David Young
In Alexander Moncrieff’s parish, there lived a wealthy young laird2 who, in defiance of a pious education, had forsaken the God of his fathers and struck out into a career of headlong wickedness. He was a heritor of the parish,3 and the representative of a distinguished family; as such, he had occupied a conspicuous place in the house of God. This place was now deserted, and he sought by every means to shun the presence of his minister and the elders of the church. Everyone saw that the young man was hastening on to ruin.
His amiable spouse was now neglected and broken-hearted. His children seemed to be forgotten, and the fireside scenes of his former days, so peaceful and happy, were forsaken for the haunts of drunkenness and impiety. His fine estate was melting away, as snow before the sun of summer, and pious parents spoke of him to their children as a specimen of the misery which a life of debauchery ever entails on its wretched victim. His health soon broke
1Taken, with editing, from Memorials of Alexander Moncrieff and James Fisher. Moncrieff (1695-1761) was parish minister of Abernethy, near Perth. In 1733 he was one of the four ministers, including Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, who formed the Secession Church in Scotland. Moncrieff was often referred to as Culfargie, after the estate which he had inherited.
2A proprietor of some land.
3He was thus one of the few who then had a right to choose the minister of the parish.
down; disease began to prey upon him; his drunken companions forsook him; his conscience became his accuser; by night and by day he was made afraid by the terrors of the Almighty. The instructions of his godly father, the tears of his tender-hearted mother, the family prayers of other times, in which he had so often been mentioned by name – all rushed into his memory. His father’s words seemed vivid before him: “O good and merciful God, the God of our fathers, remember in mercy our dear child! O grant that the grace of the good Spirit may be lodged deep in his heart; and may he stand up in our stead, when we shall sleep in the silence of the grave!”
The first softening of this profligate’s heart, appeared in a gush of tenderness towards his long-neglected wife and little children. One day, as they were all hanging about him, he took his wife gently by the hand and said to her, weeping as he spoke: “My dear, can you forgive me the wrongs I have done you?” She could make no reply but burst into tears; and when her surprise at such words of tenderness, to which she had been so long a stranger, had somewhat subsided, she replied by kissing him, first on the one cheek and then on the other, till her tears flowed down upon his bosom; while the children, in their turn, melted by the unwonted softness of their father’s voice, drew near and embraced him.
“My dear,” said his wife, as she wept and witnessed his mental distress, “shall we send for our worthy minister Culfargie?” He gave a reluctant and hesitant assent, being evidently overwhelmed at the idea of meeting his minister. She, however, ventured on her own course and despatched a servant to tell the minister that his presence was desired as soon as possible.
Culfargie lost no time in complying with the invitation and was sitting by the bed of the afflicted laird in the short space of 40 minutes. There was a long, distressing silence. None of the parties seemed disposed to break it. The pastor, on his part, was anxious to know the true state of the sufferer’s mind. He saw the laird’s agony, but had yet to learn how far it proceeded from the working of his conscience. At last, he took the laird by the hand and began to remind him of those things which, if penitent, he would at once admit, and which, if impenitent, he required the more to have distinctly and faithfully rehearsed. He told him of the good example which had been set before him by his godly father, and of the religious instructions with which both his parents, as well as his minister now addressing him, had plied him from his childhood upwards.
On these things he dwelt with marked particularity. “O young man,” he said, “what a return have you made? We sowed wheat; but nothing has yet sprung up but tares, all tares! Thy Maker and thy Redeemer called on thee, saying, ‘Give Me thine heart’. O how tenderly this call was followed up by
every means calculated to enforce it. But thou didst turn away from God; and thou, thou didst sin still more and more. Thou hast made thy brow as brass and thy neck as a sinew of iron! Thou wouldst not hear Him that made thee. He stretched out his hands to thee all the day long; but thou hast dashed from thee the cup of mercy held out to thy lips. Ah, sinful young man laden with iniquity, thou hast forsaken the Lord, thou hast provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, and now that anger is burning hot against thee.”
The pastor paused, for he was overcome with grief. The anguish of the laird seemed now insupportable. He groaned and sobbed out, “Woe is me, for I am undone, mine iniquity is ever before me. Against Thee, O God – against Thee only – have I sinned, and in Thy sight done all these evils.” On hearing these words, the pastor rose abruptly and, casting a mournful look on the sufferer, hurried out of the room and rode directly home.
Moncrieff wished for a spot where he could enjoy complete retirement in prayer, and he knew of no place for that purpose equal to his own study. During the whole night, he was overheard wrestling in prayer for the heart-stricken penitent. He was prostrate on the floor, pleading with strong crying and tears for the poor, perishing son of his old friend. “For Thy Son’s sake,” he was heard saying, “for His dear sake who hung upon the tree, Thine own well-beloved Son’s sake, O Lord, have mercy on this sin-sick soul! Spirit of all grace, O life-giving Spirit, come in Thy love, revive and quicken him. He is broken in the place of dragons; let the bones which Thou hast broken yet rejoice. O bind up that broken heart. Look on his disease and his pains, and forgive him all his sins.” Such was the exercise of the night.
As the day began to dawn, he set off at full speed and was again, in 40 minutes, in the sick man’s room with a kindly smile on his face. Like Jacob, he had been wrestling with the Angel of the covenant and felt something like assurance that he had prevailed. “O Culfargie, come away,” cried the distracted laird, the moment his eyes fell on the minister; “my heart has been broken by the terrors of your message, and how I have longed these slow-moving hours past to see your face again. Great was my trouble after you left me; but when I had tried, again and again, to call on the great Deliverer, a ray of hope seemed to spring up and it gave me some relief. O, said I, there is, there is One who is mighty to save. O God of my fathers, surely Thou wilt not leave me in my extreme necessity! And now sit down, Culfargie, and preach to me this Saviour; and tell me if there be, in the holy Word, one drop of comfort for this burning spirit of mine.”
This was a joyful moment for Culfargie. He sat down by the bed, secretly breathing out a prayer for wisdom to speak a word in season to the heart-broken man, whose wife and children were also present, sharing in the
solemn softness of the scene. “It was an hour,” said one present, “of thrilling joy to all.”
Taking the laird by the hand, while tears of gladness bedimmed his eye, Moncrieff proceeded, with more than his wonted alacrity, to speak to him of the love of God in Christ Jesus, and of Christ Himself as the God-man Redeemer and the Head of the everlasting covenant. He discoursed on the atonement of Christ, its necessity, its reality and its perfection; he made a free and formal offer of Christ to the eager and anxious listener; and in the name of his Divine Master, he called upon him, at once and without reserve, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; declaring to him, earnestly and officially, that in doing this he would be accepted and saved. He next spoke of the Holy Spirit: His divine Person, His presence in the Church, His work of grace in the souls of men, creating in them a clean heart and renewing a right spirit within them. And he concluded the whole with a fervent prayer for a gracious outpouring of this Spirit on his young friend, now coming up from the fearful pit and from the miry clay. When the prayer was ended, both of them for some time wept in silence. All present were in tears.
The laird himself was the first to speak: he could no longer conceal his emotion. Aided now by that Christian knowledge which had been so painfully instilled into his youthful mind, he opened his heart as follows: “O Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. My Saviour, here I lay down my guilt and worthlessness at the foot of Thy cross; and I accept Thy blessed righteousness, as freely offered and given to me. My Divine Teacher, Thou blessed Spirit, O teach a poor wandering prodigal to come to Thee, O my God, and to walk in Thy ways. Blessed and pitying Saviour, accept a poor sinner, the vilest of the vile, who ventures, at Thy bidding, to come, in all his poverty and need, to the foot of the cross. On Thy atonement, and on that alone, I rely. And, O Redeemer of poor perishing sinners, may I venture to call Thee my Redeemer? Then take this heart; it is Thine. Wash it in Thy blood, O my Saviour; to Thee I give it away. To Thee, my God, I dedicate this body, this soul and my all. O what a debtor to free grace! Thine I am, now and for evermore; for Thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of truth.”
The sequel was a happy one. The laird recovered from his bodily affliction and lived to a good old age, giving clear and convincing evidence that he was, in very deed, a prodigal reclaimed. The wife found her husband again, and the children their father. But best of all, the God of salvation in Jesus Christ found a monument of His mercy.
The princely liberality of the King of the universe can no more be exhausted than His inexhaustible fulness and all-sufficiency.
Gardiner Spring