Birth—Studies—Removal to Perth, 1807–1839

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.

In 1821 he left Peterhead for Aberdeen; entering Marischal College, and continuing in the undergraduate classes for the usual four sessions. He used sometimes to mention an impression made on him the first night of his arrival in Aberdeen. Having gone to stay in the house of Mr. Edmond, he remembered that, when in the bedroom, Mr. James Edmond said to him, that ‘he hoped he was

1 Dr. Jonés was upwards of fifty years minister of Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel in Edinburgh; a vigorous, earnest preacher, to whom multitudes from many parts resorted in these days. He was born in Wales in 1754, came to Edinburgh in 1779, and died in 1837.

not afraid nor ashamed to say his prayers.’ The word was not lost, though it issued in nothing at the time. It is generally not out of one word or one impression, but many, and these often at intervals, that the Spirit of God brings about the great decision.

At college he distinguished himself highly in different departments of study, especially mathematics. Dr. Cruickshanks, who was his professor in that branch, speaks of him as one of the best students he everhad. In the junior mathematical class he gained the second prize in session 1822-23. Next session he gained the first prize in the senior mathematical class, which that year was one of considerable value, being given by the Lord Rector of the University. He also obtained, by competition, Gray’s Mathematical Bursary of £30 a year, for two years, the highest honour which the College then had to bestow. On the competition day he lost his portfolio, with all the notes and papers requisite for his work, and did not miss it till he was in the class-room, and the doors shut. To most, competition in such a case would have seemed hopeless. But having obtained paper from the porter, and being thoroughly ‘read up’ in his subjects, he set to work, wrote his ‘ versions,’ and won the prize. This he used to refer to in after years, wondering how it was that he succeeded. His fellow-students speak of his extraordinary perseverance and application, by means of which he mastered everything that was given him to do. This indomitable determination was one of his characteristics through life. He went through with everything that he set his face to. He is spoken of also with much love by those who knew him then, as gentle and kind in manner; polite and affable even from his youth.

He took his degree of M.A. in March 1825, though I am not aware that he was in the habit of appending it to his name.

During part of his university course he lodged with the celebrated Latinist, Dr. James Melvin, who was afterwards rector of the Aberdeen Grammar School. His own attainments in Latin were considerable; and his classical predilections were as decided as his mathematical. His ready memory supplied him, in after years, with many a Greek and Latin quotation; and often, when the exact word escaped him, his accurate scholarship supplied its place with some equivalent which he knew how to insert, without any breach of prosody orgrammar. Dr. Longmuir of Aberdeen, who was one of his class-fellows, mentions that when separated during the long summer vacations (which John always spent at Peterhead), a correspondence was kept up between the two students in Latin; Mr. Milne’s letters being dated from ‘ Petri Promontorium,’ the classical designation of his native town, ‘ Peterhead.”?

1 He did not cease to be a scholar when. he became a minister; though, from his great modesty, few had a right idea of his attainments, Yet in some of his letters to Mr. Somerville, several years after his settlement in Perth, we find him arranging studies thus: I used to read largely in the Septuagint, but I have somehow lost my copy. I do not think it would repay us. What say you to ten lines of Homer’s Z/iad and an ode of Horace on alternate days? You must brush up your classics for the sake of the rising generation. Ten minutes or less will do it. I shall begin Deuteronomy on Monday, five verses; and read critically: It is a pity you have not the

It was during his stay at Aberdeen that he became * acquainted with the Rev. Andrew Gray, who was in subsequent years his co-presbyter and much esteemed fellow-labourer in Perth. In many aspects these two were unlike each other; yet, in spite of dissimilarities, few men have so thoroughly appreciated each other’s worth. Mr. Gray was the year before Mr. Milne at Marischal College; and they, after their graduation, attended the same classes at the Divinity Hall.

Having completed his theological course, he left college and went as tutor to Mr. Irvine of Drum, where he remained several years. A brother of Mr. Irvine was the first who spoke to him directly about his spiritual state; and in 1856, when that gentleman died, Mr. Milne, on hearing of the death, wrote thus respecting him: ‘ He was the first that ever spoke to me about real religion. I was then as blind asa beetle, yet I remember it. He gave me Guthrie’s Z7ial of a Saving Interest in Christ, points; but it is more a matter of sound than of sezse, and you cannot now help it. Jfserable Moderates, to teach Hebrew in a way that made our knowledge of it of no use if we wished to hold intercourse with living Jews! Luckily my teacher, Dr Kidd, got his knowledge of it from a Rabbi. Well, shall it be Deuteronomy and Horace on Monday; do. and Homer on Tuesday, and so on? JI am reading, writing, and working a good deal; and more really using and enjoying life since I was with you, than I had done for a good while before. Have you seen the last number of the Worth British Review? The first article, on Ethics, struck me as exceedingly good, and would interest you, as bearing on the subject indirectly of some of your late researches. You will find a fair estimate of Paley asa moralist. I should like to know who wrote it. James Hamilton on Doddridge is

interesting and good. But the times are getting too earnest for that kind of style.’

Lo ely i

SO¥OURN IN ENGLAND. 9

From Drum hé went to Hatton Castle, and was licensed while there by.the Presbytery of Turriff.

In 1834 he went to England, where he taught, first in an academy, and afterwards in a private family, though longing all the while to enter on his proper work. The following extract from a letter of his to Francis Edmond, Esq., Aberdeen, dated Lower Dunstable House, Richmond, October 1834, will show his state of mind at this time : —

‘IT have been living here for some months as tutor in the family of the Rev. Mr. Snow. The situation is tolerably comfortable. Mr. S. is a good preacher, and an extremely pious man. I feel it a very great advantage to enjoy so much of his society. I remember complaining of it to you asa great misfortune, that from the circumstances of my life I had been unable to fix upon one particular thing, and devote myself entirely to it; but I would fain hope that religion is now beginning to assume such a place in my heart and thoughts as will probably move me by and by to give up everything here, and seek for usefulness in any sphere, however humble, connected with my profession.’

It was under Mr. Snow’s ministry that his impressions grew deeper; and it was at Richmond that he passed from darkness to light. It was one special verse of Scripture in which he found the light and peace which he had been for some time groping for: 1 John iv. 10, ‘ Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved-us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’

1It is interesting to know that she who was one day to be his wife, and who now survives him, was at that time in Richmond under the same ministry, and impressed with eternal things. They were, however, quite strangers to each other, not ‘meeting till they met in Calcutta.

For the first year after his conversion he read no book but the Bible. All relish for other books seemed to have left him. With a dvine volume lying beside him, Auman writings took an inferior place; or rather, at first, no place at all, till he learned, as he did soon, that all which is ¢rue, whether in a divine or human volume, is precious, and ‘nothing to be refused’ (ctdév daéBAnrov, 1 Tim. iv. 4), but only to be kept in its proper level. With his mathematical tastes and classical accomplishments, he could have ‘kept abreast’ of the age; but the higher relish absorbed the lower; he dreaded the distracting influence of excessive secular reading; and when he did engage in it, he was always on the watch for something to illustrate Scripture or help his preaching.

Though his theological training had been Presbyterian, yet he does not seem at first to have been very decided in his ecclesiastical views. At one time he thought of entering the English Church. But being led from circumstances to study the subject of church polity, he became a very decided Presbyterian, and began to turn his eye back to the land of Presbytery.

Yet he did not in after years forget the land in which for a season he had been a stranger, nor the church with which, through one of her many good men, he had been brought into fellowship. Writing to a servant in England, who had formerly been a member of his congregation in Perth, he thus speaks : —

‘Oh, do not think that our heavenly Father neglects His children, or that our brother Joseph forgets his brethren and sisters, You must not despise the Church of England. If I know the Lord at all, it was in her that He was first revealed to me. You are kindly remembered by many friends here. I have a letter from Mr. Burns. He is still at Newcastle, but finds himself much opposed; but he is persevering in the work of the Lord. He seeks to be remembered before the Lord.’ — Perth, 20th Sept. 1841.

In 1835 he was appointed lecturer on the Sabbath evenings in Gilcomston Church, Aberdeen, of which the late Dr. Bryce was at that time the minister. After he accepted, but before he entered on his duty, he became depressed in spirit, afraid to undertake the work. It was with great difficulty that he was persuaded to go on. But when fully commenced, he proceeded vigorously, and gave great satisfaction to all concerned, especially as a visitor. He remained there till he went to Perth, and on leaving Gilcomston he received a handsome testimonial in token of esteem and gratitude. It was during this period that he had a severe attack of typhus fever, so that his life was despaired of. But many years were before him, and much work for God, though at that time men knew

it not.

1 It was at this time (in 1836) that his father died; and the reader will be interested in the following sentence from a recent letter of John’s sister to her brother, Mr. William Milne of Perth, regarding the funeral. ‘I often think of the evening of papa’s funeral, when we were left alone, how he (John) took your hand and -mine, and led us into his study, kneeled down, and committed us to the care of his

heavenly Father.’