DR. KIDD AND DIVINE SERVICE.
There was nothing, however, which I more admired than Dr. Kidd’s method in conducting divine service whenever he preached. After giving out a psalm and uttering a beautiful prayer, he read a chapter. But, before doing so, he directed the attention of his hearers to the lessons found in it. This done, he read the chapter without note or comment from first to last. The simple reading of the chapter exactly corresponding with the previous running commentary brought the lessons prominently into view, and let his hearers at once into the scope and substance of the whole taken in connection. I never more fully entered into, nor highly relished, the reading of a chapter of the Bible than when I was listening to Dr. Kidd.
DR. KIDD AND PREACHING.
But the most interesting conversation I had with Dr. Kidd was on the almost unsurmountable difficulties which he met with in preaching the gospel soon after he was licensed. One evening, which he spent with me in my house at the Braehead of Gilcomston, has left a vivid and most endearing recollection of him by the frankness and Christian sincerity with which he stated the following particulars of his first outset in the ministry. “The great question with me then,” said he, “was not what the gospel was in itself, for that, I thought, I not only understood, but in some measure felt in its power. But my difficulty was—How was I to preach the gospel as a trust committed to my charge? I was altogether dissatisfied with myself. I felt that I had taken too much upon me, that I had run unsent, and therefore, to satisfy my mind on the subject, I visited and consulted those who were considered pillars in the Church.” He then mentioned several eminent ministers with whom he had conversed on the subject. None of them, however, found for him a solid bottom in the deep waters through which he was passing, and in which he was frequently very nearly sinking altogether. He had nothing for it at last but to cast himself simply and entirely on the Head of the Church and on His promise: “Go ye and preach, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” “O, Sir,” he added with much fervency and with tear-moistened eyes, “men have failed me, and I have more than once fainted and failed myself, be He has failed me never, and I bless His holy name that He ever put me in trust with the Gospel.”
[Note.—Dr. Kidd was the eminent Aberdeen minister of the Gospel, who died there on 24th December, 1834. The above are taken from Parish Life in the North of Scotland, by Rev. Donald Sage, Resolis.]