IN last issue we expressed the intention of giving an account of Boston’s writings in a future issue, but on consideration we deem it advisable to confine our attention more particularly to his Memoirs. Fortunately, Scottish religious literature is peculiarly rich in autobiography. We have the “Autobiography and Diary of James Melvill,” “Memoirs of Rev. James Fraser of Brea,” “Halyburton’s Memoirs,” not to mention others—all of which are remarkable in their own way.
Some of these are rich in deep spiritual analysis, others, again, by their graphic style, arrest the reader’s attention. But it can be safely said the Memoirs of Boston have an interest all their own. To the student of Church history they are simply invaluable for the light they throw on one of the most notable of Scotland’s preachers. The minute descriptions that they give of Boston’s connection with some of the most notable ecclesiastical questions of the time are invaluable. But the class of readers who may be expected to be most intensely interested in the book will be ministers of religion and serious-minded people. And it is to these that Boston’s Memoirs have appealed from the day of their publication until the present day. The trials and anxieties, the sorrows and joys, the petty annoyances and the notable triumphs incident to the life of a country pastor, are all related with a fidelity and frankness that is by no means common in this polished age. But Boston is no less frank and graphic in his description
of the struggles going on within—the war against sin and the triumphs gained through grace. The sorrows and trials of life—and he had his full share of them—touch a side of human nature that makes all the world kin. Affliction was a frequent visitant to the manse of Ettrick, and the angel of death made his dread presence often felt there. Such experiences as these made Boston intensely human in his feelings. We have here no sour fanatic, the slave of a remorseless creed so often pictured by a certain school of writers, but one whose heart beat in sympathy with his fellow-men, who shared in their common joys and wept in their common sorrows. As one reads these homely and human narratives of a life battle right nobly fought and won, the explanation is at once given of the remarkable place accorded to Boston as one of the most renowned pastors who ever stood in a Scottish pulpit.
Prefixed to the Memoirs as usually printed, there is an Address by Boston to his children in which he states that he is happily in a position to give them some idea of their father’s manner of life beyond what they saw with their eyes. This account of his life is to be found in two MSS. which he leaves for their perusal. The one is a bound book, entitled, Passages of My Life, and the other is the General Account of My Life. The former, at the time of writing the Address to his Children (28th October, 1730), consisted of 362 written pages. He tells us he was only about twenty years of age when he began collecting these “passages” for his edification. The General Account consisted, at the same date, of 279 written pages. Boston afterwards made additions to both these MSS., so that latterly the former consisted of 371 pages, and the latter of 342. It is from these two MSS. that we have the Memoirs. Boston, in the Address already referred to, suggests that it might have been thought more natural “to have made one continued history of both,” and that, in fact, it was his own thought, but in the decline of his age and strength he felt it somewhat beyond his powers. It was left to other hands to blend the two narratives and give the result in the Memoirs. The work did not appear until 1776, forty-four years after Boston’s death. It is commonly supposed that the Memoirs were edited by Thomas Boston, the younger, but as the Rev. Geo. D. Low pointed out in the British Weekly (28th November, 1906), this is impossible, as he died in 1767, nine years before the publication of the book. He may have done something in the preparation of the volume, but that was all. The real editor of the Memoirs, however, was not the son, but the grandson of the elder Boston, the Rev. Michael Bruce, minister of the Relief Church at Falkirk. Mr. Low states the evidence for this contention as follows:—In 1773, Boston’s “Soliloquy on the Art of Man-Fishing,” written in 1699, was published as part of a volume. In the “Advertisement” the transcriber makes reference to certain quotations in the Soliloquy from Boston’s Diary, which, he says, would have been suppressed “were there not cause to think that the Rev. Mr.
Michael Boston, his grandson, will soon favour the world with his diary and memoirs.” As already stated, the volume appeared in 1776, and in a note the editor informs the reader that, “in preparing this work for the press, it was judged absolutely necessary, in order to prevent repetition and references from the one volume to the other, to reduce both into one continued narrative or history, taking care all along to insert the Passages of his life in the General Account in their proper places, according to their respective dates and years, and as the nature of the subjects treated of required.” It was Boston’s desire that these two MSS. should remain within the family, and that “the property thereof be vested from time to time, in such an one of them, if any such there shall be, as shall addict himself to the holy ministry.” In accordance with this wish they passed to Thomas, and from him to his son, Michael, who died in 1785. Since this date nothing definite is known about these MSS., except that Brown, of Whitburn, author of the once well-known Gospel Truth, and grandfather of the author of Rab and His Friends, had seen them. Recently, however, Mr. Low, who had been familiar with the MS. Passages of My Life, heard that the MS. General Account of My Life, was still in existence. He took steps immediately to procure it, and was successful in so doing. On a comparison of the printed editions of the Memoirs with the MSS., it is found that the editor has taken fairly free liberties in his work of editing. Some passages are left out altogether. The following paragraphs from the Address to his Children do not appear in the printed editions:—”Let not my recording the lowness of my beginning offend you: for the lower I perceive the same to have been, it affords me the greater joy and rejoicing in that God who hath done all things for me . . . As to what you may find recorded concerning any of ourselves, that ye would not wish, they were steps of providence to me, and may be useful to you through grace. The manuscripts, you will easily perceive, are not designed for public view; and they are left in your own power. Moreover, you would consider me writing them, as leaving this world to have no more a portion in what is done under the sun, and as going into the other world, where many things reckoned here considerable are of no weight nor value at all.”
Undoubtedly the best edition of the Memoirs, is that edited by the Rev. George H. Morrison; he, however, like all previous editors, with the exception of Michael Boston, had not the original MSS., a drawback which is now happily removed for future editors through Mr. Low’s find, and which will soon be further removed by the publication of the General Account in the autumn. To give the reader some idea of Boston’s powers as a writer, two passages may be quoted, the one in which he pays as generous a tribute as was ever paid by a husband to a wife, the other refers to an incident of domestic sorrow that draws tears to the eyes by its very pathos. Concerning his wife he writes:—”Thus was I by
All-wise Providence yoked with my wife, with whom I have now (1730), by the mercy of God, lived thirty years complete: a woman of great worth, whom I therefore passionately loved, and inwardly honoured: a stately, beautiful, and comely personage, truly pious, and fearing the Lord; of an evenly temper, patient in our common tribulations and under her personal distresses: a woman of bright natural parts, an uncommon stock of prudence; of a quick and lively apprehension in things she applied herself to; great presence of mind in surprising incidents; sagacious and acute in discerning the qualities of persons, and therefore not easily imposed upon; modest and grave in her deportment but naturally cheerful; wise and affable in conversation, having a good faculty at speaking, and expressing herself with assurance, endowed with singular dexterity in dictating letters; being a pattern of frugality and wise management of household affairs, therefore entirely committed to her; well fitted for, and careful of, the virtuous education of her children; remarkably useful to the country-side, both in the Merse and in the Forest, through her skill in physic and surgery, which, in many instances, a peculiar blessing appeared to be commanded upon from heaven; and, finally, a crown to me in my public station and appearances. During the time we have lived together, hitherto we have passed through a sea of trouble, as yet not seeing the shore but afar off. I have sometimes been likely to be removed from her: she having had little continued health, except the first six weeks, her death had oftentimes stared us in the face, and hundreds of arrows have pierced my heart on that score; and sometimes I have gone with a trembling heart to the pulpit, laying my account with being called out of it to see her expire. And now, for the third part of the time we have lived together, namely, ten years complete, she has been under a particular racking distress; and for several of these years fixed to her bed; in the which furnace, the grace of God in her hath been brightened, her parts continued to a wonder, and her beauty, which formerly was wont, upon her recoveries, to leave no vestige of the illness she had been under, doth as yet now and then show some vestiges of itself.” The other quotation, which tells of a father’s and mother’s fond and last farewell to a little one, is affecting to tears: “When the child was laid in the coffin,” he writes, “his mother kissed his dust. I only lifted the cloth off his face, looked on it, and covered it again in confidence of seeing that body rise a glorious body. When the nails were driving, I was moved, for I had not kissed that precious dust, which I believe was united to Jesus Christ, as if I had despised it. I would fain have caused draw the nail again, but because of one that was present, I resented and violated myself.”
This brief account of the Memoirs may fitly close with Boston’s own concluding words: “The world has all along been a step-dame to me; and wheresoever I would have attempted to nestle in it, there was a thorn of uneasiness laid for me. Man is born
crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed from that quarter. ‘All is vanity and vexation of spirit—I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord.’ ” This is the language of a pilgrim fixing his gaze on a country where the inhabitant shall not say “I am sick,” and whose steps are nearing the portals of the Celestial City.
D. B.