(WRITTEN, 1811-1847.)*
- These letters are reprinted by permission from a booklet issued by Mr. C. Mackay, at Kingussie in 1891.
(1.)
DEAR FRIEND,—These few lines will tell you that the spirit is present when the body is absent, and that the spirit is willing when the flesh is weak. Meantime, I am confident you are not a stranger to the weakness of the flesh and the strength of nature. Observe and mark this portion of the Scripture cited to you; and not only to you, but to all that are in your case. Meditate upon it; you will find a blessing in it—it’s in the 4th chapter of Romans, 19th verse. You see “it’s in impossibilities” dead womb of sense and feeling, that the covenant of grace’s promises are conceived and brought forth. Certainly Sarah’s womb was more like the tomb, when the promise was to be accomplished, than it was like to have a fair and sweet delivery of an Isaac; and you may be as full of doubts as Sarah was, but neither Abraham’s age nor Sarah’s dead womb could hedge God’s promise. Abraham did not stagger at the promise, neither will faith; Sarah laughed at the promise, and so will reason; and as sure as Abraham and Sarah were in one tent, faith and unbelief will be in one soul.
As sure as Thomas was in Jesus’ family, so will doubtings be in Christians’ souls till the fingers of faith will open his wounds, and the virtue of his wounds will heal the wounds of unbelief. As sure as Esau and Jacob were in Rebecca’s womb, grace and corruptions will be struggling in the believer’s heart. When you’ll find the struggle of unbelief, doubting, murmuring, self, and pride—the strength of Esau’s heels in the womb of feeling—look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith; in poverty, looking unto Jesus and His apostles; in temptations, looking unto Jesus tempted in the wilderness by Satan; in reproach, looking unto Jesus in the judgment hall; in debate, looking unto Him, the great debater to law and justice, who gave the adieu to His Father’s bosom, came in our nature, paid the last farthing of the elect’s debt with giving to the last drop of His blood, settled their accounts on the Cross, and brought the discharge from the grave. Oh! I spent my paper. My dear sister, write me if you can, and I am, etc.
A. G.
LOTHBEG, 24th February, 1811.
(2.)
MY DEAR SISTER,—Your lines have been to my soul as a shower of the summer rain that caused my spikenard to send forth, considering that the Lord has a few grapes yet in the vineyard. Dear sister, I am not able to express how happy I was reading your lines, considering that there is a remnant yet preserved in this vale of tears to whom I can discover my nakedness. May the Lord multiply your tabrets, and take the harp and play all the notes of the 45th Psalm to you, as you have been an Abigail to my soul. You’ll forgive me, for I am in love, and freedom of mind, writing you these foolish lines; but I am sure of being in Bochim before I’ll sleep this night, for I have nothing in my pilgrimage but a Bethel here, and a Bochim there; perhaps in the morning on Mount Tabor, and in the evening on Mount Gilboa. As to my present situation, I am weak in body. I have been confined since New-year’s day in the prison of a sickly body—the most of the parish people rejoicing that all is against me now. If you have any private friends, discover privately my state to them, as the Church prayed for Peter when in fetters. You’ll excuse my foolish lines, as I am not in health at this time; and if the Lord is to extend my weakness, pray you for the sufficiency of His grace to bear it; and if He intends to give health yet, to give grace to praise Him for it. Isabel Grant is always the prisoner of hope. I conclude, with my love to you, while here called poor man.
A. GAIR.
LOTHBEG, 4th March, 1812.
(3.)
DEAR SIR,—I hope you’ll not be offended at my assurance in sending these illiterate lines your length; but you’ll excuse ignorance, as presumption accompanies it, and accept of the lines, as they are sent from a captive in Babylon to a poor Gedaliah in the land of Judah. The hearing of Baruch’s being sick since he left us moved my dull mind to write you this. I am sure you will understand it is a matter of uneasiness to us hearing of his sickness; and owing to the distance betwixt us, we cannot hear properly. Notwithstanding, relying upon your tenderness towards distant friends, I make myself happy, thinking that I may write one friend in hope of hearing of another friend in a strange land—I mean John M’Intosh. I hope you will take the trouble of writing a few lines in answer to the request, telling of John’s present situation, as I am told he was but three days there when he fell sick; and in consequence of your expected answer, I will pray for a speedy one. Isabel Grant wishes to be humbly remembered to you; she has the expectation of hearing from you in this scripture—”There is nothing impossible.”
In this random letter I make offer of my own compliments to you, assuring you that your body and soul are near my mind since I parted with you and honest Peter. When I think of you, I cannot forget your spouse, nor your concerns. These are dangerous days—the devil’s mills have constant water—his millers are getting pulpit-proud, and no wonder that his mills are hampered up with Edom cakes. But, dear friend, we have Christ’s mills in private corners and closets; and oh! the Miller, the Holy Ghost, has constant water. But His suekum, the remnant, are going in these cloudy days to out-suekum mills, and that provoketh our Master to keep the Miller from us; and we, like Samson, grinding our handful of grain on the hand-mill, squeezing our flesh in our public and private devotions; and all owing to spiritual whoredom. The Lord is greatly provoked with His own bairns, in seeing that the bannocks they get from the Egypt bakers relish better with them than the Tiberian honey-comb.
In answer to these lines you’ll write me, and if the Lord spare me I will write plainer words; and I stop with my affectionate love to you and yours, while
ALEX. GAIR.
LOTHBEG, 30th January, 1815.
(4.)
MY DEAR FRIEND,—I write to mention a few words in token of my being spared as a sinner, unworthy of the least drop of His temporal mercies. As to spiritual benefits, I cannot say but my offers are and were many; but my misbelieving heart and dark understanding, with the stubbornness of my will, endeavour and struggle to bolt and bar the doors of my heart to keep out the beloved Jesus and all His promises. My portion of sight and sense is quite gone; and as to faith and hope, I am not able to plant any of those apples from the tree of life; and my Maker knows that I never had more need of faith than at this time. I am not to write you my trials, but I wish to get a share of your closet hours. The bearer will tell you of my present situation, as he is the only friend the Lord made to me in lonely Patmos. My state, both outward and inward, you’ll see in the 109th Psalm, 22nd and 23rd verses. Excuse me, I must stop in word.
A. GAIR.
REISGLE, 29th May, 1817.
(5.)
DEAR FRIEND,—These lines are sent you from a poor prisoner in the land of Egypt, bound hand and foot in the house of bondage, surrounded with heart plagues inwardly, and oh! fretting crosses outwardly. My light tells me that my unsubdued ass, the flesh, must have two weighty burdens, but proud nature will not submit. I understand from sad experience that self glories when Babel’s foundation is laid; and as the work is accurately executed to the plan, the old Nimrod is rejoicing, and gives drink siller to his mechanics. As the tower rises joy increases, and will, till the Lord of heaven and earth shake the foundation of this tremendous building in Scotland outwardly, and in men’s hearts inwardly.
I say this from my own vineyard, and from my sad second sight of my first days. I was fourteen years an able, active fellow at this building—first a barrow man, next a quarryman, till at last I got the charge of the work committed to myself. Oh! to write reality. Man’s day is like himself, and pleases himself—he is well pleased with his work and reward; as he employs himself, he pleases himself. The Lord’s work is like Himself—when He begins to build to the glory and praise of His great name, He begins to rob man of his own glory. Man is ready to glory in his gifts and parts, in his reformation, confession and repentance, in his duties and tears, his diligence and endeavours, in his temptations and consolations—he is puffed up at his approbation, and no less at his persecution, saying that he is suffering as a Christian, and yet may eat and drink at the table of idols, and sacrifice to devils. All his acquired knowledge, gifts, parts, praise and reproach are nothing but marble out of the quarry of nature, and Christ will get a birth-bedroom in Bethlehem’s inn as sure as he will get one moment’s lodging in this Babel tower.
When Christ comes to build a house for Himself in the soul of man, His first work is, by His word and Spirit, to pull down all towers and turrets of man’s imaginations, and He opens a door on his heart, and a window in his understanding—opens his graves that his dead devils may get a resurrection in his heart, mind, memory, and in all the faculties of his soul and body—makes his heaven a hell to him, his strength his weakness, his faith delusion, his light darkness, his sun blood, his moon sackcloth—his heavenly meditations in his thoughts once, now a hell of corruptions, and his reformed heart a cage of all abominations—his spiritual mind, once a library of divinity with himself, now a mail-coach to the devil’s emissaries—his summer joy turned now to his winter grief, and he cannot mourn, pray or sigh, under his sad case, all blasted with the north wind, and grown over in his old days with young follies and lusts. Where is this poor man’s minister now? In heaven, and not in your Inverness, nor our Caithness. To stop I must, and tell you, dear, that I am the man that puts amen to said lines. I am very, very lonely and dull—all dead winter with me here. If you can, bring me to your closet.—I am your well-wisher,
ALEX. GAIR.
REISGLE, 10th June, 1818.
(To be continued.)