Letter from Rev. John B. Radasi

THE following letter has been received by the Rev. Neil Cameron, Convener of Foreign Mission Committee:—

“C/O NATIVE COMMISSIONER, BEMBESI,
MATABELELAND, SOUTH AFRICA, 9th January, 1913.

MY DEAR MR. CAMERON,—I received your letter of the 4th December informing me that the Synod had resolved to proceed at once with building the Church at Ingwenya, Bembesi, and that Mr. M’Keurtan’s offer had been accepted.

I wrote to Mr. M’Keurtan as soon as I received your letter, and as Mr. M’Keurtan sometimes delays in answering letters I thought it best to go over to Bulawayo and see him personally. Bulawayo is about thirty miles from here, so that I cycled over and returned the same day. I found that he had got my letter, and that he had received yours too, and also the resolution passed by the Synod, which you had enclosed in his letter, authorising him to proceed with the building at once. To my regret I found that he had not kept a copy of the plans and specifications of the building. I thought it best for him to write to you at once and get a copy of the plans and specifications of the building, and if you think it best, you might send him the original. It could be returned to you again when he is finished with it. He was wondering if he could not make another plan, but I thought that would not do, as it would cause a much longer delay—as that new plan would have to be submitted to you again for your consideration. He will be writing to you himself. He also promised to cycle over here in a week or two, if the weather permits, and come and see the bricks and stones for the foundation. We will be very glad if he comes and sees the bricks and stones for himself. The stones for the foundation have already been dug up. These bricks were examined by a gentleman called Mr. Granger, who said they would do very well for a brick-lined building to be used only as a wall inside the corrugated iron, but would not do otherwise. We were all very sorry about the failure of the bricks.

I was very sorry, indeed, that I was not able to send in a report for the last Synod. It was owing to the fact that I was very busy

at the time examining carefully and comparing the English version of the Psalms with the Kafir that Mr. Bokwe had sent me for transmission to Mr. Mackay, as I wanted Mr. Mackay to get them in time for the Synod. I considered them a very good translation of the Psalms in Metre, and that the letter of the Scripture had been preserved; and I was very glad to hear that the Synod had given instructions to the Lovedale authorities to proceed with the printing. It is a matter to be very thankful for to the Most High for having opened up a way for the Psalms to be printed and put into metre in the Kafir language. May the Lord in His mercy spare Mr. Bokwe and give him grace and strength to complete his work! Our people here were also glad to hear that so much progress had been made towards putting the Psalms into metre.

As regards the carriage of the stuff to Bembesi Station by rail, Mr. M’Keurtan informed me that the price he asked, which I think if I remember aright was £338 8s., includes the carriage for the stuff to Bembesi by rail. The money for the transport only from Bembesi Station to Ingwenya was to be added. He said in his letter to me, “Allow for transport 16,500 lbs.,” which I found to be 1s. 6d. per 100 lbs. That alone has to be added to the £338 8s. You will see that in the specifications that he sent, if you will refer to them.

Services are still held regularly every Sabbath in all our out-stations by our men. At Koco the hut there was too small to hold all the people and a larger one had to be built. Also at Morgen farm, too, a large square hut had to be built; as the one they had was too small. That is the place where we have a day school and an evening school. The last time I went to preach there the large square hut was quite full. At our last Communion here at Ingwenya, the church was so full that a large number of people remained outside, and as we did not like to see so many people going away, a service had to be held outside for them by one of our elders, although it was so very hot and windy.

I was very glad to hear that the Synod had agreed to build a larger and more substantial building at Ingwenya, as the one we have, besides being too small, is now very unsafe on account of the white ants having eaten some of the wood, which is now rotting. There is no way of protecting this kind of building from white ants and other insects, which eat up the wood-work.

Of course, all candidates for baptism who have professed “faith in Christ” and wish to be baptised are fully examined by the Session, and are only received when they have satisfied the Session. And, if the Session are not satisfied, they are put back and do not receive baptism. I was glad to hear that the Lord’s people were not forgetting us in their prayers. We need the prayers of the Lord’s people that the heathen might be brought to the knowledge of the truth, as it is in Christ Jesus, as without Him we can do nothing.

I must now conclude, with kindest regards to you, Mrs. Radasi joining.—Yours sincerely,
J. B. RADASI.”

The Brucefield Elder.

BY THE REV. W. SCOTT, CHESLEY, ONTARIO.

MR. GEORGE FORREST, whose name has become familiar to home readers of this Magazine in connection with the Canadian Mission, passed away peacefully at his Brucefield residence, Ontario, on the evening of Saturday, 21st December. This event had been anticipated, deceased having been in his ninetieth year. Until quite lately his mental vigour and power of memory continued remarkable. Notwithstanding his great age and infirmities, including blindness, his vision seemed undimmed and his force unabated in spiritual things. Of this the writer had experience in the summer months. Nor can we forget his then venerable presence or the glow on his countenance, when sitting with him at table even so recently, as he conversed on divine things or “engaged” before or after meals. However cut off from the world, he remained alive unto righteousness and unto whatever concerned the cause of God, which lay on his heart. Now, alas! his memory but suggests the prayer of the Psalmist: “Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men” (Psalm xii. 1).

Our personal acquaintance with the departed was confined to such contact as we had with him during our visit to Canada as last Mission deputy. Earlier deputies will doubtless have something to say about his general career. As the last to have been with him, however, and at his own desire, permitted to be present and preside at his burial, we feel prompted to give these few recollections—the main facts in which were related by himself as, on different occasions, we conversed together.

Mr. Forrest was born in the parish of New Deer, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on 1st May, 1823. At the age of eighteen he began life in the capacity of a farm servant, and a few years after emigrated to Canada, where he eventually started farming on his own account. He was in his twenty-second year when he first experienced any spiritual change. The late Rev. Dr. Robert Macdonald of North Leith (whom the writer himself remembers as a preacher), was on a preaching tour in the Disruption year. He preached twice at Mintlaw. “One of his texts,” said Mr. Forrest, “I never forgot, namely, ‘For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord'” (Romans vi. 23). It was a sermon which brought him under serious impressions. He might then have been arrested, he added, only that he yielded to the persuasion of one sitting near him to leave before the service closed. As a result he became more reckless than ever; showing the danger, he remarked, of stifling conviction. Yet the Lord had mercy on him, even leading him by a way which he knew not. The actual time of his conversion he could not specify. It was gradually and by degrees that the

change came. But the circumstances were these: two years later he was to have left for Canada; but God, as he put it, who moves in a mysterious way, so ordered it that he was advised to remain at home till the following spring, when, it was represented, he would have a better prospect of obtaining work in Canada. He did so. In the meantime he went to St. Fergus, where, as he explained, he came into contact with a companion who was the means of his being savingly changed. This person, it transpired, afterwards became his wife.

It was soon after this, or in the following year, that he was led to make a public profession of his faith. He stated that his first Communion was at Strichen, Aberdeenshire, in 1846. He belonged to New Deer Free Church congregation, and was examined by that Session, but as the date of their Communion would only fall due a week after he expected to sail for Canada, they gave him a certificate for the earlier Communion at Strichen. In relating this, Mr. Forrest observed that he did not remember ever having missed an opportunity since till the previous year, when he was unable to leave the house.

Having in this way first given himself solemnly to the Lord in connection with the showing forth of His death, Mr. Forrest, on 14th April of that year, crossed the Atlantic—sailing from Aberdeen to Quebec on the “St. Lawrence,” and reaching Toronto on the last day of May. About three years later—being the spring of 1849—the companion whom, in the providence of God, he had met at St. Fergus—Miss Mary Henderson—followed him to Canada, and on 3rd July of the same year they were united in marriage. Mr. Forrest had already taken up land in the township of Stanley. He did not dwell much on such matters, but his manuscript shows that by September, 1850, they were able, with their first child (the present Mrs. Mustard), to move from Whitby and make the future farm their home. Their two sons were there added to the family—George William and William Lawrence. During these happy days (as he described them), and after some hard, pioneering work, Mr. and Mrs. Forrest, with their elder son, in 1866 overtook a visit to Scotland. Mr. Forrest mentioned having, on that occasion, communicated in the Free Church, Peterhead.

But trial came at length. Mr. Forrest’s mother had died in 1862. Now came a succession of griefs, as thus stated by himself: “My father died about the 1st of February, 1873, aged 85 years. Mrs. Forrest died on the 21st of March, 1874, after two years of extreme suffering. She was thus taken from me after nearly twenty-five years of very happy married life.” Nor did his troubles terminate here. In June of the same year (1874) he was ordained an elder of the Brucefield Congregation of the Canada Presbyterian Church. It was the year before “the Union”—that Union in connection with which all special testimony to the Kingship of Christ, whether over the Church or over the nations, was dropped. And to Mr.

Forrest, as well as to his minister, the Rev. John Ross of Brucefield, it was to mean separation in the sense of having to “go forth without the camp” for the truth’s sake, bearing Christ’s reproach. It was a testing time. Mr. Forrest went through the proceedings as representative elder. In April, 1875, he attended the meeting of Synod with Mr. Ross, in London (Ontario); and, in June of the same year, he likewise accompanied him to Montreal to the last General Assembly of their Church, at which, along with the Rev. Lachlan McPherson and his elder, they formally entered their dissent, and tabled their reasons. How often, in Scotland, have the witnesses had to do likewise, and be “partakers of Christ’s sufferings.” To Mr. Forrest and others these events may be said to have been the “beginning of sorrows.” In the July following the dissentient ministers and elders organised themselves into a Presbytery under the old banner at East Williams. But Mr. Ross died in 1887, and Mr. Macpherson had predeceased him. Brucefield Congregation soon fell away from the more faithful testimony, and Mr. Forrest found himself isolated enough. He was able to resume fellowship with a minority of the congregation in 1895, when the majority formally entered the Union. This was a satisfaction. And in 1901 he led the way, along with the friends both in the South and North, to the connection formed with the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which greatly revived his hopes. How he regarded this connection may be gathered from a brief passage in his M.S., written five years later. “The truth is (he says), that for nearly twenty years I have had so little to do with anything that is worth recording, that I find that my connection with the Free Presbyterian Church is about the only thing that I care to mention. But I am very thankful that a kind Providence led me to cast in my lot with the Free Presbyterian Church, for it is small and despised by some who ought to know better. Yet they have thus far maintained a Scriptural form of worship when larger Churches are corrupting it with men’s inventions. And I may state here, that at the Communion at Brucefield this summer (1906) the Lord gave testimony to the word of His grace by loosing the bands of some of His people. It was a time of refreshing to us all.”

The experiences of those years, prior to the home connection, had deeply exercised Mr. Forrest. Our intercourse in the summer shewed this. His state of mind at the Union crisis he illustrated by mentioning the following incident. Meeting Mr. Ross at the time he remarked to him that by his standing against the Union he had the feeling that the other side might credit it to his thinking himself better than others. Mr. Ross’s ready reply had quite reassured him. Said Mr. Ross, “There was a time when there was only one to acknowledge Christ’s Kingly claims, and he was a thief. Will that satisfy you?” his minister added. At another time, speaking of its not being always easy to know duty, and that yet guidance is promised if sought for, he mentioned in connection

with his disquietude at the separation time, that the next morning after the Union he had that comforting word given him—”I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye” (Psalm xxxii. 8). Similarly, later on, as the prospect of losing his pastor, to whom he had been devoted, was falling heavily upon him, he stated that he had not been left without comfort. Being present at Mr. Ross’s end, the dying minister proffered to him a parting counsel. As his last word to Mr. Forrest he said, “‘Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee,’—and that whether as to official duty or private life.” (Psalm lv. 22).

As the outcome of such trystings, those who knew him best testify that Mr. Forrest never wavered from the distinctive position which he had taken up. This, his own letters, appearing in former issues of this Magazine, shew. A brother elder, similarly tried, remarked to the writer in this connection—”I believe the separation was a matter of principle with Mr. Forrest. With some others, including elders, their action was in deference to Mr. Ross, but Mr. Forrest was sound.” So concludes the verse just quoted as the parting word—”He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved” (Psalm lv. 22).

Among the consolations provided for Mr. Forrest during those trying vicissitudes, there was his marriage to the present Mrs. Forrest. He thus chronicles it in his m.s.—”On 11th May, 1876, I was married to Isabella Fraser.” Moreover, they had left the farm and gone to Brucefield four years previous to Mr. Ross’s death, which brought minister and elder more together, and into closer fellowship. Nor was it a small consolation that when otherwise tried, Mr. Forrest was not one who was ordinarily troubled with unbelief. His faith in the Scriptures was of childlike simplicity. He was one who received without questioning the ingrafted Word. Referring to this trait in Mr. Forrest, one very intimate with him remarks—”He was not like me. He was steadfast. I would go there and some days have nothing to say. ‘Are you in the dumps?’ he would ask.” Any exception to this more even tenor of mind appeared only towards the end. The m.s. which he prepared extends to 1906, and its concluding sentences may be taken as expressive of his normal condition: “On looking back on what is counted a long life, there are many things that I have reason to deplore. But ‘this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.’ He is all my salvation and all my desire.”

His last days.—It was evident that death’s shade became very real to him as he neared the waters of Jordan. As the waters were coming in unto his soul, he felt the need of the everlasting arms. With his soul cast down within him, he would repeat the Psalms—”Will the Lord cast off for ever, and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his

promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?” And then he would exclaim, “No! no! no!” whilst the tears streamed down his face. He had never been in the habit of using the imprecatory Psalms in praise, although he would read them, having, as he said, no personal enemies. Now, however, he recognised their significance, in being called to wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers—against the rulers of the darkness of this world. Thus it was night with him in the dark valley. Yet light was arising in the darkness. He was seen to rally in connection with the lines—

“In God my glory placed is
And my salvation sure”—(Ps. lxxi. 7).

He spoke of this as a passage which gave him uplifting after having been cast down. It also suggested the question to him—”What is the glory?” And here he quoted from the Shorter Catechism—”The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory.” This, again, he connected with Christ’s intercessory prayer: “And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them.” The verse he indicated had brought comfort to him—from the thought of the glory being as safe in His hands as the salvation. And so, in his last audible prayer, he was heard to express an assurance even beyond his usual, thus—”O Lord, we have yielded ourselves to Thee in the day of Thy power.” He was given a measure of consciousness to the last. At the Sabbath meeting in his house, even when unable, latterly, to lead in prayer or to read the Psalm to be sung, he continued to give out the Psalm. This was so to the end. More than once he gave Psalm one hundred and forty-three. On the very last Sabbath the Psalm which he then gave out was one hundred and forty-six, containing the verse—

“The Lord doth give the blind their sight,
The bowed down doth raise;
The Lord doth dearly love all those
That walk in upright ways.”

Although blind he was able to the end correctly to distinguish not only one Psalm from another, but the verses of particular Psalms. He used the Psalms in connection with his own state of mind.* He would say, “What would I do now without the Psalms, when I cannot see to read.” He had been totally blind for about three years, although it was much longer since he could read—unless in the case of the Bible, which he still read when blind to other reading. He would dream, however, that he had

* On an occasion, in giving out the Psalm, he used to refer to other Churches giving up the use of them—condemning them for it. He would also deplore their sitting at prayer and other changes.

recovered his sight and could see everything. Thus dreaming he, in his joy, began a letter (as he said) to one of the home ministers, exclaiming—

“Extol the Lord with me, let us
Exalt his name together.”

Wondering once what would be the first thing that he would see, he said, inquiringly, “Shall it be the King in His beauty?” And so now that question has been answered, for “the Lord doth give the blind their sight.” “Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty; they shall behold the land that is very far off” (Isaiah xxxiii. 17). And who on earth can tell how “Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see”? (Luke x. 23).

“But as for me, I thine own face
In righteousness will see;
And with thy likeness, when I wake,
I satisfy’d shall be”—(Ps. xvii. 15).

Conclusion.—His comparative seclusion notwithstanding, Mr. Forrest was one who followed public events with keenest interest even to the last. There was manifestly a patriotism in his piety, which played its part “for our people and for the cities of our God” (2 Sam. x. 12). This readily appeared in conversation. But, indeed, his life was a testimony, in his having had so largely to be “separated from his brethren” for “the testimony which he held,” as already shown. A few points, which, to the writer, he emphasised so recently in conversation, may here be added, showing how he kept in touch with current events.

1. Romanism.—He had no sympathy with the changed sentiment of our time, which ignored the evil or progress of Rome as the anti-Christ of Scripture and of the Confession of Faith. The way in which Romanism was gaining ground greatly concerned him. Thus in July he spoke of “the alarming hold which it was getting on the country.” He said the Roman Catholics already averaged forty-seven per cent. of the population of Canada. And he pointed out that, after the late Eucharistic Congress at Montreal, it had been announced by the Romish dignitaries that their Church was concentrating her strength upon Britain and upon the United States, but especially upon Canada. Referring to the matter again, he stated as ominous that it was estimated that five-sixths of the public officials in the United States were Roman Catholics, with only one-sixth Protestant. He viewed such a state of things with apprehension, and expressed his belief that “a terrible time in judgment was coming on the land, and that soon.” He said, moreover, that he had been impressed by the contrast as between the overthrow of ancient Babylon and again of mystical Babylon, or the Church of Rome, as described in prophecy. Jeremiah had delivered the book of prophecy, containing God’s severe judgment against Babylon (then in its strength), into the hands of the Babylonian ambassador on his

returning to Babylon; after reading which he (Seraiah, the prince) was directed to bind a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates, as significant of the utter destruction of Babylon and of the quiet way in which it was to disappear—like a stone sinking in the Euphrates. Whereas, Mr. Forrest went on to say, in the case of the Church of Rome, as mystical Babylon, the language is: “A mighty angel took up a stone, like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city, Babylon, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all” (Jer. li. 59-64; Rev. xviii. 21). He seemed profoundly impressed that things were hastening towards this crisis, and that this should be taken into account in connection with the low state of the cause meantime, and judgment as impending.

1. The Reformation.—Mr. Forrest showed his belief in a historic testimony. When the elders were together at the close of the Brucefield Communion, he took occasion to emphasise the importance of the Second Reformation period in its relation to our time. In his fourscore and tenth year, it was affecting to hear him witnessing as he did against the present revolt of the Churches from the Reformation standpoint. He spoke particularly of Alexander Henderson and how nobly he had maintained his position as Moderator and leader in 1638 Assembly until the work of Reformation was overtaken. He declared his belief that God’s judgments were coming on our land for its backslidings from such attainments. He believed such retribution to be at hand now. He maintained that the period 1638–1650 was the time of greatest purity in the Church. He remarked on its short duration—Alexander Henderson himself dying heart-broken at its overthrow—and instanced the sequel of this in “the killing time,” adding, that the blood of the martyrs in Scotland, so much forgotten, was still in the skirts of the Church of England. He lamented the direction events were taking in Scotland, and its changed attitude to Prelacy, notwithstanding the curse so solemnly pronounced by Alexander Henderson on whoever should attempt to rebuild Jericho as then thrown down.

2. Mr. Forrest was no Voluntary. He recognised to the last the obligation upon nations, as such, to acknowledge and do honour to Christ as “Head over all things to the Church”—(Eph. i. 22.). Any action that mitigated against the doctrine of National Religion he deplored. It pained him, therefor, that, when (as he said) it had been proposed a few years ago to amend the Constitution of the United States by embodying in it an acknowledgment of Christ, even the Associate Synod of North America declared themselves against it. In a sermon which appeared in their Magazine, he added, one of their ministers had been allowed, without exception being taken to it, to go the length of saying that, whilst as Mediator Christ was Head of His Church, He had no power or authority as such beyond that: that only as God was He over all things. Against such defection he testified.

With a mind thus clear and active at so advanced an age Mr. Forrest was yet “patient in tribulation.” Those constantly about him, as so disabled, say, without reserve, that “he was easy to wait upon.” “I am weak and weary,” he would remark at times; yet, “why should I complain,” he would add. And never did he seem happier than in the fellowship of his brethren, as they “spake often one to another.” One—a co-office bearer—says, “I had many nights with him; he talked on passages of Scripture. ‘What do you think of this passage, or the other?’ he would ask, and we would discuss the passage together, and come to agree on it. We never had a word of difference. He was often at me for not coming often enough. The very day he died he wanted those about him to watch the stage-coach to see if I was on it.” Now, however, as come at length to the Church triumphant, he may say without any intermission, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

Deepest sympathy is felt for the bereaved widow and families.

A Striking Protestant Leaflet.

WE learn from The Protestant Observer that a movement away from the Church of Rome is rapidly spreading in certain districts of Austria. Leaflets are being circulated with a view to disseminate Protestant truth. One of these is the following, which has been translated from the Spanish Review, entitled La Revista Christiana. Its contents are expressed in the form of a confession of sin against all the commandments, put very ingeniously into the mouth of the Roman Church. Not all the ten commandments, we must add, as given in the Scriptures, but as received by that deceptive communion. The Church of Rome, our readers are aware has, with bold presumption, and, at the same time, naked self-exposure, excised the Second Commandment (“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image . . . thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them,” etc.) from among the ten, and has divided the Tenth Commandment into two distinct commandments, so as to complete the number. Our Austrian friends have just taken the commandments as acknowledged by Rome itself. The leaflet ought to prove very telling:—

“I, the sinful Roman Church, confess to God Almighty that from the beginning of my organisation have I sinned against all Thy commandments, by thoughts, desires, words, and actions, and confess myself guilty of the following particular sins:—

“First.—In spite of the First Commandment saying, ‘I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me,’ I have numbered a multitude of saints in the heavens above, and have ordained my obedient people to invoke and worship them. I have permitted the worship of Mary, the mother of the Saviour, although I knew perfectly well the passage in the Holy Scripture

(Acts iv. 12), ‘Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.’ I have created a heaven-full of mediators between Thee and fallen mankind, and therefore have fallen into idolatry, breaking this Thy First Commandment, although I knew perfectly what the Lord said in John xiv. 6—’I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the father but by me.’

“Second.—I confess to having taken the name of God in vain; placing the Roman Pope, a sinful man, as head of the Church, calling him ‘holy father’—though I knew that in the gospel of St. Matthew xxiii. 9, it expressly says—’Call no man your father upon the earth, for one is your father which is in heaven.’

“Third.—Instead of sanctifying the feast days, on those days I have abused the pulpit, teaching politics and other earthly things, when I ought to have glorified Thy power; and I have never observed the holy word of Thy Son, expressed in John xviii. 36, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’

“Fourth.—I have certainly violated Thy divine Fourth Commandment, undermining directly the welfare of family life, and declaring that matrimony, established by Thee, was not for my servants, though Thy word, as stated by the Apostle Paul in Timothy (1 Tim. iii. 2-5), says—’A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous. One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.’ And in the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians ix. 5, he expresses himself plainly—’Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord and Cephas?’

“Fifth.—Against the Fifth Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ I fear that I have sinned so much that I really do not know where to begin my confession and where to end. Hundreds and thousands of the most noble who have followed Thy pure doctrine have I burned publicly. Through my Inquisition I have martyred, tormented, and killed so many that if all the blood shed should come upon me it could easily drown me and my followers.

“Sixth.—It is very difficult for me to remember, confess, and repent of my crimes against the Sixth Commandment. My Popes were licentious and utterly demoralised. My priests are so today. I have forced them into celibacy; and now they sin against nature, seducing women and young people, yea, even abusing innocent children, though I well knew what the Lord teaches as regards the children (Matt. xviii. 6)—’But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea.’

“Seventh.—I have also sinned against this commandment. I have robbed entire countries, and have taken away the inheritance

of widows and orphans, though the Lord plainly taught me, in Matt. xxiii. 14, ‘Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers; therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.’ I am entirely undone by my sins.

“Eighth.—Often and a great deal have I lied and maligned. Through centuries have I promulgated false doctrines to maintain the people in ignorance and superstition. I especially make reference to my prohibiting the reading of the Bible, the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope, the false doctrines of purgatory, auricular confession, celibacy of the priesthood, veneration of the saints, adoration of the relics, observing of feast and fast days, indulgences, and all the external rites which have absolutely no place in the pure teachings of Christ. In my text-book on moral theology I have taught that lying was permissible to obtain certain advantages and evade merited punishment, or to serve the interests of the Church. My Jesuits say that the end justifies the means, and they lie openly, as if this Thy divine command did not exist.

“Ninth.—’Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.’ In how many happy homes have my priests penetrated, and deceived the husbands, and destroyed happy married life? How many have sinned against this commandment in the confessional?

“Tenth.—’Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods.’ Ah, how grievously and wilfully have I sinned in this matter! I have appropriated to myself, in the most iniquitous manner, the inheritances of my people at their deathbeds, through my Jesuits. My fraternities in France alone pride themselves of having obtained millions of francs’ worth of farm-land and residences:

“No, I have not fulfilled even one of Thy commandments! I know that I deserve complete annihilation. Is it possible that Thou hast decreed this annihilation through this ‘Los Von Rome’ movement? I have no right to oppose it, because I can see that it is from above, and leads the people out of darkness to the full light of life and truth.”

Protestant and Evangelical Tracts.—We have received four Tracts of this description from the office of the Imperial Protestant Federation, Cranmer House, 363 Clapham Road, London, S.W. One of them entitled “Irish Protestants and the Fear of Persecution” has been already noticed at some length in this Magazine. The three others have the following titles, “A Preacher of the Old School,” “Conspiracy, Jesuitism, Treachery!” and “What is the Roman Catholic Faith?” The first of these is a solemn personal gospel tract, highly fitted to arrest and awaken attention to the necessity of a vital interest in Christ and preparation for death, judgment, and eternity. The others contain very useful Protestant information. If friends have the money and time, they cannot do better than purchase and circulate these Tracts. Prices, post free, 1 $\frac{1}{2}$ d. each; 9d. for 10; 5/- for 100.

Rutherford’s “Letters.”

BY THE REV. D. BEATON, WICK.

RUTHERFORD’S Letters breathe quite another atmosphere than that of his Lex Rex and his other controversial works. The peaceful calm of heaven broods over these pages, and the rapt, adoring contemplation of the writer as he discourses so sweetly on the things which are unseen and eternal, and of Him whom his soul loved so intensely, places them in the very forefront of the literature of consolation.

The Letters have been criticised—severely criticised—and at times savagely. Dr. Cunningham, of St. Andrews, after writing a word of praise concludes by saying—”Unfortunately, he appears to have thought that obscenity was no longer obscene when clothed in religious drapery, and hence we frequently meet in his writings with expressions which the coarseness of the times does not altogether excuse.”* Others have written in the same strain of unmeasured denunciation. Dr. MacAdam Muir, in his lecture on Samuel Rutherford in the third series of the St. Giles’ Lectures, furnishes us with a selection of these literary criticisms—”disgusting ravings, not the less loathsome that they are under the mask of religion,”—”A compound of hypocrisy, calumny, obscenity and nonsense, not to add blasphemy.”† And Principal Story, in a sarcastic sentence, passes sentence on the Letters by saying—”if any any one think it allowable to take sexual love as the symbol of spiritual emotions and expatiate at length on that seductive theme, he can find no collection of religious erotic prose poetry at all to be compared with Rutherford’s Letters.”‡

The most recent attack on Rutherford comes from Professor Hepburn Millar, Professor of Constitutional Law and Constitutional History in the University of Edinburgh, in his lectures delivered in the University of Glasgow in 1912, and afterwards published in book form under the title, Scottish Prose of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. The attack is as pungent and vitriolic as any from which Rutherford’s memory has suffered. He is described as a “particularly gross offender against decency.” In fact, the attack is so far beyond the bounds of controversial decency, that Dr. Hay Fleming does not hesitate to characterise it as “rancorous malignity.” However, when one remembers that Professor Millar’s descriptive term of the Covenanter struggle is the “Nightmare of the Covenant,” one need not expect much from such a quarter. Like his predecessor Buckle, his judgment is too biased to be impartial, and Dr. Walker’s reference to the latter may be quoted and applied to Professor Millar:—”Samuel Rutherford is one of the objects of Mr. Buckle’s intense dislike. And one does not wonder at it. The old divine has

* Church History of Scotland, vol. ii. † Scottish Divines, page 87.‡ The Church of Scotland, Past and Present.

been a mark to fire at ever since he gave a book to the world. But you cannot slay the immortal; and my belief is, that human souls will be getting life and nourishment from the wondrous Letters, when the History of Civilization is lying unheeded and unread on the high shelves of our libraries.”* We predict a like fate for Professor Millar’s biased and uncritical book.

It was not only in life that Rutherford suffered scorn and hatred; his critics are as keen and as scornful as ever, and Mrs. Cousin’s lines have a present as well as a past application:—

“I have borne scorn and hatred,
I have borne wrong and shame,
Earth’s proud ones have reproached me
For Christ’s thrice-blessed name:
Where God His seal set fairest,
They’ve stamped their foulest brand;
But judgment shines like noonday
In Immanuel’s land.”

That there are a few expressions open to objection in these Letters the most ardent of Rutherford’s admirers will readily admit; but to condemn them in such unmeasured terms as the writers of the above do, shows all too plainly that Bunyan is not the only one whom the Philistines could not understand. † “The haughty contempt,” writes Dr. Love, “of that book which is in the heart of many will be ground for condemnation when the Lord cometh to make inquisition after such things.” If Rutherford’s detractors have done their utmost to belittle the value of these Letters, there were others who gave them the very highest place in devotional literature. “Hold off the Bible,” said Richard Baxter to Principal Carstares, “such a book the world never saw,” and Spurgeon’s estimate was no less laudatory when he wrote:—“The more editions of seraphic Rutherford the better. None penetrated further into the innermost heart of holy fellowship with Jesus. Whenever we think of him we compare him to Milton’s Uriel, the angel that stood in the sun itself;” and again:—“When we are dead and gone, let the world know that Spurgeon held Rutherford’s Letters to be the nearest thing to inspiration which can be found in all the writings of mere men.” Criticise them as one may, there is no getting away from the fact pointed out by Dr. James Walker, ‡ that they still retain their hold of human hearts, and that they have taken their place beside Augustine’s Confessions and the Imitation of Christ. The great diversity of opinion as to the merits of the Letters is not difficult to explain. The reader must be in sympathy with the heavenly themes on which Rutherford

* Scottish Theology and Theologians, page 163.

† There are a few distasteful expressions in these epistolary effusions, the sparks of a fancy that sought to appropriate everything to spiritual purposes; but as to extravagance in the thoughts conveyed there is none” (Dr. Bonar in his Edition of the Letters, page 24).

‡ Scottish Theology and Theologians, page 8.

delights to dilate with such exuberance of spirit, and Dr. Bonar, as a true master in Israel, has done well in pointing out the character of those who will appreciate the Letters. They are—(1) those who are sensible of their own, and the Church’s decay and corruptions; (2) those who delight in the Surety’s imputed righteousness; (3) those who rejoice in the gospel of free grace; (4) those who seek to grow in holiness; (5) those who are afflicted; (6) those who love the Person of Christ; and (7) those who are looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God our Saviour.*

The first edition of the Letters appeared in 1664, a few years after Rutherford’s death. They were published under the title of “Joshua Redivivus,† or Mr. Rutherford’s Letters, divided into two parts; the first, containing those which were written from Aberdeen, where he was confined by a sentence of the High Commission—drawn forth against him, partly upon the account of his declining them, partly upon the account of his non-conformity; the second, containing some which were written from Anwoth before he was, by the Prelates’ Persecution, thrust from his ministry; and others, upon diverse occasions, afterward from St. Andrews, London, etc., by a Wellwisher to the Work and People of God.” The wellwisher is Robert MacWard, who had acted as an amanuensis to Rutherford while he was at the Westminster Assembly. MacWard was banished in 1661 to Holland, where he became minister of a congregation in Rotterdam. As a preacher his style was very ornate, so much so, indeed, as to call forth the rebuke of Mr. Rowat of Kilmarnock—”God forgive you, brother, that darkens the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ by your oratory.” He was the author of many works, chief of which is the True Nonconformist. He died in exile fighting to the last against the indulgences, and his memory is embalmed in the verse of the gallant Cameronian soldier, William Cleland. MacWard had collected 286 of Rutherford’s letters, and in his recommendatory preface, he tells us when Rutherford “was on the threshold of glory, ready to receive the immortal crown, he said—’Now my tabernacle is weak, and I would think it a more glorious way of going home, to lay down my life for the cause, at the Cross of Edinburgh or St. Andrews, but I submit to my Master’s will.'” The place of publication is not given on the title page, but it is well known to have been Rotterdam. A second edition appeared in 1671. The third edition, which appeared in 1675, has sixty-eight additional letters. Numerous other additions have appeared since then to the present.

* Sketch of Samuel Rutherford prefixed to Bonar’s edition of the Letters, pp. 28-30.

† That is, Joshua come to life again. “Why Joshua?” asks Dr. Bonar in a footnote. “Did he think of the faithful witnessing in Joshua xxiv.? Or is the reference to Joshua as one of the spies?—see Letter cxviii.” In all likelihood it was the latter that suggested the title—Rutherford brought back a good report of the fair land beyond Jordan.

The standard edition is that edited by the saintly Dr. Andrew Bonar; it was published first in 1891, and reprinted in 1894. Its chief points of advantage over its predecessors are to be found in the chronological arrangement of the letters,* the contents prefixed to each letter briefly describing the subjects touched upon in the letter, the addition of some new letters, and the invaluable biographical notices prefixed to a large number of the letters. These were mostly written by the Rev. James Anderson, the author of the Ladies of the Covenant. Dr. Bonar added some topographical notes, which lend additional interest to the volume. This edition has also an interesting sketch of Samuel Rutherford, with indexes of the chief places and individuals referred to in the letters and special subjects, with glossary of Scottish words, and an appendix giving bibliographical notes on the various editions, and Mrs. Cousin’s “Last Words of Samuel Rutherford.”

The volume contains 365 letters, 200 of which are written from “Christ’s Palace in Aberdeen.” Rutherford’s favourite correspondents were Lady Kenmure and Marion MacNaught. Of the 365 letters, forty-eight were written to Lady Kenmure and forty-five to Marion MacNaught. Lady Kenmure was the third daughter of Archibald, seventh Earl of Argyle, and sister to the Marquis of Argyle, who was beheaded in 1661, who, in the prospect of death, met it with unflinching courage—”I could die like a Roman,” he said, “but I prefer to die as a Christian.” She was a lady of deep piety, and was warmly attached to the Presbyterian cause. In 1628 she was married to Sir John Gordon of Lochinvar, afterwards Viscount of Kenmure. Gordon was the slave of ambition, and, as he was connected with the house of Gowrie, he set out with the aim of being put in possession of the forfeited honours and lands of that house, and his interest in the Presbyterian cause grew weaker and weaker. In 1633 he was present at the Parliament held at Edinburgh, but being apprehensive that advocacy of the Presbyterian cause might frustrate the dreams of his ambition, he feigned illness and returned home. A year afterwards he became seriously ill, and his conscience began to upbraid him for his time-serving policy. In the Last and Heavenly Speeches and Glorious Departure of John, Viscount Kenmure,† we have an account of an assize where conscience was judge and John Gordon was the criminal. Samuel Rutherford stood by that death-bed speaking words of encouragement to the dying nobleman. “God hath given me five and thirty years to repent, and alas! I have mis-spent it,” is the humiliating confession.

* Readers may consult the Appendix to Dr. Bonar’s edition, where a full list of the various editions are given, with dates and descriptive notes.

† This is generally acknowledged to be by Rutherford. It was first published in 1644, and reprinted in the Select Biographies of the Wodrow Society, vol. i. The Epistle Dedicatory, while by no means approaching Calvin’s majestic preface to the Institute, is a fine piece of exhortation to the noble of the land.

“My Lord, they be far behind who may not follow,” are the pastor’s encouraging words; “think not your time so late. Christ’s door is yet half open; you have time to throng in and your time is not all spent as yet; it’s, I grant, far after noon, and the back of the day is now, yea, the edge of the evening, but run fast that ye lie not in the fields.” Then followed confession of his time-serving policy at the Parliament in the previous year—”God knoweth I did it with the fearful wrestlings of my conscience, my light paying me home within, when I seemed to be glad and joyful before men; yet I did it for fear of incurring the indignation of my prince and the loss of farther honour, which I certainly expected; but woe, woe be to honours, or anything else, bought with the loss of peace of conscience and God’s favour.” John Gordon’s pathway to the river was thorny, but like many another pilgrim in like straits, he seems to have got safely over. This is the man who was wedded to the pious Lady Kenmure, and in those last days, when things appeared so differently to him, he bore testimony to her piety and kindness. It is interesting to remember that George Gillespie was tutor in the household until the Viscount’s death in 1634.

In his first letter to Lady Kenmure, Rutherford writes—”Wrestle, fight, go forward, watch, fear, believe, pray; and then ye shall have all the infallible symptoms of one of the elect of Christ within you.” And ere that last battle was fought within Kenmure’s lordly home, there was need of such an exhortation. We find him again writing Lady Kenmure on the death of one of her children, a daughter—”She is only sent on before, like unto a star, which, going out of our sight, doth not die and vanish, but still shineth in another hemisphere. What she wanted of time, she hath gotten of eternity, and you have now some plenishing up in heaven. Build your nest upon no tree here, for God hath sold the whole forest to death.”* When her husband is removed, he writes—”And seeing, amongst all crosses spoken of in our Lord’s Word, this giveth you a particular right to make God your Husband (which was not yours while your husband was alive), read God’s mercy out of this visitation, albeit I must out of some experience say, the mourning for the husband of your youth be, by God’s mouth, the heaviest worldly sorrow” (Joel i. 8).† Death often visited the Kenmure household. Her first infant was taken away in 1629, and the second, a daughter also, in 1634, the year in which Viscount Kenmure died. Her only son, John, died in 1649, and Rutherford, as a son of consolation, writes her one of his comforting letters. In 1640 Lady Kenmure was married to Sir Henry Montgomery, second son of Alexander, fifth Earl of Eglinton. Sir Henry is described as “an active and faithful friend of the Lord’s Kirk.” She lived to a venerable old age. In 1661 another heavy sorrow fell to her lot in the execution of her

* Letter iv.

† Ibid xxxvii.

brother the Marquis of Argyle, and it was in connection with his apprehension and committal to the Tower that Rutherford wrote his last letter to Lady Kenmure.

Marion MacNaught, the other elect lady, to whom so many of the letters were written, was the daughter of the Laird of Kilquhanatie in Kirkpatrick-Durham, and was connected with the house of Kenmure through her mother, who was a sister of Viscount Kenmure. She was married to William Fullerton, Provost of Kirkcudbright. She had three children, Grizel, Samuel, and William, who are often affectionately mentioned in the Letters. That Marion MacNaught was a woman, not only of deep piety, but of exceptional mental gifts, is evident from the strain of Rutherford’s letters to her—”I write it and abide by it, God will be glorious in Marion MacNaught, when this stormy blast shall be over. O woman beloved of God, believe, rejoice, be strong in the Lord. Grace is thy portion.”* In such terms as these, Rutherford addresses her. To her he opens his heart, makes known his sorrows and the anxiety he feels for Zion’s welfare. “As concerning Zion,” he writes, “I hope in our Lord, who sent His angel with a measuring line in His hand to measure the length and breadth of Jerusalem, in token He would not want a foot, length, or inch of His own free heritage, shall take order with those who have taken away many acres of His own land from Him. And God will build Jerusalem in the old stead and place where it was before. In this hope, rejoice and be glad. Christ’s garment was not dipped in blood for nothing, but for His bride, whom He bought with strokes.”† And his interest in Marion MacNaught’s children finds expression in the same letter:—”Grace upon you and your children. Lord, make them corner stones in Jerusalem, and give them grace in their youth to take band with the fair Chief Corner-stone, who was hewed out of the mountain without hands, and got many a knock with His Father’s fore-hammer, and endured them all, and the stone did neither cleave nor break. Upon that stone make your soul to lie.” In 1637 he writes from Aberdeen—‡ “It is not pride for a drowning man to grip to the rock. It is your glory to lay hold on your rock. O woman greatly beloved! I testify and avouch it in my Lord, that the prayers ye sent to heaven these many years bygone are come up before the Lord and shall not be forgotten. What it is I cannot tell; but I know that, as the Lord liveth, these cries shall bring down mercy.” And the mercy was nearer at hand than probably Rutherford expected.

(To be Continued.)

OWING to circumstances, we have to hold over the present instalment of the translation of “The Baptised Family, by Caesar Malan, D.D.,” until next month’s issue.

* Letter clxxvii.

† Letter xviii.

‡ Letter cxxxi.