ROBERT and JAMES HALDANE: by REV. D. M. MACDONALD,
Edinburgh.
(Continued from page 176.)
We shall now consider the life of Mr. James Haldane, who was closely associated with his brother in joint endeavours to advance the Kingdom of Christ in many different places.
His pious mother, when left a widow, endeavoured to bring up her children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. She set before them the importance of eternity, impressing on them the necessity of prayer and taught them to commit to memory and understand psalms, portions of the Shorter Catechism, and of Scripture. She died when he was just under six years of age, and the impression made on his mind by her teaching was never entirely effaced. In the midst of his folly serious thoughts would enter his mind. What he was taught was an eminent means in the hand of God of showing him the vanity of earthly things in comparison with an interest in that inheritance which can never fade away.
As both parents were now dead, the care of the children devolved on their grandmother, Lady Lundie, who had resided with her daughter
on the banks of the Tay at Dundee. Her youngest son, the first Viscount Duncan, resided with his mother in Mrs. Haldane’s house and managed all their affairs. The education of the two boys was well attended to. At home they had a superior resident tutor, the Rev. Dr. Fleming, who afterwards became one of the ministers of Edinburgh; and they were also sent to the grammar school at Dundee that they might at the same time mingle with other boys and profit by the stimulus of competition. James was intended for the sea, and it was deemed important to push him forward rapidly in his education, but his progress was arrested by a dangerous fever which nearly caused his death. In May, 1777, they lost their kind grandmother, Lady Lundie, and in September the same year they were boarded with the Rector of the High School, the celebrated Dr. Adam. James was reckoned a clever, shrewd boy with a love of adventure. His school course was duly finished, and he entered Edinburgh University in 1781, where he continued for three sessions studying under different professors. The splendid education he received had well qualified him for his future career, and he returned to Lundie House for some months before going to sea in his 17th year.
We may now inquire into his attitude to religion before he went to Edinburgh and during his stay there. After their mother’s death both the brothers were much solemnized by a sense of the importance of those things which she had so earnestly inculcated. Their only sister’s death would likely have deepened the impression. When they came to Edinburgh they used to be spoken about, and even laughed at, for their reverence for sacred things. James, in a memorandum found amongst his papers, said till he was 12 years old he continued to pray, go to Church, and read his Bible or other good books on the Sabbath, but it was only from a principle of duty. He had no pleasure in any religious exercises but through the constraint of conscience he was afraid to give them up. He was quite pleased to make use, like many others, of anything that appeared a reasonable excuse for staying at home on the Lord’s Day.
He hardly attended to one word he heard when at Church but only made a form of joining in the different parts of the worship. Sometimes he had serious thoughts; occasionally, on a Sabbath evening, after reading the Scriptures or other books, he felt a kind of flow of the natural passions and had a good deal of pleasure in prayer. This puffed him up with very good thoughts of himself. He began to think he was in the right road to heaven when that text came to his mind, Proverbs xxvi. 12: “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.” This verse seemed to cast a damper on his hopes, for it appeared to describe his character. From about 13 to 16 years of age he became more careless, often spending the Sabbath evenings in idle conversation with his companions; and he was pleased to find his conscience becoming less and less scrupulous.
He began to swear because it seemed to be manly and every serious idea seemed to have fled. Annoyance he had from a quarrel with some companions caused him to pray to God, and he began to read his Bible on the Sabbath and gave up swearing altogether for a season. He endured some ridicule for thus spending the Sabbath, but the opposition rather confirmed than altered his determination. It proceeded, he detected, more from pride than from principle. It may be seen from all this that early piety had almost disappeared but it was not so in reality. The good seed was only buried, not lost; and after a long winter it was destined to spring up and bring forth much fruit in the lives of the two brothers whose godly mother had prayed so often for them in their childhood. Many of her grandchildren were to be greatly blessed and thousands of others who were to receive the Gospel from their voices or from their writings.
For three generations the Haldane family had possessed the chief interest in one of the East India Company’s “regularly chartered ships,” the property of which was shared with other connections or friends, and at this juncture James Haldane was given a post as midshipman on the “Duke of Montrose” bound on a voyage to Bombay and China. The third officer, Mr. Patrick Gardner, was brought up on one of the family estates and was reckoned a first-rate navigator and practical seaman. He took a particular interest in Mr. Haldane, and with his help he acquired great skill in seamanship. Mr. Gardner allowed him the full use of his cabin, and by quietly studying in it, various subjects, he became very proficient in general knowledge. His conduct on board the “Montrose” was exemplary and his attention to his duties attracted the approbation of his superiors.
In the course of the voyage several incidents occurred calculated to make a deep impression on his mind. On the 2nd of June it was blowing very hard, and it became necessary to take in sail. For this purpose James Haldane was ordered to go aloft with a party of men. Just as he was beginning to mount the rigging Captain Gray called out to him to stop and ordered an able seaman to go first. The ship’s log notices that in taking in the main top-sail “James Duncan fell from the yard and was unfortunately drowned.” He was struck on the head and knocked overboard. Had young Haldane been first he would doubtless have found a watery grave. He saw the drowning seaman amidst the billows and never forgot the anxious look which eagerly sought but sought in vain for succour. He used also to mention that this sailor was the only man in the whole course of his experience at sea of whom he even heard or knew anything which indicated the possession of a vital acquaintance with true Christianity. It was the general remark that it would be well if all on board were as fully prepared for death as James Duncan.
There were other events which made clear to him that God was preserving his life notwithstanding his unworthiness. On an island in the Far East a man had been murdered and another severely wounded.
by savages. He was the last to be with him before it happened. They were ashore getting water for the ship, and he had gone to the line of the natives but they were not to be seen, so their absence probably saved his life. He felt that God was caring for him and gave Him thanks. During this voyage he fell overboard from a boat, and as he could not swim he thought he would be drowned. He had an oar in his hand when he fell into the sea and remembered what an old sailor told him that no one need be drowned when he could keep hold of an oar. This proved the means of his preservation.
Other things occurred which might have struck him but his conscience was becoming seared as with a hot iron. He began more fully to surrender himself to a life of pleasure and still had sometimes a form of prayers, but this gradually became less frequent. When he felt any check of conscience he satisfied himself with thinking that he was, at least, as good as any in the ship in which he sailed. On his first voyage he was brought under more than common concern by reading Doddridge’s Rise and Progress, which he read like some other religious books, as a task. He found he was not right, and resolved to begin to amend but his resolution was like the morning cloud and early dew. He quieted his conscience with the consideration that he had wronged no one and, therefore, could not be very criminal. The Lord laid his hand on him during one voyage and he was supposed by all to be dying. He thought so himself, but was perfectly hardened and determined that he would show no unmanly signs of fear when dying.
The Lord, however, restored him and preserved him from other dangers in which he had plunged himself by his folly, and all the return he made was to harden himself in his rebellion. A circumstance that led him to think of an over-ruling Providence was his appointment as third officer of the Indianman “Foulis.” On his arrival in London he found that the “Foulis” had sailed and his place had been filled up. He was very disappointed, and at the moment did not realise that there was an Almighty arm preserving him. The “Foulis” was never heard of again, and is supposed to have foundered or been burned at sea.
(To be continued.)