(Continued from page 18)
On Sabbath the 14th August, 1812, he preached at Blair-Athole (1) for five hours in the churchyard to an assembly of at least 4,000 persons, and (2) in the evening in the church for three hours to an audience that would have remained till daybreak. On Monday evening he rode to Moulin, and preached (3) to a deeply affected audience. On Tuesday he rode to Kinloch-Rannoch (20 miles), and preached (4) in a park at the south end of the bridge, from two to five o’clock, to an interesting congregation of shepherds, gamekeepers, foresters, graziers, cattle-dealers, etc., gathered from both sides of Loch Rannoch. After a hurried dinner he struck across the west shoulder of Schiehallion, one of the most trackless and difficult passes in the Highlands—taking a guide part of the way, to Fortingall (18 miles); rode six miles farther to Lawers, crossed Loch Tay to Ardeonaig—preached (5) there on Wednesday at twelve, and re-crossing the lake he preached (6) at Lawers the same evening. On Thursday he rode down to Grandtully (17 miles), and (7) preached with great power in the churchyard to a dense crowd from Hebrews xii: 18-25. On Friday he rode up to Fortingall (12 miles), where he preached (8) in the open air from two to nearly six p.m., a sermon (Hebrew ix: 27, 28) which made a deep impression, many of the audience being in tears; and returned to Grandtully the same evening. On Saturday morning he started at six for Balnaguard, preached (9) there at seven o’clock to a large company, many of whom had got saving good under his ministry previously—caught the mail-cart at half-past eight, reached Edinburgh in the evening, and preached thrice (10, 11, 12) in St Luke’s on the following day.” Can we imagine what the service was like when thousands would gather together in the open air to hear the preacher whose message was, “Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin!” How suitably he began the service on this occasion at Blair-Athole with the singing of the 22nd Psalm—
“All ends of th’earth remember shall,
And turn the Lord unto!”
And the fulfilment of this promise he longed for.
In 1843 William Burns was present in Edinburgh to witness the never-to-be-forgotten day when the Free Church of Scotland was formed. This was the Disruption, and Mr Burns on that day marched to the Free Assembly Halls in full sympathy with those who came out of the Established Church. The country was at that time more interested in ecclesiastical reconstruction than in the cry of one in the wilderness calling upon all to repent.
William Burns’ next field of labour was Dublin. He was invited by one of the ministers of that town, and as Scotland was preoccupied with other matters, he was glad of the opportunity. This also gave him an opening to make known the message of salvation to the Roman Catholic element there. Accordingly, he began to preach in the open air. Rev. Dr. Kirkpatrick, who invited him, said, “He took his position evening after evening and amidst innumerable annoyances and interruptions he sought to bring before his ignorant and prejudiced hearers the Word of Eternal life. It required no small amount of courage and tact and temper as everyone knows who has made the trial, to address an unsympathetic or hostile Irish mob. Mr Burns was exposed to many opprobrious salutations, derisive questionings, vehement denials of the statements which he made; sometimes the uproar was so loud and long continued that he was obliged to desist altogether; often his clothes were torn; not seldom the chair on which he stood was broken but he never was impatient, nor ever for a moment lost his self-control. Amidst the most noisy and turbulent scenes, his countenance was beaming with joy, insomuch that some of his persecutors were constrained to say, “He is a good man, we cannot make him angry.” Indeed the metrical psalm which he began to sing at one of his public meetings shows the frame of his spirit. It is—
“My soul wait thou with patience,
Upon thy God alone”
And, Stephen-like, he continued, although his friends felt concern for his safety.
On another occasion the Police came to his assistance and advised him to cross the river in the ferry-boat. This was in order to get him away from the angry mob. The conversation between him and the policeman was as follows:—”But I cannot pay for the ferry-boat.” “It will only cost you a half-penny.” “But, I have no half-penny,” he replied. “Here is one for you,” said a good-natured policeman. Accordingly, Mr Burns stepped down into the boat, and holding up the half-penny, he cried out to the people on shore, “See this, my friends, I have got a free passage. In like manner you may have a free Gospel, a free forgiveness of all your sins, a free passage to the Kingdom of Heaven. Without money and without price.” And thus he proceeded to deliver a message to the persons who were crossing with him in the boat. Mr Kirkpatrick continued, “—he was prepared to adopt any means which appeared to him most directly and effectively to bear on the advancement of the Kingdom of God. This great object alone engrossed him. Political or even ecclesiastical affairs had no attraction for him. He was bent earnestly and ever on the salvation of souls. This grand concern occupied and absorbed his daily prayers, his social converse, his public addresses, the whole course of his thoughts, the whole business of his life. Why are not more of us like him? The need of such men is as urgent as ever; and we know that the grace of God is not less rich, nor his promises in Christ less sure, nor his gifts less varied nor less rich, ‘Lord, we believe, help thou our unbelief.’ And surely then we need that the Lord would raise up men like him in our day! He believed and therefore he spoke.”
Although he met with such opposition in Ireland we must not come to the rash conclusion that his labours were in vain in the Lord. “It is not to be concluded from these details,” said Mr Kirkpatrick, “that his labours in the arduous field were wholly unsuccessful. One Sabbath morning, his audience at the custom-house were more quiet than usual. His subject was regeneration: ‘Except a man be born again.’ At the close of his sermon, a man who had been listening attentively, said, ‘Well, sir, if what you have said be true, you had much need to come from Scotland to tell it to us, for we never heard of this doctrine before.’ After Mr Burns left Dublin, several Roman Catholics came to inquire about him, speaking respectfully of his labours, and of the living and genial spirit in which they were conducted.” In the language of Scripture we can say of him, “Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass.” Those who sow weeping will reap rejoicing! It is not out of place to mention here the name of the holy and wonderful preacher, John Welsh. He spent hours in prayer. When he arose to pray at night he kept a plaid that he might wrap himself. His beloved partner, afraid that he would catch cold, complained when she found him lying on the ground weeping. His reply to her would be, “O woman, I have the souls of three thousand to answer for, and I know not how it is with many of them!” Such men were blessed and were made a blessing.
IV. “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents, harmless as doves.”
For a period of three months William Burns, with the same unabated zeal, served His Master in preaching in the towns and cities on Clydeside. It was at this time that a door of usefulness was opened for him in the North American colony. The revivals of Scotland were much spoken of in Canada, and urgent requests from the people there for Mr Burns to visit them were made. On the 10th August, 1844, he sailed from Greenock and landed at Montreal on the 26th September. A free passage to and from Canada was guaranteed to him by the general Christian proprietors of the vessel. He always noticed the hand of the Lord in all His kindnesses in providence. When he could say that “the good hand of the Lord” was upon him, he took it as a token for good. The path of duty is seldom an easy one in connection with the Gospel, but it is always the only safe one. Jonah suffered much when he refused to go and cry against the wickedness of the great city Nineveh!
In his own journal William Burns wrote, “The means provided for me by the Lord have so exactly met my wants that I go forth truly ‘without purse,’ having only two shillings remaining in the world: and yet I am infinitely rich, having nothing, and yet possessing all things. One cannot but recall the words of Him who said: ‘Take no thought, saying what shall we eat? or, what shall we drink? or wherewithal shall ye be clothed?'” William Burns took God at His word and thus honoured and glorified God.
On the ocean Mr Burns’s desire was to serve His Master. He did not seek rest. His relaxation was doing the work of Him who sent him. In private his time was taken up with the study of God’s Word and self-examination. In public he sought to make use of every moment to make the way of salvation known to those around him. His very heart he made known when he wrote in his Diary, “I think I can say through Grace that God’s presence or absence alone distinguishes places to me.” He was of the same mind as the Psalmist when he said, “Lord, by Thy favour Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong; Thou didst hide Thy face, and I was troubled.”
On reaching Quebec on the Lord’s Day he had worship on board the vessel in the morning. In the evening he went ashore. He was a stranger in a strange land. He took a quick glance at the town, not sight-seeing but seeking a suitable place where he could stand and speak the Word of Life to his fellow men. We have this in his own words, “I took up my position alone, and yet not alone, at the market-place, close to the river.” There he began by repeating the 55th chapter in Isaiah. A crowd soon gathered. There were Canadians but also British sailors, some of whom had seen his face before in Newcastle. Where the Gospel
is declared the offence of the Cross will follow. It was so that evening in Quebec. Some mocked and others threatened violence. But as he stated: “I got a good opportunity of witness-bearing for God and His Christ.”
When he reached Montreal he felt more at home. He was among many friends. Even some of the soldiers whom he knew at Aberdeen and Dundee met him at Montreal. It was pleasant to see them. To his great joy he discovered that there was a number of the soldiers who had hired a room near their Barracks where they held a prayer-meeting each Friday evening. The soldiers looked forward to his coming. He was as eager to see them. He wrote in his Diary: “I accordingly went last night, in company of two pious Scotchmen. When we got to the place I found such a scene as I never before saw; a room crowded with soldiers, wives and children who were met not to hear a man speak but to wait upon Jehovah, as their custom was.”
In Canada the evangelist laboured with the same zeal and devotion as he did in the home country. His many engagements never seemed to be a burden to him. He preached the Word in the open air, in churches and in the Barracks to the soldiers. He visited the sick and the afflicted; and soldiers of all denominations, even Roman Catholics, sent for him. His heart sympathy he extended to all and had a friendly word for all he met. The Truth, he declared, was with divine power and authority. One who witnessed what happened among the soldiers wrote, “I have known the Rev. Burns to send this famous regiment, these heroes of Balaclava, home to their Barracks, after hearing him preach, every man of them less or more affected, not a high word, or breath or whisper heard among them, each man looking more serious than his comrade; awe-struck; ‘like men that dreamed they were,’ and when at home, dismissed from parade, they could not dismiss their fears. Out of thirty men, the sub-division of a company under my command, living in the same room, only five were bold enough that Sabbath evening to go out to their usual haunts; and these must go afraid, as if by stealth, their consciences so troubled them; the other twenty-five, each with Bible in hand, bemoaning himself. Now, looking at what took place in this one room, you may be able to judge of Mr Burns’ powers as an ambassador of Christ with clear credentials. From these remarks we can see that there was an unction from on high with the Word he declared, and this made it ‘quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.'”
In his open-air preaching he met with opposition as one could expect. The priests of the Roman Catholic Church became alarmed and violent opposition was the issue. The power of darkness and all in league with him hate the light which the Gospel brings! Gravel, mud and stones were thrown by the opponents of the Truth. As Mr Burns stated in his Diary, “Surely these displays of enmity are a token that the Prince of Darkness is in some degree afraid!” On one occasion his Bible was torn from his hand; at another time a stone thrown at him inflicted a severe wound on his cheek. To him it was “only a few scars in the Master’s service.” After medical attention he returned to the same spot and exclaimed the words, “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” As noise and opposition increased, Mr Burns moved to other spheres of labour. Wrongs done to himself he bore meekly with patience. In his courage, however, he was a missionary of apostolic zeal. He never spared himself—with the Word of God in his heart and hand and his own soul continually basking in the rays of the Sun of Righteousness. Indeed, it was a divine flame that urged him to go forward.
In Montreal, when he went into the highways, the majority of his hearers were Roman Catholics. Wisely, he never used the word Popery, but still the system of error was exposed. The mighty Lord was on his side. The Lord in His kind providence intervened, and the hostile Romanist mayor was replaced by an excellent Protestant. He gave the evangelist every support. To be able to address the French Canadians he revived his knowledge of their language. In a short time he preached to them in their own language. There were also the Gaelic-speaking settlers who had come from Inverness-shire. He was somewhat familiar with their language from his visits to the Highlands of Perthshire. In Canada he declared to them the rich Gospel of Jesus Christ in the language most familiar to them. One instance will show the great regard the people had for him. “In Kenyon he preached in English, but many of the Gaelic people waited to hear him. A pious old woman, who understood no English, was asked why she remained. She replied, ‘I thought it would be a privilege to be included in the dear minister’s prayers. And another thing did me good; he seemed to dwell particularly on one word, spoken in such sweet tones, it sent a glow to my heart; the word—”salvation,” what does that mean?’ She certainly judged rightly. William Burns’ only theme to all men, whatever their language or station in life, was “salvation.” He preached “Christ,” and every other doctrine proceeds from that centre. The fruit which followed his labours there remained.
While addressing the communicants at Indian Lands during the Communion services he exclaimed: “If you cannot come in by the saints’ door, oh! come in by the sinners’!” When the service was concluded and the benediction pronounced, one poor man refused to leave. Mr Burns was, as was his usual custom, engaged in silent prayer. The man who refused to leave was repeating, “You touch my heart, you touch my heart.” Mr Burns could not but notice him. One of those present told him not to mind him, adding, “He is a fool.” The preacher’s kind reply was, “Aye, aye, one of Christ’s fools perhaps.” How like his Master who “despised not nor abhorred the afflicted’s misery.”
What David Brainerd said was true of William Burns, “I have nothing to do with earth, but only to labour in it honestly for God.” In the same loving manner Mr Burns preached to the French in their own language. Then he conversed in his usual affectionate way with them individually. “He was the best priest they ever heard.” This humble servant of the Lord had been with Jesus and learned of Him. He never studied his own comfort but went about doing good. Often it meant that he had to expose himself to hardships and ridicule. He would prefer to travel on foot so as to avail himself of the opportunities of speaking to working parties wherever he met them. Only those who have travelled abroad can realise how trying and difficult it is to go on foot. He wrote, “Sometimes I have been a little encouraged, but in general, spiritual religion, which alone saves the human soul, appears to be very rare. Nevertheless I have met with some people who seem to love the Lord. Yesterday I tried again to preach out of doors, but with little success. They stoned and pelted me with mud, but by the grace of God I escaped danger. One poor man in the crowd recognised me as the person whom he had seen beaten at Dublin near the custom-house. Although a Romanist, he appeared yesterday much disposed to listen to the Word, and his testimony in my favour will be undoubtedly useful among his countrymen. We can say when we view all he met with, “It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, and the servant as his Lord. If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household.”
He considered it one of his greatest privileges to preach to a congregation of “blacks” who were formerly slaves. Through an interpreter he declared the Gospel to a congregation of American Indians. His labours in Canada were as varied as they were in the home country. It is possibly true that they were more so, and certainly they were more extensive. With the “Book” in his hand he did not spare himself, but took every opportunity of spreading the Gospel. His labours were singularly blessed of God and were, under God, the means of quickening the dead and reviving the living. “Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created; and Thou renewest the face of the earth.” His biographer, quoting from Rev. Alexander Cameron of Ardersier, concerning the last benefits which followed his labours, said, “Old customs and inveterate habits were one by one abandoned. Balls and merry-makings and New Year’s festivals, so frequent in that country, were fast disappearing. Some of the leaders in such things with their own hands cast their fiddles and bagpipes into the fire; and instead of the sounds of revelry, the voice of praise and spiritual melody began to be heard in their dwellings. Zion was meanwhile putting on her beautiful garments. Communion seasons were now more like those in old Ferintosh than the former scanty gatherings in the ‘back-woods.’ This state of things I ascribe chiefly under God to the labours of Mr Burns.”
The following anecdote completes our brief sketch of William Burns’ stay in Canada. This happened during a snowstorm when he could not carry out his preaching engagements. His time was spent in retirement and over his Bible. When the storm subsided he and the farmer with whom he stayed set off to fulfil a preaching engagement. Their means of transport was a powerful team of horses and a sleigh. When the horses floundered in the snow, the farmer, remarking on the state of the roads, said, “This is awful,” Mr Burns checked him firmly with the words, “Oh! my dear sir, there is nothing awful but the wrath of God!” Was he not taught by the same spirit as the Psalmist who said, “Who knoweth the power of His wrath?”
When they reached their destination the preacher delivered a most impressive sermon, using much of what he noticed by the wayside for illustration. It may not be out of place here to quote the words of Richard Baxter:
“Recreation to a minister must be as whetting is with the mower—that is, to be used only so far as is necessary for his work. May a physician in plague-time take any more relaxation or recreation than is necessary for his life, when so many are expecting his help in a case of life and death? Will you stand by and see sinners gasping under the pangs of death, and say: ‘God doth not require me to make myself a drudge to save them?’ Is this the voice of ministerial or Christian compassion or rather of sensual laziness and diabolical cruelty.” William Burns spent two years in Canada as an ambassador of Jesus Christ. He studied the honour and glory of His Master and never misused his time.
(To be continued)