Read Ebook: The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne by Bonar Andrew A Andrew Alexander

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So dying-like and frail, That every bitter gale Of winter seemed to blow Only to lay her low! She lived to show how He, Who stills the stormy sea, Can overrule the winter's power, And keep alive the tiniest flower-- Can bear the young lamb in his arms And shelter it from death's alarms.

SHE DIED--

When spring, with brightest flowers, Was fresh'ning all the bowers. The linnet sung her choicest lay, When her sweet voice was hush'd for aye The snowdrop rose above the ground When she beneath her pillow found, Both cold, and white, and fair,-- She, fairest of the fair, She died to teach us all The loveliest must fall. A curse is written on the brow Of beauty; and the lover's vow Cannot retain the flitting breath, Nor save from all-devouring death.

SHE LIVES--

The spirit left the earth; And he who gave her birth Has called her to his dread abode, To meet her Saviour and her God. She lives, to tell how blest Is the everlasting rest Of those who, in the Lamb's blood laved, Are chosen, sanctified, and saved! How fearful is their doom Who drop into the tomb Without a covert from the ire Of Him who is consuming fire!

SHE SHALL LIVE--

The grave shall yield his prize, When, from the rending skies, Christ shall with shouting angels come To wake the slumberers of the tomb. And many more shall rise Before our longing eyes. Oh! may we all together meet, Embracing the Redeemer's feet!

It is scarcely less interesting, in the case of one so gifted for the work of visiting the careless, and so singularly skilled in ministering the word by the bedside of the dying, to find a record of the occasion when the Lord led him forth to take his first survey of this field of labor. There existed at that time, among some of the students attending the Divinity Hall, a society, the sole object of which was to stir up each other to set apart an hour or two every week for visiting the careless and needy in the most neglected portions of the town. Our rule was, not to subtract anything from our times of study, but to devote to this work an occasional hour in the intervals between different classes, or an hour that might otherwise have been given to recreation. All of us felt the work to be trying to the flesh at the outset; but none ever repented of persevering in it. One Saturday forenoon, at the close of the usual prayer-meeting, which met in Dr. Chalmers' vestry, we went up together to a district in the Castle Hill. It was Robert's first near view of the heathenism of his native city, and the effect was enduring.

He continues his diary, though often considerable intervals occur in the register of his spiritual state.

It is worthy of notice how often the Lord has done much work by a few years of holy labor. In our Church, G. Gillespie and J. Durham died at thirty-six; Hugh Binning at twenty-six; Andrew Gray when scarcely at twenty-two. Of our witnesses, Patrick Hamilton was cut off at twenty-four, and Hugh M'Kail at twenty-six. In other churches we might mention many, such as John Janeway at twenty-three, David Brainerd at thirty, and Henry Martyn at thirty-two. Theirs was a short life, filled up with usefulness, and crowned with glory. Oh to be as they!

Though Baxter's lips have long in silence hung, And death long hush'd that sinner-wakening tongue, Yet still, though dead, he speaks aloud to all, And from the grave still issues forth his "Call:" Like some loud angel-voice from Zion hill, The mighty echo rolls and rumbles still. Oh grant that we, when sleeping in the dust, May thus speak forth the wisdom of the just!

He tenderly binds up the broken in heart, The soul bowed down He will raise: For mourning, the ointment of joy will impart: For heaviness, garments of praise.

Ah, come, then, and sing to the praise of our God, Who giveth and taketh away; Who first by his kindness, and then by his rod, Would teach us, poor sinners, to pray.

For in the assembly of Jesus' first-born, Who anthems of gratitude raise, Each heart has by great tribulation been torn, Each voice turned from wailing to praise.

In such records as these, we read God's dealings with his soul up to the time when he was licensed to preach the gospel. His preparatory discipline, both of heart and of intellect, had been directed by the Great Head of the Church in a way that remarkably qualified him for the work he was to perform in the vineyard.

His soul was prepared for the awful work of the ministry by much prayer, and much study of the word of God; by affliction in his person; by inward trials and sore temptations; by experience of the depth of corruption in his own heart, and by discoveries of the Saviour's fulness of grace. He learned experimentally to ask, "Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God!" I John 5:5. During the four years that followed his awakening, he was oftentimes under the many waters, but was ever raised again by the same divine hand that had drawn him out at the first; till at length, though still often violently tossed, the vessel was able steadily to keep the summit of the wave. It appears that he learned the way of salvation experimentally, ere he knew it accurately by theory and system; and thus no doubt it was that his whole ministry was little else than a giving out of his own inward life.

The Visiting Society noticed above was much blessed to the culture of his soul, and not less so the Missionary Association and the Prayer Meeting connected with it. None were more regular at the hour of prayer than he, and none more frequently led up our praises to the throne. He was for some time Secretary to the Association, and interested himself deeply in details of missionary labors. Indeed, to the last day of his life, his thoughts often turned to foreign lands; and one of the last notes he wrote was to the Secretary of the Association in Edinburgh, expressing his unabated interest in their prosperity.

During the first years of his college course, his studies did not absorb his whole attention; but no sooner was the change on his soul begun, than his studies shared in the results. A deeper sense of responsibility led him to occupy his talents for the service of Him who bestowed them. There have been few who, along with a devotedness of spirit that sought to be ever directly engaged in the Lord's work, have nevertheless retained such continued and undecaying esteem for the advantages of study. While attending the usual literary and philosophical classes, he found time to turn his attention to Geology and Natural History. And often in his days of most successful preaching, when, next to his own soul, his parish and his flock were his only care, he has been known to express a regret that he had not laid up in former days more stores of all useful knowledge; for he found himself able to use the jewels of the Egyptians in the service of Christ. His previous studies would sometimes flash into his mind some happy illustration of divine truth, at the very moment when he was most solemnly applying the glorious gospel to the most ignorant and vile.

His own words will best show his estimate of study, and at the same time the prayerful manner in which he felt it should be carried on. "Do get on with your studies," he wrote to a young student in 1840. "Remember you are now forming the character of your future ministry in great measure, if God spare you. If you acquire slovenly or sleepy habits of study now, you will never get the better of it. Do everything in its own time. Do everything in earnest; if it is worth doing, then do it with all your might. Above all, keep much in the presence of God. Never see the face of man till you have seen his face who is our life, our all. Pray for others; pray for your teachers, fellow-students," etc. To another he wrote: "Beware of the atmosphere of the classics. It is pernicious indeed; and you need much of the south wind breathing over the Scriptures to counteract it. True, we ought to know them; but only as chemists handle poisons--to discover their qualities, not to infect their blood with them." And again: "Pray that the Holy Spirit would not only make you a believing and holy lad, but make you wise in your studies also. A ray of divine light in the soul sometimes clears up a mathematical problem wonderfully. The smile of God calms the spirit, and the left hand of Jesus holds up the fainting head, and his Holy Spirit quickens the affection, so that even natural studies go on a million times more easily and comfortably."

Before entering the Divinity Hall, he had attended a private class for the study of Hebrew; and having afterwards attended the two sessions of Dr. Brunton's college class, he made much progress in that language. He could consult the Hebrew original of the Old Testament with as much ease as most of our ministers are able to consult the Greek of the New.

His intellectual powers were of a high order: clear and distinct apprehension of his subject, and felicitous illustration, characterized him among all his companions. To an eager desire for wide acquaintance with truth in all its departments, and a memory strong and accurate in retaining what he found, there was added a remarkable candor in examining what claimed to be the truth. He had also an ingenious and enterprising mind--a mind that could carry out what was suggested, when it did not strike out new light for itself. He possessed great powers of analysis; often his judgment discovered singular discrimination. His imagination seldom sought out object of grandeur; for, as a friend has truly said of him, "he had a kind and quiet eye, which found out the living and beautiful in nature, rather than the majestic and sublime."

HIS LABORS IN THE VINEYARD BEFORE ORDINATION.

While he was still only undergoing a student's usual examinations before the Presbytery, in the spring and summer of 1835, several applications were made to him by ministers in the Church, who desired to secure his services for their part of the vineyard. He was especially urged to consider the field of labor at Larbert and Dunipace, near Stirling, under Mr. John Bonar, the pastor of these united parishes. This circumstance led him to ask the Presbytery of Edinburgh, under whose superintendence he had hitherto carried on his studies, to transfer the remainder of his public trials to another Presbytery, where there would be less press of business to occasion delay. This request being readily granted, his connection with Dumfriesshire led him to the Presbytery of Annan, who licensed him to preach the gospel on 1st July 1835. His feelings at the moment appear from a record of his own in the evening of the day: "Preached three probationary discourses in Annan Church, and, after an examination in Hebrew, was solemnly licensed to preach the gospel by Mr. Monylaws, the moderator. 'Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, be stirred up to praise and magnify his holy name!' What I have so long desired as the highest honor of man, Thou at length givest me--me who dare scarcely use the words of Paul: 'Unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this grace given, that I should preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.' Felt somewhat solemnized, though unable to feel my unworthiness as I ought. Be clothed with humility."

An event occurred the week before which cast a solemnizing influence on him, and on his after fellow-traveller and brother in the gospel, who was licensed by another Presbytery that same day. This event was the lamented death of the Rev. John Brown Patterson of Falkirk--one whom the Lord had gifted with preeminent eloquence and learning, and who was using all for his Lord, when cut off by fever. He had spoken much before his death of the awfulness of a pastor's charge, and his early death sent home the lesson to many, with the warning that the pastor's account of souls might be suddenly required of him.

On the following Sabbath, Mr. M'Cheyne preached for the first time in Ruthwell Church, near Dumfries, on "the Pool of Bethesda;" and in the afternoon on "the Strait Gate." He writes that evening in his diary: "Found it a more awfully solemn thing than I had imagined to announce Christ authoritatively; yet a glorious privilege!" The week after : "Lord, put me into thy service when and where Thou pleasest. In thy hand all my qualities will be put to their appropriate end. Let me, then, have no anxieties." Next day, also, after preaching in St. John's Church, Leith: "Remembered, before going into the pulpit, the confession which says, 'We have been more anxious about the messenger than the message.'" In preaching that day, he states, "It came across me in the pulpit, that if spared to be a minster, I might enjoy sweet flashes of communion with God in that situation. The mind is entirely wrought up to speak for God. It is possible, then, that more vivid acts of faith may be gone through then, than in quieter and sleepier moments."

The parish to which he had come was very large, containing six thousand souls. The parish church is at Larbert; but through the exertions of Mr. Bonar, many years ago, a second church was erected for the people of Dunipace. Mr. Hanna, afterwards minister of Skirling, had preceded M'Cheyne in the duties of assistant in his field of labor; and Mr. M'Cheyne now entered on it with a fully devoted and zealous heart, although in a weak state of health. As assistant, it was his part to preach every alternate Sabbath at Larbert and Dunipace, and during the week to visit among the population of both these districts, according as he felt himself enabled in body and soul. There was a marked difference between the two districts in their general features of character; but equal labor was bestowed on both by the minister and his assistant; and often did their prayer ascend that the windows of heaven might be opened over the two sanctuaries. Souls have been saved there. Often, however, did the faithful pastor mingle his tears with those of his younger fellow-soldier, complaining, "Lord, who hath believed our report?" There was much sowing in faith; nor was this sowing abandoned even when the returns seemed most inadequate.

Mr. M'Cheyne had great delight in remembering that Larbert was one of the places where, in other days, that holy man of God, Robert Bruce, had labored and prayed. Writing at an after period from the Holy Land, he expressed the wish, "May the Spirit be poured upon Larbert as in Bruce's days." But more than all associations, the souls of the people, whose salvation he longed for, were ever present to his mind. A letter to Mr. Bonar, in 1837, from Dundee, shows us his yearnings over them. "What an interest I feel in Larbert and Dunipace! It is like the land of my birth. Will the Sun of Righteousness ever rise upon it, making its hills and valleys bright with the light of the knowledge of Jesus?"

His desire to grow in acquaintance with Scripture was very intense; and both Old and New Testament were his regular study. He loved to range over the wide revelation of God. "He would be a sorry student of this world," said he to a friend, "who should forever confine his gaze to the fruitful fields and well-watered gardens of this cultivated earth. He could have no true idea of what the world was, unless he had stood upon the rocks of our mountains, and seen the bleak muirs and mosses of our barren land; unless he had paced the quarter-deck when the vessel was out of sight of land, and seen the waste of waters without any shore upon the horizon. Just so, he would be a sorry student of the Bible who would not know all that God has inspired; who would not examine into the most barren chapters to collect the good for which they were intended; who would not strive to understand all the bloody battles which are chronicled, that he might find 'bread out of the eater, and honey out of the lion.'"--

From the first he fed others by what he himself was feeding upon. His preaching was in a manner the development of his soul's experience. It was a giving out of the inward life. He loved to come up from the pastures wherein the Chief Shepherd had met him--to lead the flock entrusted to his care to the spots where he found nourishment.

In the field of his labor he found enough of work to overwhelm his spirit. The several collieries and the Carron Ironworks furnish a population who are, for the most part, either sunk in deep indifference to the truth, or are opposed to it in the spirit of infidelity. Mr. M'Cheyne at once saw that the pastor whom he had come to aid, whatever was the measure of his health, and zeal, and perseverance, had duties laid on him which were altogether beyond the power of man to overtake. When he made a few weeks' trial, the field appeared more boundless, and the mass of souls more impenetrable, than he had ever conceived.

It was probably, in some degree, his experience at this time that gave him such deep sympathy with the Church Extension Scheme, as a truly noble and Christian effort for bringing the glad tidings to the doors of a population who must otherwise remain neglected, and were themselves willing so to live and die. He conveyed his impressions on this subject to a friend abroad, in the following terms: "There is a soul-destroying cruelty in the cold-hearted opposition which is made to the multiplication of ministers in such neglected and overgrown districts as these. If one of our Royal Commissioners would but consent to undergo the bodily fatigue that a minister ought to undergo in visiting merely the sick and dying of Larbert , and that for one month, I would engage that if he be able to rise out of his bed by the end of it, he would change his voice and manner at the Commission Board."

A few busy weeks passed over, occupied from morning to night in such cares and toils, when another part of the discipline he was to undergo was sent. In the end of December, strong oppression of the heart and an irritating cough caused some of his friends to fear that his lungs were affected; and for some weeks he was laid aside from public duty. On examination, it was found that though there was a dulness in the right lung, yet the material of the lungs was not affected. For a time, however, the air-vessels were so clogged and irritated, that if he had continued to preach, disease would have quickly ensued. But this also was soon removed, and, under cautious management, he resumed his work.

This temporary illness served to call forth this extreme sensitiveness of his soul to the responsibilities of his office. At its commencement--having gone to Edinburgh "in so sweet a sunshine morning that God seemed to have chosen it for him"--he wrote to Mr. Bonar: "If I am not recovered before the third Sabbath, I fear I shall not be able to bear upon my conscience the responsibility of leaving you any longer to labor alone, bearing unaided the burden of 6,000 souls. No, my dear sir, I must read the will of God aright in his providence, and give way, when He bids me, to fresh and abler workmen. I hope and pray that it may be his will to restore me again to you and your parish, with a heart tutored by sickness, to speak more and more as dying to dying." Then, mentioning two of the sick: "Poor A.D. and C.H., I often think of them. I can do no more for their good, except pray for them. Tell them that I do this without ceasing."

On resuming his labors, he found a residence in Carronvale. From this pleasant spot he used to ride out to his work. But pleasant as the spot was, yet being only partially recovered, he was not satisfied; he lamented that he was unable to overtake what a stronger laborer would have accomplished. He often cast a regretful look at the collieries; and remembering them still at a later period, he reproached himself with neglect, though most unjustly. "The places which I left utterly unbroken in upon are Kinnaird and Milton. Both of these rise up against my conscience, particularly the last, through which I have ridden so often." It was not the comfort, but the positive usefulness of the ministry, that he envied; and he judged of places by their fitness to promote this great end. He said of a neighboring parish, which he had occasion to visit: "The manse is altogether too sweet; other men could hardly live there without saying, 'This is my rest.' I don't think ministers' manses should ever be so beautiful."

A simple incident was overruled to promote the ease and fluency of his pulpit ministrations. From the very beginning of his ministry he reprobated the custom of reading sermons, believing that to do so does exceedingly weaken the freedom and natural fervor of the messenger in delivering his message. Neither did he recite what he had written. But his custom was to impress on his memory the substance of what he had beforehand carefully written, and then to speak as he found liberty. One morning, as he rode rapidly along to Dunipace, his written sermons were dropped on the wayside. This accident prevented him having the opportunity of preparing in his usual manner; but he was enabled to preach with more than usual freedom. For the first time in his life, he discovered that he possessed the gift of extemporaneous composition, and learned, to his own surprise, that he had more composedness of mind and command of language than he had believed. This discovery, however, did not in the least degree diminish his diligent preparation. Indeed, the only use that he made of the incident at the time it occurred was, to draw a lesson of dependence on God's own immediate blessing rather than on the satisfactory preparation made. "One thing always fills the cup of my consolation, that God may work by the meanest and poorest words, as well as by the most polished and ornate,--yea, perhaps more readily, that the glory may be all his own."

His hands were again full, distributing the bread of life in fellowship with Mr. Bonar. The progress of his own soul, meanwhile, may be traced in some of the few entries that occur in his diary during this period:--

On Sabbath 16, he writes: "Preached with some tenderness of heart. Oh, why should I not weep, as Jesus did over Jerusalem? Evening--Instructing two delightful Sabbath schools. Much bodily weariness. Gracious kindness of God in giving rest to the weary."

Being in Edinburgh this month, during the sitting of the General Assembly, he used the opportunity of revisiting some of his former charge in the Canongate. "J.S., a far-off inquirer, but surely God is leading. His hand draws out these tears. Interesting visits to L., near death, and still in the same mind. I cannot but hope that some faith is here. Saw Mrs. M.; many tears: felt much, though I am still doubtful, and in the dark. Thou knowest, Lord!"

About this time he again felt the hand of affliction, though it did not continue long. Yet it was plain to him now that personal trouble was to be one of the ingredients of that experience which helped to give a peculiar tone to his ministry.

At this time a youthful parishioner, for whose soul he felt much anxiety, left his father's roof. Ever watchful for souls, he seized this opportunity of laying before him more fully the things belonging to his peace.

"But I must be done. Good-bye, dear G. Remember me to your brother kindly, and believe me your sincere friend,

"R.M.M."

It was about this time that the managers and congregation of the new church, St. Peter's, Dundee, invited him to preach as one of the candidates; and, in the end of August, chose him to be their pastor, with one accord. He accepted the call under an awful sense of the work that lay before him. He would rather, he said, have made choice for himself of such a rural parish as Dunipace; but the Lord seemed to desire it otherwise. "His ways are in the sea." More than once, at a later period, he would say, "We might have thought that God would have sent a strong man to such a parish as mine, and not a feeble reed."

See this characteristic sermon in the Remains.

As he was now to leave this sphere, he sought out, with deep anxiety, a laborer who would help their overburdened pastor, in true love to the people's souls. He believed he had found such a laborer in Mr. Somerville, his friend who had shared his every thought and feeling in former days, and who, with a sharp sickle in his hand, was now advancing toward the harvest field. "I see plainly," he wrote to Mr. Bonar, "that my poor attempts at labor in your clear parish will soon be eclipsed. But if at length the iron front of unbelief give way, if the hard faces become furrowed with the tears of anxiety and of faith, under whatever ministry, you will rejoice, and I will rejoice, and the angels, and the Father and God of angels, will rejoice." It was in this spirit that he closed his short ten months of labor in this region.

His last sermons to the people of Larbert and Dunipace were on Hosea 14:1, "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God;" and Jeremiah 8:20, "Harvest is past." In the evening he writes, "Lord, I feel bowed down because of the little I have done for them which Thou mightest have blessed! My bowels yearn over them, and all the more that I have done so little. Indeed, I might have done ten times as much as I have done. I might have been in every house; I might have spoken always as a minister. Lord, canst Thou bless partial, unequal efforts?"

I believe it was about this time that some of us first of all began our custom of praying specially for each other on Saturday evening, with a reference to our engagements in the ministry next day. This concert for prayer we have never since seen cause to discontinue. It has from time to time been widened in its circle; and as yet his has been the only voice that has been silenced of all that thus began to go in on each other's behalf before the Lord. Mr. M'Cheyne never failed to remember this time of prayer: "Larbert and Dunipace are always on my heart, especially on the Saturday evenings, when I pray for a glorious Sabbath!" On one occasion, in Dundee, he was asked if the accumulation of business in his parish never led him to neglect the season of prayer on a busy Saturday. His reply was, that he was not aware that it ever did. "What would my people do if I were not to pray?"

During these ten months the Lord had done much for him, but it was chiefly in the way of discipline for a future ministry. He had been taught a minister's heart; he had been tried in the furnace; he had tasted deep personal sorrow, little of which has been recorded; he had felt the fiery darts of temptation; he had been exercised in self-examination and in much prayer; he had proved how flinty is the rock, and had learned that in lifting the rod by which it was to be smitten, success lay in Him alone who enabled him to lift it up. And thus prepared of God for the peculiar work that awaited him, he had turned his face towards Dundee, and took up his abode in the spot where the Lord was so marvelously to visit him in his ministry.

FIRST YEARS OF LABOR IN DUNDEE.

There was a rapid growth in his soul, perceptible to all who knew him well, from this time. Even his pulpit preparations, he used to say, became easier from this date. He had earnestly sought that the day of his ordination might be a time of new grace; he expected it would be so; and there was a peculiar work to be done by his hands, for which the Holy Spirit did speedily prepare him.

His diary does not contain much of his feelings during his residence in Dundee. His incessant labors left him little time, except what he scrupulously spent in the direct exercises of devotion. But what we have seen of his manner of study and self-examination at Larbert, is sufficient to show in what a constant state of cultivation his soul was kept; and his habits in these respects continued with him to the last. Jeremy Taylor recommends: "If thou meanest to enlarge thy religion, do it rather by enlarging thine ordinary devotions than thy extraordinary." This advice describes very accurately the plan of spiritual life on which Mr. M'Cheyne acted. He did occasionally set apart seasons for special prayer and fasting, occupying the time so set apart exclusively in devotion. But the real secret of his soul's prosperity lay in the daily enlargement of his heart in fellowship with his God. And the river deepened as it flowed on to eternity; so that he at least reached the feature of a holy pastor which Paul pointed out to Timothy : "His profiting did appear to all."

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