He will at length compass her about with songs of deliverance, and the merciful High-priest, touched with the feeling of her infirmities, saith unto her, “It is I, be not afraid.” — Believe me, yours most aifectionately, No. CCXIIL — To MRS. WATSON.
Glasgow, 9th July 1823.
MY VERY DEAR MADAM, — The intimation from Kilrenny Manse reached us on Saturday, and aroused a deep emotion among us all. though we could not but feel relieved by the thought, that so great sufferings had terminated. After all they are but for a moment, and will now be looked back upon by the glorified spirit as the instruments of her present complete purification — as the steps by which she hath reached her present advancement in heaven. I have now only to entreat that you and Mrs Rankine will be calm. Be still, and know that He who visited you with this sore bereavement is God. It is not the violence of your grief that I fear: it is its despondency; and therefore would I have you to bear up — to take such part, as health and strength will enable you to do, in the cares and duties of every-day life; and instead of giving way to overmuch sorrow, be assured that the calls of family and relative obligation are partly the provisions of a kind and wise Ruler for diverting the mind from that which, if singly and exclusively dwelt upon, might overbear it altogether.
And what a season, too, for growth in grace — for the fruits of the spirit — for that righteousness which the chastening hand of God yieldeth unto all those who are exercised thereby. Your hearts are now exceeding soft, and tender, and broken under an awful visitation of Divine Providence, and they offer a likely soil for the showers and influences of Divine grace. The sorrow of nature is not godly sorrow, but it may be turned to it; and now is the time for deep impressions of the worthlessness of time, of the vast magnitude of eternal things, of the evil of sin, of the value of the Saviour, of the exceeding urgency of that gospel call whereby we are entreated to seek God now, and to enter into reconciliation with Him through Christ, that we too may be provided against that day when we shall be summoned into His presence, and that other day when we shall stand before his judgment-seat.
And what an alleviation to your present sorrows, that you are not called upon to sorrow as others who have no hope; that, on that deathbed which you have so recently witnessed, there was a brightness and a glory which softened all its agonies; that, amid the cruel sufferings of the flesh, there was a Spirit that bore up her on whom God was pleased to lay the hand of a refiner; and that, in her case, death was disarmed of its terrors and its sting, and she was more than conqueror through Him who loved her.
We must now give up all thoughts of the world as a resting-place. It will mitigate the evil when it comes, that we lay our account with it. Forewarned, forearmed — we should not think that any strange thing has happened to us; and I know nothing that more lightens the hardships of life, and more reconciles us to them, than that previous settlement of mind which a faith in this prediction of our Saviour is fitted to in spire, — “In the world ye shall have tribulation.”
There are no deaths which could have carried home this lesson with greater energy to my own heart than the two which have occurred in your family. I desire to find that I am sanctified, even as I feel that I am solemnized, by them. May they shut us all up more closely and more tenaciously unto the faith; and walking- softly and tenderly under the impression throughout the remainder of our pilgrimage, may we retain to the end of our days the attitude of strangers and pilgrims who have not taken up with the world as a residence, but use it merely as a road.
Give my most affectionate condolence to Mrs. Rankine and poor Mr. Brown. — I remain, yours most truly, No. CCXIV. — To MRS. WATSON.
Skirling, 21st September 1845.
MY VERY DEAR MRS. WATSON, — I feel deeply sensible of your goodness in having joined me at Barnsmuir, as it added prodigiously to the interest and the enjoyment I felt in my visit to the place of my tenderest recollections.
When in Kilrenny churchyard, I was so engrossed with the tablet appropriated to dear Anne, that I have carried away an imperfect remembrance of that which was raised for Mr. Brown. I saw enough of it, however, to observe that it was placed there by the parochial community as a tribute and acknowledgment for the great worth of his Christian services in the midst of them. I omitted, in the variety of our other topics, to state the very great satisfaction which I felt in such a testimony to his devotedness as a minister of the gospel.
I cannot expect, nor would I dare to ask, for a sight of any of Mrs. Fortune’s letters, however intense the feeling might be on my perusal of them. But there is one request which I have the boldness to make, and which I flatter myself that you will not deny. You stated that there were certain texts or passages of Scripture to which Mrs. Brown often referred in the course of her last illness. If you have any memorials of them, I cannot adequately express the value I would feel for a list of
Y them. You would not need to write them out. The chapter and verses will be sufficient.
I shall, if God will, have returned to Edinburgh by the 1st of October, after which a letter from you would be truly acceptable.
Give my love to your daughters,* and kindest regards to Mr. Watson.
I entreat a place in your prayers.
I hope we shall meet in heaven; but let us never forget, that without holiness no man can see God.
I purpose writing to Mr. William Fortune in a week. Since I have retired from public business, and have some leisure for looking back on my chequered existence, the scenes and society of Barnsmuir form those parts of the distant retrospect on which I most love to repose. — My dearest Susan, yours most aifectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. CCXV. — To MRS. WATSON.
Edinburgh, 23d October 1845.
MY VERY DEAR FRIEND, — I must delay no longer to acknow ledge your very welcome letter with the packet I received from your daughters, and for the contents of which I have the greatest value, both the testimony to one whom I never can forget or think of without emotion, and the letter from Kilrenny, with your own precious notes respecting the last illness of her who obviously died in the triumphs of the faith.
The picture you sent is superior to that at Barnsmuir, and in some respects more impressive; but there are in it a force, and vivacity, and decision which, though at the distance of a thousand miles from aught that borders on the masculine, yet are not so true to the original as the other, which presents, I think, a more faithful exhibition of that sensitively and ex- * I forget if Christian has Rankine also in her name.
quisitely feminine expression which formed the peculiar charm and grace of her character.
It were well if these tender reminiscences of the distant past led us onward in thought to the much nearer futurity which now awaits us both. My God, do Thou sanctify these strong affections of nature, and raise them to the things which are above, so that we may be prepared for that heaven where our dear and blessed Saviour has gone before us, and where we may both love Him and love our fellows without frailty and without a flaw.
I have written William,* and scarcely looked for a reply. He has not written back, and this is very natural: he must not be urged to write, it must be done spontaneously, and this is much better. There is in my heart a derived and descending love from the mother to the children, which I feel a pleasure in cherishing, though you are the only person in the world with whom I could talk about it. I felt a comfort and relief in our recent conversations, and am not without hope that ere another twelvemonth elapse we may have the same opportunity for the same enjoyment.
Meanwhile let us pray for the souls of these dear youth. George I look upon as an altogether new acquaintance, and I think him a very likeable person.
Give my best regards to Mr. Watson, and also to the Misses Marianne and Christian, whom I had pleasure in meeting and conversing with. If Miss Brown be with you, present to her my kindest remembrances.
My winter campaign is on the eve of commencing, and I gladly anticipate its engrossments by these few lines to you. No bustle, however, of other affairs will lessen the interest I shall always feel in your communications, nor I hope prevent my replying to them however briefly.
I pray for a blessing upon your own soul. Heavenly Father,
* Mrs. Fortune’s eldest son. See p. 261.
save me from being deceived by the mere counterfeits or sem blances of Divine grace. May my love for my fellows be genuine heaven-born spiritual love — such a love to my brethren as is like unto the love of Thyself. Let us feel towards each other as fellow-travellers to eternity; and though, reverting to the dear and long-departed object of my fondest recollections, I have not lived with her in one mansion, may I share with her in one blessed resurrection, and join her among the choirs and companies of the celestial above.
I like Miss Watson’s idea of getting a copy of the picture; but before that, I wish to compare it with the one at Barnsmuir. I think a compound of the two would be as perfect as a black profile can be. You are very good to allow me the custody of yours, which I purpose, if God will, to return into your own hand.
With earnest prayer for every blessing on the head of my very dear sister and friend, I ever am, yours most affectionately, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. CCXVI.-To MRS. WATSON.
Bivrntisland, 1st February 1846.
MY VERY DEAR MRS. WATSON, — I received yours of two or three weeks back, and read it with much feeling and pleasure. I should have replied sooner, but am at all times much bustled, and therefore I am glad to avail myself of a few leisure moments here, for the purpose of acknowledging your kind favour.
It is no ordinary recollection that I have of Barnsmuir, and should rejoice if through grace and wisdom from above, it could be made to subserve that highest of all good which has fruit in eternity.
We are strangely compounded creatures; and much do I need a sanctifying influence to spiritualize the strong affections of nature, and give a right and holy direction to them.
I feel the powerlessness of all human argument; and know not if I have made any good impression on the son of her who occupies far the most interesting place in my retrospect of days long gone by. I was favoured with a reply in which I could discern talent and good feeling and intelligence. May the all-powerful Spirit grant what He and He alone can give — the unction which remaineth — the grace which has fruit and holiness, and in the end life everlasting.
My best regards to Mr. Watson and your dear daughters. I am quite uncertain of my movements this summer. I had a letter from Jane lately, who says how much she was interested by my accounts of Barnsmuir, and how delighted she would have been to meet you there.
I saw Miss Inglis lately, who tells me that Miss Menzies was better. — My dearest Mrs. Watson, yours very affectionately, No. CCXVII. — To MR. WILLIAM FORTUNE.
Edinburgh, 5th October 1845.
MY DEAR SIR, — I meant to have written much sooner and told how greatly I was impressed by my visit to Barnsmuir. You may not be able to enter into all the feelings which are associated in my mind with the tender recollections of half a century. They were powerfully awakened when I stood before the tomb of your aunt in the churchyard of Kilrenny, and have just now been revived with tenfold force by the perusal of certain documents which have been kindly put into my hand, and from which I have gathered particulars new to myself, but most deeply affect ing, relative to the death of Mrs. Brown, and to that of your dear mother, for whom I have cherished during the long period of fifty-five years, such regards and remembrances as can never be effaced.
You will forgive me, then, if under a near and urgent and
2G2 CORRESPONDENCE OF DR. CHALMERS.
practical sense of the realities of an eternal though unseen world, I implore both you and your brother whom I love, not to suifer the evanescent objects or interests of time, to shut out from your hearts the solemn considerations of the coming judgment and the coming eternity. I have now come to that period of life when I may be said to be hovering on the confines of both worlds. I can attest from experience the vanities and disappointments of earth, and that truly it is not here where the firm footing of our interest lies. The dear brother who, though younger than yourself, has yet gone before you, has left behind the lesson, not only that time is short, but that we know not how short. The two sisters, loveliest of women, who died within a few months of each other, died more than twenty years ago, and yet were both of them my juniors. The lessons of our common mortality, though not yet within the circle of my own immediate family, yet within the circle of a very wide acquaintanceship, have flown thick about me; and such is my aifection for your now long departed relatives — such my affection both for you and your brother for their sakes, that I entreat you not to make a resting-place of that earth which passeth speedily away, but to aspire Godward and Heavenward, and be the followers of those who through faith and patience are now inheriting the promises.
And do not think, my dear Sir, that that knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, which is life everlasting, is something so lofty and mysterious as to be beyond the reach of your attainments. The Bible, if read with diligence, and the Spirit given to pour light upon the Bible, if prayed for with sincerity and earnestness, these are the great agencies and means by which even the poorest and humblest of men might be made wise unto sal vation. And there are other helps beside the Scriptures not to be neglected, for by them we might be the better enabled to understand the Scriptures. But tastes and understandings are
Mil. FORTUNE. 203
various, and the books suited to some are comparatively useless to others. The human author who did me most good was Wilberforce, by his work on the “Christianity of the Higher and Middle Classes.” And yet I know some who felt no interest in this book, though some of the following might perhaps prove more impressive and profitable, — Baxter’s “Call to the Unconverted;” Alleine’s “Alarm;” Doddridge’s “Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul;” Baxter’s “Compassionate Counsel to Young Men •” Guthrie’s “Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ;” Bradley’s “Sermons,” &c. But, after all, let me state in a single sentence what the likeliest expedient is for passing out of darkness into the marvellous light of the Gospel. It is the PRAYERFUL READING OF THE BIBLE. “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think that ye have eternal life, and these arc they which testify of Him who is the way, and the truth, and the life;” and ask for God’s enlightening Spirit: “Ask till ye receive, seek till ye find, knock till the door be opened to you,” (Matt. vii. 7-11.) Do indulge these overflowings of a heart which feels the strongest interest in one and all of your dearest mother’s family. 0 that God would endow me with the wisdom for arousing your souls; and that His Holy Spirit poured forth upon us from on high would prepare us for an entrance on that exalted region, where the spirits of the just made perfect rejoice for ever in the presence of God.
Give my kindest regards to Mr. George and Miss Menzies. Tell her that our interviews and conversations, though brief, were to me very precious, and that the memory of them is sweet. They have left a sorrow behind them, and given me an intense desire for her comfort under the loss of that dear youth to whom she was a second mother. — I ever am, my dear Sir, yours with most cordial and sincere regard, [The Manse of Inchture, 16th November 1850. — DEAR SIR, — On looking over some of my old papers some time ago, among a number of letters from Dr. Chalmers to different members of my family, I found the following to my father, which I think as interesting as any given in the first volume, and which I am about to copy verbatim, leaving you to make any use of it you like.
That you may understand it, it is only necessary for me to say, that the occasion of it must have been an application on the part of my father for Dr. Chalmers’s influence on his behalf, with the view of obtaining the presentation to the parish of Bendochy, then vacant, and which he ultimately succeeded in doing, mainly through the exertions of the late George Kinloch, Esq. of Kinloch, who was a particular friend of my father’s. The attachment alluded to was that for my mother, the eldest daughter of Dr. Adamson, first or senior minister of St. Andrews, to whose influence I have heard Dr. Chalmers say he was mainly indebted for his presentation to Kilmany. Indeed, I have a letter before me to my mother, in which the Dr. says, — “seeing it was to your father I stood indebted for the first great preferment of my life.” This obligation Dr. Chalmers seems never to have forgotten, as it is again and again alluded to in his letters not only to my father and mother, but also to myself: and I remember his giving frequent expression to it in his intercourse with my mother, as well as to his desire that he could in any way return it, so late as in 1831. Among other efforts to carry this desire into effect, there was none which gave a finer or more striking token of its intensity than that attention he paid my mother on her deathbed, when almost every day for six weeks, in the busiest period of, I think, his first session in Edinburgh as Professor of Divinity, he visited and prayed, and did what he could to comfort spiritually our dying parent, and my brother and myself, in the prospect of our bereavement. I beg to be kindly remembered to Mrs Hanna. — Yours most faith fully, JOHN ADAMSON HONEY.
The Rev. W. Hanna, LL.D.,
of Free St. John’s, Edinburgh.]
No. CCXVIIL — LETTER TO KEY. MR. HONEY.*
Kilmany Manse, 2cl May 1812.
MY DEAR SIR, — I this day arrived from Dundee, and found your letter waiting me. The wax has effaced the date of it;
* See Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 433-435.
11EV. MR. HONEY. 265
but I am sorry that a single day should have been lost in so urgent a cause. I guess a letter to be the most impressive form of application to Mr. Morison, and have accordingly written him to write Mr. Kinloch. I have no acquaintance with Mr. Chalmers in Dundee, but propose being there on Monday, when I shall speak to my only two acquaintances there, and shall try to reach him through one or other of these channels.
I shall give you an account of the last three years, and leave you to judge whether my conduct is at all palliated by the circumstances. I took ill in May 1809, got so well in July as to spend the summer in Anster a-sea-bathing: took ill again in October, and was thirty-one weeks kept out of my pulpit: spent great part of another summer at Anster, and from November 1810 to September 1811, was confined with a pupil, besides being in such a state of health that every excursion I made from my own bed, and from my own regimen, was sure to land me in the confinement of a week or a fortnight. I am now better — greatly better; and now that I have got something like health, my wish is to keep it, and not to throw it away. I am bilious to a great degree, and nothing but the most scrupulous attention to regimen and exercise can keep it down.
Amid all this, I had projected at different times an excursion to your house, and still persist in my intention of paying you a visit. I was sorry by the way that I missed your call at Kilmany. I often think of you, have as warm and friendly recollections of you as ever, and rejoice in the prospect of being relieved from one painful contemplation, which I assure you is often present to me, viz., my sitting in a place where you, hitherto unprovided, would most assuredly have been, had your boldness in declaring a certain attachment been equal to the sincerity with which you conceived and the constancy with which you maintained it.
2C6 CORRESPONDENCE OF DR. CHALMERS.
I am glad, that while you intimate your having heard of me in the new capacity of a serious man, you offer to keep me in countenance. It is the dread of being laughed at which keeps men from announcing themselves; and I hope that you will be superior to it. Have you read Foster’s “Essays?” — the best book I have seen for effecting a transition from the school of elegant literature to the school of the New Testament. Read Wilberforce’s “View of Religion in the Middling and Higher Classes,” and Doddridge’s “Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.” Embark with energy in this new career, and you will find it the most splendid and animating you have ever tried; nor can I see upon any principle, even of philosophy, how we can stop till we have found our conclusion and our repose in the peculiar doctrines of the gospel. — Give my kindest regards to Mrs. Honey; and believe me, yours with much regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.
Let me add to the above Fuller’s “Comparative View of Socinianism and Calvinism.”
N. B. — I kept this letter open till I received Mr. Morison’s answer, which I hereby enclose for the purpose of your making any use of it with Mr. Kinloch that may seem right.
The Rev. John Honey,
Care of Adam Adamson, Esq., Academy, Perth.
[DEAR SIR, — The letter, a copy of which I enclose, is interesting, not only because of its intrinsic merits, but on account of its exhibiting the germs of those schemes of Christian philanthropy which the writer after wards developed, and prosecuted with such unwearied zeal and such remarkable success. In his diary he speaks of having brought his pamphlet on the Bible Society to a close, on the 22d of September. He seems afterwards to have been much occupied with the business of Church Courts, and has several entries which show the mortification he experienced at the resolution which the Synod adopted, and the earnestness with which he prayed for grace to direct and sustain him: but there is no notice taken of his writing this letter. If we had not had the document before us, we might have been led to infer from no entry having been made on the 20th October — that that day had been spent in leisure and recreation. This letter may, therefore, be considered a proof that the account contained in his diary, ample as it is, exhibits only a part of the intellectual labour in which he engaged. — I remain, yours truly, JAMES BRODIE.
To the Rev. Wm. Hanna.]
No. CCXIX. — LETTER TO THE SECRETARIES OF THE FIFE AND KINROSS BIBLE SOCIETY.
Kilmany Manse, 20th October 1813.
DEAR SIRS, — I have been very much to blame in delaying an answer to your last. I was otherwise a good deal occupied. I beg you will not slavishly adhere to every word of the subjoined. It is perhaps too long, and retrenchments from it to make room for paragraphs of your own or others may be advisable. You should all mention at the foot of it, that if any shall wish to form Penny Societies in their neighbourhood, they may obtain the requisite information by corresponding with any person or persons whom you shall fix upon for that purpose.
In pleading the cause of any institution, the great question which it lies upon us to answer is, “What good will it do? The object of the Bible Society is to provide Bibles for those who have them not; and the most effectual answer to the above question is, the assembling together a few facts to shew the good which this has done.
1. Our first fact goes to prove that the Christianity of the Bible gains a readier access into the hearts of the ignorant than the Christianity of sermons, and systems, and human compositions. When missionaries went to Greenland, you may be sure they had the ignorance of a most raw and unfurnished population to contend with. They thought they would go systematically to work, and, before laying before them the religion of the Bible, they attempted to give them some ideas of what has been called Natural Religion. They expatiated on the existence, and the unity, and the attributes, and the love of God. The poor Greenlanders did not comprehend them; and, at the end of many years, the missionaries were mortified to find that they had not gained a single proselyte to the faith. On this they resolved to change their measures, and, as a last desperate experiment, they gave up all their preparatory instructions, and made one great and immediate step to the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, bringing them forward in the language of the Bible. The effect was instantaneous. When told of sin and of the Saviour, the ears of savages were constrained to listen to the message, and their understandings opened to receive it. There was something in the hearts of these unlettered men which responded to the views and tidings of the Gospel. The demonstrations of natural religion fell fruitless and unintelligible upon their ears; but they felt the burdens of sin and of death, and pleasant to their souls was the preacher’s voice, when it told that unto them “a Saviour was born,” They live in the very outskirts of population, and beyond them there is nothing seen but a wilderness of snow, and nothing heard but the angry howling of the elements. Who will say that the enterprise is chimerical now, wrhen, by the single influence of Bible doctrine, a Christian people have been formed in a country so unpromising — the limits of the visible church have been pushed forwards to the limits of human existence, and the tidings of good-will to men have been carried with acceptance to the very last and outermost of the species.
2. Our next example shall be taken from the Esquimaux of Labrador — a rude and wandering race, who hunt for furs all summer, and live all winter in caverns under ground. In this case, as in the former, missionaries laboured among them in the first instance. They communicated to their hearts an interest in the subject. They translated portions of Scripture into their language. The Bible Society has presented them with the Gospels of Matthew and John. The arts of reading and writing are fairly introduced among them; and so great is the excitement which lies in Christianity, that a few of its teachers have achieved a mightier step in the progress of civilisation than with any other subject, or upon any other occasion, the work and the perseverance of many centuries could have accomplished.
3. Philosophers reason upon the influence of climate; but there is a power in Christian truth which carries it over all these accidental varieties. Christianity is gaining her proselytes in every quarter of the globe; and we now turn your attention from the bleak and dreary regions of the north, to a country lying under the fierceness of a vertical sun. We allude to the Tamul Christians on the coast of Coromandel. They were formed, about a century ago, out of native idolaters by the society in London for propagating Christian knowledge; and Christianity has been kept up and extended among them by a translation of the Bible and the labours of successive missionaries. New impressions of the Tamul Bible are preparing for them; and, instead of that obstinate superstition which we are so ready to ascribe to the natives of India, we have beheld Pagans, and the descendants of Pagans, capable of reading the Bible, and in the attitude of eagerness to receive it.
4. But to bring our list of examples to a close. Our last shall be given you from the Records of the Baptist Mission in India — one of the most flourishing missionary concerns now in operation, and which, since the year 1746, has doubled its number of proselytes every three years. The Scriptures have of late been translated into the Bengalee language. The New Testament has reached a third edition, and the Old is now in circulation. By a letter, dated the 26th October 1810, it appears that nineteen had applied to Dr. Carey for baptism; and mark the decisive importance of the fact, eighteen of these were indebted under Divine grace to the translation of the Scriptures for their conversion. This is what may be called the ^turning-point of the whole business, and it is here laid in full and authentic exhibition before you. The Bible is translated into the language, and put into the hands of an idolater. That Bible is read; it is brought into contact with his mind, and the faith which cometh from the Word of God is the consequence. He turns from dumb idols to serve the living and the true God; and the Scriptures are glorified by their having made him wise unto salvation, through the faith that is in Christ Jesus.
Our limits restrain us from expatiating. These are only a few facts out of the many, a few gleanings out of the information already before the public; nor can we offer a survey, however general, of the decided aspect toward Christianity among the various peoples on the face of the globe. From the poor African, and his eagerness for the white mans book, to the learned Arab who is beginning to suspect his Alcoran, and is on the eve of being presented with the Bible of Christians, in his vernacular tongue, we see symptoms full of promise, and call upon all our countrymen to share in the glorious work of carrying the promise forward to accomplishment.
We have only spoken of the foreign operations of our Society, and can merely advert to its reviving and purifying influence in the interior of Christendom; how it recalls the veneration of Christians from modes and vanities to the one charter of our faith; how it recognises the Bible as the great and only directory of religion; how it spreads the most effectual antidote against the corruptions of human systems; how it brings the good men of all parties into contact with one another; and how, in the very act of circulating the Bible, it circulates the infection of its own spirit and its own piety along with it.
The rich have done much for the cause; but we invite the men of all ranks to share in it. “We address the lower orders of society, and wish to convince them that, though the individual offering may be small, the number of individuals is great, and that the accumulation of their littles will form into a mightier sum than all the united gifts which the rich have yet thrown into the treasury. A penny a week from each householder in Fife amounts to dP4000 a year. The same from each householder in Britain amounts to half a million in the year; and this is a sum larger by eight times than any yearly income which the Bible Society has yet received from its wealthy and numerous subscribers. It is true that the Missionary Society lias also its claims; and it is for you to give your own directions to your own benevolence. We trust that societies for such objects will grow and multiply among you. We do not despair of seeing the day when every parish shall have a Christian society — when not a district of the land shall be left uncultivated, but shall yield a produce to the cause of the Saviour; when these lesser streams shall form into a mighty torrent to carry richness and fertility into the dry and desolate regions of the world; and when Britain, high in arms, and in political influence, shall earn a more permanent glory by being the dispenser of light, and peace, and the message of heaven to the remotest nations.
We exercise no other control over you but that of persuasion; and sorry should we be if a single farthing came in upon us of constraint, and not of a willing mind. What you give, give cheerfully, and let it be no more than you can spare. There arc some who depend on charity for their subsistence, and these can never give what they receive from others. There are some who have not yet arrived at this state of dependence, but are on the very verge of it. To them we address a passage from the Bible, — “If any provide not for his own and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.” There are others again, and these, we apprehend, form by far the most numerous class of society, who can maintain themselves in humble but honest independence, who can spare a little and not feel it, who can do what Paul .advises them, lay aside their penny a week, as God hath prospered them, who can share that blessedness which the Saviour speaks of when He says, that “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” who, though they cannot equal their richer neighbours in the amount of their donations, can bestow their something, and, at all events, carry in their bosoms a heart as warm to the cause, and call down as precious a blessing from the God who witnesses it.
“What!” say some, “will you take from the poor?” No: .we do not take. It is they who give; and shew us the man who complains of it? To him would we say, — “It is you, and not we, who- do an injustice to the poor. It is you who impute to them a grossness and a want of generosity which do not belong to them. It is you who have the indelicacy to sit in judgment over their circumstances and feelings. It is you who think of them so unworthily, that you cannot conceive how truth and benevolence should be objects to them, and that after they have got the meat to feed, the house to shelter, and the raiment to cover them, there is nothing else that they will bestow a penny upon,” They may not be able to express their feeling at a suspicion so ungenerous, but we shall do it for them. “We have souls as well as you, and precious to our hearts is the Saviour who died for them. It is true we have our distresses; but these have bound us more firmly to our Bibles; and it is the desire of our hearts that a gift so precious should be sent to the poor of other countries. The Word of God is our hope and our rejoicing. We desire that it may be theirs also; that the wandering savage may know it and be glad; and the poor negro, under the lash of his master, may learn of a Master in heaven, who is full of pity and full of kindness. Do you think that sympathy for such as these is your peculiar attribute? — know that our hearts are made of the same materials with your own, that we can feel as well as you, and out of the earnings of a hard and honest industry we shall give an offering to the cause; nor shall we cease our exertions till the message of salvation be carried round the globe, and made knovin to the countless millions who live in guilt, and who die in darkness.” — Yours truly,