BY THE REV. D. BEATON, WICK.
(Continued from page 177.)
IN the last article an account of John Brown’s early life and spiritual struggles was presented to the reader, and we now proceed to give an account of the uphill course he had to tread before becoming a minister of the Gospel. For one who was to be so useful in Christ’s vineyard, it is not surprising that he should have early experienced the cruel buffetings of Satan. The attack was well planned and pressed home with a persistency that embittered the life of the ardent student, whose heart was set on entering the ministry. During this period of trial he manifested much of that fine spirit of forbearance which characterised him earlier in life when he was made the victim of the boyish pranks of his fellow-herd, Henry Ferney. According to the story, Henry Ferney one Sabbath evening managing to get his flock into the fold before his companion, strewed the entrance with whins, and fastened a bunch where the gate was fastened. As John Brown came up with his flock, Ferney watched his opportunity and pushed him headlong into the pricking whins, and burst into a fit of boyish laughter as he saw John Brown’s sorry plight. The victim of Ferney’s boyish prank rose from the ground with bleeding hands and face, and, instead of chastising him thoroughly, as might have been expected, he merely looked at him, and, in a kindly but injured tone, said, “O Henry, what for do ye that on the Lord’s nicht? I would have been loth to do that to you.” The gentleness of the rebuke stung Henry to the quick, and he became the steadfast friend of John Brown. It was much of the same spirit he showed when called upon to endure the particularly bitter trial to which incidental reference has already been made. Brown had made extraordinary progress in the acquirement of languages, and his zeal in this direction, though it was to cost him dear, may be gathered from the following extract from a letter written in his own defence, in which he explains his method of learning Greek without the aid of grammar or teacher:—”I learned the letters from Orth. Tab. Gram., marginal words in Ovid, and names in the New Testament; for reason told me that at least our unaccidental tongue could not much change names from what they were in the Greek, as, e.g.: (1) Words authoritatively interpreted, as Eloi lama sabachtani, Talitha cumi, Siloam, Corban, Golgotha, Gabbatha, Emmanuel, Cephas, Aceldama; for if these be changed in any language—as, for example, if Aceldama be made Acerdama, it would be false; for it would say—1st, that the Jews called that place, Acerdama; 2nd, that Acerdama, Hebraicé, signifies a field of blood. And so in the matter of all words of this kind. (2) Words authoritatively called alien, as Abaddon, Armageddon. (3) Proper, obsolete, inequivalent names, as, Hebraicé, Cainan, Arphaxad, etc., Luke iii.; Graecé, Olympas, Priscilla, etc. (4) Names changed in one place from what they were in another—Noah, Genesis x. 1; Noe, Luke iii. Now, both being alike to our English, the reason of their change is the Greek, and therefore must be in the Greek as in ours. Now, all the Greek letters may be found by comparing—Eloi lama sabachtani, Arphaxad, Capernaum, Sem, Aceldama, Booz, Ragan, Salmon. Now, to prove the powers to be what you conceive or not, look other words, as, for example: I would be sure of Beta that it is equal to b—I look Abraam, Abioud, Abia, Obed, in all which, if I have hit right on the power of Beta by calling it b, then the second form in all these four words must be like it; but this is not true, therefore the former. . . . Now, the way I took to learn the sense was much the same, by comparing the Greek words with the words in our Testament, beginning at the shortest verses, as 1 Thess. v. 16, etc.; and as I had observed many terminations with some of their oblique cases in Latin and Greek rudiments, so as I went along I made it my study to notice verbal terminations, right and oblique, still allotting them to that person, time, mood, voice, etc., their English agreed to. All this while, I never thought of its dual number, middle voice, etc., which the Latin has not.” We have been at pains to give this long extract which to the general reader may probably appear a meaningless jumble of words, but we make bold to say that no student can read these words without a feeling of profound admiration for the resolute endeavour, crowned with marvellous success, of the laborious scholar, whose very success was to be attributed to Satanic help.
When Brown had obtained a knowledge of the Greek alphabet, he was anxious to possess a copy of the Greek New Testament for himself. St. Andrews was the nearest place at which such a volume could be obtained, and the university city was twenty-four miles distant. One evening, in 1738, he made an arrangement with his friend, Henry Ferney, to look after his flock during his absence, and then set out on his journey, reaching St. Andrews early in the morning, footsore and weary. Entering MacCulloch’s bookshop in South Street, he asked for a Greek New Testament. The bookseller was quite taken aback, for Brown was fresh from the hillside, clothed in rough homespun and barefooted, and only sixteen years of age. “What will you do wi’ that book? You’ll no can read it,” said the bookseller. “I’ll try to read it,” was the respectful answer of the shepherd-boy. One of the Professors, who was in the shop, overhearing the conversation, drew near, and asked the bookseller to bring a Greek New Testament; and then, turning to John Brown, he said, “Boy, if you can read that book, you shall have it for nothing.” He eagerly grasped the book, opened it, and read a passage, to the amazement of the Professor, who acknowledged that the prize was worthily won. John Brown, with his longed-for book (which is still in possession of one of his descendants), set out on his return journey, and by the afternoon he was back again on the hills of Abernethy, and while herding his sheep on the hillside he eagerly read, in the original tongue, the precious words uttered, and of the wonderful works wrought, by God’s anointed One and His disciples. It was this wonderful knowledge of Greek that was to awaken in the minds of some who ought to have known better, the dark suspicion that John Brown was in league with Satan. In conversation with Wm. Moncrieff, son of the minister of Abernethy, the former challenged Brown in these words: “I’m sure the deil has taught you some words.” Brown laughed at the jest, but it was anything but a jest, as after events proved. The Rev. Alexander Moncrieff, his minister, believed the cruel slander, and through the years to come Brown had to reckon on his determined opposition. In a lengthy letter in his own defence, written to Moncrieff, who refused him a demission certificate, he says:—”Here appears a right cruel procedure, for—First, your promise of a testificate was that moved me to seek one. Second, this, in my view, was equal to the greater excommunication materially, for it implies a total casting me out of your care, and so you would have nothing to do with my testificate. Thus you have punished me these two years, on suspicion, with a material excommunication, the evils of which I showed in my letters, March, 1744, and January, I think, 1744, or December, 1743. I add, thirdly, thereby I am exposed to the fury of men and devils; as (1) to soldiers taking me, as being under mala fama; (2) to adherents tempting to apostacy, of which tempting they make this, your unjust treatment, their occasion; (3) to devils and mine own lusts tempting me to vent anger at you, etc., to desert the cause, because of the bad usage I met with in it. Under which trouble, as I have acted most sinfully by trespassing more and more against the Lord, so I have been guilty of hatred at you, which I have especially discovered in not using due pains to restrain you in this course of injustice, and also in telling this, your treating of me, unwarily, where I should not; for which, as I wish for forgiveness of God, so I wish you’ll forgive me it, humbly intimating that, through the grace that is in Jesus, I desire to forgive you and all men whatever they have done or said against me, as I would desire to be forgiven of God. So I earnestly beg and intreat you would from this time forth do me justice by bringing my character to trial, and if you find me then guilty of scandal, punish me with some formal censure, which thing I resolve to seek from the Session as soon as possible. All this letter I write in presence of Almighty God, who punishes liars (Rev. xxi. 8; xxii. 16), and leave it to the management of Providence, desiring you to use it as the Lord shall direct you.”
The transparent candour and the spirit of sincerity which breathe throughout this letter are fine evidences of the Christian bearing of Brown under a cruel charge. In reviewing in after years the experiences of this trying time, he writes:—”Meanwhile, I was led out to ponder my own heart and way, and made to see myself as bad before God as a devil, and much worse. This I took God to be calling me by the reproach. These things made me not a little content with my lot, and kept me from labouring to expose my reproaches, or even to defend myself, unless when I thought I had a plain call. And I then and ever since have found that the Lord most clearly delivered me and vindicated me, when I made least carnal struggling, but laboured to bear His indignation as quietly as I could. The sting I had found in my learning, which I had so eagerly hunted after, tended to keep me humble under what I attained, or afterwards attained. The reproach which I myself had met with, tended to render me less credulous of what I heard charged on others. On these and other accounts, I have since looked on that sharp affliction as one of God’s most kind providences to my soul.” He also says that advantage was taken of his trials to make him desert his Church, but with no effect. “During these trials,” he writes, “I had my own share of solicitation to desert the Secession, in which I was so ill-used by some of the chief managers. But, as I had not taken that side from regard to men, the Lord enabled me to take no offence at His cause, because of their maltreatment of me.” The result of these trying experiences made him leave Abernethy, never to visit it again. Meantime, he took up the work of a pedlar, and tramped the country with a pack on his back. But John Brown was ill-fitted for such work. When he came to a house in which there were books, the scholar-pedlar forgot all about his pack, and leisurely gleaned the literary treasures that were more to him than the few shillings he might have gained by selling his merchandise. During his pedlar days the Rebellion of 1745 broke out, and John Brown joined the Volunteers.
On the Volunteers being disbanded in 1746, Brown returned to his pack, which had been carefully deposited in a peat stack during his soldier days. Shortly after his return he received the glad news that the office-bearers of Abernethy Kirk-Session had granted him a full certificate of church membership. The Rev. Alexander Moncrieff refused to sign it, and, even as late as 1752, when John Brown preached at Auchtermuchty (five miles distant from Abernethy), a member of Mr. Moncrieff’s congregation who crossed the hill to hear Brown was summoned before the Session, and rebuked for listening to a “pretended minister.”* The granting of the certificate enabled Brown to take up teaching as a step towards the desire of his heart—the entrance to the Christian ministry. He was a much greater success as a teacher than a pedlar, and drew scholars from a wide radius to Gairney Bridge, where he had set up school. He was specially anxious to give his scholars religious instruction, which was imparted in no half-hearted way, as the following testimony bears record: “He was accustomed on Saturdays seriously to address his scholars. His discourses on these occasions were very warm and pathetic. The late Mr. Adam Low of Barclay informed me that, for his part, he was often, by Mr. Brown’s rousing lectures, terrified from sin, and so strongly convinced of evil that it cost him many nights’ want of sleep, until he got clearer views than he had of the way of salvation through Jesus Christ.” When the Burgess Oath controversy rent the Secession Church in twain, Brown sided with the Burghers, and, on offering himself as a student, one of the members of the Presbytery said that, while he did not doubt the learning of Brown, yet he understood he was indebted to Satan for it. But Ralph Erskine, who knew him well, silenced all opposition by gently remarking, “I think the lad has a sweet savour of Christ about him.” After spending a few sessions under the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine and the Rev. James Fisher, he was licensed to preach the Gospel in 1750. He reckoned it as one of the mysterious providences of God that, “about the same time, if not the very same night,” his primary calumniator, whose part had been so earnestly maintained in opposition to him, was, after he had been several years a preacher, and a zealous preacher in appearance, necessarily excommunicated by his supporters through falling into grievous sins. John Brown never attended a University, but he was better equipped than thousands who have attended the Arts classes and made very little use of them. It remains in succeeding articles to give an account of his ministerial career at Haddington, and to make reference to a few of his works which were, and are still, highly appreciated by serious-minded readers.
(To be continued.)
Note: “John Brown, of Haddington,” by Robert MacKenzie, M.A. Hodder & Stoughton. 1918. Price, 12/ net.
GOD keep you from the peace of a stupid conscience! Better have a dog that will, by his barking, tell us a thief is in our yard, than one that will keep silent, and let us be robbed before we know it.—Gurnall.
- No doubt, the fact that Brown was a Burgher, and Moncrieff an Anti-Burgher, would have influenced Moncrieff to look upon Brown as a “pretended minister.”