Life of the Rev. John Milne of Perth

Ithin six months of each other died three men
whom the Church could ill spare, and whom
some of us will long miss and mourn.

On the 27th of November 1867, died James Hamilton; on the 4th of April 1868, died William Burns; on the 31st of May 1868, died John Milne. Twenty-nine years ago they were fellow-labourers in Scotland, and ‘true yoke-fellows.’ Their after-work drew them into different fields; their later life was spent in different lands; and their graves are far asunder. London holds the first, Newchwang the second, Edinburgh the last.

Along with the above, I would name other four who left us many years ago, but who were at one time associated with. these three in heart and work; I mean Robert M‘Cheyne of Dundee, Daniel Cormick of Kirriemuuir,

William Hewitson of Dirleton, and Patrick Miller of New-A castle. As St. Augustine said of his early friends, so I may say of these seven: ‘Me multum diligebant... et ego illos, propter magnam virtutis indolem, quze in non magno eetate satis eminebat.’

‘These all died in faith,’ resting from their labours. The work of each was a true one and a great, though not very long. Their lives were not failures, bringing forth nothing; nor contradictions, one part neutralizing the other. They were debtors to the age while in it (Rom. 1. 14); and now the age is their debtor. The period which, by their holy bearing and bold testimony, they helped to mould, is a very notable one in the history of the Church of God. The work they did was real, and their footprints are still visible.. They so lived and spoke as to tell upon the world; giving a deeper tone both to the religion and the theology of their time. They were men of ‘large views,’ in the sense in which the Lord and His apostles were such; seeking to be neither narrower nor broader than they. They were men of progress; ‘adding to their faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness’ (2 Pet. 1.6). They knew what they believed, and they believed it nobly; nor did they find any necessity to unsay or undo, in their later years, what they said and did in their earlier. They died as they lived, tenacious of the old gospel, suspicious of ‘advanced theologies,’ and jealous for the divine accuracy of the Scriptures.

Christianity has no weak points. Other systems have. It has none. In the inconsistencies of Christians some have professed to see the weak side of Christianity. But the lives of Christians are not Christianity. Yet, in the cases above noted, Christianity was not put to shame by its friends. Their light shone steadily to the last. It did not wax dim with years, nor hide itself in mist. Living in an age that is oscillating between universal belief and universal unbelief, they were not ashamed of having a fixed creed, and a Bible that never grows old.

John Milne was born at Peterhead, in Aberdeenshire, on the 26th of April1807. He died at Spring Valley, Morningside, near Edinburgh, on Sabbath the 31st of May 1368.

His father held office in the Custom-house at Peterhead. John was sent, when a boy of five years old, to school in his native town. On his first school-day he met with a serious accident, which told upon his whole after life, and which for a time threatened to prove fatal. The school was held in a room above the Tolbooth, and there was a long outside stone-stair leading up to it. At the close of school-hours the children poured out in a mass, to get to play, or to get home as quickly as possible. In the rush John was thrown down, and fell the whole length of the stair, striking his head severely. He was taken up and carried home insensible. After some little time he recovered, and returned to school; still for many years the pain in his head was so violent, that he was obliged, by medical advice, to keep it shaved.

His physicians, in after years, traced to this fall those fits of depression into which he sometimes sank. The brain had been injured, and the effects of the concussion never entirely disappeared; or rather, they reappeared at certain intervals, sometimes: producing lowness of spirits, and a feeling of unfitness for work, and sometimes leading him to act fitfully and wilfully; yet never betraying him into inconsistency, nor into timidity; for he was throughout not only one of the most consistent, but one of the boldest of men, — a man utterly devoid of fear, and insensible of danger in any shape; a man who would have led a forlorn hope up the breach as calmly as he would have ascended his own pulpit steps, or climbed Kinnoul Hill. In this perfect fearlessness he had only one equal that I knew, and that was William Burns. ‘Had I been a worldly man’ (I remember Mr. Milne saying one day as we were wandering over Dunsinnane Hill), ‘I would have certainly been a soldier; and nothing would have given me such delight as charging at the head of my regiment the very thickest of the enemy.’ He suited the action to the utterance, and showed how he would have done.

The school to which he went at Peterhead was taught by a Mr. Donald, who afterwards became minister of the parish. It was his church that John attended, till he left his native town for Aberdeen; and he does not seem to have found interest or profit in what he heard. I never heard him speak specially of his minister; but I remember him referring more than once to the religious dreariness of these times. Not many days before his death, he came along from Morningside to call for me at the Grange. After some pleasant conversation in the house, we went out together for a walk; and as we sauntered along Strathearn Road, he alluded to his boyhood. He asked me about Edinburgh days some forty or fifty years ago, congratulating me that I had enjoyed such a ministry as that of Dr. Jones.!~ He referred sorrowfully to his own religious training in Aberdeenshire, and spoke as one who throughout life had been feeling the evil influence of these bleak and barren years.

Mr. Donald was succeeded in the school by Mr. Imrie, and under his teaching John made great progress. His health continued to improve, and he was able to study more than he had done. He was generally first in every class; and often, when his companions were at play, he was found busy at his books. He was always a thoughtful, good boy; and from his childhood he expressed a wish to be a ‘ minister.’

When about thirteen, he was asked by Mr. Imrie to give some assistance in the school. This he did for some little time; and when he left for college, Mr. Imrie made him a present of a small sum, the first money he had earned. At this time he does not appear to have had any deep religious feelings, though morally correct and pure.

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