tide, which thus for a season repeatedly drew him back to the world, that on July 8, 1836, he records: "This morning five years ago, my dear brother David died, and my heart for the first time knew true bereavement. Truly it was all well. Let me be dumb, for Thou didst it: and it was good for me that I was afflicted. I know not that any providence was ever more abused by man than that was by me; and yet, Lord, what mountains Thou comest over! none was ever more blessed to me." To us who can look at the results, it appears probable that the Lord permitted him thus to try many broken cisterns, and to taste the wormwood of many earthly streams, in order that in after days, by the side of the fountain of living waters, he might point to the world he had forever left, and testify the surpassing preciousness of what he had now found.
Mr. Alexander Somerville (afterwards minister of Anderston Church, Glasgow) was his familiar friend and companion in the gay scenes of his youth. And he, too, about this time, having been brought to taste the powers of the world to come, they united their efforts for each other's welfare. They met together for the study of the Bible, and used to exercise themselves in the Septuagint Greek and the Hebrew original. But oftener still they met for prayer and solemn converse; and carrying on all their studies in the same spirit, watched each other's steps in the narrow way.
He thought himself much profited, at this period, by investigating the subject of Election and the Free Grace of God. But it was the reading of The Sum of Saving Knowledge, generally appended to our Confession of Faith, that brought him to a clear understanding of the way of acceptance with God. Those who are acquainted with its admirable statements of truth, will see how well fitted it was to direct an inquiring soul. I find him some years afterwards recording:—"March 11, 1834.—Read in the Sum of Saving Knowledge, the work which I think first of all wrought a saving change in me. How gladly would I renew the reading of it, if that change might be carried on to perfection!" It will be observed that he never reckoned his soul saved, notwithstanding all his convictions and views of sins, until he really went into the Holiest of all on the warrant of the Redeemer's work; for assuredly a sinner is still under wrath, until he has actually availed himself of the way to the Father opened up by Jesus. All his knowledge of his sinfulness, and all his sad feeling of his own need and danger, cannot place him one step farther off from the lake of fire. It is "he that comes to Christ" that is saved.
Before this period he had received a bias towards the ministry from his brother David, who used to speak of the ministry as the most blessed work on earth, and often expressed the greatest delight in the hope that his younger brother might one day become a minister of Christ. And now, with altered views—with an eye that could gaze on heaven and hell, and a heart that felt the love of a reconciled God—he sought to become a herald of salvation.
He had begun to keep a register of his studies, and the manner in which his time slipped away, some months before his brother's death. For a considerable time this register contains almost nothing but the bare incidents of the diary, and on Sabbaths the texts of the sermons he had heard. There is one gleam of serious thought—but it is the only one—during that period. On occasion of Dr. Andrew Thomson's funeral, he records the deep and universal grief that pervaded the town, and then subjoins: "Pleasing to see so much public feeling excited on the decease of so worthy a man. How much are the times changed within these eighteen centuries, since the time when Joseph besought the body in secret, and when he and Nicodemus were the only ones found to bear the body to the tomb!"
It is in the end of the year that evidences of a change appear. From that period and ever onward his dry register of every-day incidents is varied with such passages as the following:—
"Nov. 12.—Reading H. Martyn's Memoirs. Would I could imitate him, giving up father, mother, country, house, health, life, all—for Christ. And yet, what hinders? Lord, purify me, and give me strength to dedicate myself, my all, to Thee!"
"Dec. 4.—Reading Legh Richmond's Life. Pœnitentia profunda, non sine lacrymis. Nunquam me ipsum, tam vilem, tam inutilem, tam pauperim, et præcipue tam ingratum, adhuc vidi. Sint lacrymæ dedicationis meæ pignora!'" ["Deep penitence, not unmixed with tears. I never before saw myself so vile, so useless, so poor, and, above all, so ungrateful. May these tears be the pledges of my self-dedication!"] There is frequently at this period a sentence in Latin occurring like the above in the midst of other matter, apparently with the view of giving freer expression to his feelings regarding himself.
"Dec. 9.—Heard a street-preacher: foreign voice. Seems really in earnest. He quoted the striking passage, 'The Spirit and the bride say, Come, and let him that heareth say, Come!' From this he seems to derive his authority. Let me learn from this man to be in earnest for the truth, and to despise the scoffing of the world."
Dec. 18.—After spending an evening too lightly, he writes: "My heart must break off from all these things. What right have I to steal and abuse my Master's time? 'Redeem it,' He is crying to me."
"Dec. 25.—My mind not yet calmly fixed on the Rock of Ages."
"Jan. 12, 1832.—Cor non pacem habet. Quare? Peccatum apud fores manet." ["My heart has not peace. Why? Sin lieth at my door."]
"Jan. 25.—A lovely day. Eighty-four cases of cholera at Musselburgh, How it creeps nearer and nearer like a snake! Who will be the first victim here? Let thine everlasting arms be around us, and we shall be safe."
"Jan. 29, Sabbath.—Afternoon heard Mr. Bruce (then minister of the New North Church, Edinburgh) on Malachi 1:1–6. It constitutes the very gravamen of the charge against the unrenewed man, that he has affection for his earthly parent, and reverence for his earthly master, but none for God! Most noble discourse."
"Feb. 2.—Not a trait worth remembering! And yet these four-and-twenty hours must be accounted for."
Feb. 5, Sabbath.—In the afternoon, having heard the late Mr. Martin of St. George's,[1] he writes, on returning home: "O quam humilem, sed quam diligentissimum; quam dejectum, sed quam vigilem, quam die noctuque precantem, decet me esse quum tales viros aspicio. Juva, Pater, Fili, et Spiritus!" ["Oh! how humble, yet how diligent, how lowly, yet how watchful, how prayerful night and day it becomes me to be, when I see such men. Help, Father, Son, and Spirit!"]
From this date he seems to have sat, along with his friend Mr. Somerville, almost entirely under Mr. Bruce's ministry. He took copious notes of his lectures and sermons, which still remain among his papers.
"Feb. 28.—Sober conversation. Fain would I turn to the most interesting of all subjects. Cowardly backwardness: 'For whosoever is ashamed of me and my words,'" etc.
At this time, hearing, concerning a friend of the family, that she had said, "That she was determined to keep by the world," he penned the following lines on her melancholy decision:—
She has chosen the world,
And its paltry crowd;
She has chosen the world,
And an endless shroud!
She has chosen the world
With its misnamed pleasures;
She has chosen the world,
Before heaven's own treasures.
She hath launched her boat
On life's giddy sea,
And her all is afloat
For eternity.
But Bethlehem's star
Is not in her view;
And her aim is far
From the harbor true.
When the storm descends
From an angry sky,
Ah! where from the winds
Shall the vessel fly?
Away, then—oh, fly
From the joys of earth!
Her smile is a lie—