1849–1851

From year to year the congregational and pastoral work goes on with the utmost regularity. The stream is seldom ruffled by any great or extraordinary event. The annual reports succeed each other, containing full and clear accoimts of schools and missions in London; of efforts to extend the limits of the Church in England; of foreign missions in Corfu and in China. Regent Square is like a hive of bees in summer; and the mighty metropolis is the better for this and other similar congxegations in its midst, whether the mighty metropolis knows and acknowledges its obligations or not. The minister, loving and loved, is felt everywhere a rallying point and centre of attraction. The beneficent machinery goes smoothly round. Christian charity lubricating every wheel; and precisely because all is going on well there is not much for the historian to tell. Where there are no battles, the history of a country is brief and dull; but great is the happiness and the progress of the people. It is the same with the work and sphere of a Christian minister, when he is faithful and his flock affectionate. His letters will quietly illustrate his character, but there are few events large enough to constitute way-marks in his history.

“LoNDOiT, June 8, 1849. “My deae Andkew, — Your last with its enclosure to William arrived safely a week ago. I should have sent you a good long letter sooner, but I am sadly occupied. As I keep no journal, I may give you a sketch of the last week. On Friday I worked all day at the Life of Lady Colquhoun, and on Saturday till midnight studied for Sabbath. On Sabbath rose at four, and being out at Hamilton Terrace, it was beautiful to behold that Sabbath prime. It was bright in the east, and in the west so darkly grey that you could easily imagine the skirts of night’s sable stole as allegorical painters delineate. And then so warm and genial — the ‘may,’ the laburnum, the breath of June — and so musical, the skylark in the air, and the turtles in their cage. Besides which I had a happy feeling about the day and its blessed work. Though far too nervous and unequal to have any certainty about preaching well, I have great enjoyment in studying, from confidence in the truth, and a hope (often illusive) that I may retain the same benevolence and joyousness in preaching, and so effect some good. After the morning sermon three artists came into the vestry all in a row, and unknown to one another. Hope Stewart and Miss Laird, who took dear James’s likeness, and Norman M’Beth, all inquiring after you. On Monday received visitors till twelve. One of these was a Professor Stewart, from New Albany, Ohio. He brought a handsome edition of Hajojpy

Home, published by Carter, New York, and a diploma constituting me a life- director of the American Board of Foreign IVIissions — a distinction obtained by purchase, and a good way of applying part of the profits of these publications. Then visited till haK-past four. One of these visits was an affecting one. On Sabbath evening I was asked to go and see a young Scotchman at Walworth, dying of decline, I made a memorandum to go there the first place on Monday, but I was only in time to see his tall figure stretched on a table in the repose of recent death, and his old mother, from Peterhead, sitting beside the corpse. Poor fellow! I fear there was no hope in his death, the only thing like it was that he had expressed a wish to see me. I observed on a table what appeared to be a novel from a circulating library, and with which I fancied he had been beguiling his dying hours, I prayed with his mother and brother and came sorrowfully away. After dining with Mr, W, Hamilton, attending the Session prayer-meeting and two committees, got home at ten. Tuesday wrote fourteen letters, corrected the proofs of a new edition of Mount of Olives in order to be stereotyped,”

“52 Hamilton Teebace, June 12, 1849. “My dear Mamma, — ... Our old cook, Ann, is feeling the infirmities of age, and has resigned. We have got one from Yarde, the chemist in Lamb’s Conduit Street, who is well recommended. For the last month we have been very much here. Dr. Darling recommends it as good for Annie, baby, and all to be here as much as they can. And so another friend and neighbour has passed away. It is thirty years since Miss Craig came to Strathblane in all her buxom vigour, and very bowed and feeble they say she was these latter years. I missed seeing her when in Edinburgh last September. That little spot in the West Churchyard has now received beneath its sod forms with whom my early memories of the old manse intermingle. Yesterday, the day the notification came, was the Monday of Strathblane sacrament twenty-two

years ago. Mrs. and Miss Craig would be the

stateliest guests at the manse dinner; old Susan would be assiduous at the table; and Mary, seven years old, with her white frock and soft fair hair, had helped Elizabeth to gather flowers for the ^pergne — lilac and bachelors’ buttons and red pinks and cowslips from the bank. Dear Jane, her cheeks even then were rosy, and I think her hair was black, though her dark eyes had not softened into that gentle and magnanimous expression of friendliness which they afterwards acquired. Andrew was in Lizzy Eamsay’s arms. Poor Captain Craig’s funeral was on the Saturday of a summer sacrament — a cold and windy Saturday. But before it took place his young sweetheart (Elizabeth Hamilton) had escaped from the windy storm into the bosom of her God; and the great break up had begun which has been going on for eighteen years. That old manse beside the burn was like a nest; and, taking in Aunt Elizabeth, there were nine of us who nestled there; and I seldom see a hawthorn tree, or scent the caller smell of clothes bleaching on the grass, or the odorous breath of a milch cow, but I think of these warm, peaceful evenings. Of the nine, four are left, but no two together. How much need to think of heaven! — I remain, your ever affectionate son, James Hamilton.”

“London, July 21, 1849.

“My deae William, — ... The wealth which I most value is the affection of relations and friends; but I feel that I am doing nothing to deserve it, and by negligence doing much to forfeit it. On Wednesday, at Hamilton Terrace, just before the beU rang for dinner, I finished writing the Memoir of good Lady Colquhoun, and after two days more I have just completed the Messenger for this month. And then I said to myself, ‘I shall now rest a while; I shall take in hand no more book-making. I shall take leisure, and delight myseK in the society of dear friends.’ And Annie enters enthusiastically into the idea. (She has even some sinister wishes that the Messenger may ’ go down.*) And carrying out our scheme we are going to Tulse Hill and Camberwell on Monday, and are to have some friends at tea on Tuesday; and by a little extra activity we hope to pick up a good many of those old acquaintances who may still remember us after the relegation of the last fifteen months. It is just so long since I conceived the notion of ‘Happy Home,’ and began to lead this life of cold-hearted industry.

“To-morrow, Mr. Noel is to preach in the morning, and in the evening I exchange with Dr. Leifchild; so this afternoon I have a singular sensation of disengagedness. This week I have read a wonderful book — Lieut. Lynch of the United States has sailed, or rather floated, down the Jordan, and all round the Dead Sea; the only man who ever

z did so. His exploration is a wonderful confirmation of the Bible narrative of the destruction of the cities of the Plain. Over and above, it is a most interesting volume of travels.”

In a letter of the same date to his brother-in-law, Mr. Walker, he states his opinion that the preparation of the memoir occupied more time than all that he had hitherto printed put together. This intimation takes one by surprise; but he knew what he said, and could, if necessary, have given his reasons. The books and tracts, for the most part, were in the line of his ministry, or lines that lay near. The materials were all at hand, the accumulations of a laborious life. But the memoir of a life with which he was not, to a great extent, personally familiar, must have been compiled altogether from documents that he had not previously seen. Besides, the labour of reading a great mass of documents, written by various pens, and with varying degrees of legibility, and the strain laid upon the judging faculty by the necessity of forming a multitude of decisions, or rather one continuous act of deciding what should be retained and what omitted, render the task of a biographer exceptionally laborious. But the work was a credit to him, and a benefit to the public. It is alive, and will speak for itself. The honour that accrued to him from the manner in which he executed this task, became ultimately a burden; applications for similar service were, in some cases, pressed with inconvenient urgency.

TO ME.

“Broadstairs, Aug, 24, 1849.

“Liv dear Fkiend, — Few persons can love Mr, IsToel more than I do, and few can be so sorry at the last step which he has taken. But he took it in the exercise of the same conscientiousness which made him espouse the cause of the Free Church, and which led him to leave the Establishment; and though I would vehemently dissent from his judgment in this case, I cannot withdraw from him my affection. Even we ourselves do not know what we might have done had we belonged to a church which teaches baptismal regeneration. Our friends must make allowance, and, like Mr. N. himself, who joined in the prayers for the infants baptized in our church last month, we must exercise Christian magnanimity....”

“Broadstaies, Kent, Aug. 27, 1849.

“My dear Andrew, — Your letter with your Iceland experiences arrived safely last Monday, and is now at Carnwath. You are seeing places and people whose acquaintance it is the lot of few to make, and which, I hope, you wUl find of good account in your calling hereafter. The globe is a little islet after all, but it contains materials of interest in its past and present more than all its naturalists and poets will ever use up....

“The only drawback on the rustication is that thing which I can no more get rid of than ’ a man can jump out of his own shadow.’ I have already written sixty-four letters since I came here, and edited the Messenger, having to write twenty columns of it myself. However, it is better than Loudon; and in the pure, health-giving sea-air I have read some books. Hare’s Life of Sterling is a book which gentlemen scholars like you should read, to see the spiritual dangers of literary habits when not corrected by the tonic of some active and beneficent pursuit. Sterling became a Straussian, and a great outcry has been raised against Hare for publishing a candid and friendly memoir; but every lover of truth should be glad to get the true history of a mind so sincere, and so finely accomplished, even though the ending is sad. With Chalmers’s Theological Institutes I am delighted out of measure. Orthodox, honest, conversational, eloquent, divinely human, it is the shock of corn fully ripe — the mighty Chalmers in his golden maturity. It is the converse of his sermons. These it was better to hear than to read; his lectures are noblest in print. With Longfellow’s Hyperion you would be greatly charmed; as well as with Lamartine’s memoirs of his youth. I have also read a volume of Sir J. Stephen’s contributions to the Edinhurgh Review: brilliant sketches of Baxter, Wilberforce, and other leading men of many persuasions. And when I go out, either alone or with Annie, I have usually in my pocket a volume of my unwearying companion, the Faery Queen...,

“As you will have seen, Mr. Noel has been re-baptized. He will resume his ministry in the chapel, Gray’s Inn Road, which has hitherto been Mr. Mortimer’s. Yesterday he was to preach in Regent Square, as he also will next Sabbath. This step caimot cool my affection for him, though I very much lament it. Perhaps, owing to the diversity of our minds, there is a peculiar drawing together betwixt him and me. Most of the sermons which he has preached this summer have been in Regent Square, to the very great benefit of our people. Three weeks ago I opened a beautiful new Presbyterian Church at Shields, built by Mr. Stevenson; and in other three weeks I expect to preach at the opening of another at Birmingham. We have now a dozen handsome churches in England, which are one element of denominational strength.

FROM MR. S. LAURENCE.

“Kever’s Hotel, Bond Steeet,
Sept. 8, 1849.

“Rev. and dear Sir, — Some weeks since, when on the Continent, I received the enclosed note with a letter from my brother, Mr. Amos Laurence, of Boston, with a request that I would call on you in London and thank you in the warmest manner for the many good things you have written, especially for that entitled Life in Earnest, which is being circulated most extensively through the States, with an influence truly favourable on vast numbers. My brother enclosed a letter he had received from Mr. Briggs, the present Governor of Massachusetts, in which he says this work of yours is next the Book of books, and of all things he would like to take you by the hand. I called at your house to-day, and found that you were out of town, and as I shall embark for my home, at Boston, next Saturday, it will not be in my power to gratify your admirers by a personal interview. Let me say that, should you visit the United States, you will find thousands of warm hearts to receive you, but none with more cordiality than those I have alluded to. Among the principal sources of enjoyment on the passage home, is the pleasure of reading your works, and I beg to present you my thanks in anticipation, and am, your obedient servant,

“Saml. Latjeence.”

It is understood that his works have enjoyed even a larger circulation in America than in this country. He possessed the higher reward of knowing that he was honoured as an instrument of good; but it would not have been amiss, all circumstances considered, if our brothers beyond the Atlantic had “felt in their pockets” for the author of works which they so much admired. Not altogether, but almost, it can be said, that he derived no profit from the sale of his works in America. The exception amounted only to a few pounds. This of course throws no reflection on those private persons who bought the books in the market: it belongs to the system which refuses international copyright.

“London, Oct. 5, 1849.

“My dear William, — ... Many thanks to your dear and good friend, Mr. Eowan, for so kind an invitation. It would indeed be very delightful to spend these days together; but the College, the Messenger, the congregation, next Tuesday’s Presbytery, the China Mission, and the stopping of this Sunday post, are a sixfold cable which tethers me to town next week.

“During this winter it will be absolutely needful that you hastand your strength, and especially that you eschew all week-night meetings. Four years ago, I gave up our Thursday meeting in Regent Square. I did not lose a single hearer in consequence, and, by being able to preach better on Sabbath, our Sabbath congregation improved. The Sabbath service is the sheet-anchor of our ministry. And then for health. My experience is, that if I do not go out in the rain, and sit in no draught in the house, I do not catch cold; and I never contract any mischief from the utmost amount of study. I hope you will now make a conscience of your health, and spare no comfort which is to make you strong and fit for future service. Our constitutions are not very tough, but neither are they distempered; and they will last a good while if we do not allow people to tear them to pieces.”

A pastoral address during the prevalence of cholera, in October 1849, presents his character in an interesting aspect. We venture to think that few evangelical ministers would have given to temporal affairs so prominent a position and so large a place in such a composition. One whose hope was less lively, and whose spiritual life was less mature, supposing him to be really a true disciple of the Lord, would have felt it necessary in such circumstances to deal almost exclusively with the new life of the soul. Foremost in place, and largest in bulk, would have been the “call to the unconverted,” — the urgent appeal to press into the Kingdom, lest the door should suddenly be shut. A pastoral so framed would have been a good and an appropriate charge; it would have been a word in season to any congregation. But the pastoral which James Hamilton wrote under the shadow of the pestilence was, we do not say a more useful address, but the fruit and evidence of a higher spiritual attainment. He speaks as one who is ready to depart and to be with Christ; it is such an one who, from such a view-point, can calmly enforce, in principle and detail, the duty of setting one’s house in order. We subjoin those portions that bear on this point, and are in some degree peculiar and characteristic: —

“In His infinite wisdom the sovereign Ruler has left the term of human existence vague and indeterminate; but, in the same wisdom, from time to time He sends messages to warn us that though life be indefinite, it is not perpetual; though long, it is not everlasting. Of these methods, one most effectual is a temporary increase in the rate of mortality. By sending into a district a pestilential disease or other devastating malady, the Most High shortens the lives of its inhabitants. To each inhabitant He brings death nearer than it was. He virtually says, ‘Twice as many, thrice as many, are dying now as used to die, therefore from this assembly twice or thrice as many will be removed in these transpiring months as would have been taken had all things continued as they were; and whatever was the previous likelihood that any given individual should die, that likelihood is for the present twice or three times greater than it was.’ This is solemn language, but it is true. It is the language of God’s providence; and it is spoken not in order to put people into panic, but to lead them to repentance — not to friffliten or distress us, but to force us into closer contact with our truest interest — to compel us to grapple more resolutely with the great object of earthly existence. And as he would be our best friend, not who could insure to us a long life, but who could make us continually ready for the close of a short one, and as I deem it likely that I now address some who, ere the short remainder of this year is ended, will be the inhabitants of eternity, without exaggeration and without evasion, and using great plainness of speech, I would seek to offer some suggestions suited to the present emergency: —

“I. And amongst these preparations which may enable you to look upon your departure with serenity and cheerfulness, the first I shall mention is the ordering of your worldly afi’airs. If these be obscure or tangled, they will be a great hindrance to the more important and vital preparations.

“In the complications of modern trading it is diflBcult to speak of such matters with absolute precision, but it seems very obvious that no one leaves the world gracefully, not to say righteously, who leaves it in debt. Doubtless there are sad coincidences, and disease and death may arrive simultaneously with commercial disaster. But setting out of sight such anomalies, there cannot be a moment’s doubt on the question; and his life is the honourable one whose well-directed industry and forethoughtful seK-denial have enabled him to add to the world’s resources, who has converted crude materials into objects of solid use and substantial comfort, and who, if his five pounds have not gained by trading other five pounds, at least leaves to his children the same advantages for well-being and well-doing which his father bequeathed to him. Just as, on the contrary, every affectionate mind must revolt from the idea that his family are to be involved in financial distress on the very day that their natuial guardian is taken from their head. It is surely enough that they must feel in all their poignancy the woes of orphanage and widowhood, without being subjected to the ignominy and vexation of a bankruptcy for which they are nowise to blame. And as you would preserve inviolate the sacred ness of sorrow, and as you would rescue the house of mourning from the degrading diplomacy, the rude intrusions, and coarse insults incident to embarrassed or ruined circumstances, surely no effort should be spared, no present self-denial grudged, in order to secure a provision for survivors, and so to render your affairs simple, explicit, and self-adjusting.

“There are some subordinate preparations for the final event which I would gladly have specified; but alas! * the dignity of the pulpit ’ sets limits to the friendliness of the pastor, and perhaps for one discourse I have sufficiently exceeded the usual range of allowed conventionalities, otherwise I should have liked to add, ‘Set your house in order by securing wise, kind, and pious friends for survivors.’ In its human provisions there never was a shorter will than that which the Son of Mary uttered on the cross, ‘Woman, behold thy Son; man, behold thy mother ;* but the three years of close and confiding companionship with which that ‘man’ had been favoured by his Master, bespoke his fondest services, and prepared him to fulfil with sacred and tremulous solicitude, his affecting and ennobling trust. And in like manner you may have little to leave, almost as little as He who had not the poorest cottajie, or the smallest endowment to bestow on a beloved parent’s waning years, and whose very apparel was a perquisite forfeited to the soldiers who slew Him. But happily, and in the kindness of God, it is possible for the poorest, by worth and obligingness, to secure friends who may advance his best interests and be of unspeakable service to his family when he himself is gone. And, amongst those whom I now address, there is probably not one who might not secure for himself the affection of men whose wisdom and goodness would be a constant blessing to himself, and a precious heritage to his children. True, this modern world is in a hurry, and hurry begets a certain heartlessness; but if we ourselves take leisure to be very good, and very useful, and very amiable, even in this rapid age some one or other will find leisure to love us. And as it is through the friendship of our fellows that the Friend who sticketh closer than a brother sends many of His own sweetest mercies, it is worth while to seek out and to cultivate the society of those Christians who are devout enough to quicken our own languor, and faithful enough to indicate and remedy our own defects, and whose pious counsels and prayerful watchfulness will not lose sight of our earthly representatives, when ourselves have disappeared.

“And I should have liked to add, ‘Set your house in order, by attending instantly to those matters, whether temporal or spiritual, which you mean to do some day/

Every now and then, inside of some wainscot, or under the basement of a ruined tower, people are finding a pot of rusty coins or a tarnished lump of some precious metal. It was the hoard of some frugal worthy who intended to impart to his heir the secret before he died; but he perished on the battle-field, or was smitten down by some sudden stroke, and his secret perished with him, — his secret perished, and his heir was poor. And so, at this moment, hoarded up in the bosoms of living men, are many treasures; not bullion, not jewel-caskets, not minted money, — but good ideas, good intentions, things which, if imparted or performed, would enrich by making wiser and better a family, or that eventual heir of all right deeds and holy thoughts — mankind. But alas! if they be only in your own bosom when you die, that is a ruin which will not divulge its treasure. The information, the fact, the project, the thought, has perished; and so far as you are concerned, must remain a secret till the resurrection. Then, ‘whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.’... And if our house be thus in order, we shall not need to mind which of many messengers our dear Lord sends to warn us of His coming; and provided it opens the gate and lets in the Saviour and the Sabbath of His own immediate presence, we shall not have any quarrel with the grim door-keeper, whether it be a stormy billow or an exploding engine, a palsy or a pestilence, a slow consumption or the rapid and much-dreaded cholera.”

Although the habit of his mind was Christian rather than ecclesiastic, and cosmopolitan rather than denominational, he “was constrained by the necessities of his position to undertake a large share in the councils of that section of the Church to which he belonged. With a positive distaste for Church politics, he was yet compelled by his talents and influence to be a leader in the Church.

One rule for the Presbyterian Church in England which he counted essential, and kept constantly in view, was that, while Presbytery should in the south be maintained intact, both in its theology and its government, whatever was peculiarly Scotch about it might profitably be left behind at the border. He was continually thwarted in his plans by an inveterate prejudice which held to the accidents of Scottish habits, as if they were the essentials of the Church. He firmly and fondly believed that the grand system of doctrine and discipline which Knox introduced into Scotland might suit England, and be her salvation in the spiritual deluge that is coming on, if those into whose hands the boon has fallen were wise and pliable enough to distinguish between essence and accident; if they would give England the living body of the system, and not insist on England accepting also every rag of the Scottish costume. This was a passion with him — an aim which he prosecuted through life. An opportunity occurred of ventilating his principles, when Mr. Young, an able and good minister, after a brief experiment in London, determined to treat the experiment as a failure and abandon the field. In the Presbytery, on this occasion, he spoke with more bluntness and less reserve than was his wont. Probably he felt more at liberty to let out all

Lis mind in connexion with that case, “because the minister was a man of acknowledged ability and of the highest character. There was less danger of giving pain in such a case, than if there had been a failure through lack of ability.

At a meeting of Presbytery in March 1850, Dr.^ Hamilton said “he felt much for Mr. Young, and felt much for the congregation, but most of all for the Presbyterian Church in England. Considering how cordial was his call, and how clear Mr. Young was in accepting it, he could scarcely conceive the effort or the sacrifice which their brother should not have made before conceding that his coming was a mistake, and his ministry a failure. He agreed with what Mr. Chalmers said regarding adaptation; but what he lamented was, that so many pious and able men failed to adapt themselves. How was it that Scotchmen succeeded in every mission except the mission to England? Why, but because to the Jews Dr. Duncan became as a Jew, and to the Hindus Dr. Duff became as a Hindu; to the Bushmen Mr. Moffat became as a Bushman. But catch a Scotchman becoming an Englishman to the English. “We invaded them as in the days of the Border raids, and as a preliminary to their becoming Presbyterians or Christians, insisted on their first becoming Scotchmen. We treated them to frosty metaphysics

1 As the editor could not obtain information in time, he was obliged, in the

first instance, to give, conjecturally, his own somewhat vague impression regarding the source and date of this academic degree. Having procured a copy of the diploma, he is now (third edition) enabled to intimate that the degree of D.D. was conferred upon Mr. Hamilton, in eulogistic hut discriminating terms, by the College of New Jersey in January 1848.

and formal dissertations; and whilst we made a great parade of our logic, we made a great secret of our feelings. The consequence was that we often parted in mutual discontent — the preacher indignant at these stupid English, and the hearers effectually tired of that cold and stately Scotchman.”

His sister’s infant son did not long survive his mother. Some notes of the event, and the tender emotions it called forth, appear in a letter to his brother Andrew. It frequently happens that by far the fullest record of his thoughts occurs in the letters to this member of the family, owing to the circumstance that he was generally in some foreign land. To this we owe the two next letters, each charged with a great family sorrow.

“Cabnwath, March 22, 1850.

“My deab Andkew, — When Annie and I heard the sad tidings last week, we resolved at once that we would come down and see them here. We came on Thursday, and found William, who had been here all week. Friday was the funeral He had become a beautiful child. Nothing could be lovelier than his look in death. We sent for Gall from Edinburgh, who came and took a cast from his features. He was buried in Jane’s grave, as near as might be in his mother’s arms. It is a spot in the churchyard on a line with the front of the church, enclosed by a neat iron railing, and I have got, through young Oliphant, a beautiful Gothic design for a tablet. On Sabbath I preached for James. You remember the last occasion, — and as I looked down on the empty font, I felt how pathetic was the close of this little family-history. To mamma, this early end of all her tending and all her hopes is very touching. But her sore trial took place when Jane was taken; this is only an addition, and it is a death in which there was no bitterness. At times she is able to be even somewhat cheerful. And in her health she is remarkably well. On Tuesday Annie and I crossed over to Stonehouse, and spent the day with them. William’s manse is a pattern of neatness and comfort. His two children are great musicians. It is wonderful how many tunes little Jane knows. To-morrow we go into Edinburgh, and on Sabbath I preach for Dr. Candlish, who is to preach for me. Last Sabbath he preached in Regent Square, and had Dukes and Lords without number, besides four Cabinet ministers — Lord J. Eussell, the Earl of Carlisle, Sir G. Grey, Eox Maule. I am told that it was a deeply impressive sermon on 1 Cor. iii. 10-17: the importance of everything we do as an element of character — every good addition on the right foundation being everlasting. On Monday I shall be in London, and shall transmit the long neglected money to Dr. D. We would fain have carried mamma away with us, but it is kinder to James Walker to leave her here for a little, and she herself would like it better.

“It is solemn to think that the sister side of our family table is now extinct to earth; but sweet to believe that they are all in heaven.”

“London, April 11, 1850. “You will, feel, my dear Andrew, as if all letters from Britain were now written in lamentation, and mourning, and woe; but the letter which, I suppose, you have by this time received from “William could not startle you more than it surprised and prostrated us. When Annie and I were at Carnwath we crossed over and spent Tuesday the 1 9 th at Stonehouse. Christina was then in the highest health; their manse a model of neatness and comfort; their children singing their hymns so sweetly, and as obedient as music. Since our return from Scotland we had not heard from Stonehouse; but going in from Hamilton Terrace to Lansdowne Place last Saturday afternoon, we seized two letters from William, expecting a quantity of news. The first line told us that she was gone! Beyond the fact that it was fever, and that she was only ill from the Thursday till April 3, when she expired at eight P.M., we have yet no particulars. To William it is a dreadful blow; to all of us a solemn warning, — 1 Cor. vii. 29-31. Annie feels it terribly — for since they were so much together at Kilmun, Christina had become to her a very dear sister. Having a severe cold, I could not go down to the funeral; but on Tuesday, the hour of it, we sat in our darkened dwelling, and thought how, at the same hour three short weeks before, we had sat at her table in the very room where the mourners would be assembling in order to carry her to the grave, and we tried as well as we could to give thanks for her and to pray for poor William. Three gone since last April out of one small circle — Jane, April 15; little James, March 12; Christina, April 3. I love to think that heaven is our family home. They are with Christ, and the grown-up survivors, I trust, are in Christ.

2a “If spared, I think to give some lectures on Ecclesiastes. They will be more ethical, literary, and sesthetical than pulpit expositions usually are. I wish to throw on the book all the biographical, poetic, and all the other cross-lights I can. If God should vouchsafe help, I may possibly print the substance afterwards. Is there any Danish commentator on the book? or still better, any poet or moralist who has parallels to the vanitas vanitatum?”

This is the first glimpse of the project which issued in The Royal Preacher.

In May this year, Mr. Hamilton consented to visit Glasgow at my request, for the purpose of preaching at the opening of a new church. The occasion of this visit marked a stage in the series of events which sprang from the Disruption. About twenty new churches had been erected by voluntary contributions in Glasgow during the ten years preceding 1843. This was the fruit of a great zeal that had sprung up in the Established Church, and had for its aim to supplement the deficiencies of that Church, so as to make it, if possible, commensurate with the wants of the community. The influence of Dr. Chalmers was the mainspring of the movement; but a numerous band of public-spirited and Christian men were associated with him in the work. The late William Collins, publisher, was chief of the Glasgow section, and the twenty churches were sometimes called by his name.

The property was in the title-deeds bound over to the Church of Scotland. When the Church, in 1843, came out free from the State, the property of all the endowed churches was handed over as a matter of course to the body which then succeeded to the functions and emoluments of the Establishment; but those newly erected and unendowed chapels were, in the first instance, retained by their owners and possessors, pending the result of a lawsuit, instituted for the purpose of determining authoritatively the legal destination of the property.

The Free Church occupiers conceded that the buildings were attached to the Establishment, but they rested their case on the fact that the attachment was made on condition that the Church should assign a parish to each, with all ecclesiastical rights and machinery. The Assembly had, for a number of years, been in the habit of gi-anting such constitutions to new parishes on its own authority, not presuming to constitute civil rights, but limiting its action to the spiritual sphere. These were accordingly called parishes quoad sacra, that is, parishes that were designated by the Assembly as the sphere for minister and elders in their spiritual capacity, without pretending to touch any material property or civil right. But by this time it had been decided- in the civil courts that the Assembly of the Church had no right to apportion a parish even quoad sacra, and that in pretending to do so it had exceeded its powers. The case of the Free Church, accordingly, in claiming the property, was this: We confess that we bound the fabrics to the Established Church; but we bound them to it with a condition — a condition which, as now ruled, it is beyond the power of the Church to fulfil: as the Church cannot fulfil the condition, it cannot claim the property. Two things were proved, and easily proved: first, that no other assignment of a parish was contemplated by the parties, than the quoad sacra assignment which the Church at the time was accustomed to grant; and second, that this assignment of a parish to each chapel was counted so essential that the heading of the subscription lists, when the money was raised, bore that, unless this condition were fulfilled, the subscribers would not be held to their promises.

The case went through the Courts, and was finally decided by the House of Lords, in 1848, against the claims of the Free Church. It was found that the constitution given to the churches was good to bind the property to the Establishment, but not good to compel the Establishment to fulfil the condition.

The result was, that a considerable number of the Free Church congregations were suddenly deprived of their churches. They found temporary accommodation as well as they could, and proceeded with all speed to erect new fabrics. Mr. Hamilton, although he had devoted his life to England, remained in complete sympathy with the Free Church in her testimony and her struggle. To identify himself with us at this crisis he came to Scotland, and preached in one of these churches, St. Peter’s, Glasgow, on the last Sabbath of May 1850. His visit was much appreciated, and many old friends, both his father’s and his own, gathered affectionately round him.

“May 1, 1850.

“My deae Aenot, — I am glad of the day you have fixed for the opening, the last Sabbath of May, for it will enable me to spend a few days at the Assembly. I am further glad that you have no week-day service, for a good deal of toil, and some grief, have made me rather reluctant for extra services.

“Dr. Duff is in town. I spent two hours with him yesterday at Sir John Pirie’s. He looks no older than eleven years ago.

“This is the 1st of May, in London only distinguished by the dancing of chimney-sweeps, in Glasgow by the doffing of red gowns. Dear Arnot, are you ever like to cry when you think of these old May mornings, and think what a gulf of irremeable years now lies between us and them? To you and me, I take it, they were much alike. They brought a modest portion of prizes, enough to make us respectable, without the envy which accompanied Colquhoun, and Mackinlay, and Halley, and such Nimrods of the college, cunning prize-hunters; a solatium to take home withal, and the sweet self-complacency to boot, that we could have won more had we chosen. Just now I am looking at the row of well-gilt volumes, and thinking how much brighter they looked when bran-new and bathed in all the glory of the Common Hall. Alas! nearly every hand is in the dust which wrote my name in these books.

“Last week I met Bailie Playfair at dinner; and we recalled that glorious dinner party, when Mr. Kettle filled us all roarin’ fu’ with jugs of water!

“Farewell, my dear friend, I hope our meeting may be by the will of God. Mrs. H. joins in kindest regards to Mrs. Arnot and yoursel£ She is sorry that she cannot take advantage of your kind invitation. We once hoped to have come to Scotland together at this time, but higher wisdom has altered that plan. — Ever affectionately yours,

“James Hamilton.”

The very thought of visiting Glasgow awakens a crowd of tender memories. The 1st of May is signalized as the day when the College of Glasgow is formally closed for the season. The assembly in the Common Hall for the distribution of honours is an imposing and exciting scene.

The gentlemen commemorated by name, were two of those Scotch worthies who contributed to make “Glasgow flourish” when Hamilton was a student there, in their double capacity of earnest Christians and successful merchants. The latter was distinguished by a long, consistent, and able advocacy of the Temperance cause.

“Stonehouse, May 21, 1850.

“Beloved Annie, — The tear stood in your eye when we parted, and your pale loving face followed me all the way. Miss Young picked up an acquaintance, Mr. M’Clure, who chatted to her most of the way, till another friend took his place. So all the day-light I read, and in the tunnels I offered little prayers for you and baby and others dear. I got through the fourth volume of Southey’s Life, and corrected a proof-sheet. The provisions were very serviceable; but why did you roguishly impose on a Jew like me, sandwiches of swine’s flesh? However, hunger is a good casuist, and the sandwiches were all eaten, and have done me no harm. At Motherwell I got a labourer, a navvy, to carry my portmanteau, and at Hamilton chartered a fly. It was late, and the toll-keepers came out like ghosts to open the gates. It struck twelve on the village clock, just as I drew up at this door. James Walker, half- dressed, opened it, and soon “William and mamma came down. They had given me up, and gone to bed. Little Jane looks very delicate. She and William are in ecstasies with the musical cart. Poor William! I have not spoken about Christina yet, but we are going out to see her grave. Marion Proudfoot is here, and they have got a very nice maid for the children. J. H.”

•’ 14 Queen’s Terkace, Glasgow,
May 25, 1850.

“My dear Annie, — You must never grow old, but that fond heart is to keep overflowing with affection, fresh and girlish, even when your hair is grey. Welcome cups of cold water, — only more sparkling and inspiring than cold water are those little libations of love which the penny post brings from the lass I love best. Yesterday’s has just come in. Little Mary Laird met me with it at the door. I suppose her mamma had made her understand that it was a very important despatch, — at least she was carrying it enfolded in both arms.

“Last night Arnot had a party of eighteen, including Dr. and Mrs. Smyth, Mrs. Somerville, Mrs. Samuel Miller, Mrs. Anderson (Janet HaUey).^ On Monday he is to have a breakfast.”

1 Sister of the deceased student, his companion during all his illness in Madeira, a feminine counterpart both of his talents and his principles, much remembered by the generation of students who were contemporary with her brother.

“Glasgow, Monday Morning,
May 27, 1850.

“My pear Wife, — We had a grand day yesterday — not meteorologically grand, for it was raining, but the services were interesting and well attended. I preached in the morning and evening, Mr. Arnot in the afternoon. In the morning and afternoon the regular seatholders were admitted by tickets; in the evening there were no tickets, and it was fine to see the mighty mass of people who made the interior a pavement of ‘living stones.’ The collection was £434, 15s.

“They had over to tea on Saturday evening Dr. Mac-Gilvray and his wife (Miss Hooker),^ whom I was very glad to meet again.

“Edin., 5 p.m. — On my way here I turned aside for two hours at Blair Lodge, and saw James and Tommy Gillespie. Mr. Cunningham’s is an excellent school, — much more happy and home-like than anything I have seen in England.”

Having been nominated on this occasion on the deputation from his own Synod to the General Assembly of the Free Church, he took the opportunity of speaking his mind fully on some points which were intensely interesting to himself, and ought to have interested deeply his audience. As the topics of his speech on that occasion constituted the chief practical aims of his life, and the audience he addressed was, for his purposes, by far the most influential that existed, there is no more effectual

1 Daughter of his faithful friend and teacher. Sir WilUam Hooker.

SPEECH IN tHE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 377

way of illustrating his character than by introducing the substance of his speech. He M-as most affectionately received, and his words were not permitted to fall to the ground.

“... There was a threefold function for an orthodox Presbyteriauism in England. It should first of all be a home for expatriated Scotchmen — a nursing mother for your Church’s orphan children. For remember how many Scotchmen are located in England. Why, sir, in a single large town of England you will find as many Scotchmen as in some of our northern counties. There are nearly as many Scotchmen in London as in Edinburgh. And what becomes of them? In the absence of Presbyterian ordinances, what is the fate of these immigrants? In Clifton and Cheltenham, and Brighton and Hastings, and such places, where our refined and wealthy countrymen go to live for the sake of their far-famed salubrity, they join the Church of England, and the pious parents become the right arm of the evangelical clergymen; but their children, M, and K, who received a Christian’s name in their baptismal regeneration, turn out Puseyites — the girls embroidering altar-cloths and fald-stool covers, and the boys making High Church speeches in Parliament. And then the pious tradesman or steady artisan from your Lowlands who settles in a provincial town, finding no Presbyterian Church, as the next best joins the Baptist or Independent chapel, and soon, by dint of superior intelligence and sound theology, backed by his manly bearing, you will find him in a few years the principal deacon, the chief supporter of a congregation, which, however excellent, is not a Presbyterian. “Whilst a much larger class, many of the artisans and clever operatives, breaking loose from the religious restraint of their fatherland, sit down in the seat of the scorner, become libertines and lawless livers, and in workshops and factories, as the apostles of Socialism and the champions of infidelity, pervert their good education to the perdition of their hapless companions, and bring a stigma on the land whose faith they have renounced, and from whose virtues they have apostatized.

“But besides proving a timely home for these wanderers, an effective Presbyterian church might be an asylum to many refugees from the Church of England. At this moment there are doubtless many who, in the event of coming calamity, are marvelling into what community to convey themselves and their children. Would that our Church were so fully equipped and so conspicuous that, in its sound doctrine and scriptural organization, they saw a ready ark against the coming deluge!

“And this leads me to add, as a third good service which our Church might render — it might serve as a tonic to English theology. My friend Mr. Macgilvray remarked to me last night that England is not the land for testimonies. The reason is, that England is not the land for theology. As you are aware, theology is scarcely taught at all in the English universities; and though the Dissenters are very anxious to provide theological training for their ministers, many of their pastors never pass through their colleges. The consequence is, that the usual ministrations of English pulpits are in doctrine very meagre and jejune; and consequently English piety, even when most fervent, is ill able to give a reason for its faith. In fact, English piety is too molluscous. It is sadly in want of vertebras. It needs a back-bone. And nowhere would the food convenient be better bestowed, which within its soft frame would go to form the bones and cartilage. And with the orthodox osteology of their own English confessions and catechisms (for the Westminster standards are English), with the firm substructure of a sound and Puritan evangelism, covered over with the flesh and sinews and mantling life’s-blood of English virtues and English graces, southern piety would stand on its feet exceeding strong and fair, withal able to ’ testify ’ and to adorn its testimony.

“When I was assistant to a minister in the Carse of Gowrie, I often heard it mooted among the farmers, ‘What ails the red clover? surely the Ian’ has ta’en a scunner at the red clover? ‘Perhaps, sir, the author of the Manse Garden could have solved the mystery; but really I could not tell how a plant, which had once grown freely, and been almost naturalized, had sickened of the soil. The same question is now often put to me, but in another shape. I have been asked. What ails Presbyterianism? surely the soil has taken a scunner at our system? And I am told of able and excellent ministers who have abandoned the field in despair, and come home thoroughly disheartened. Now, I might answer, first of all, that Presbyterianism has never got a chance. Till of late the clover seed was about as bad as could be. Not only had we to bear the reproach of Socinianism, but many of the ministers who supplied our churches were the refuse of

Scotland — dead and useless moderates, or dissipated and disgraceful men. But though that reproach is wiped away, we have still to contend with many drawbacks. Soon after their coming amongst us, some of our ministers have been attacked by violent home-sickness; and whenever we hear the tune, ‘My heart ’s in the Highlands,’ we next expect to see the musician in the express train on the Great North line; and then the next spring will be, ’ 1 11 gang nae mair to yon toon.’

“Then, again, many have formed most extravagant expectations. Coming to England, the romance of Edward Irving floated before their eyes, and because all England did not run to hear them directly, they could not forgive the dul ness or capriciousness of the English; whereas they would have been wise to set to work as missionaries, with the view of their becoming ministers; by pains and personal assiduity gathering round them a few, and then, with the help of these few, gathering more. But the grand cause of failure is the want of adaptation. Some say that our psalms, and tunes, and prayers are not adapted to the English; but I have always thought that we might soon find the service adapted, if we took pains to adapt ourselves. The English are eminently practical To a theological lecture they any day prefer a living epistle; and if they have no other choice, they will take to a genial Arminian rather than to a glum Calvinist. In this they may be wrong, but still they do it; and therefore we should show them Calvinism and Presbyterianism in their most genial aspect. The two favours which we more especially ask of the Eree Church — and we ask them as your little sister, very little, i

but very loving, and who can do so much for us as you? — are, first, that you would introduce to some one of our ministers all families and all young men proceeding to a residence in England. Many ministers already are in the habit of doing this, and it has been the saving of hundreds. One other request is, that you would give a kind consideration to our calls. In the famous ’45, and when the rebels were in Edinburgh, one night a Highland follower of the Prince was taken up by the watch, because it was plain that he could not take care of himself And when, in the guard-house, he came somewhat to his senses, his first ejaculation was ‘Hech, sirs! it’s sair wark fiittin’ thae kings! ‘We in England have found it sair work flitting Free Church ministers. Some of us have travelled thousands of miles on the errand, and never once succeeded. Perhaps after this we may find it easier. Perhaps we may be so happy as to find ministers who can realize the mighty advantages for usefulness conferred on them by labouring in that region, which is really the heart of the world.”...

In a conversation with Mr, W. Dickson of Edinburgh, he undertook to exhibit the distinction between the English and the Scotch type of Christianity. English Christianity, he said, is, “God so loved the world,” etc. Scotch Christianity is, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God,” etc.

“London, July 1, 1850.

“My dear William, — ... We have a number of Americans at church at present. The only noted ones (besides my old friend Mr. Lenox) are, Professor Hitchcock the geologist, and Mr. Tappan, of their Tract Society, who says that my books have a far wider circulation in America than in Britain. I am very glad to hear it; for I have a great affinity for America.”

“7 Laksdowne Place, July 7, 1850.

“To-day, my frame of mind has been somewhat devotional. Yesterday and to-day, I have been again and again drawn to the throne of grace, and in the ’ confession of sin,’ and ’ offering up of desires,’ trust that I realized something of the spirit of prayer.

“The quiet of the last four days suggests to me that I live too much in a hurry. The death of dear Jane last year, and Christina’s this spring, were solemn incidents in our family history; but I got no time to lay them to heart. I find, too, that secret prayer is often shortened by the daily pressure. And though I cannot run about with the ubiquitous agility of some, the same injurious effect is produced by the perpetual bustle of my thoughts. I am always scheming something, or anxious about something, and have much need, as Annie told me, to set a bridle on the brain.

“My projects at present are —

“1. Biographical sketches of Watts and Doddridge (two articles), and their contemporaries.

“These for the N. British Review. They would be two more chapters in that bird’s-eye survey of British Christianity, of which ‘Simeon ’ is one chapter. And I expect this good for myself, that they might help me towards that idea of Christianity, catholic but earnest, at which I try to arrive.

“2. Lectures on Ecclesiastes, to my own people in the first instance, for publication afterwards.

“3. A Manual, which might answer the purpose of a modern ‘Rise and Progress.’ For this considerable materials lie dispersed through my sermons, and it might very well be made the basis of a practical course to my own congregation. This last, if God give me health and ability, might be the most useful of my books; I would therefore take pains with it.”

Dr. Thomson of Coldstream, an able and estimable minister of the United Presbyterian Church, for many years waged a great warfare against the monopoly of printing the Bible that was enjoyed for generations by a certain mercantile firm in Scotland, and certain corporations in England. His perseverance and energy contributed greatly to get the monopoly removed, and to cheapen the Scriptures to the people. But having himseK set up a printing establishment, with the benevolent object of still further reducing the price, and so extending the circulation of the Word, he was unsuccessful, and became bankrupt. An appeal was made for his relief. It was a nice case. Whatever view one may take of the point in debate, James Hamilton’s letter is, we think, precious as an example of perfect frankness in expressing an adverse judgment, instead of shuffling and hiding under a reason that is not real: —

TO THE KEY.

“Boulogne, Aug. 22, 1850,” My dear * * *, — It was only this morning that yours of the 15th overtook me here; and thus I am sorry that it has remained long unanswered. And now that I am writing, I wish that I felt free to comply with your request. For Dr. Thomson personally I have a true esteem, and deeply sympathize in the heavy losses which he has sustained. At first, too, I was disposed to join in this movement, but on talking over the matter with several intelligent friends, I found that they did not view it in the same light. Considering the public spirit by which Dr. Thomson was actuated, and the hardship of his case, they argued that it was just one of those hardships to which publishers and commercial men are continually exposed, and that if there were any speciahty in the Doctor’s case, it was rather against than for him, inasmuch as a minister should not overstep his line of things, nor entangle himseK with mercantile matters. Whatever may be the justice of such reasonings, I find they are held by so many as to make an appeal from the pulpit a matter of doubtful expediency; and it is only candid to add that, in the present state of my information, I am inclined to acquiesce in them. Besides, as a general consideration, public appeals on behalf of ministers in pecuniary difficulties are much to be deprecated. Their tendency is to lower the ministry, and compromise the religion of which they are the ofiicial expounders. I assure you that it would have given me great delight to comply with a request conveyed by you: and that I would have felt it a privilege to see Regent HIS LIBRARY. 385

Square pulpit occupied by any one of the distinguished ministers who form the deputation. But for the reasons above mentioned, I fear that I cannot take part in the present movement. Instead of an evading reply, I have also thought it best to state the difficulties I feel. — Believe me, my dear Sir, most truly yours,

“James Hamilton.”

to me. james watson.

“7 Lansdowne Place, July 5, 1850.

“My dear Friend, — No miser can ever have gloated over gold as I revel over books, — books that go to swell my own hoard. But when that monster parcel arrived on Wednesday afternoon, soon after we parted, my temples were throbbing with incipient fever, and it was not till to-day, when I came down-stairs somewhat recovered, that I entered into the full fruition. All this evening I have been a cow among clover, and now that I realize my riches, I must send a word of thanks for the Poole and the Kitto and the endless Biographies, the most satisfying banquet that was ever furnished to a morbid appetite for printed paper, a monomania librorum. 1 am almost reconciled that my head is too weak for writing, as it will justify me in two days of reading.

“If spared to get them arranged in another house, I must write a catalogue of my tomes. This would bring up some curious discoveries. Several of my books have belonged to interesting persons. To-day I found out that my copy of Jackson’s Works belonged to Jortin, the biographer of Erasmus. It has his autograph. My Char-

2b nock belonged to Eb. Erskine, but in repairing it (in my father’s time) the binder cut away the name. I have books that belonged to Bishop Burnet, Dr. Jo. Erskine, etc., and others would cast up.

“Already (partly through your help) my collection of religious biography is as large as any that I know.

“James Hamilton.”

“42 GowER Street, London,
Sept. 20, 1850.

“My dear Andrew, — ... When we heard from William last week, they were all welL Mamma had gone across to spend a fortnight at Carnwath. William’s beautiful schools are now completed, at a cost of a thousand pounds to Uncle Thomas.

“You are going to Berlin, but you will not see your old friend Neander, nor grasp again his shadowy hand. It is a sign how self-contained and self-satisfied English Theology is, that the disappearance of such a man has produced no sensation here. Neither did the death of Vinet a few years ago. But I see that the American papers say a great deal about Neander. D’Aubigne is the only foreign divine whose death would be much felt in Britain. Indeed we are a very apathetic incurious people, the religious world I mean. Last night I had here a Dutch preacher going out to the Cape. He spoke in ecstasies about Van Oostersee as the greatest pulpit orator whom Holland had ever produced; but I cannot say that I ever heard his name....

“Poor Hewitson, after months of extremest weakness

Is entered into rest. His talents were not of the highest order; but his devotedness and his spirituality were, and the work in Madeira was enough to signalize any ministry, “You are not sanguine about English Presbyterianism, At present we are sufficiently forlorn in London, with Nicolson, Ferguson, and Young away.”

“42 GowER Street, London,
Sept. 23, 1850.

“My dear Andrew, — I hope you got the letter which I addressed to you at Dr. Daumann’s last Friday, and which contained any little news I had. I am now fairly installed in my library, and a noble room it is. I have begun a series of lectures on Ecclesiastes, to which I hope I have got the clue. Of recent German commentators I have Umbreit, and Kostes, and Knobel. If there is any other good thing in German within the last twelve years I shall be glad to get it, and will in due time indemnify you for it. This winter I make no engagements away from home; except, perhaps, that I shall exchange with Dr. Candlish two Sabbaths in February, so that I hope to have an unprecedented bout of reading and writing. It is curious that I should be lecturing on vanitas vanitatum at a time that I have all and abound, health, a commodious house, a sufficient income, plenty of friends, wife and child quite well, congregation thriving and all going smoothly there; and betwixt these outward comforts and higher hopes, my mind for some time past in a perpetual key of contentment. This perhaps makes the Book more a word in season; but, at the same time, I do not put that Trappian interpretation on the Book which most expositors have done.”

An affectionate note from the late Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, an eminent theologian and a personal friend of his father, should find a place here. The colleague, now successor, to whom Dr. Brown refers, is Dr. Andrew Thomson, who paced the dingy courts of Glasgow College with Hamilton, when both were young, and has run a parallel career with him of honour and usefulness in the northern capital: —

“Arthur’s Lodge, Nkwington,
Sept. 28, 1850.

“Eeveeend and dear Sir, — Many, many thanks for your kind and valuable present. You have long been among my dyaTTrjToi 8ca roy? rrarepa, and your hold on my esteem and love is by no means all hereditary. It is always a satisfaction to me to know that I am loved by those whom I love. I have run over Hooker with much interest. It is by no means a specimen of very strict exegesis, but it is full to an overflow of a holy, benignant spirit. Should a second edition of my Exposition be required, I will enrich its margin with some extracts from the old New England Puritan. My colleague, who, with his family, are now in the coimtry, will, I know, most cordially receive your salutation. I regret that circumstances will prevent me from meeting my brethren at the approaching conference at Liverpool I cannot wish them

1 A generous and appreciative sketch of Hamilton, written by Dr. Thomson, appeared in the Christian Times, 22d November 1849.

anything better than such a meeting as they last had here. I do not expect to witness anything more like heaven on earth. With heart-felt wishes for your personal happiness and your success in all your labours in the cause of our common Lord, — I am, rev. and dear Sir, yours most faithfully, John Beown.”

TO ME. WILLIAM HAMILTON.

“London, Oct. 21, 1850.

“My deae Me. Hamilton, — The Messenger and the usual avocations of Monday leave me only a few minutes, before the letter-box closes, to thank you for your much-prized letter of Monday. How often there is a crook in the lot! And how vexing it would seem that just on arriving at such a beautiful coast, Mrs. Hamilton should hurt her foot, and be incapacitated for fully enjoying it. To a slug like me, who could stick to this arm-chair for a week, and rather like it, the hardship would be less; but to peripatetics like yourselves, the privation is very great. But even a strained foot is among the things that will work together for good.

“You kindly ask after Annie. Do you know that yesterday she got a son? I was going to say a little son, but he is not at all Kttle, very large, and, I must confess, not very pretty. She herseK is getting on nicely. It was not the best time for study; but, foreseeing such a possible interruption, I had got both sermons set agoing early.

“Many thanks for your kind inquiries about the exchequer. But at present * I have all, and abound.’ The other cheque, about which you know, will last very well till you return, J. H.”

•’ 42 GowER Street, London,
Oct. 22, 1850.

“My dear Andeew, — ... I hope the Saga you mention has not been translated. I think I can find out. Such a book would not be likely to have much run, unless you could popularize it by a historical preface and mythical notes, written in a racy or gossiping style. But such a book, thoroughly and carefully done, would be an important contribution to literature, and I think you should by all means go on with it....

“I fear to hold out any prospect of a visit to Berlin this winter. I would almost say any winter. My frame is not robust enough for journeys through the frost. And besides, it will be no easy thing to get away. An article for the North British, promised to your old friend Professor Fraser, and a lecture to the Young Men’s Association, and an exchange with Dr. Candlish for a fortnight in February, along with the Messenger and sundry tracts, and the possibility of preparing for the press my lectures on Ecclesiastes, leave me very hard up for time. If it were summer, and I were single, there is no saying what I might do; but when you come to be a steady-going minister, with a wife and family, and have got your house and library all to your mind, you will find your erratic and exploring propensities wonderfully die away.”

James Hamilton was not a controversialist. His whole mind and character were cast in another mould. Even where it is a just and necessary service, he rather left controversy to others, and plied his own departments, of unfolding positively Divine truth, and enforcing practical holiness. It would, however, be a great mistake to suppose he was more tolerant than his brethren of any error that subverts the Gospel. Of Popery in particular, and of Popish tendencies in English prelacy, he entertained a healthy Protestant horror. In Church and State alike he was liberal, both from conviction and from an apparently innate habit of mind; but he never slipped into that species of liberalism which holds it a point of honour to ignore the difference between the slavish system of Papal Kome and the great Protestant principles of private judgment and the sufficiency of Scripture. With all his gentleness he was a Protestant of the Martin Luther and John Knox type; and when occasion called for it he was ready to express publicly his convictions without reserve. The circumstances of the time seem to demand that the testimony of such a man regarding these subjects should not be concealed. It is our duty to permit him for once to speak out his own Protestantism, that all men may know of what sort it was. We subjoin an extract, sufficiently large to exhibit his views in their connexion, from an address to his own congregation, delivered on 17th November 1850, under the title, “Eomanism: its Root of Bitterness:” —

“God is light, and God is love. The Gospel is the grand outlet of Infinite purity and Divine benevolence; and Christianity, or the religion which the Gospel creates, is the religion of daylight and goodness. He is the man most Christian who into his own soul has admitted the greatest amount of

392” LOOK OJf THIS PICTURE,

God’s merciful kindness, and who in his conduct gives forth the largest measure of God’s beautiful holiness — the man who ’ walks in light,’ and ’ dwells in love,’ afraid of nothing holy, afraid of nothing true.

“The bright embodiment of God’s truth and goodness was His own incarnate Son. ‘He was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,’ and one of the most remarkable features in Christ’s character was the profusion with which He scattered the sublime beauties of which He was the repository, as well as the patient and public life He led. The Saviour had no secret. During the years of His ministry He had not even a home — no retirement into which He could withdraw and gather a whispering conclave round Him; and all the time, and with full knowledge of his treachery, He retained in His immediate retinue one who was an eaves-dropper and a spy. So little reserve was there in His teaching that when interrogated regarding it. He said to the Hebrew Pontiff, ‘I spake openly in the world; I ever taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort, and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou me 1 ask them who heard me, what I have said unto them’; behold, they know what I have said.’ And so anxious was He for the diffusion of His doctrine, that He not only enjoined His disciples to go into all the world and teach it; but if there was any truth which He had told them in His more private interviews. He charged them to divulge it. * That which ye have heard in the ear in secret, proclaim ye on the house tops.’ Truth-freighted, light-loving. His constant appeal was to that magazine of light which already existed in the older Testament; and He entreated the Jews to * search the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of me;’ and as if there were a natural affinity between the Saviour and the sunshine, most of His discourses were delivered under the open sky, and surrounded with the full glare of a bright Eastern atmosphere.

“And whilst the part of the Saviour was thus frank and explicit, the substance of His teaching was singularly direct and real. Except two ordinances of the simplest character, and for which He prescribed no rubric, He never instituted

AND ON THAT.” 393

any ceremony, but the whole weight of His instruction bore on the one theme — practical piety....

“Such is Christianity as I find in its earliest records — Dine Majesty in its truths, and in the worship and conduct of its professors a heavenly day-spring, a religion worthy of that God whose name is Light and Love. But let us fancy that we have slept a thousand years, and that now we awake again. And what have we herel So dusky is the atmosphere that we must wait till our eyes forget the sunshine and conform to the ’ dim religious light’ of mediaeval Christianity. But this is a Catholic cathedral, and through an atmosphere grey with pastiles and smoking incense, I can now descry in a scarlet cloak, in scarlet hat, and scarlet hosen, a figure enthroned, and purporting to be the facsimile of Peter the fisherman. And those unearthly figures, with shaven crowns and tawdry tinsel down their backs, so abundant in their bodily exercise — ‘Who are these V * These are Christian priests.” But why is there that stern partition between the priests inside the railing and the spiritual priests all through the church V ‘Ah, do you not understand: his Excellency the Cardinal, my Lord the Bishop, as well as these reverend priests, belong to a different order from the common herd of Christians outside.” This was not the way in the Apostles’ time, when one was our Master, even Christ, and there were no lords over God’s heritage, but all alike were “holy brethren.’” ‘What are they saying? What curious sounds are those which catch my earl — “Adjuro vos per Dominum, ut legatur epistola hsec omnibus Sanctis.’” ‘It merely means, “I adjure you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren;” and don’t you hear how he is reading it — in Latin 1 which, however, none of our holy brethren understand.” But here I have got it both in its original Greek and in my own tongue.’ ‘Have you, you heretic? Beware, or we may burn both thee and thy pestilent book.’ * And this female figure on the wall V * That is one of our mediators betwixt God and man.’ * And do you not worship the Saviour at all 1’ ‘0 yes; that is He above the high altar!” The altar! are you Pagans or Jews 1 or do you not know that Christ’s one offering has perfected His saints for ever 1 But those priests curtseying and crossing and muttering at the altar, what are they doing?’ ‘They are making the body of God! ’

“Among the old superstitions there was one of some significance. They alleged that a demon sometimes got possession of the armour, or of the actual body of some slain warrior, and walked the world in the stolen exuviae. And of course so apparent was the identity that even nearest friends mistook. The ferryman rowed across his fancied chieftain, and the warder opened the castle gate, and the lady of the hall welcomed home her absent lord; and it was not till she saw through the vizor fishy eyes, or the gauntlet dropped off and revealed the dragon’s green and scaly paw, that a hellish laugh confessed the fiend, and from a swoon she woke to find at her side her husband’s gory corpse, or the cradled infant dead. And of this weird fable we have been often reminded as we look at Popery. Cramming into the slough of Christianity its seven sacraments and all its superstitions; constantly invoking the Trinity, and ostentatiously exhibiting symbols of the faith; naming the name of Christ, and swearing that it is His only Church, it comes with its lying wonders, deceiving if possible the very elect; and it is not till unsuspecting piety has opened the door that the howl of the sheep-like innocent reveals the wolf: it is not till the soul that sought the mild and merciful Redeemer finds itself in the grasp of a superstition half-brutish, half-infernal, that the terrible truth flashes forth, and where it expected to leap into the arms of a Saviour, it sinks crushed in the coils of Antichrist.

“But how ghastly the substitution eff’ected! How came the Romish mockery to steal and wear so long the mask of Christianity?

“First of all, it found piety, if not dead, very faint and feeble, and so incapable of effective resistance. There was no Popery at Pentecost, and a perpetual Pentecost would have rendered Popery a perpetual impossibility. Even before the apostolic era ended, the love and devotion and heavenly-mindedness of the Church were dying down, and before the second century closed there was very little left; and, as every man knows by himself, when lukewarmness makes him legal, or a loose profession of the Gospel makes his conscience discontented, he is so far a Papist. He begins instinctively to look about for some other saving name than that which God has given. You can easily understand how the root of bitterness began to spring up in a loose or legal age. Ceasing to look to Jesus for justification, men were constrained to look to something else; and the first thing thought of was baptismal water. Everything was done to exaggerate its importance and increase its value. Oil was put on the receiver’s head to show his consecration as a spiritual priest, and an exorcism was used in order to expel the devil; and the notion began to prevail that baptismal water was the second birth, and washed all sin away. But as it was too evident that many left the font, and took their old sins, at least their old hearts, with them, it became needful to find some supplemental salvation; and as men were now looking, not to the living Christ at the Father’s right hand, but to material and palpable substitutes, they fixed on the other * sensible sign; ’ and to backsliders or dying worldlings who wished to make their salvation sure, they said, ‘Receive this other sacrament: eat Christ’s body, and obtain eternal life.’ And just as they had magnified the initial rite of Christianity into a regenerating magic, so, on the same principle, they transformed the memorial feast into a saving mystery. The alertness of an enlightened understanding and the docility of a meek and believing heart were no longer needed so much as the exact performance of a mechanical process. It was no longer, ‘This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus whom Thou hast sent;’ no longer, ‘God gave His Son that whoso believeth in Him should not perish;’ but ‘wash and be clean, eat and live.’ It was no longer salvation by the blood and righteousness of Christ, but salvation by baptismal water, salvation by the eucharistic wafer.

“It is the tendency of humanity, depraved and carnal, continually to substitute the material object for the unseen and the spiritual change. To this propensity vital Christianity is strongly opposed. No doubt the Gospel preaches to our eyes and other organs in baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and the incarnation itself may be regarded as a gracious concession to the soul’s strong craving after some palpable manifestation of the Invisible Supreme. But still, in its very genius Christianity is moriil, not mechanical — spiritual, and not material. It ’ is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.’ However, the inveterate bias of the human heart is to make it meat and drink, and to put fasts and festivals in the place of righteousness and religious rejoicing. This is human nature, and this is Romanism. It consults man’s carnality. It eases the conscience without changing the will. It cannot put Christ in the heart, but it can hang a cross round the neck or press a crucifix close to the bosom. It cannot make tongues of flame leap again on the brow of its ministers, but it can set on the head of its bishops a dichotomous mitre. It cannot wash the robes of the immortal spirit in the great expiation, but it can bleach the surplice white as snow. It cannot clothe its members in what is better than linen pure and white, — ’ the righteousness of Christ,’ but it can clothe its friars in brown serge and grey flannel. It cannot sprinkle the clean water of renovating grace on the conscience, but for sixpence a pint it can shower holy water on men’s hands and their faces. It cannot tell much about Jacob’s ladder, nor about that living Avenue of access who says of Himself, ‘I am the Way,’ but it can tell how many steps of Pilate’s staircase will take you to heaven; and it knows which spot of the surface — whether Rome or Jerusalem or Loretto — is the furthest from purgatory. And though it dare hardly hope salvation for heretics like Leighton and Usher and Howard, it has a sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection for the drunken debauchee who in his stertorous convulsions could hardly swallow the viaticum, but who, with monks chanting masses for his soul, now sleeps in the odour of sanctity, and locked up from the devil’s reach in the fire-proof safe of a consecrated burying-ground-”