EXTRACTED FROM “THE FATHERS AND FOUNDERS OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY.”
(Continued from page 61.)
There would be extreme mystery connected with Mr. Love’s sojourn in London were we compelled to view him only as the pastor of an obscure and by no means flourishing congregation of Presbyterian Dissenters. Happily, however, we are relieved from this discouraging view of his position, and are enabled to look upon him as exerting an influence while he lived in the Metropolis far beyond the sphere of his pastoral solicitudes. It would seem almost that Divine Providence had drawn the subject of this memoir from his native scenes, where his early ministry had been greatly blessed, to the city of London that he might have conferred on him the high honour of forming one of that distinguished race of men who laid the foundation of the London Missionary Society. To have sat in deliberation with such men, to have aided the first outburst of their zeal and compassion for the perishing heathen, to have been the official organ of their sentiments to the British public, to have wrestled in prayer with them at a throne of grace, and to have mingled in their shout of praise, as prosperous events multiplied in their path; to have been permitted to do all this, at a moment when the eyes of the whole Christian world were turned to the little group of “Fathers and Founders” in the British Metropolis, was honour sufficient to compensate the first secretary of the society for any sacrifice attendant upon his ecclesiastical position in a sphere of labour far too contracted for a mind so richly endowed.
Such, indeed, was his own view of the case. The formation of the London Missionary Society was regarded by him as an era in the history of the world. All the high enthusiasm of his nature was stirred at the very thought of such an effort to advance the Saviour’s glory; and in the early deliberations of its friends he realised some of the happiest moments of his existence, on the one hand receiving a mighty impulse to his Christian zeal, and on the other throwing all the energy of his powerful intellect into the infant councils of an institution destined to draw towards it the prayers and sympathies of the universal church.
In his office, as one of the first secretaries of the society, Dr. Love proved himself to be an important acquisition to the cause. With great sobriety of mind and vast powers of discrimination he combined depth of feeling, fervour of devotion, and promptitude of action. He possessed the happy art of throwing an air of sacredness around all his official movements, without assuming anything of superiority over his brethren in the direction, or giving to any missionary candidate the impression that he was treated with coldness, distance, or reserve.
Such was the unaffected dignity of his general deportment, and such the wisdom which characterised his views and opinions on all subjects connected with the progress of the society, that whenever he rose up to address his brethren in the direction he was heard with profound attention and respect. Seldom did he obtrude himself on the notice of the directors; but when he opened his lips his thoughts and words were full of power, and tended in no ordinary degree to give a right bias to the minds of those who listened to him.
In the South Sea mission he felt a profound interest. The prospect of sending the gospel to regions where nature smiled in such beauty and luxuriance, but where man was sunk to the lowest condition of humanity, rose up like a vision of glory before his vivid and powerful imagination. With a kind of prophetic glance, he penetrated into the hidden future and anticipated those blessed days of the Son of Man which have since dawned on these sunny islands of the great Southern Pacific. His solicitude on behalf of the benighted inhabitants of these islands, and his desire in every way in his power to aid the missionaries in their work, induced him to compose a series of “Addresses to the Inhabitants of Otaheite,” containing the outline of a system of Christian theology, and distinguished by all the peculiarities of his truly original mind.
It has been doubted by some whether the method of appeal adopted by Dr. Love in these addresses was strictly consistent with the models laid down by inspired men. Had the missionaries adopted his suggestions, there is reason to fear that the conversion of the South Sea Islanders would have been retarded rather than promoted. With all the rich imaginings which distinguish these addresses they seem to proceed upon an erroneous principle, and to give countenance to the idea too prevalent at one period in the public mind, that, in order to prepare heathen men for the reception of Christ’s gospel, there must be a previous training in what has been called the doctrines of natural religion. Now, the very reverse of this notion has been inculcated by the stern lessons of experience; and those missionaries who have been most successful in subverting the powers of heathenism, and in converting idolatrous or savage minds to the faith of Christ, have been men who adhered with greatest simplicity to the example of the greatest apostle of the Gentiles at Corinth, and who have “determined not to know anything among men save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
While this criticism is ventured upon Dr. Love’s “Addresses to the Inhabitants of Otaheite,” it is not by any means insinuated that they are wanting in evangelical matter. It is rather to the order of instruction recommended that exception is taken than to any individual sentiment which the addresses contain. As compositions they are exceedingly vivid and striking, and abound in those beautiful and fervid images which adapted them in no ordinary degree to a race of people whose scanty vocabulary derived its richest treasures from the sublimities of nature.
But it was not the will of God that Dr. Love’s official connection with the London Missionary Society should be of any long continuance, though to the hour of his death his heart clung with parental fondness to its great principle and its noble enterprise. The state of his congregation, as has already been hinted, had more than once suggested the propriety of a return to his native land; and in the year 1800 Divine Providence opened up the way for the fulfilment of his cherished wishes by his being chosen minister of the chapel of ease at Anderson, in the vicinity of Glasgow. By this event, indeed, he was removed from the refreshing intercourse of his brethren in the Board of Direction, but obtained for himself a more congenial sphere for the exercise of his pastoral duties, to which he gave himself with an ardour and devotedness worthy of the best samples of ministerial fidelity. To his great joy he found himself in the midst of a select and intelligent flock, who prized his instructions, and looked up to him with confidence as their spiritual guide.
Much as his society was sought by eminent ministers and Christians of almost every denomination, and much as his ministerial labours were increased with advancing years, he continued to secure leisure to cultivate the favourite classical studies of his youth, and also to read with delight some of the most celebrated works of the Greek fathers.
Theology was his habitual and favourite study, in the knowledge of which, both practical and polemic, he had made vast attainments. It was his love of sacred science which induced him at a comparatively advanced age to offer himself as a candidate for the chair of divinity in a northern university, and though the duties of this high office were devolved upon another, the impression produced by a comparative trial of his talents and acquirements was in the highest degree creditable to his learning and varied research, and led to his receiving the degree of Doctor in Divinity as a token of the respect in which he was held as one of the most accomplished theologians in the Scottish Church.
But in his two volumes of sermons and in his letters published subsequently there are indubitable marks of great power in the illustration and defence of inspired truth. He was no superficial meddler with sacred things, but entered profoundly and with singular discrimination into all the niceties of Scriptural theology, both doctrinal and experimental. The corruption of human nature, the boundlessness of the Divine love, the person of the glorious Mediator, the unchangeable relations of the new covenant, and the workings of Divine grace in the several acts and exercises of communion with heaven, were the themes on which he delighted habitually to expatiate. Never, perhaps, were the abstractions of theology more happily blended with the lofty aspirations of the spiritual and devout mind than in the life and character of Dr. Love. Few men, perhaps, ever lived in a sublimer region of thought than he; and yet few have attained to greater simplicity of character, and to more of that fervent breathing after God, which imparts to theological musings and investigations their most sacred attribute. He lived in habitual and felt communion with God, which imparted to his ministry and intercourse a certain character of unearthliness but rarely witnessed in the lives of the best of men.
In perusing his letters, which date from the year 1783 down to 1825, a brief period before his decease, one is struck to astonishment at the uninterrupted religious joy and peace which during that lengthened space it was his privilege to feel. It does not appear that in all these years he was ever left for a single moment to doubt his interest in Christ. Of him it might be said with truth that for more than 30 years he walked through life under the immediate light of God’s countenance, shedding around him the fragrance of Christian graces, and proving himself an example to the flock of Christ whom he had been called to feed.
As he lived, so did he die. His last hours were not only serene, but triumphantly joyous. He wept tears of gladness as he spoke to his friends of those enrapturing truths which had been the theme of his ministry, and even after he had ceased to possess full control over his mental faculties, and the powers of nature were fast sinking into decay, he was continually imagining himself in the act of preaching, and was ever and anon making tender and urgent offers of Christ to poor perishing sinners. In the intervals when reason asserted her sway, his spirit was most calm and serene, and his conversation most edifying and heavenly. From the nature of his disease, which was of long standing, he suffered much inconvenience and pain; but in him “patience had her perfect work,” and though quite laid aside from his favourite employment for the space of six months previous to his decease, not a single murmur of complaint escaped his lips, but all saviourd of that bright and joyous world into which he was about soon to enter. The smile of peace rested on his brow long after the power of conversing with his friends had forsaken him, and even when his faculties had so far declined that memory had fled, and the capacity of pursuing any connected train of thought was withdrawn, his mental wanderings were those of a man long accustomed to walk with God, and delighting to linger on the borders of that heavenly Canaan into which the great Captain of salvation was about speedily to conduct him in safety and triumph. He entered into glorious rest on the 17th of December, 1825, in the 60th year of his age, leaving behind him a reputation for all that was “lovely and of good report.”
One of the heaviest calamities of his life, and which he bore with becoming fortitude and submission to the will of God, was the great mental depression endured for many years by his beloved wife, of whom he was wont to say, that “the arrows of the Almighty had drunk up her spirit.” She had been for many a long year the cheerful and devoted companion of his private hours, had sympathised in all the objects connected with his ministry, had aided him by her prayers and gentle counsels, and in the evening of his days it bore heavily upon his sensitive mind to see her “walking in darkness and having no light at all; but the God in whom he trusted did not suffer his spirit to be over whelmed; and with her, too, it was “light at even-tide,” for but a few years after the decease of her revered husband she passed into the joy of her Lord in the full assurance of a glorious immortality.