(He was known as the author of striking spiritual songs and was also a preacher)
When railways were unknown, and roads few and far between, Dugald Buchanan was born in the farmhouse of Ardoch in Balquidder, sometime in the year 1716, of Christian parents.
It was with great veneration and affection he spoke of his mother, who took great care to teach him to pray as soon as he could speak and followed all the means used for his improvement by her fervent prayers. With the Psalmist he could say, “I am thy servant, the son of thy handmaid.”
Dugald Buchanan’s diary reveals that he was the subject of religious impression at an early age. When between five and six years of age when he amused himself foolishly without his mother’s knowledge, on a Sabbath, his mind was filled with accusations of conscience for breaking the Sabbath, and he began to pray. Previously it was only at his mother’s request he prayed.
When only six years of age his mother died and he began to slight duty and early impressions seemed erased, but by dreaming of the Day of Judgment, were revived at intervals. “God,” says he, “speaketh once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon man, in slumbering upon his bed. Then he openeth the ear of men, and scaleth instructions, that he may draw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.” When these dreams ceased he was equally alarmed and this was intensified by the scripture (Gen. vi:3): “My spirit shall not always strive with man.” He realised these visions were the Spirit’s striving with him and now feared he quenched Him. Having gloomy thoughts of God as an angry God he concluded his salvation was hopeless, and discontinued religious duties, regarding them as useless formalities, from his ninth to twelfth year. Nevertheless he often thought of the words, “My spirit shall not always strive with man.” The following observations close the twelfth year of his diary:—”When I reflect upon this early period of my life, and consider the natural inclinations of my mind, my belief is more firmly established in the truth of the doctrine that I am just what the Pharisees said of the blind man whom Christ restored to sight, ‘altogether born in sin.’ Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child,” and although the rod of correction, while held over him, may drive it far away from him, it can never drive it so far as to prevent its turning again, till the sanctifying grace of Christ is exerted. Besides the clear scriptural proof of original sin, experience puts it beyond doubt with myself, that I came to the world with the seeds of all manner of sin sown in my heart. Instead of honouring God with my first fruits, Satan got the first fruits of all my labours. I did no duty to which I was not pressed by my parents, or by a slavish fear of hell. He who knows God aright will be influenced by motives different from these. The love of God will be his main principle. The sweetness and delight enjoyed in his service will be sufficient to induce anyone to serve Him.
“When I reflect on the disposition of my heart at this early period, I find that I am full of pride and covetousness, hatred and revenge, which manifest themselves on the slightest occasion. Whence did these come? Who taught them to me? I find they were not imbibed from others. Before I had access to those by whom my morals could be contaminated I found these corrupt inclinations in my nature. They proceeded solely from myself. ‘As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness.’ When I take a retrospective view of this period of my life, I am led to see the absolute necessity of regeneration by grace, for renewing our nature, and restoring the lost image of God in the soul. Man is helpless and hopeless in himself.”
Dugald Buchanan was educated in one of the schools belonging to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which was an active agent in the Lord’s vineyard. It was founded by a few Christian gentlemen in Edinburgh in 1701. At the age of twelve he was considered qualified for the situation of tutor and was placed in a family all of whom were profane except the mistress of the house, who was an excellent person. The result was that before a month in their company he spoke the language of Ashdod, uttering oaths, etc. Then he became dejected and sad, and his terror of mind was at times overwhelming, and he tried to console himself that death was at a distance.
On a Sabbath evening the mistress of the family read the Scriptures to the household, and solemnly spoke of eternity and judgment. She described the manner of the judgment, and the second coming of the Lord. She said it was the opinion of some that it would take place on a Sabbath and in the winter season — and that his appearance would be heralded by thunder, lightning and hail. That same night there was a violent storm. Hail poured into his room which was illuminated with lightning. He trembled with apprehension fearing Jesus might appear. He wrote in his diary, “O, how happy would I be if I could be buried under the ruins of the house, and hide from the face of the Judge. Horror seized upon me and repentance, I thought, was too late. I remembered one of Mr Gray’s sermons in which he described the torments of the damned and their consternation at the coming of the Lord. I thought if my life were to begin again, how I should read, and pray, and keep the Sabbath. I heartily resolved against my sins, but my resolutions were soon at an end. In less than eight days I was just what I was before.”
Dugald’s fond hope of death being at a distance was shaken when a storm arose while he was in a boat on a large loch. Their lives were despaired of but they landed safely. On another occasion he bathed in the Balvaig, and going too near the brink, the sand gave way. He sank, and would have been drowned, but the current floated him near the bank of the river, and a little girl was able to bring him to land by the use of a hay rake. He was impressed by these incidents.
Friends endeavoured to promote his education so he went to Stirling at fourteen years of age where he remained two years. Here he fell sick, but his sickness was nothing to the agony of his mind, and he prayed to get time to repent. He recorded that he bound himself under most solemn vows to serve the Lord, and the Lord heard him, and restored health, yet on recovering from his sickness he fell sick of his vows. On another occasion he narrowly missed being stabbed by a drunken soldier who pursued him, but stumbled in the act. Later on he had a wonderful escape from being drowned in the river Carron. His horse was nearly carried off its feet when crossing the ford but he managed to make a timely retreat. At the next stage of his journey he heard that a traveller had been drowned that very evening when attempting to cross that same ford. He recorded these incidents because of their bearing on his religious life, and of how providences — “God’s most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving, and governing all his creatures and all their actions”—were made subservient to the economy of redemption. As yet, although his conscience was frequently aroused to intense activity he had not yet felt the power of the great reforming motive, the love of Christ.
Being at Edinburgh, in company, the conversation turned to religion. One of the party seeing Buchanan in Highland costume and attracted by the vivacity of his conversation, enquired what his religious principles were. He jauntily replied that as yet he was like a sheet of white paper, and that he might write any principles he pleased upon him. “Are you indeed?” the stranger replied, “if so, I will give you an advice: take good care that the Devil does not scrawl something upon you, and then you will no more be clean.” “I was confounded by this answer” he says. “I did not know which way to look, for it pierced me to the heart to think of the truth of what he said, and which, indeed the Devil had already done. I was also ashamed that I had spoken so irreverently of religion and firmly resolved never to speak in such a manner again. When I came away, this man’s words cleaved very close to me, nor could I by any means get them out of my mind. They also continually brought my former despairing thoughts fresh upon me, and how the Devil had written his own law on my heart, and put his image on all my actions.”
In his eighteenth year he was apprenticed for three years to a house carpenter in the parish of Kippen. He there associated with a better class of companions, and attended the house of God more regularly than formerly and profited by the ministrations of a Mr Potter. From a series of sermons on Job. xxii:21 “Acquaint thyself with him and be at peace, and thereby good shall come unto thee,” he saw that even his salvation was not impossible. The feeble hope made him abandon his former careless ways. Then he had brokenness of heart for sin, and found sweetness in the promise, “I, even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins,” Isa. xliii:25. But he adds “I did not rightly or evangelically understand the true meaning, especially of the word ‘for mine own name’s sake.’ My legal heart meant another thing, even my prayers, tears, and other acts of duty.” Later he fell into the same despairing state of mind for his salvation “Because he sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law.” (Spurgeon said “Go to God with this—Lord save me, for Christ died for the ungodly: and I am one of them. Fling yourself right on to this as a man commits himself right to the lifebelt amid the surging billows. ‘But I do not feel,’ says one. Trust not your feelings even if you do feel: but with no feelings and no hopes of your own, cling desperately to this, ‘Christ died for the ungodly.’ As ungodly rest you on this, ‘Christ died for the ungodly.’ Accept this truth, and you are saved.”) As yet he had not attained to Him “whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood.” He writes “I entered into covenant with God against sin. I bound myself with the penalty of eternal damnation, in the event of my breaking it. But such was the power of sin in me, that should hell itself appear in all its terrors before me, I would break through the hedge. In despair I took my fill of sinful enjoyments, while I might have them — and when in private I diverted myself by repeating all the sungs and ballads I could remember.”
He was now in his twenty-fourth year and entered upon a new engagement with another master in Dumbarton.
In his twenty-fifth year he was helped by a conversation with a pious sister, who met him carelessly wandering in the fields on a Sabbath. Gently remonstrating with him for profaning the Sabbath and neglecting church she said “What do you think will become of you. If you die in your present condition, you will certainly perish.” “You need not tell me so, I am fully aware of it” he replied. “Strange,” she said, “do you know that you will perish: are you in despair of mind, or what?” On ascertaining the state of mind he was in she entreated him to look to the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanseth from sins even of a crimson dye. He replied that he had counted that blood as an unholy thing; and had done despite to the spirit of grace. She enquired if he ever prayed, and when he had last done so? “I have not bowed my knee to God for four years” was the answer. She besought him to go to a throne of grace that very night. To this he replied that he would never do so, for he looked upon the ordinances of grace as useless formalities. His sister who dearly loved him and longed for his salvation, urged him to humble himself before God, “who,” she said, “would have mercy upon him as a poor condemned sinner, and grant him salvation. By the blessings of God she prevailed and he prostrated himself at a throne of mercy. “I stood,” he says “like the publican afar off and said, God be merciful to me a sinner — not out of compliment as before, but from a real sense of guilt and misery. I did not expect to be heard. Satan and unbelief said I was a great fool to expect the Lord would show mercy to the like of me. The Lord instructed me with a secret and powerful conviction that my sins were pardonable, notwithstanding their heinous aggravations, and that His name would be glorified in pardoning even the like of me.”
(From a book by Rev. A. Sinclair, Kenmore).
(To be continued)