Thoughts of India, and Correspondence About It

O the loneliness of feeling produced by the death of

wife and children, we may trace his first thoughts

of India. The following sentences will show this, and will

help to connect the last chapter with the present. Link

after link was broken, till at last he felt as if he could remain no longer amid this desolation :1 —

‘My little boy promises now to live (he writes to Mr. Somerville); and his little face begins now and then to peep up in my heart, as I trudge along solitary, alone.’

Again, to the same : —

‘J found my dear little boy very weak and prostrate. It was agreed to move him back to Annat Lodge; and so they all went off, and left my house and heart very desolate. As I sat

1 The weight of his own sorrows quickens his pastoral sympathies, and thus he writes to Mr. Somerville : — ‘ May we have a good day to-morrow. I am preaching on Ps. xlvi. 10: ‘‘Be still,” etc. The last mail from the east and west has, during the week, put four families in mourning — two for sons; one for a son-in-law; and one for a brother. I have very lately had some old and young departing in a sweet and blessed state. How it sweetens the rod!’

amid the emptiness, I felt as if I could enjoy a good hearty cry, but was afraid to begin, as I did not know where I might end; the prayer-meeting to-night helped me a little. I am trying neither to have thought nor desire; but just to wait on the Lord.’

Again, to the same : —

*T was with you about this time last year, and remember ail your kindness, and the good I got from it. But I am changed since then; and the world seems. changed, and this place is changed. Yet there is not, I think, bitterness, but thankfulness for the Lord’s kindness to one who loved me.’

Again, in a letter to Collace, he says : —

‘T must not any longer hide from you what is in my heart.

Nor can I any longer want your prayers and counsel. I think

the Lord is drawing my heart to India. It is more than possible that you will have to write “Calcutta,” instead of “Perth.”

The thing, as yet, is only in embryo. You will ask guidance for me.’

Again, in a letter to myself, he says at last : —

‘J am engaged to goto India; and this brought about by dealings in my lot, my soul, and a number of little linked circumstances that look very like the work of God.’

The insight which these five scraps give us into the heart of the man, the Christian, the father, the husband, the pastor, is touching; and, besides, they supply the key to what follows. He had now set his face to the foreign field of labour, and from this time he says, in a letter to myself, ‘My mind has never wavered. Yet in simplicity I am in the Lord’s hand, though I fear there would be more of the cross in s¢aying than in going.

He was not long in divulging his purpose. He entered
K
he — — — s

without delay into a correspondence with Dr. Duff and Mr. Hawkins; who, disappointed and almost despairing because of many failures, were thankful beyond measure at the prospect of obtaining such a labourer for Calcutta.

But opposition, as might have been expected, arose. His people, full of warmest affection, set themselves against it. They thought their own claims to be, if not first in importance, at least foremost in every other respect.

On New Year’s Day, 1853, Mr. Milne had preached on the text, ‘ Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?’ He spoke strongly, though in general terms as yet. ‘The ministers keep their Master’s commission to preach the gospel to every creature folded up, or only referred to when some one obeys it, and a new victim is laid on the missionary altar. We are too fond of clustering round the honey-cells of home; deaf to the death-groan of India’s perishing millions.’

His people were startled. A rumour went out that Mr. Milne was minded to leave Perth, and offer himself for missionary work in India. The office-bearers conferred privately; appointed two of their number to wait on him; ascertained the truth of the report; had a meeting of elders and deacons called, who with one accord agreed to entreat him to remain, offering such reasons as the following. They could not see that such a translation was for the greater good of the Church; they thought that the Lord’s command to go unto all nations was to be understood under limitations; that Perth and Scotland presented an ample field for a minister; that Mr. Milne’s present charge (now for thirteen years so successfully oc-MR. GRAV’S DISSUASIVES. 147

cupied), with its 900 communicants, and crowded church, would be endangered by his leaving; that his fitness for the Indian field was very doubtful, especially at his time of life. This was on the 11th January 1853. On the 15th of the same month, the Young Men’s Association presented a memorial, considerably briefer, but equally urgent. Meanwhile a private correspondence had been going on among his personal friends; some dissuading him from, others encouraging him in, his purpose. The following letter, from his friend Mr. Gray, will give one view of the subject, — not a very gratifying one to Mr. Milne : —

‘a7th Dec. 1852. — MY DEAR FRIEND, — On the whole, I lean every day more and more to the opinion that there is no clear call to you, and that you ought not to go. My reason is, that I regard it as very doubtful if your temperament would accord with the circumstances in which you would be placed.... You must beware what you do. It is an immense responsibility you must take. The Church is not calling you to go. Dr. Duff and Mr. Hawkins, although wishing you to go, are scarcely calling you to go. What if you go without any call at all? It was no unequivocal movement of divine providence that set this business agoing. The simple fact is, that you took it into your head, and so the thing began. And how did you come to think of it? Why, you happened to ‘be in a low fit. You wanted, naturally and properly, to get out of it. Grant was off; Cumming was on the move; why should not you be jogging too? And was not Calcutta the very placer Catching at the idea, you have got out of your depression for the time. — Ever yours, most affectionately, -ANDREW GRAY,’

The above is rather hard on Mr. Milne; not quite fair to him, perhaps, nor making due allowance for his trials. Yet it came from a warm and true-hearted friend.

The following contains another view of the subject, though in some respects coincident with the previous : —

‘Collace, Fan. 10, 1853. — Monday evening.-MY DEAR BROTHER, — It may be that my affection for you, and the sort of melancholy that is suggested to my mind by the idea of Perth without you, — it may be that these considerations are influencing my judgment, as your loneliness may have influenced yours. Be this as it may, you want me to state how the matter now looks to me. Well, then, my impressions continue to be these: (1) All plans originating in a time of despondency are to be suspected prima facie ; — there is so little of faith in low spirits. I find that at the time when the Spirit separated Paul and Barnabas for a mission, they were vigorous and full of work, ministering and fasting, publicly and privately, full of energetic service. And, on the other hand, when Elijah, in low spirits, goes to the desert, and then to Horeb, he is sent back again; so that we soon find him sitting on Carmel once more. (2) Your thoughts about Calcutta did not seem to me to amount to a call made upon you by the Spirit. You were not bent towards Calcutta by any great and preponderating sense of the claims of that field over all others. Was not your feeling rather one of merely decided admission that the sphere was important beyond doubt? In other words, you thought you felt uprooted, and you saw you might as well be planted down in Calcutta as anywhere else. Still, was this a drawing? Is. there at this moment a drawing, such as you might, from its peculiar strength and tenacity, interpret to be the result of the Spirit calling you with a Macedonian cry? The brethren with whom I met to-day prayed for you, asking “counsel,” that you might not mistake, and “might” (Is. xi. 2), that you may execute what you see to be the Lord’s will. Perhaps, on the whole, they were more ready than I to admit the probability that our Master may have made use of your very loneliness for shutting your eye on the home field, and opening it on the vast fields of India; for no one felt otherwise than that Calcutta, and all connected with it, is of very peculiar and very vast importance; and that, were you there, you might be a most suitable instrument for the work there. Whatever be the result, I can say of you as Paul could, Phil. i.7: tya oe év ri xapdie wov’ and will feel, if you go, that I am more a pilgrim than before, waiting for our “gathering together unto Him.”’

- Again, on the following day, Mr. Bonar adds : —

‘You will see I had written to you last night, fully believing that you were not yet decided, and so suggesting to you those aspects of the matter that caused me to feel doubtful in regard to it. If it has got the length to-day’s note seems to imply, I shall say no more, but shall believe that the Lord has overruled your circumstances to bring about His own purposes as to Calcutta, just as He overruled Stephen’s death and its results to scatter messengers over many lands. May He be glorified, whatever becomes of His instruments! May souls be won to Him!’

In a subsequent note to Mr. Milne, Mr. Bonar says : —

‘TI cannot now resist the feeling that you have been guided almost in spite of yourself. I see scenes of wide usefulness rising to view, if the Master see meet to carry you to the shores of India, and already some have been struck by your devoting yourself to the cause. My brother John writes that it was in this light he viewed it; as so likely to suggest self-denial to ministers settled, so to speak, on their lees.’

And it was in this spirit that afterwards Mr. Bonar of Greenock thus wrote to him : —

“Greenock, Fan. 28, 1853. — My DEAR BROTHER, — I felt a strong inclination to write to you when I first heard from Andrew that you thought of exchanging Perth for Calcutta; but as I should have ministered encouragement and congratulation rather than dissuasion, I could not bring myself to pen even a few lines ; — first, because to urge you to persist in the resolution to which you have been so strangely led, must have looked ungracious and harsh. But, second, because I shrink from doing anything to countenance a project that involved the removal, to an immeasurable distance, of a friend so truly and deeply loved, so long as I did not understand that your mind was conclusively made up. From what took place, however, at your Presbytery, I can gather that your purpose is iurevocable; and therefore, though it be with mingled and confticting feelings, I cannot any longer refrain from assuring you that I rejoice in the grace that has been given you to serve God in the path you mean to follow. I rejoice in your purpose, because, from your peculiar temperament, I doubt if your spirit would soon recover its edge amid the tokens of desolation which your home, no longer a home, presents. Besides, I have a strong conviction that every minister of Christ should vary his sphere of labour, if in his power, once at least in his lifetime; and that, in our Church, the pastor has too much overshadowed the missionary in our estimate of evangelical labour at home. Then you have chosen, — no, — in “blindness” have been conducted to a field which, in the highest sense, unites promotion with change; for, indeed, all things considered, Calcutta might be viewed as a centre of influence with which no other that we have access to can be compared. But, above all, let me say — say with joy, yet humiliation — that your determination fills me with delight, as setting to us in the ministry, who have too long been settled on the lees of routine, and to our probationers, so devoid of enterprise and magnanimity in the things of Jesus, an awakening example of devotedness and zeal such as our Church truly needed, but which I had wholly despaired of seeing.’

I give these as specimens of the way in which Mr. Milne’s purpose was viewed by his private friends. They show the difficulties that beset him on every side; the arguments which were presented to him both by his own flock and by the Christian friends in whom he trusted

most. But ‘none of these things moved him.’ His heart was set on India. For it he could leave all behind him, and hear voices saying, ‘Are we not your flock, whom, for thirteen years, you have loved and fed? And are we not your friends and brethren, your “companions and fellow-soldiers in the Lord?” And are these not your native hills and streams and uplands? And do not yeur dead lie here, — wife and infants, — with many others in the churchyard, your children in Christ Jesus?’ He could answer all such appeals with, ‘I must go; the world is dying; India needs help; Calcutta stretches out her hands; the harvest is great, and the labourers are few,’

But while some of his private friends hesitated or dissuaded, weighing his purpose in Scottish balances; while some kept silence, afraid of interposing, he had other correspondents who cheered him on, reminding him of India and its stupendous claims.

The Calcutta congregation had sent home a most touching and urgent letter, signed by Dr. Ewart, and dated April 7, 1852, to Dr. Duff and Mr. Hawkins» entrusting to them the responsibility of looking out for a minister in Scotland. It concluded with making mention of the prayers which were going up for good success in this important matter. These two individuals, — too well known in the Church and throughout the world to need notice or eulogy here, — took up the matter with all earnestness, commending it to God, and casting about for some one who would go out in the spirit of an apostle to do an apostle’s work. On the 23d of November 1852, Mr. Hawkins received the following letter : — ‘MY DEAR Mr. HAWKINS, — You remember my little boy, who was brought to my house a fugitive from hooping-cough, the night you kindly came to me. Poor little fellow! it seems he brought the seeds of the disease along with him; and, after a time, he sickened and died. I fear I have not managed the affliction so well as I might, I fear I have fainted under it. I have been feeling a good deal like a tree whose roots are loosened and have no earthly hold, or like a ship whose moorings are cast off. So thoughts have been rife of change of scene and change of work; and there has been a revival of old dreams about India, which, when I was fairly settled down, and prospered, have been overlaid and forgotten. The question occurs, After having laboured part of my life at home, may it not be intended that I am to spend the remainder in the foreign field? I believe in all such cases the right course is to ask the counsel of a judicious Christian brother. It has occurred to me that you could help me to determine whether these thoughts are right and ought to be cherished, or whether they are of the nature of a present temptation and to be refused,’

Of Mr. Hawkins’ reply we can only give a part : —

‘Nov. 27, 1852. — MyY DEAR MR. MILNE, — Words would fail to express what I felt on the receipt of yours of the 23d. You are aware that Mr. M‘Kail left the congregation of Calcutta some time ago in consequence of bad health. A committee was sent to Dr. Duff and myself to look out for a minister. We have applied to more than one, and have thought of others; but in every instance something has occurred to prevent the presentation of a call. My own mind has been much exercised in this matter; but, after looking in one direction and another, I found the path of wisdom to be in standing still and keeping it before the Lord. And now let me say, as I can with perfect truth, that to no one of the ministers of our Church have my thoughts been directed as they have been to yourself, A recent letter from Calcutta constrained me to open my mind to a member of my family, and to say, “Would that I could get Mr. Milne for that congregation!” This was on the day on which your note was written. Hence the feelings with which it was received.... Should you ever be pastor of the flock at Calcutta, you will find a congregation very much smaller than that which now gathers round you every Sabbath, — in fact, a mere handful; and even among these few you will meet with worldliness, and much that your spirit will mourn over. On the other hand, you will find a few choice spirits there, some of the Lord’s dear children, who will give you a welcome in their Masters name, and uphold your hand by much prayer to God. If you seek to be a partaker in missionary work, there is plenty of that, with our large Missionary Institution, in the heart of a heathen city. Many an opportunity will be found of preaching in your own tongue the unsearchable riches of Christ. But no man will do more missionary work there than by countenancing the mission as pastor of the flock, and by leavening the congregation with the missionary spirit. It is this which I so much long for in that people. Stir up the people there to think much about the mission, and to pray for it, and you will have accomplished a great work for the Lord. There is another aspect in which I cannot help viewing the subject. I fear there are many, very many of our ministers that shrink from the very thought of India as a field of labour. But let a minister in your position, the pastor of a large congregation, volunteer when others hold back, and let your people as freely give you up for their Lord’s sake, and I believe it would go far to break up the apathy of many. It may be the will of the Lord, in this way, to proclain an alarm in our Zion, to cause many an eye to be turned to Himself, inquiring, ‘What wilt Thou have us to do?’ and to lead many to look not upon a parish, a town, a city, or even Scotland itself, but upon the whole world as the scene of evangelistic labour, prescribed and pointed out by infinite love, not merely as a scene to which the whole collective Church of Christ is to come, but as one, also, in which He has allotted to every man his post of duty, and to the occupation of which every man must be willing to go up at the bidding of his Lord.’

To this Mr. Milne replied :- —

“You know how solemn and complicated such a question is. If I were to go, I should look forward to an early grave. I cm sensible, also, that though feeling at present as if uprooted, I should carry with me many broken and bleeding roots; yet I really do not think that personal considerations will at all enter into the calculation. I think a minister of Christ should stand out among his fellows as a man: of self-denial, self-oblivion.’

And again Mr. Milne writes to Mr. Hawkins on the 8th of December. After mentioning that he had consulted friends, he adds : —

“If we could but see the mind of the Lord with some clearness, we inight put all such circumstances aside, because He would, in His own way, make the path plain. I find that the more I keep by the word of God, and reflect upon the spirit of the first preachers, the more I reckon myself as one that is done with the world, and with all contrivances for ease and self-enjoyment; the more I think of advancement in holiness, as the one great aim, the more I seem to feel my heart inclined in this direction. What is the Master’s will? I feel that nothing short of this can warrant my leaving my present place, or would bear me up amid the new trials I calculate on meeting, and the occasional seasons of heart-sinking and homesickness.’

Mr. Hawkins replies to this at considerable length. His letters are full of interest, and breathe a high Christian spirit. But it is impossible to quote in full either his communications or those of Dr. Duff. One letter of the

a latter, however, I give at length, as it specially refers to the preceding correspondence with Mr. Hawkins : —

“Camberwell, London, 15th Dec. 1852, — MY DEAR MR. HAWKINS, — The correspondence between yourself and Mr. Milne of Perth I have perused with feelings of no ordinary interest. The case of our church in Calcutta has hung heavily on my mind since May last. The failure, in one or two instances, in obtaining a fitting minister, though tantalized with the temporary prospect of success, and the non-discovery of any more, at once qualified and willing to go, throughout the course of my recent travellings in the north and west of Scotland, all tended to produce a certain feeling of despondency. And so, though the subject has been constantly present to my mind in prayer, it came at last to be a topic of peculiar urgency at the throne of grace. Looking at the date of Mr. M.’s first note to you, I am greatly struck with the coincidence, as to time, between its heart revealings and the power of utterance to which I was prompted in prayer, saying, “Lord, graciously have mercy upon us, and raise up ¢ze man. Put it into the heart of ze man, whom Thou dost choose to disclose himself to us.”. How, then, can I help being struck at the unprompted disclosures of the inner workings of his mind made in Mr, M.’s first note? The fact is, that I had often thought of Mr. Milne as the man for Calcutta. But the same reasons which appear to have kept you back prevailed with me too. But if Mr. M., as before God, declare his own mind on the subject, as Mr. M‘Donald was led to do, the thing is done. The congregation of Mr. M., and the Perth Presbytery, will then not have to consider the question, Whether we have succeeded in making out a case for Calcutta sufficiently strong to warrant their loosing the present pastoral tie, — but, Whether they feel warranted, before God, to interpose between Mr. M. and the following out of the conviction of his own mind, as to the path and sphere of duty? But though no case might be made out to sadisfy a congregation and presbytery at home, naturally beassed in theiy own favour, and ignorant of the peculiar claims of a place like Calcutta, a very strong case could be made out, sufficient to satisfy an unbiassed mind, fully acquainted with the relative bearings of the services of a minister in Calcutta and Perth.

‘In Perth there are other four Free Churches, and some very able ministers; and, throughout the country, churches and ministers in abundance. In the whole of Bengal there is but one Free Church. It is there a conspicuous object; and from the character of its ministerial services will a judgment be formed of the character of the Free Church pulpit in Scotland. One of the very best men in the Church ought, therefore, to be placed on so conspicuous a watch-tower. Though the Calcutta congregation be numerically smaller than that of Mr. M.’s in Perth, I must solemnly protest against estimating the importance of any charge merely by numbers. Account ought to be taken of the position of members in the providential order of things, and their power of influencing others for good. Now, in this respect, the members of a church in Calcutta — at least a fair proportion of them — occupy a position in which, by their conduct and example, they may influence myriads around, favourably, or otherwise, towards the gospel of salvation. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance, in this respect, of a faithful and powerful mainstay of the gospel, in such a mighty focus of emanative influence as Calcutta.

“Besides, though at present the congregation be small, it ought not to be forgotten that, as a mere matter of fact, it is, from circumstances (which are well known to you), unhappily a shattered fragment only of what it might have been, and what, under a minister like Mr, Milne, it might well be expected soon

to become. Besides members of our own Church, there are always, in a place like Calcutta, not a few who, sitting very loose to the peculiarities of their respective systems, would be rejoiced to rally round a man who really fed their souls, What an incalculable blessing, in this respect, would an experienced man like Mr, Milne become to many! What a strength woulé Wey such a man, and such a congregation as he would be sure to gather around him, prove to the mission cause generally, and especially to our own! What an unspeakable comfort to our converts and native preachers, and candidates for the ministry! How far and wide, alike through European and native society, might his own living spirit permeate, diffusing light and life amid the realms of darkness and of death!

“As to Mr. M.’s age, he should not think about it, nor his physical frame either. The present Bishop of Calcutta went out at the age of fifty-five, and has laboured now with uncommon vigour for twenty years. Mr. M.’s frame may not be strong; but I am not aware of any organic ailment in it. And if not, he ought not to consult with flesh and blood in such a matter, but cast himself at once upon the Lord, in the assurance that, if the Lord has put it into his heart to go, He will accomplish by him the work which He designs. And ought not such assurance to satisfy any loving, and obedient, and dutiful child?

“As to Mr. M‘Donald, I can testify in the strongest manner, that, up to the very end, he felt satisfied that in going to Calcutta he simply yielded to a divine monition, and rejoiced in having so done. May the Lord guide our friend! If he is che man, the Lord will give him no rest until he decide to go. — Yours affectionately, ‘ ALEXANDER DUFF,’

After this there followed a large correspondence between Mr. Milne and the brethren connected with the foreign field. There are several most interesting and fervent letters from Dr. Duff, Dr. Tweedie, and Mr. Hawkins. But as they do not contain anything material beyond what the preceding extracts convey, I must, reluctantly, withhold them, lest I should swell this volume unduly, and introduce matter not directly illustrative of Mr. Milne himself. Some parts, however, of Mr. M.’s answers to these letters may be given, as helping us more accurately and fully to understand his mind, and to appreciate his character, in its true-hearted devotion to his Lord. Thus he writes to Dr. Tweedie, on the 23d of December 1852 : —

‘T think I may tell you that my mind is /w/Zy made up. I feel that the Lord has gently withdrawn my heart from the home field, and is now making it to embrace India, with that calm, settled, vigorous faith and hope, which I have always found the precursor of joyful, useful working.... I am quietly feeling my way, and endeavouring to prepare my brethren and people for what is now about to take place. I have a fond, perhaps over-sanguine, hope that I shall be able to carry with me their acquiescence, if not their approval. I should like that the hand of the Lord might be seen and acknowledged in the whole matter, and that our parting may be, in sorrow and love, as those should part who love one another much, but who love their Lord and His glory more, and who expect soon to meet again where love to Him can be fully exercised and expressed, without those painful severings and acts of self-denial. I have often wondered and been overwhelmed when I think of the strange and overwhelming prosperity with which I have all along been favoured here. My church, from the very commencement of my ministry, down to the present moment, has always been over-crowded. My people have been strangely affectionate and attached. There is a very large number of ripening, zealous, liberal Christians among them; and I look back to very, very many who have departed in peace, often in triumph, and of whose presence with the Lord I have the fullest assurance. My office-bearers, between 40 and 50 in number, though of very different ranks and habits, have never once known what debate or division is, but have lived and acted in a most strange love and harmony. I have still a very pleasant home, though its light is now quenched and its ornament gone. I have credit for a kind of catholicity of spirit with the other denominations, and I have always had abundant and welcome access to the pulpits of my brethren in several of the surround-Waning counties. The bones of my wife and children are here; and I think I may say the bones of not a few whom God has given me; and ye¢, I think, in your own words, that the pillar

of cloud and of fire has arisen, and my heart bounds to follow.

Your allusion to ten years ago brings back pleasant and sad memories. At that time I thought of nothing less than ever being in any way connected with India. I was rushing into the home work as the horse to the battle, expecting, like many, a great out-

pouring of the Holy Ghost. Yet, even then, I had a strange

impression of the importance of Calcutta; and, in my zeal, often thought and said, “Oh that Mr. Tweedie saw his way to go!”’

Thus again he writes to the same; but now it is as to the question of his own fitness : —

‘ Leonard Bank, December 24, 1852. — MY DEAR BROTHER, — I have been reading much in M‘Donald’s life, and am a good deal oppressed. The nature and importance of the Calcutta position is opening up, and becoming more vivid and definite to my mind. There is but one Free Church minister in Bengal — what kind of man, and Christian, and minister should he be? We have been dealing too much with the question, Am I willing? There is another, unspeakably more important, Am I fit? Dear, honoured M‘Donald was a noble, holy man; I ama weak, foolish, sinful child. I am amazed that the Lord should have made me, and kept me, so long a minister, and that men have borne with me in such an office. Let this, therefore, now be the matter of inquiry, and let it be fully and honestly dealt with. Let no delicacy to me stand in the way; we can have no desire but for the right filling up of that important post. A man may move on even usefully in a subordinate place, surrounded, supported by those who are wiser, better, and stronger than himself, who would lamentably fail when isolated, and perhaps crushed, by the exigencies of one of the high places of the field. I know that blessed word, “My grace;” but that does not supersede the wise adaptation of means to ends. My dear brother in the Lord, much of whose mind I have been seeing to-night, deal honestly and fully with this. — Believe me, very affectionately yours, ‘JOHN MILNE.’ ‘Leonard Bank, 29th December. — MY DEAR DR. TWEEDIE, — I was favoured with your prompt, full, and heart-stirring letter. I see the Calcutta kirk-session isa mission college;

and if the Lord sends me, He will find some niche or place

where I may labour with and among the brethren. It is a great and unlooked-for felicity the thought of being connected with Dr. Duff, whom I so greatly admire and love. Feeling deeply the solemnity of the step I take, — for the issues are known only to the Lord, and they must affect eternal interests, — I yet think it better to commit myself, both as a means of relieving my mind, and also stopping the solicitations of my dear friends, such as Andrew Bonar and George Smeaton, who both say they are thunderstruck. Men are too busy at present to be touched much, or touched long by anything; so this, like other things, will have its brief day among my friends, and then pass by. It is likely there will be opposition from my brethren in the Presbytery. The objections will probably be, that the movement is ultroneous on my part; that there is no call of the Lord or the Church. Another would be, that neither Dr. Duff, nor Mr. Hawkins, nor yourself know me sufficiently to be able to judge of fitness. I feel that my two last notes must have given you at least considerable insight into my character. When Moab is at ease, the sediment lies at the bottom; but when he is stirred, it comes to light. You have seen that I am sensitive, sanguine, impulsive, prone, when the Lord loosens the rein, to run off into pride, or stumble into unbelief, and to pass very fast from the one sin into the other. It is a sad flaw in the earthen vessel; yet I think the Lord sometimes makes it an inlet to self-knowledge, and an outlet for His power. Pray for me that I may be much helped and blessed at present, and that I and my people may rejoice in the Lord alone. This will be the best preparative for whatever He may purpose. May the blessing of Him who dwelt in the bush dwell with you and yours! — Very affectionately yours, ‘JOHN MILNE,’

OPPOSITION. 16r.

The matter was not to be so easy as he, with his sometimes too sanguine views and hopes, at one time thought. He was not to be torn from Perth without protest. His roots had struck too deep and spread out too widely to give way without a wrench. He awoke at last to the knowledge of this, though at first he prophesied smooth things. Thus he writes to me : —

‘I am engaged to go to India, and this brought about by dealings in my lot, my soul, and a number of little linked circumstances, that look very like the work of God. But the opposition is universal, both among my own people and in the town and neighbourhood; and I stand alone in a furnace of delicate, respectful, earnest, loving solicitation. This has taken me by surprise, and made me admire the exceeding kindness of God to man, to a poor unworthy worm, a mere bubble. Of course I have had searchings of heart and inquirings arising out of this unlooked-for expression of affection. Is this a bar in my way? a bar of love? Or is it a trial, to test and prove? As yet I have held to the latter, and my mind has never wavered. Yet in simplicity Iam in the Lord’s hand, though I fear there would be more of the cross in staying than in going. There is to be a meeting here this week between some of our Edinburgh friends and a deputation of my office-bearers. I trust some light will come out of it, Pray for me; for if I stay or go without the Lord, it will be a great mistake and a great sin.’

In a similar way he writes to Mr. Hawkins, on the 7th of January 1853 : —

‘My DEAR Mr. HAWKINS, — I was favoured with your kind note. You are right. This affair is not going to be so simple as I thought. Yesterday there was a private meeting of office-bearers and friends; and two of the most respected

and most gracious of them came and had a long converse.

I think I was enabled to be firm. This afternoon my dear friend Mr. Burns, in whom I have much confidence, came, and with expressions of earnestness and affection, dealt with me. I think he left with the impression that I was unchanged. To-night there has been a meeting of elders and deacons, more than forty; and a deputation has just been with me. I am still free, and think they feel that my mind is unchanged. On Thursday there is to be a meeting of the congregation. You see, my dear brother, that this is to be martyrdom; for I love this dear people, who have grown with me, borne with me, — we have been often very happy together, never had the slightest difference, — who have loaded me with benefits, gifts, and kindness; and now say, “Go for a year, two years, but do not break the tie.” I know you will feel for me in this trial. We must fall back on Him whose will shall be done. I dare not say the Lord is not blessing me here. Some new cases have come before me this very day; and a man, whom I had given up for a while as hopeless, has been with me this evening; and when I got him to engage in prayer along with me, I found, to my delighted surprise, that the Lord has made him a humble, contrite, waiting child. Still my heart, I may say my purpose, is unchanged; but it will be a dreadful trial, because I dearly love them all; and how can 1 bear to seem unkind, and harden myself against them? If it be the Lord’s will, you know He will bear me through. I think the only way by which you and your dear friend can help me is by prayer. Ask that I may be helped and guided in my public and ‘private intercourse with my people, so that we may all look simply to the Lord. I wish to avoid all direct allusions to the subject, and just try to keep myself and them in the immediate presence of Him, where the poor creature dwindles and disappears, and selfish and natural feelings give place to adoring submission to His blessed will.’

Again, on the roth of January, he writes to Mr, Hawkins: — ‘My DEAR Mr. HAWKINS, — Surely the Lord is in this matter. It really seems as if clouds arose oz/y to be dispelled by a gracious Lord. I was a good deal alarmed when I wrote on Friday night. Had it been common opposition, I could have withstood that; but with these successive waves of delicate, respectful, earnest, affectionate solicitations, I was afraid that my firmness would give way. On Saturday I went on as usual preparing for Sabbath, and was almost ready; but toward evening I began to think that you had got my note, and were praying forme. Then a passage was brought before my mind. I rose and looked at it, and saw at a glance that it was just as if it had been made for my case. I thought a little; it opened up; and putting away what I had prepared for the afternoon, I sat down and began to write. Easily, speedily, happily, I went on, and at the end found that I had been led to bring out all the elements and principles that should determine my conduct and that of my dear people. Still I intended no special allusion; but about nine o’clock, a note came down from, who had been out in her district, and had heard that there was warmth in some quarters, and thought I might explain a little. I sat down again, and prepared a statement. Yesterday, between sermons, my friends came in; but they had been waylaid coming out of church, and were completely staggered. They said not a word, and would not so much as by a look implicate themselves. I went to my room, feeling that I was gudte alone; but though a little stunned, not discouraged. It is a great thing, as our Church court men say, to have possession of the House. Psalms, prayer, sermon, prepared the way, and then I opened up briefly how I had come into my present position, — glancing back at all their kindness, my own trials in lot and soul, my correspondence with you, the drawing of my heart to India, and my engagement to go there. “And now, what will you do? Would you have me draw back? Would you withhold me, and show that, while ready to give some things, there are others that you will be angry if they are even looked at? The’ trial has come to you; let it only quicken the graces of the Spirit, making you desirous to know and do the will of the Lord in love and peace. We may differ in opinion; it is unavoidable in this dark world; but we are still one in heart and love.” And soon. JI think the Lord was with us, and I felt that I carried my people, though in sorrow, along with me. I scarce know how I could have acted as I did. I seem like one who has leapt over a fearful ravine in the dark, and then, when he looks at it in the light, wonders how he ventured on what now seems so impossible. How the cup has gone round! First you, then me, now my people! When it comes to my brethren, they will have little to do; and I expect a good scold for having cut the tie, instead of waiting till they loosened it in due Presbyterian order. How kind and gracious is my condescending Lord! Pray for me that I may be upheld. I feel like that one who said, “Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; fer I am sick of love.” The deep and universal regret of this whole town and neighbourhood at the thought of my departure, so variously and unequivocally expressed, quite unmans me, and lays me in the lowest dust. I am learning my favourite text: “They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.” There is only one thing wanting to make me go away singing for joy, and that is, to see my dear people united and harmonious in the choice of my successor.’

Again he writes to Mr. Hawkins : —

‘MY VERY DEAR Mr. HAWKINS, — I am favoured with your kind note, and shall be at the station on Tuesday evening to welcome you, thankful and joyful that my gracious Lord has given me such a friend to love and receive. Things are going on here in that smooth, happy tranquillity, which I suppose is meant, when it is said, “I will give peace like a flowing river.” All minds and hearts seem overawed, or overruled, or graciously turned, so that neither in look, word, or act, has there been anything to pain me. On Sabbath the 6th, Mr. Dymock and I exchanged in the forenoon, and he served the edict. In the

be re afternoon and evening I was with my people, and in the school and classes as usual. On Monday evening, the deacons’ court took tea with me, — a very full, delightful meeting, — and they agreed upon a minute, conceived and drawn up in a beautiful, truly Christian spirit, to be carried by their commissioners to the Presbytery. On Tuesday evening, the session met and adopted the same minute. On Wednesday evening, the congregation met and adopted the same. This they will give in as their commission, for the different bodies, and merely add one kindly word or two. They view it as the will of God, and it is only on this ground that I can stand. I have never, you know, inquired about the Calcutta congregation. I never curiously think of it, though my heart is there long ago. I have no to-morrow; the Lord is carrying me, and I do know that sweet happy life of faith, nestling in my dear Lord’s bosom, to which you alluded in your former note, and which was very sweet tome. I think it would be well if, all through, in answer to humble prayer, the Lord would graciously show Himself. My dear people are acting nobly. Do encourage them, and ask dear Dr. Duff to do so. They have been in the forefront in liberality, self-denial, and all devotedness from the very first. They worship in a poor, barn-like church, that they may minister to the wants of others. I am in partings many. It is a daily dying, and I like the sweet rehearsal, for the Lord is making it sweet.’

These letters bring out the whole history of the case as it stood, before the Presbytery met. From them we learn how the matter ripened for the final issue. Those who knew him only in his gentleness of spirit would have said, ‘ He will give way before their entreaties of affection;’ but those who knew his fearlessness and immobility of purpose where duty seemed leading on, would have said, ‘ None of these things will move him.’ He would give up any plan of his own, and submit to any amount of self-denial, in order to oblige the meanest member of his flock; but not a hairbreadth will he move, in spite of the beseechings of the ‘whole thousand members, when the way of duty is made plain to him.’ All he could say was, ‘What mean ye to weep, and to break mine heart? for I am ready not only to go to India, but also to die there for the name of the Lord Jesus.’

’ The extract contained in the following note ought to have come in earlier; but as part of it is illustrative of the above remarks, it is given here : — ‘It is not that I am hopeless here; far from it. I have not been permitted to doubt but that there will be blessing here from on high; perhaps abundant, perhaps soon. Neither is it that my people were ever more numerous or more attached. I believe that we never loved one another more, and it will be a sore pang on both sides when we part. But yet I am changed. My heart is sad and lone. It seems withered like the grass. Husband, father, widower, and childless; and all in fast succession. JI feel that I need change of scene and employment, and hope that in another land my poor, weak heart may again open, and begin to find a new and fresh interest in life. My work, and dear friends like you, are now my earthly all. I think the Lord is beginning to smile upon me and help me. Pray for me my own earnest prayer, ‘‘ that I may recover strength before I go hence and be no more.” I should like that my last days were good days.’ — Letter to Mr. Somerville, “yy