THE ancestors of John Banks belonged to the nobility of England. His father, John Banks, held the position of a commissioned officer in the British Army. For some misdemeanour he was discharged. This affected his mind so seriously that, for the rest of his life, he became a poor, wandering pedlar. The story is told that he visited a brother of his in England, and that his brother placed £1600 in gold on a table, took John into the room, and offered him all that money, providing he would settle down in a home of his own. John put forth his hand and took four coins, saying at the same time, “This will do for me; keep thou the rest.” He met a pedlar woman in his travels and married her. They continued in their life of wandering through the country to the end of their earthly pilgrimage.
John Banks was born in the year 1847, in a tent on the shore of the Kyle of Sutherland, to the south of Ardgay, in Ross-shire. His father taught him to read and write. He could speak the Gaelic language very well. The correctness with which he spoke English did much credit to the erudition of his father. But it seems poor John lost both his mother and father while he was a young lad, so that he continued a tramp all his days.
He came often to the hospitable house of that eminently godly man, James Matheson, Clash-nan-cnamh. On a certain day he came and went out to take a look round. He saw a new wheelbarrow that Mr Matheson
had just got from a joiner a few days before. He took the barrow up to the top of a steep brae at the back of the house, and pushed it with all his might down the brae, with the effect that it was broken to splinters against the back wall of the house. When James heard the crash he went out, and saw his new barrow in pieces. He asked John Banks, “What made you do this, John?” He answered, “Satan made me do it.” To this James replied, “I believe you are telling the truth.” James’s housekeeper made a shakedown for John as usual in the corner of James’s bedroom. She noticed that James went out after family worship three times, as she understood, to pray. When he came in the third time he said to her, “I will sleep on the shake-down, and John will sleep in the bed.” When she objected to this, he said—”John will be for ever with Christ in heaven whatever will become of me.” However, she prevailed on him to sleep in his own bed. This is a clear proof of the Scripture, which says—”The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him,” for John Banks continued a careless sinner many years after this incident, and after James Matheson went to his everlasting rest.
The first time the writer saw John Banks was at a communion at Lairg, in connection with the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland after 1893. He lodged during that solemn season, as he often did, in the very hospitable house of Mr Donald Mackay, Saval. It was then that the Holy Spirit shined the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ into the heart of John Banks. His joy was so great that he could not conceal it. He told them that, since yesterday, he was enjoying peace of conscience and joy of heart in believing that he was now a saved man.
A few years after this, he came before the Kirk-Session, at the time of the Creich Communion. After he was examined, the Session decided that, as they were fully satisfied with the knowledge and experience of John, he should be admitted to the Lord’s Table on the morrow for the first time. When he was informed of this decision, he asked the writer to speak to him privately. He then said that he had been a slave to giant lusts, but that, with the exception of one of these lusts, the Lord had subdued them, and gave him the victory by His grace over them. “Do you not think,” he said to the writer, “that until I will see whether the Lord will conquer in me this lust, it would be better for me not to sit at the Lord’s Table, for fear I may bring a scandal on His name and cause?” The writer
answered that he would agree with this on condition that he would let him know how he felt at the time of the Lairg Sacrament. To this he agreed. This took place at the tent in godly Helen Logan’s croft, on the Saturday of that communion season.
At Lairg that year, on Saturday, after the Session had distributed tokens to intending communicants, John requested the writer to speak a word or two. He then told the writer that the “giant lust” of which he was so much afraid was now subdued, and then said, “What shall I do now?” To this the answer was returned that he should go there and then for a token, and sit at the Lord’s Table on the morrow. He did, and sat on the Sabbath there at the Lord’s Table. Each year after that to the end of his life he attended the Communion at Lairg. On the Friday of a Communion there, he was asked to speak to the question for the first time. He said:—”I will be comparing the struggle between the flesh and grace in the souls of the converted to Esau and Jacob. Esau was a strong fellow, covered over with red hair, while Jacob was a thin, sinewy, bare fellow. Esau made a desperate effort to murder Jacob before they were born; but notwithstanding Jacob’s want of strength, he had a very tenacious grip. He got a hold of Esau’s heel, came into the world holding on to it, and he never let go his grip till he overcame Esau. He took from him his birth-right, and overcame him at last, the night he wrestled with the Lord till break of day, and received the name of Israel. Such, in my opinion, is the struggle between grace and the flesh, and such will be also the end of the struggle.”
He was in the habit, after his conversion, of holding meetings in the outlying places of Sutherlandshire. We have not heard of how he handled the Word of God at these meetings, but, judging by what he said in speaking to the question, his discourses would be original, experimental, thoughtful, and scriptural.
During his last years he often expressed his great sorrow that he did not work for his living while he was young; but that he had got so heavy and stiff in his old age that he could not work, and so had to continue going about among friends to the last.
He was on his way to attend the Lairg Communion in the year 1907, when an attack of influenza seized him at Brimsdale, in the Parish of Kildonan, Sutherlandshire. After suffering for three weeks, he passed away to his everlasting rest on the 25th day of May, and in the sixtieth year of his age. His mortal remains were
buried in the burying-ground of Kinbrace, at the head of Kildonan Strath, and in the near vicinity of the Kinbrace Railway Station. He will, at the blast of the last trumpet on the great day of Christ’s second coming to judge the quick and the dead, lift up his head with joy, and will ascend to meet the Lord in the air, and to be for ever with the Lord.
The case of John Banks shows the sovereignty of God’s grace, as it is written—”For you see your calling, brethren, now that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are. That no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. That, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” N. C.
Short Gleanings from Rev. Richard Sibbes, D.D.*
I.—Affliction.
AFFLICTIONS make a divorce between the soul and sin. It is not a small thing that will work sin out of the soul. It must be the spirit of burning, the fire of afflictions sanctified. Heaven is for holiness, and all that is contrary to believers affliction works out, and so fits the soul for further and perfect communion with God.
II.—Artificial Christians.
The weights of a clock move all the wheels, so artificial Christians are excited by things without them. They want an inward principle to do good freely. But the Spirit of God works a kind of natural freedom.
III.—True Zeal.
True zeal for God’s glory is joined with true love to men. Therefore, let all that are violent, injurious, inso-
* Richard Sibbes was one of the noted Puritan preachers. Owing to his sweet presentation of the Gospel he was known as the “heavenly Richard Sibbes.” He died in 1635.
lent, never talk of glorifying God, so long as they despise the meanest of men.
IV.—The Discouragement of Unbelief.
Discouragement rising from unbelief and ill-report, brought upon the good land by the spies, moved God to swear in His wrath, that they should not enter into His rest. Let us take heed a spirit of faint-heartedness, rising from seeming difficulty and disgrace, cast upon God’s good ways, provoke not God to keep us out of heaven. We see here what we may look for from heaven. O! beloved, it is a comfortable thing to conceive of Christ aright, to know what love, mercy, strength we have laid up for us in the breast of Christ. . . . Lord Jesus, thou hast promised not to quench the smoking flax, nor to break the bruised reed; cherish thine own grace in me, leave me not to myself, the glory shall be thine.
(To be continued.)