Holy Rutherford

li the sequestered parish of Anworth, in Scotland, there was standing, not many years since — and perhaps still stands to this hour — a quaint, old, rustic church. The swallows, during many a summer, built their nests in the crannies of its rude roof The weather-beaten walls were garnitured with moss, and festooned with creeping vines. The rusty key of that kirk door still hangs as a precious relic in the new College of Edinburgh. The old oaken pulpit is still preserved. And well it may be. For m that pulpit once stood a man, of whom it used to be said, that he “is always praying, a?ia?/s preacMng, always visiting the sick, always catechizing, and always writing and studying.” He it was who uttered that memorable saying to his beloved people: “My witness is above, that your heaven would be two heavens to me, and the salvation of you all, as two salvations to me.” That was the pulpit of Samuel Rutherford.

The savory discourses once preached in that hallowed place, to weeping and melted auditors, have, for the most part, perished long ago. But still that pastor is remembered, and will be while there are loving Christian hearts on earth. His world-known “Letters” will be Rutherford’s enduring memorial. They were written more than two centuries ago, and yet the smell of the myrrh and the cassia has never departed. They have but little historical interest. They are not argumentative. They are not descriptive. They are devotion — the very pith and essence of a soul that was all alive with love to Christ — the outflow of a sweet fountain that knew no intermission. Those who have read the biography of the sainted McChejme, will remember that Rutherford’s Letters were the constant companion of his private hours; and it must have been a rare book that McCheyne would allow to accompany his Bible into his closet. Cecil used to style Rutherford of his classics.” Richard Baxter said, “Hold off the Bible, and such a book the world never saw!” This sounds extravagant to those who have never gone themselves into this orchard, and plucked the luscious fruit, and never sat down themselves at the banquet, where the

“Ripe apples drop about our heads, And the purple clusters of the vine, Upon our mouths do crush their wine.”

In reading the beautiful edition of these Letters published by the Carters, we are irresistibly tempted to draw our pencil over the margin of nearly every page. In opening the goodly volume before us, we find a. mark beside this passage: — “Welcome, welcome Jesus, in what way soever Thou comest, if we can but get a sight of Thee. And sure I am that it is better to be sick, providing that Christ come to the bedside, and draw aside the curtains, and say, ‘Courage! I am thy salvation!^ than to enjoy kisty health, .and never to be visited of God.” In the same strain he writes afterwards: “His most loved ones are most tried. The hntelstones and pillars of his new Jerusalem suffer more knocks of God’s hammer than the common side-wall stones.” Sometimes his rapt soul seems in a sort of delirium of heavenly love, as when in writing to Lady Kenmure, lie says: — “Honorable lady, keep your first love. Hold the first match with that sonl-delighting, lovely Bridegroom, our sweet, sweet Jesus, the Rose of Sharon, and the sweetest smelled rose in all His Father’s garden. I would not exchange one smile of His lovely face for kingdoms. Let others take their silly, feckless heaven in this life. Put up your heart! Shout for joy! Yom- King is coming to fetch you to His Father’s house.” In writing of the indestructibility of the Church, he says: — “The bush has been burning these five thousand years, hut no man yet saw the ashes of that ftrer

For that Church he underwent sore and harassing persecutions. He was confined for two years at Aberdeen, but “found Jesus sweet to him in that place.” At St. Andrews he spent some years, both as professor and as preacher. From his collegiate chair he was deposed by the Government, and his works were burned in Edinburgh by the hands of the common hangman. He was summoned before Parliament on a false charge of treason. But the summons came too late. He was on his dying-bed, and calmly remarked, that he had got another summons before a superior Judge, and sent this message: — “I behove to answer my first summons; and ere your day arrive, I will be where few. kings and great folks ever come.”

On the 20th of March, 1661, Rutherford laid aside his earthly vestments to put on the wedding-garment in the Saviour’s presence. His last words were, “Glory, glory dwelleth in Immanuel’s land!” He seemed to be already standing in the pearly gateway. The Parliament, on hearing that he was dying, voted that lie should not die in the College as a Professor. Lord Burleigh arose, and said, “You cannot vote him out of heaven /”