:CO
LIFE
£ ANDERSON
of
LIFE
REV. WILLIAM ANDERSON, LLD,
G L A S G O W.
GEORGE GILFILLAN,
Author of " The Bards of the Bible," etc., etc.
LONDON:
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,
27 PATERNOSTER ROW.
-
£54 65"
8LASGOW :
AIRD AND COGHILL, PRINTERS.
PREFATORY NOTICE.
To the Biography here presented to the
public, the Author has pleasure in annexing
some valuable selections from Dr. ANDERSON'S
Discourses, the Rev. GEORGE BROOKS' dis
criminating paper on his old friend, Dr.
ANDERSON'S Jubilee Speech, and some of the
comments on it by the Press.
The Author has to thank the Rev. Dr.
ALEXANDER MACLEOD, Birkenhead, for Remi
niscences of his Colleague, parts of which have
been quoted; the Rev. WILLIAM WATSON, Kirk
cudbright, for his aid in the transcription of
several of Dr. ANDERSON'S manuscripts ; and
especially Mr. WILLIAM LOGAN, Glasgow, for
his great interest in, and care over, the progress
of the Work, which have materially relieved
the Biographer's labours, and which are only
in keeping with that deep affection wherewith
he has all along regarded his revered friend.
There will be found prefixed a very admirable
Portrait of the Doctor.
DUNDEE, May i, 1873.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PARENTAGE AND BOYHOOD.
PAGE
Anderson's Birth, - 13
Death of his Mother, - - 14
Anderson's Grandfather, - 14
His Father— Jubilee at Kilsyth, - - 15
Anderson at School, ... -17
Letter descriptive of his Father, - - 17
Anderson and his first Teachers, - - 21
CHAPTER II.
CURRICULUM AT COLLEGE AND DIVINITY HALL.
Anderson enters College, - - - 23
His Professors, - - 23
Amusing Anecdote, - - 27
Attends the University Divinity Hall, - - - 29
Anderson as a Teacher, - - - 30
Dr. Chalmers and Anderson, - - - - 31
Licensed as a Preacher, - - - 36
CHAPTER III.
OBSTRUCTIONS TO ORDINATION.
Anderson Reads his Sermons, - 38
The Glasgow Presbytery and Anderson, - 39
Anderson's Manly Address to the Presbytery on using his
Manuscript in the Pulpit, - 45
6 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
SETTLEMENT AND EARLY MINISTRY IN JOHN STREET CHURCH.
PAGE
Anderson's Difficulties at the beginring of his Ministry, - 47
Commences a course of Systematic Preaching, - 49
His Bible Classes for the Young, - 51
Labours at first Single-handed, • 52
Meets ultimately with willing Workers, - 52
Anderson's Courtship and Marriage, - - 53
Anecdote of Anderson, - 55
CHAPTER V.
AS A PREACHER — THE ORGAN QUESTION.
Anderson's Popularity as a Preacher, - - - 57
Anderson on Social and Political Questions, - - - 60
His great love for Music, - - 60
The Organ Controversy, - 61
CHAPTER VI.
ANDERSON'S MILLENARIANISM.
Source of his Millenarian Views, - 66
Cunningham of Lainshaw, - 70
Edward Irving and Anderson, - - -71
Anderson's Pamphlets and Lectures on Prophecy, - - 75
Letter from Edward Irving to Anderson, • - 76
His adherence to Millenarianism, - 80
CHAPTER VII.
HIS CONNECTION WITH THE VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT.
Dissent in England and Scotland, • 8 1
First Voluntary Meeting in Edinburgh, - 83
First Voluntary Meeting in Glasgow, - 84
Anderson's Pamphlet— "The Lame Restored," - 86
His Voluntary Lectures in Glasgow and Edinburgh, - • 87
Early Champions on both sides of the Question, « 90
CONTENTS. 7
CHAPTER VIII.
PASTORAL, PUBLIC, AND POLITICAL LABOURS.
PAGE
Anderson amongst his People, - - - • » 92
On the Platform — Education and Temperance, - - 95
His early Sympathy with the Methodist Body, - (- 96
The Anti-Slavery Movement, - 97
Letters from Rev. Dr. G. Jeffrey and Mr. Wm. Smeal, Glasgow, 98
Anderson's general interest in the Oppressed, ... 100
Kossuth and Anderson in the City Hall, - - 101
Sunday Address on Politics, - 103
Garibaldi and Mazzini, - - - - - 104
Anderson on the Coronation of King William IV., - 107
Accused of Political Preaching, - 107
CHAPTER IX.
THE POPISH CONTROVERSY.
Anderson Advocates Catholic Emancipation, - - •'• HO
His Hatred of Shams, - * - 1 10
' ' The Man of Sin," - * 112
Anderson's Publications on Popery, - - * 113
"The Mass," - - "5
His Popish Lectures in Dr. Wardlaw's Church and City Hall, 116
"Penance," - - 118
Dr. Cahill challenged by Anderson, - 121
Anderson as a Controversialist, - - 122
CHAPTER X.
AS AN AUTHOR.
Anderson as a Reader, - - - - • 124
His Sermon— the " Prospects of the World," - 126
Lecture on the Corn Laws — Extract on Hunger, - '- 128
First Volume of " Discourses,"- - • 129
Lecture to Young Men, Extract from - - - 133
Treatise on "Regeneration," • - • : f ' -• 136
Anderson's Catholicity, - .'.* - 137
Second Volume of "Discourses," - • 138
8 CONTENTS.
PAGE
" Filial Honour of God," - J38
Circulation of Anderson's Works among Professors and Divinity
Students, • - *39
Estimate of Anderson as an Author, - - 140
CHAPTER XL
ANDERSON'S MERIDIAN.
His Power in the West of Scotland, - H5
Anderson visits London, • r47
His Speeches in Exeter Hall, - - 148
Preaches in London Pulpits, - -150
Anderson advised to Remove to London, • 15 1
Urged to publish a Volume of Sermons, - i$2
Visits Covent Garden— his Love of Nature, - 153
Union of the Relief and Secession Churches, - - 154
Anderson takes part in the Movement, - 156
Receives degree of IX. D. from Glasgow University, - - 158
Continues his Public Labours, - - - 158
Prosecutes his Private Studies, - 159
Takes special interest in Students and Young Preachers, - 160
His great Speech at the Tercentenary of the Reformation, - 16!
CHAPTER XII.
ANDERSON AT HOME.
Characteristics of Public Men, - - 163
Anderson in Conversation, - 165
His Attachment to Favourite Authors, - - 166
Visits to Anderson, - , - 167
Assists at the Communion in Dundee, - 167
Two Anecdotes, - 168
Communion in John Street Church, - - 169
Anderson's First Son " Willie," - 170
I lis first Wife's Death, 1 72
Dr. Anderson's Second Marriage, - 173
Death of his Son "William Willie," - • - 174
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Pastoral Letter to the Congregation, - - 174
Anderson's Sermon on Re-union in Heaven — Infant Salvation, 175
His Retreat at TJddingston, '«' - - - 176
CHAPTER XIIL
DECADENCE AND RETIREMENT.
Anderson obtains the Rev. Dr. Macleod as a Colleague, - 1 78
Opening of John Street New Church, - - - 181
Anderson Removes to Uddingston, - - - - 182
Rev. David MacEwan becomes his Second Colleague, - 183
Anderson Officiates in Churches of Various Denominations, 184
His Last Appearance in the Glasgow Presbytery — The
Confession of Faith, . . - 185
Letter from Rev. Dr. J. B. Johnston, - - . 185
Anderson no Broad Churchman, - - 187
Dr. Anderson's Jubilee, - - - - 188
CHAPTER XIV.
LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH AND FUNERAL.
Dr. Anderson and his Father Contrasted, . . 193
Visits Dundee and Kirriemuir, - - - 194
The Biographer's Last Interview with Anderson. • 195
Anderson takes part in Ordination of Rev. John Bogue, M. A.,
Stockton-on-Tees, - - - . . - IQ<!
His Last Appearance in the Pulpit, - - . ; . 197
Anderson's Views in Prospect of His Own Decease, - • * 198
Declines to Take Part in the Annual Missionary Meeting of
the United Presbyterian Synod, - - . 199
Rev. David MacEwan's Visits to Dr. Anderson, • - 200
Some of Dr. Anderson's Last Sayings, - - - . 200
Dr. Anderson's Parting Message to his Colleague for the
Congregation, - . ' . . 202
Closing Hours of his Life, « 203
His Funeral, - - .. . , • ' . 205
Funeral Sermons, . « . . 207
I0 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV.
CORRESPONDENCE— (SECTION I.) PAGE
Dr. Anderson to John Street Church, -
Dr. Anderson to his Daughter Mary, when a Child, - - 213
Rev. George Gilfillan to Dr. Anderson on the Death of
his First Willie, - ' 2I*
Dr. Anderson to a Bereaved Parent, -
Dr. Anderson on the Rev. Howard Hinton and others, - 217
Rev. John Anderson, Kilsyth, to his Son, Dr. A., - - 218
Dr. Anderson to Rev. Robert Gardner, - 219
Dr. Anderson on his Tercentenary Speech at Edinburgh, - 220
Dr. Anderson to the Rev. George C. Hutton, -
Dr. Anderson on the late Rev. Wm. Anderson, Loanhead, - 223
Dr. Anderson on "D'Aubigne on Servetus," - - 224
CHAPTER XVI.
CORRESPONDENCE — (SECTION II.)
Dr. Anderson to Dr. M 'Michael, • 225
Dr. Anderson on the Late Rev. Wm. M'Dougall, - - 226
Dr. Anderson's Testimony as a Voluntary, - - 227
Extracts from Dr. Anderson's Letters to Miss Dobson, - 229
Dr. Anderson on Pulpit Work, - 234
Dr. Anderson to his Daughter, Mrs. Wilson, on his Jubilee, 235
Rev. Dr. Wardlaw to Dr. Anderson, - - 236
Rev. Dr. Godwin on Dr. Anderson's Works, - - 237
Rev. Dr. Guthrie, Edinburgh, on Dr. Anderson, - 238
Henry Ward Beecher to Dr. Anderson, • 238
Rev. Thomas Binney, London, to Dr. Anderson, - 239
Rev. Wm. Barr, Jedburgh, on Dr. Anderson's Character, - 241
Rev. James Watson, Nova Scotia, - • - 244
Professor Milligan, D.D., the University, Aberdeen, - - 244
Professor F. J. Falding, D.D., Indept. College, Rotherham, 245
Professor J. R. Reynolds, D.D., Cheshunt College, London, - 245
Rev. Charles Garrett, Bootle, Liverpool, - 246
Rev. Dr. George Turner, Missionary, on Dr. Anderson's
Meetings with Divinity Students, - • - 247
Rev. Tiyo Soga, Caffraria, on Dr. Anderson, - * 248
The United Presbyterian Synod to Dr. Anderson, * * 250
CONTENTS. 1 1
CHAPTER XVII.
MISCELLANEOUS.
PAGE
A Cameronian Elder on Dr. Chalmers' Preaching, - 254
Story of the "Brown Bawbee," »; - 257
Anecdote about Secular Education, - - 257
Stories of Anderson's Charity, - ... 258
Anderson and the Money-lending Merchant, ... 259
The Two Girls at Play, - 260
Anderson in the City Hall on the Duties of Wives, - - 262
Dr. Macleod's " Reminiscences of Dr. Anderson," - 263
Dr. Anderson at Dundee, - .... 267
The Late Rev. Tiyo Soga, Caffraria, .... 268
Father Gavazzi and Dr. Anderson, - - 269
Rev. George C. Hutton on Dr. Anderson, - - 269
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHARACTER OF ANDERSON.
Anderson a Man of large Sympathies, .... 273
His Courage, ....... 274
His Independence of Thought and Action, - - 274
His Genius, ..... . 275
His Common Sense, - - 276
His Child-like Spirit, - v- 277
His Sterling Honesty, - - - - - - 278
His Disinterestedness and Liberality, - - 278
Anderson a Man of Wide Knowledge, - - - 279
Sometimes Imposed upon, - ... 279
A Laborious Worker, ... . 280
His deep, unassuming Piety, - - - - - 281
His Faith in the Millennium, ... . 282
Value of Anderson's Writings, - V 282
Retrospect of his Career, - 284
Norman Macleod, Thomas Guthrie, and Wm. Anderson, - 285
REMINISCENCES OF DR. ANDERSON.
By Rev. George Brooks, Johnstone, - - - 286
Dr. Anderson's Jubilee Speech, - - - 297
Dr. Anderson on Free Communion — his Last Paper, - - 311
! 2 CONTENTS.
THE PRESS ON DR. ANDERSON'S JUBILEE.
Glasgow Daily Herald,
Glasgow Evening Citizen, •
The Star, Glasgow,
Dundee Advertiser,
Hamilton Advertiser, *.-
Ardrossan Herald,
SELECTIONS, CHIEFLY UNPUBLISHED, FROM DR. ANDERSON'S
WRITINGS.
God's Omnipresence Practically Contemplated,
God a Sun,
The Lord a Shepherd, -
On Loving God,
On Pleasing God,
" Why Stand yc here Idle ? " -
Queen Victoria's Visit to Glasgow,
The Death of Dr. Chalmers, ' 367
"All Things," -
The Sympathy of Christ,
The Missionary Plea, one of Justice, • 375
Christ a Master,
Christian Hope,
"Every One of You," -
Seeing Jesus, • 3 5
The Claims of Children, ' 387
An Appeal for Instant Decision, ' 3°9
Dr. Anderson's Address at the Last Communion in Old John
Street Church, " - - 394
The Late Mr. James Roberton, Elder, - 398
Dr. Anderson on the Death of his Second Son " Willie," • 4°2
Re-Union in the Heavenly Kingdom, - - 4°4
LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
CHAPTER I.
PARENTAGE AND BOYHOOD.
WILLIAM ANDERSON, whom we may characterise
once for all as one of the most remarkable men and
ministers in Scotland during the nineteenth century,
was born on 6th of January, 1799 (and baptised on
the 26th), at Kilsyth, Stirlingshire, where his father,
the Rev. John Anderson, was the Relief minister.
He had fourteen children — seven in the first family,
and seven in the second ; five sons and two daughters
in the first family, and five sons and two daughters
in the second. One full sister and three full brothers
died in childhood and youth. Another full brother,
John, died in Jamaica in middle life. William was
the second son of the first family. There is also a
full sister still surviving, Mrs. Duncan, residing in
Glasgow ; and there are two half-brothers, Robert
and David, both most respectable ministers of the
United Presbyterian Church — Robert having suc
ceeded his father in Kilsyth, and David being settled
in Ceres, Fife. There are also two sisters by the
second marriage still living : Martha (Mrs. John
14 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Marshall), Mary (Mrs. Robert Wilson). William
Anderson's mother, an excellent woman, named
Margaret Watt, died when he was between six
and seven years of age. This affected him more
afterwards than at the time as a great and crushing
calamity ; but even at that early age his sensations as
a "mitherless bairn" were sad enough — especially
when he saw his father, whom he revered and almost
worshipped, " greeting" at the loss. Another anecdote
he often reverted to. The church being under repair,
little Willie had been watching the tradesmen at their
work. A nail entered his foot and wounded it rather
severely. He went home, was put to bed, and fell
asleep. On awakening, he went, with his foot wrapt
up, to meet his father, who was entering the manse
gate. As he was hirpling along, his father said, "Well,
Willie, what are you doing here with your sore foot ?"
"Oh, it's just a trifle," said the brave boy. He
regretted he had not always carried along with him
in after life the same manly view of misfortunes.
His father was William's first teacher. We may
here say a word or two about him, and about his
father — a still more remarkable man, whose name also
was William Anderson. He is described as being a
very uncommon person — a skilful mechanic, a great
reader and thinker, especially on religious topics.
He was employed at the Carron Iron Works,
which were then newly started. Here he prospered
greatly, and having performed a feat of mechanical
skill in constructing a miniature copy of the engine
at the works, he was installed Superintendent — an
PARENTAGE AND BOYHOOD 15
office he held for thirty years. He was the first
to introduce a tramway in Scotland, laying it down
from the works to the Carron shore. He also first
suggested the use of the ball-cock, since so common in
water cisterns. He took a deep interest in his grand
son, and probably discerned the genius that was
undeveloped within him. When young William had
entered the Logic Class his grandfather said to him,
" Now, sir, I know you will be beginning to try and
make fine sentences — make them as fine as you can ;
but O, preserve simplicity in prayer ! God does not
need to be told that He made the Constellations.
Confess to Him your sins, and express your con
fidence in his Son." His grandson took the hint, and
his prayers always avoided those tiresome and inflated
laudations of the Deity in which many still indulge.
Old William was a stern Sabbatarian, and on one
occasion, when sent for on a Sabbath to repair a part
of the engine that had gone wrong, he refused to come
till midnight was past, when he mounted a horse, and
was in time to execute the work. His master was at
first furious, but ultimately conceded the noble con
scientiousness of the man. Dr. Anderson used to tell
this more from an admiration of the independent spirit
than the religious scrupulosity it displayed. There
can be little doubt that, in intellect and manly energy
of character, the grandson formed a fac-simile of his
relative.
John Anderson, if the features of his character were
less bold and pronounced than those of either his
father or his son, was nevertheless a remarkable man.
!6 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
He laboured on in Kilsyth till his Q2nd year. He
was distinguished through all that long period by his
pastoral diligence, the carefulness of his pulpit pre
parations, his weight of character, the simplicity of his
habits, and his advanced political creed. We know
that his son held his intellect and attainments in high
respect, and he often spoke to us of his father's great
doctrinal knowledge and logical acumen. We have
heard a story which this is, perhaps, the best place for
introducing, to the effect that when William attended
the Jubilee Soiree of his venerable sire, he stepped
forward to him at the close of his speech, laid his
hand on his head, then covered with silver hair, and
broke out into the old song:—
" John Anderson my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent ;
But now your brow is bald, John,
Your locks are like the snow ;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson my jo."
The effect is stated to have been indescribable,
electrifying to all, and melting to many. It was a
stroke of that highest kind in which genius and heart
are equally blended, and which at once excites enthu
siastic admiration, and starts childlike tears. Under
such a tutor William's scholarship went on swimmingly.
He soon learned to read the New Testament, and to
repeat the Shorter Catechism backwards, a different
kind of inversion from what is common with it now-a-
days. His father also taught him to write and to
PARENTAGE AND BOYHOOD. I/
cipher. " Home education," as Isaac Taylor calls it, was
then so frequent, that when our hero went to school,
along with a dozen other new scholars, all of them
had been taught by their parents to read. We may
give a little incident here as at once a trait of character,
and an illustration of primitive country manners. When
he went first to the parish school, situated at Chapel
Green, about two miles distant from Kilsyth, he found
he was the only boy who wore shoes and stockings !
Partly out of delicate regard for the feelings of his
fellows, and partly to escape the charge of "pridefu*-
ness" so abhorrent to a Scottish boy, he used regularly
to take off his shoes and stockings at the outside
of the town, and concealed them in a hedge till he
returned.
We find Dr. Anderson, in a letter to a London cor
respondent, 23d February, 1862, thus characterizing
his father's mode of training him, and of treating his
family generally: — "He had a latent love, unmani-
fested by any smile or cherishing word of encourage
ment, but manifested by a care which a parent has
never surpassed in the management of his brood — not
only in our moral management, but by teaching us
everything : delving, hoeing, planting, sowing, planing,
swimming, playing at draughts, chess, &c. (no cards or
dice) ; making whistles of the greenwood, watermills,
&c. ; and, observe you, I was taught at home all my
English reading, writing, and arithmetic, and went to
school ready for Latin. All this wondrous care with
out a smile or word of cherishing encouragement !
That man, my father, with one of the warmest hearts,
B
1 8 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
would have thought he was guilty of a sin (I suppose)
had he saluted me with a 'Welldone.' I see now
that there was glowing affection underneath actuating
the care ; but at this time I am a dwarfed, withered,
faint-hearted being, compared with what I would have
been had I occasionally received the salutation of
' Welldone.' " (We see all our readers who knew the
bold nature and lion-like bearing of Anderson smiling
at the word "faint-hearted.") He proceeds then to
state it as his opinion, that, while over-indulgence was
bad, yet that suppressed love in respect of manifes
tation was worse, and adds — " My father is dead, and
cannot suffer ; but I may profit my church, and have
profited it, by exposing the folly (for it was merely a
folly) of a grand parental miscalculation — that cher
ishing your child with a word of encouragement is
unauthorized and sinful."
Here, as in everything else, the medium course is
best. The "Welldone, good and faithful servant,"
should not, indeed, be reserved to the close of the
task, but should now and then cheer on the toiler
amid the burden and heat of the day. But while the
extreme to which Anderson was subjected tended, on
the whole, to hammer him out, and has in hundreds
of other instances turned out well, the plan of syste
matic indulgence — of soothing every little uneasiness,
flattering every whim, and anticipating every wish
of the child — has often a weakening and relaxing
influence, as we see continually in the youths and
girls of the period, and is less education than it is
a process of emasculation and effeminacy. Dr. Johnson,
PARENTAGE AND BOYHOOD. 19
indeed, said that he valued the praise of every
human being ; and Miss Mitford's beautiful " Voice of
Praise" may express the fine influence which sparing
and seasonable words of cheer exert on many modest
and sensitive spirits ; but there are sense and strength
also in the lines : —
"Cast the bantling on the rocks,
Feed him at the she wolf's teat;
Wintered with the hawk and fox:
Power and speed be hands and feet."
Ere we leave the subject of Anderson's father, there
are some curious particulars which we must record.
The young William was told by his father, after his
mother's death, to show he was not afraid — (he had
previously declared he had no terror) — by going to the
room where she was lying, and depositing a pillow on
the bed. He went trembling, and when he entered
the room fell into a stupor ; recovering from which, he
found himself leaning against the wall, and the pillow
lying at his feet. This bred in him an eerie feeling, so
that even after his first marriage he was afraid to sleep
in the room. He used to tell that a clergyman named
Brown had been assisting his father at the communion,
and on leaving referred to Mrs. Anderson, who was
ill, and desired him to write immediately when she
died. He did so ; and Mr. Brown said he never had
waited with more certainty for anything than for news
of the death having occurred on that particular day,
because in the western room of the manse at Kilsyth,
he had heard a voice saying to him, " Your friend's
wife dies on the
2O LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Such stories were common then — thanks to Spi
ritualism are common still, and may continue to be
common as long as man stands outside of the " great
darkness" with such an incessant desire to obtain
some information as to what is going on within ; and if
he cannot find will forge the seal and superscription of
the King of Terrors. We mention them principally
to introduce the fact that Dr. Anderson was naturally
inclined to believe such stories : his organ of Wonder
was large, and he revelled in the marvellous when it
did not move him to terror. We recollect speaking
to him about that remarkable tent of electric light
which covered the whole sky with a kind of bright,
quivering fleece, in an October evening in 1848; and
he said that it gave him, along with rapturous admira
tion, an awful feeling, as if it were the omen of some
great coming disaster. We suspect it is the same with
almost all minds of genius. It was so with Byron
and Shelley, with Hall and Foster, and even with
the calm Goethe. Genius has been called by Cole
ridge " the power of carrying on the first fresh
feelings of childhood into manhood, and mingling
them with manhood's maturer intellect and ac
complishments," as though the gold and purple
clouds and fresh breezes of the dawning were blended
with the strong light and heat of noonday. And
there is no youthful feeling so vivid in an imaginative
mind as the sense of supernatural agency, or so likely
to be retained in after life, and often at sixty and
upwards the nerves vibrate with the shock of ghost
stories which had been heard at six. Nor do such
PARENTAGE AND BOYHOOD. 21
minds in general wish to be disabused (or disenchanted
rather) on such subjects. They grasp at every line,
however frail, which links them to the spiritual world.
They feel that there are some things in heaven and
earth which are not dreamt of in popular philosophies.
And often these feelings do not amount to fears, but
are rather strong though shuddering desires to know
the best or the worst which spiritual beings can tell
or intimate about that future state of existence of
which they feel that Revelation has told them little,
and Nature nothing at all. How many from the com
pany of real solid sorrows, and from men they deem
"" earthly, sensual, devilish," have turned eagerly, pen
sively, but alas, in vain, to seek communion with the
spirits of the departed !
Anderson's first teacher was a Mr. Brownlee, who
afterwards went to America, and became a member of
the Dutch Reformed Church in New York — a profes
sor, and an esteemed author. Under him he remained
nine months, complaining afterwards that during all
that time he never received a religious lesson or ex
hortation. He next entered an adventure school in
Kilsyth, originally established by a Dr. Ritchie, and
kept by a Mr. Mackinlay, an Antiburgher student, who
taught Anderson a great deal, although in a harsh and
savage fashion. Besides the ordinary branches of
reading, writing, arithmetic, and the Latin grammar,
he got from Mackinlay what was not then common—
a considerable knowledge of the French vocabulary,
and the pronunciation too. There were 130 children
at the school, and, on account of his precocity and early
22 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
religious knowledge, the whole of the New Testament
and Bible Classes were committed to William's charge.
He was then only nine years of age. Among his
contemporaries was a strange, melancholy girl, called
Emily Motherwell, the sister of William Motherwell,.
author of the poem of "Jeanie Morrison" — a poem
which, when published first in Taifs Magazine,
brought in to the author the munificent sum of ten
shillings ! but which has gained a priceless immor
tality for its touches of exquisite pathos and simplicity.
Whether Emily Motherwell was the Jeanie Morrison
of Anderson's own love's young dream, we cannot say,
but he referred sometimes to her in after life — to her
excellent scholarship, and to her sad fate : she
eventually perished by her own hand.
CHAPTER II.
CURRICULUM AT COLLEGE AND DIVINITY HALL.
ANDERSON entered Glasgow College in the Session
of 1811-12, being twelve years and ten months old.
Early matriculation was then, and continued long,
common — perhaps is common still — in that Univer
sity. Boys even younger than Anderson, of eleven
and twelve, not unfrequently might be seen clad in
their red gowns perambulating the yards, or lounging
about the College Green, or taking part in the licensed
saturnalia of the Rectorial election, or coming up with
bashful bearing and blushing cheek to receive prizes
on the first of May. It was, on the whole, a delight
ful sight, although older people and advanced students
sighed while they smiled at the delusive hopes and
over-estimates of their own powers and destinies which
were buoying up the fine little fellows, and which were
so certain, in a greater or less degree, of disappoint
ment. One day Professor Richardson called on young
Anderson to construe some verses in Virgil, when
his Kilsyth accent and shrill, ballad -singing voice
stunned the class with astonishment, till after he had
read, not— as was common— four, but eight lines, the
silence broke out into a loud roar of laughter, as the
24 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Professor — himself considerably tickled — remarked,
"Well sung, Gulielme." Afterwards he was for a while
as regularly called upon to " sing " as is Mr. Whalley
in Parliament ; but by and bye his good scholarship
was discerned, and he became a favourite at once with
his fellow-students and with his Professor.
William Richardson was a man of no little emi
nence in his day. He had not the high qualities
of some of the other professors to whom we shall
allude immediately, but he added to very considerable
classical and general attainments, fine, though some
what finical taste, urbane manners and a knowledge
of modern literature -which enabled him to write some
able and interesting essays upon Shakspeare. These
are now superseded by the bolder and more brilliant
criticisms on the Myriad-minded, such as those of Lamb,
Hazlitt, Cowden Clarke, Coleridge, Ulrici, and a host of
other writers ; but they did good service in their day,
and there is some reason to believe that Richardson's
enthusiasm for England's greatest genius awakened that
of his pupil, who in after years admired exceedingly,
and at times quoted from his plays in the pulpit, and
was not slow to proclaim the essential Christianity of
his spirit, and of much in his writings, and whose
highest compliment to Edward Irving is to call him, in
one of his pamphlets, " The Shakspeare of the Pulpit."
Richardson seems to have felt a real heaft interest in
Anderson — often made him read the lesson ere the
class had fully met, and used to ask him a great
many questions anent Mackinlay, who seems formerly
to have attended his class.
CURRICULUM AT COLLEGE. 25
In summer he returned to Kilsyth, and continued
under Mackinlay to study Latin, Greek, and French.
When the next session commenced, he joined Pro
fessor Young's Greek Class. We have no doubt he
admired the vast scholarship and amazing eloquence
of this remarkable man — probably the greatest
genius Glasgow College ever numbered among her
Professors.
The other Professors were Jardine, of the Logic,
whose merits as a teacher of young minds have been
warmly acknowledged by Lord Jeffrey and Professor
Wilson ; James Milne, of the Moral Philosophy, who,
although accused of seeking to shake the faith of his
students, only fixed it deeper in the stronger of them,
as the blast confirms the roots of the mountain pine,
and who did a great deal to sharpen their intellects
and widen their views; Jamie Miller (as he was always
called), of the Mathematics, a good Geometrician, but
the worst and weakest of teachers, and who must
not be confounded with his father, the author of an
able work on the "Laws of Nations;" and Meikle-
wham, of the Natural Philosophy, a most gentlemanly
man, and possessed of highly respectable attainments
and teaching powers.
William Anderson gained a prize in almost every one
of his classes. This fact is connected with a charac
teristic incident When, in 1868, he presented himself
on the day for electing the first M.P. for the University
of Glasgow, to give his vote, the official would not
receive it unless he produced his tickets, which he had
lost. When he had failed to convince the man of the
26 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
validity of his claims, he said somewhat sternly, "Well,
I'll bring down my prizes !" and so the point was
settled at once.
He continued to spend his summers in his native
place. The handloom weavers there, a very intelli
gent and very Radical class, had established a good
solid Library of some 800 volumes, principally his
torical; and in these young Anderson revelled, reading
all Rollin, Hume, and Robertson, besides many others.
Shakspeare was not in the library, a fact which would
be wonderful now, but which was not surprising in a
Scotch Presbyterian village then ; but Anderson met
with a stray volume in Glasgow, and read it with
rapture, not the less that it served to diversify the
severe studies of the Moral Philosophy Class. He
delighted, too, in the scenery surrounding Kilsyth,
learned to swim in a linn half a mile up the hills,
called Dinn's Linn, and was no stranger to the neigh
bouring glories of the Campsie Mountains and the
famous Campsie Glen.
Among Anderson's associates at this time of his
life were a Mr. Rennie, who, after some peculiar expe
rience, became a distinguished physician in London,
and a very pious man of the Wilberforce school —
indeed, he attended that eminent philanthropist on
his deathbed ; and the Rev. James Miller, Chaplain in
Edinburgh Castle, who still lives to entertain a most
kindly feeling for the memory of his distinguished
classmate.
While attending James Milne's Class in Glasgow,
William Anderson wrote an essay on Conscience,
CURRICULUM AT COLLEGE. 2/
which that acute and admirable critic highly eulogised.
Milne was usually chary of his commendation, and
Anderson was proportionally elated, as the following
incident proves : — Going down soon afterwards to visit
his grandfather in Falkirk, he attended a Sacramental
preaching. The " action sermon " was good, but the
table addresses that followed seemed to our young
and self-important student mere drivel. Thus, to use
his own words, "Puffed up with self-conceit, I was
coming home (it was a fine summer evening), and
when passing by a short cut to grandfather's house,
through Stenhouse Muir, I thought I could extem
porise a Communion address. Looking round first to
make sure that not even a sheep or a cow should hear
me, I began : — " Fellow-Communicants, * Ye know the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was
rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye
through his poverty might be rich.' Having a vivid
recollection of this well-known passage, I had no
difficulty in getting thus far. Then I continued : —
' Fellow- Communicants, we have been solemnly
pledging ourselves ' — a pause and a clearing of the
throat — ' My dear Fellow-Communicants — I could
get no farther, but instantly took to my heels and ran,
stopping not till I had got over a dyke, behind which
I sank down, and roared and groaned under a burden
of shame. lMa conscience, that it should have come to
this !' "* Ever afterwards Anderson was a generous
and indulgent critic of the sermons and writings of
* There are various versions of the above anecdote, but this we give
was taken from Anderson's own lips.
28 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
other men. He inclined rather to praise than to blame;
although, when he was disgusted with affectation, or
inflated and pretentious weakness, he did not measure
his words of wrath and scorn. And, in spite of his
temporary and excusable elation, he continued for a
long time the very impersonation of the "Bashful
Man." When a friend he had known in Glasgow was
o
announced as about to visit him in Kilsyth, though
it was only three months since he had seen him, he
actually hid himself! And having been invited to visit a
family in Anderston, Glasgow, he went at least a dozen
times to the door ere he ventured to lift the knocker.
One is reminded of the story De Quincey tells of
himself, travelling all the way to the Lakes to sec
Wordsworth, reaching the hill opposite the poet's
cottage, and returning without having dared to go in.
But De Quincey continued to the close of his long
life a shy and shrinking scholar ; Anderson became in
his latter days a man of leonine boldness, who feared
not the face of man, and yet who, while he had bidden
farewell to his bashfulness, retained his modesty.
Never have we met a man less disposed to arrogate
to himself any merit but what he could fairly claim —
although of that he was justly tenacious — or more
willing to acknowledge in others qualities which he
felt were not his own.
He became a proficient in mathematics ; there was
not a proposition in Euclid which ever cost him five
minutes' trouble; he was great in measuring the
heights of steeples and cathedrals, and had designed
to prosecute the study of logarithms; but upon his
CURRICULUM AT COLLEGE. 29
father refusing to give him five shillings to buy a copy
of a treatise on that subject by Moore, he flung his
copy of Euclid on a high shelf, and resumed it no
more! In this he resembled an eminent contemporary,
Carlyle, who at college prosecuted with equal zeal his
geometrical studies, and abandoned them as entirely
afterwards.
While attending the Natural Philosophy he was
seized with small-pox, recovery from which was
attended by two results — it purified and strengthened
his system, so that for ten years he had not a headache,
and it made his hair, which had been previously soft
and fine, as hard and strong almost as a " horse mane."
It left, too, very visible marks on his skin, and changed
him, we suspect, from being a rather handsome into
a somewhat hard-featured youth, leaving, however,
unaltered the sweet, innocent smile of the lips, and his
large, black, lamping eyes, so piercing, yet kindly in
their light — features which would have redeemed much
homelier countenances than his.
He commenced his Divinity studies under Dr.
MacGill and Dr. Gavin Gibb, and profited, especially
under the latter, by acquiring a competent know
ledge of Hebrew and some acquaintance with Persian.
MacGill was an excellent, though somewhat narrow,
man — dry and stiff in manner — from whose prelections
Anderson derived little benefit, although he respected
his character, and rather relished his private society.
Dr. Gibb was a very high Churchman, and carried his
prejudices so far that, when he asked the other stu
dents to his house, Anderson alone was omitted
30 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
because he was a Dissenter. Yet he was his best
scholar, and on the last year of his attendance carried
off the first prize, known as Coulter's Donation. (It
should be remembered that at that period there was
no regular Relief Hall. The students of that body
all required to study Divinity at the Established
Theological Hall of the College.)
Anderson had belonged to a little society of kindred
spirits in Glasgow, who met regularly to read books,
converse, and, as William Laidlaw says, "screw ilk
itJier np" On returning, the summer after his firs:
session at the Hall, he felt the want of these meetings
very much ; and his father having advanced him
a sum of money, he resolved to return to Glasgow
and reside permanently there. He made arrange
ments with a newly-licensed preacher, the late Rev.
James M'Tear, M.A. (who often afterwards associated
with Anderson in Anti-Slavery and kindred move
ments), for the transference to himself of a school in
Kirk Street, Calton. Here he taught till he had
made as much money as enabled him, during the
last year of his curriculum, to dispense with school-
keeping. He, during this period, occupied lodgings
at the head of the Old Vennel. He used to spend
his Sabbath evenings at the house of Mr. Bell, a
gentleman once well known as the compiler of a
huge Geography, containing a vast amount of mis
cellaneous information, and whose conversation was
distinguished by general knowledge and meta
physical acuteness. He also became a member of
a Theological Society, which met every Saturday
CURRICULUM AT COLLEGE. 31
forenoon, and profited much by its free discussions
and criticisms.
But there was another influence at that time which
did a vast deal more to quicken Anderson's thinking,
feeling, and speaking powers — we refer to that of
Chalmers. That a man like Thomas Chalmers, enter
ing a large city, even now, would produce a sudden
and startling effect, may be granted ; but there were
circumstances at the time of his appearance in
Glasgow which surrounded him with an interest and
invested him with a power which could never be
repeated. He came to the West, if not from a sick
bed, yet with the memory of a great illness, including
in it a great sorrow and a severe spiritual conflict, and
which was still by himself profoundly felt and pain
fully revolved. He came a new man, so far as new
views of religion, new habits of life, and new schemes
of Christian action might constitute one a new crea
ture. He came in the prime of life, with youth hardly
faded into manhood, and with the entire possession of
his wondrous faculties — held, however, not in the cold
grasp of a perfected culture, but in the hot hand of
eager enthusiasm and holy zeal. He came from a
country parish, where his audience was often neither
numerous nor congenial, to the capital of the West,
which was prepared to receive and eager to welcome
him, not merely as a popular novelty but as a great
spiritual power. Artistically, theologically, and philo
sophically, he had many deficiencies, but, like spots
on the sun, they were drowned in the effulgence of his
summer glory ; and it may be said, almost without a
32 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
figure, that the entire city of Glasgow turned like a
planet round the solar blaze and strong attraction of
Chalmers' pulpit.
We have met men who heard him in those days,
and who have assured us that (to use the old
image of Longinus) Homer in the Odyssey was
not so faint a relict and shadow of Homer in the
Iliad as the Chalmers of the Divinity Hall in Edin
burgh and the Disruption Controversy was the ghost
of the Chalmers of the Iron Church and the Astrono
mical Sermons. There was then about him a Py thonic
inspiration of genius, an abandonment of manner, a
fiery force and rush of speech, an entire possession of
his whole body and soul by his ideas and feelings,
which they never saw approached by any other man,
and seldom, if ever, afterwards, even by himself. Par
ticularly, besides one or two of his Astronomical
Discourses, they signalized his Sermon on the Death
of the Princess Charlotte. This was a hurried pro
duction, and, as a composition, it hardly stands the
test, but its effect when delivered was prodigious. In
proposing, at the close, instead of the motto, "Let
Glasgow flourish," to substitute its original form, " Let
Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the Word" he
seemed absolutely to go out of himself; and his
audience, too, whether they were in the body or out
of it, could not for a season tell. In vain now to
read the sermon to seek a renewal of the effect it pro
duced — as vain as to seek for a meteoric fire in the
cold jelly which it leaves upon the ground. Chalmers
in this shares the fate — although, perhaps, in a less
CURRICULUM AT COLLEGE. 33
measure — of such orators as Demosthenes, Chatham,.
and Fox. Their effects were produced by various
elements — their personal appearance, their speaking
countenances, their tones of voice, their action, and
their words. In the printed form the words alone
remain, cold memorials of the perished power.
Some great preachers only burst upon their hearers
like apparitions, on the Sabbath-day, and produce a
great impression; then retire to their studies, and are
not visible till the Sabbath again recurs. Very
different with Chalmers. For several days in the
beginning of the week he was to be seen in the Gal-
lowgate, Saltmarket, and elsewhere, all bustling with
benevolence, climbing creaking staircases, plunging
into dirty closes, diving into cellars, examining schools,
lifting the sneck of hovels and garrets, " expatiating
among the sick and the dying," flinging himself
abroad over his district with an enthusiasm of hu
manity which to many seemed madness, and returning
to his dwelling to organise a hundred schemes of
philanthropic and Christian enterprise — himself the
originating impulse and the sustaining soul of all of
them.
This told upon many classes, but especially upon
the young, who not only hung upon his lips on
Sundays, but became eager to follow his steps, and
aid his labours during the other days of the week.
Anderson shared in the prevailing excitement to an
extraordinary degree. We heard him once from his
own pulpit describe the effect Chalmers' Astronomical
Discourses produced on his mind. They excited hirr
c
34 I-IFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
to a perfect furor — nay, threw him into a state of
chronic ecstacy, which lasted for a whole summer.
He could do little in his leisure hours but roam
through the fields and woods, meditating on the
glorious views of God's universe which Chalmers'
first Sermon had opened up when he heard it, and
which was not diminished after it was published. We
can well fancy the young enthusiast, with his dark,
gleaming eyes, and the child-like smile playing about
his mouth, wandering along the Clyde, or piercing the
groves of the Kelvin, or pacing the College Green, or
finding his way on holidays to that noble glen of
Campsie, which seems like a great, round arm, sur
rounding and sheltering its visitors from the turmoil
of the near city ; bearing in his hand the while, and
ever and anon glancing at the thin octavo, with its
half-binding, and large, sparse, clear type, from the
Hedderwick press — perhaps sometimes, as Charles
Lamb was wont to do with his favourite volumes,
kissing it in his rapturous appreciation ! It is a book
which, apart altogether from its subject and its argu
ment, was well calculated to affect a young man of
genius, from the refreshing contrast it furnished to the
dry, commonplace style and ultra-orthodox sentiment
of the books which the religious public of Scotland
were then compelled to read, and expected to admire.
Anderson took a sitting in St. John's, and divided
his Sabbath day between his own Relief pastor (the
Rev. John Barr) and Dr. Chalmers. One day he was
teaching in his school in Kirk Street, when in walked
Dr. Chalmers himself. If ever Anderson blushed more
CURRICULUM AT COLLEGE. 35
deeply than usual, and if ever he trembled at all, it
must have been then, when placed suddenly face to
face with the man he had never seen before except
when he was preaching like an inspired apostle, stand
ing on what seemed unearthly altitudes of thought,
or, in the daring flights of his imagination,
" Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air."
Chalmers in his turn, doubtless, looked with interest
at the young student, and proceeded to tell him that
he had heard of him, and wished to engage him as a
teacher in a Sabbath school which he was then estab
lishing in St. John's Parish. He asked him to repeat
the lesson which had newly been gone over with the
scholars before he entered, and, when he had finished,
expressed his warm satisfaction, saying, "Well, that
is just the thing."
Next day he met Chalmers, and accompanied him
to the people's houses, while beating up for recruits
for his Sabbath school. They soon became familiar,
and Anderson was specially astonished at the manner
in which Chalmers went about his visits. He inquired
particularly into the welfare of every family, asking
for each individual member — how Johnny was getting
on at school, how Mary was liking her new situa
tion, and so on. How Chalmers managed to possess
and retain such an intimate acquaintance with the
affairs of each household he could not understand, till
he noticed the Doctor, before ascending a stair, care
fully consulting a note-book, in which the names and
circumstances of the respective families were jotted
-6 T-IFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
down. After this peep over the great man's shoulders
Anderson's wonder at him might be lessened, but his
respect and affection were only increased.
He attended also a course of chemistry under Dr.
Thomson, who at that time stood next in Britain to
Sir Humphrey Davy for knowledge of chemical
science. He also took a course of anatomy, under
Dr. Brown, in the Mechanics' Institution, Glasgow, by
which he was highly benefited.
He was at length licensed by the Relief Presby
tery of Glasgow, on Sept. 5, 1820— accepted a call
to John Street Church in that city on March 6, 1821,
which had been moderated the previous February ;
but, owing to causes to be detailed in the next chapter,
was not ordained till ;th February, 1822.
CHAPTER III.
OBSTRUCTIONS TO ORDINATION.
CHALMERS, amidst the many influences he exerted
at that time in Glasgow and Scotland, everywhere
created a race of copyists throughout the land. As
Pollok says of Byron and his followers—
" Many that aimed to imitate his flight
With weaker wing, unearthly fluttering made,
And gave abundant sport to after days."
Pulpits, both Established and Dissenting, alike at
liome, in England, and in the Colonies; and Divinity
Halls, rang with the convulsive efforts of a race of
young men, who imitated the great man in his speech,
in his style, in his manner, and generally, also, in his
evangelical sentiments. It became a rage and a
fashion. Some, unable to retain the height which they
had laboriously reached, by and bye returned to their
original dead level of mediocrity. Others, who were
themselves men of original power, continued on the
wing, but struck out in directions of their own ; and
their flight, if it was lower and less ambitious, became
stronger and more sustained.
Among Chalmers' imitators were Anderson and
Edward Irving. Of Irving we shall speak afterwards.
38 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Anderson was for a long time as completely led cap
tive by Chalmers as Hall records himself to have been
by Dr. Johnson. He wrote like Chalmers, screamed
like him, gesticulated, foamed, and flung about in
the pulpit, as much in his master's manner as he
could. Above all, like him he READ his dis
courses. Reading his sermons was a custom which
Chalmers had learned in the school of the Moderates,
and had not been able to resign when he became the
Coryphaeus of the Evangelical party. He read, indeed,
as no other man ever did. " It was/6'// reading yon,"
as the old woman remarked when she heard him.
As he went on, the very existence of his MS. was
forgotten alike by himself and his audience. The
thought he wished to inculcate, the feeling he wanted
to circulate, seemed to possess, like a demoniac energy,
first his own soul and body, and then those of his
hearers, till a certain strange unity was attained, and
you imagined a tree, from its top to its root, from its
trunk to its remotest twig, filled and torn and swayed
to and fro by a tempest.
Such effects were produced, not through his reading,
but in spite of it. This, however, was not perceived
by his imitators, who, besides having written their
sermons in that elaborate and high-wrought style
which Chalmers used, with long involved sentences
and words of thundering sound, found it far easier to
read than to mandate and recite them. In the Theo
logical Society which Anderson attended he was the
only member who dared to imitate Dr. Chalmers in
writing long sentences, and reading them from the
OBSTRUCTIONS TO ORDINATION. 39
MS. When at any time he repeated his sermons from
memory he hesitated and blundered so much, that his
fellow-students cried out, " Reciting wont do — read,
read!" He determined, therefore, to be a reader
after he was licensed, although he gave all his trials
before the Presbytery (except the Thesis, which was
always read) memoriter. His chief obstacle in this was
his father, who predicted that reading would be his
ruin. "Pho!" replied the son, "you don't know what
reading is; you think it is boring away with your nose
on the paper. You never heard Chalmers read!"
And so, when licensed, he read his first public ser
mon in Mr. French's church, Strathaven (afterwards Dr.
French of Edinburgh, himself a refined and eloquent
preacher), and the people Avere so much interested
that they did not observe he was reading at all. And
then he formed the resolution that whatever vacancy
he visited he should recite the lecture in the morning,
and read the sermon in the afternoon. To this there
did not seem to be, on the part of his audience, the
slightest objection. Some cynics might sneer and call
him a bastard of Chalmers, but the great majority
admired him exceedingly. To the people in John
Street church he made himself acceptable, notwith
standing his paper. But the Presbytery had yet to be
faced — a Presbytery, the proceedings of which prove
that some of their members were previously prejudiced
against him and waiting for his halting. He had to
deliver his trials before them, and the subject of one of
his exercises was "Refuse profane and old wives' fables."
Anderson ventured to enumerate, as one of these old
40 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
wives' fables, the objection entertained by many to
read discourses. This gave great offence; all the other
trials but this were sustained, and the case was delayed
for a month. At its expiry he came forward with a
calm, commonplace discourse in place of the other,
which was passed, but the Rev. Wm. Carrick, Hamilton,
brought up a complaint against Anderson that he was
a habitual reader. Anderson contended that, as the
people of John Street called him in the full knowledge
of this habit, he would consider himself at full liberty to
do as he pleased, although, in his correspondence with
his fathers and brethren he would never, as he had
never yet done, obtrude his MS. on them. The Pres
bytery were not satisfied, and a great cry was raised
about the number of churches which had left the
Establishment from the objection to read discourses
and about "consuetudinary law." Anderson fought
his battle bravely, and challenged them to produce a
single instance in which his use of the paper had given
popular offence. A blind Avoman had been praising
one of Anderson's sermons, when a neighbour inter
posed — "But he was reading it." "I'm sure I did not
see him," was the naive reply.
The case was like to break down, when some
member of the Presbytery, since the ice against
the obnoxious man was broken, proceeded to say
that he had other objections to Anderson, and
had prepared a list of questions he wanted him
to answer. Some members, afraid he might crimi
nate himself, urged him to give no reply. " Let
him libel you, if he will, but don't answer those
OBSTRUCTIONS TO ORDINATION. 41
questions." Anderson, however, strong in conscious
innocence, said he was quite ready to hear and to
reply to them. They turned out to be exceedingly
frivolous and vexatious, founded on misconception of
figurative language, or on their own notions of
doctrine, which, even for that time, were exception
ally narrow. One of them was, " Did you not state
that you could not say that the Atonement was
absolutely necessary, and that it was because God
appointed it that you considered it to be, in the Divine
judgment, the best way of saving sinners?" Anderson
replied that he thought so; and so did Archbishop
Magee, author of what was then considered the stand
ard work on the Atonement. A further question was
(Credat Jud<zus!)y "What do you think Abraham
believed about Original Sin ?" " I don't know," re
plied Anderson, "but I know what / believe about
it ;" and then proceeded to state the orthodox view,
which was at that time his own. This absurd question
he traced afterwards to some misreported remark he had
made to a minister about Dwight's theory of Original
Sin. There was still another about " the Holy Ghost
being purchased by Christ," which kept up a fearful fer
ment against him for eleven months, although founded
on an expression he had used in family prayer, and
susceptible of quite a harmless interpretation. Con
ceive the effect of all this on a youth of twenty-
two, conscious not only of talent but of genius, and
burning, besides, with true evangelical zeal, straining
on the slip to enter on his Master's work, and kept
back by the leash of such wretched quibbles ! It did
4- LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
not crush, however — nay, it raised him — and during
these eleven months he occasionally supplied the
pulpit of John Street, its " Great Unordaincd" gratify
ing, too, to himself and his hearers by using the
tabooed " paper " the whole time.
Yet he began to feel wearied and sick of his solitary
position, and had secretly made up his mind to go to
America. He had even begun the opening sentences
of a farewell discourse when he was interrupted by a
visit from the Rev. Mr. Fergus, a friend of his father.
Fergus had somehow or other become aware of
Anderson's intention, but strongly dissuaded him
from it. He induced him at last to delay it, and
proceeded to use his influence with Anderson's prin
cipal opponent with such effect that at the next meet
ing of Presbytery proceedings against him were sisted,
and his ordination was appointed, on the understand
ing that he would at least fairly make an effort to
dispense with reading. He did honestly make the
attempt several times ; but one afternoon, in the midst
of a brilliant peroration, words and thoughts alike
deserted him, and he came down from the height of
his fervid eloquence like a shot eagle. He had fortu
nately his MS. with him to break his fall ; to it he
resorted, and from that day forward he never tried
to recite, but became more and more a shameless
offender ; and by and bye he had the satisfaction of
seeing others following his example in a line of
READERS as long as the blood of Banquo !
He used to tell a curious anecdote connected with
this period of his life, during which he was the
OBSTRUCTIONS TO ORDINATION. 43
observed of all observers, the suspected of all sus-
pecters, and the best-abused minister in the West
of Scotland. He was proceeding by coach to John-
stone wrapped in an incognito cloak, his companions
an elderly gentleman and a young lady. They were
talking about the wonderful things and persons in
Glasgow, when the young lady said that there was a
great noise about a Mr. Anderson there, a young
minister, who, on the previous Sabbath (the first
Sabbath of January), had, on entering the pulpit,
saluted the people with the words, " A Happy New
Year to you all." The gentleman expressed his sur
prise at such an outre thing being done by Mr.
Anderson, whose fresh and impressive discourses he
had often heard with pleasure and profit. On
leaving the coach, which was going on farther,
Anderson, addressing the young lady, said — "Among
all the strange things you have to tell of Mr. Ander
son, tell how easily he can forgive chattering, but
mind you DON'T LIE," and so saying, left his com
panions to their wonderment.
On the subject of reading sermons a great deal might
be said on both sides. The prejudice against the custom
was well founded when the sermon read was not the
reader's own ; when it was read in a slovenly and
careless manner; and, poor and dry in itself, borrowed
neither grace nor force from the delivery. But when well
composed and well given, read sermons are now wel
comed almost everywhere throughout the churches.
Indeed, readers, we think, arc, on the whole, the more
popular class of the two among the thoughtful and
44 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
intelligent, who seek not so much excitement as in
struction. Anderson, be it remarked, not unfrequently
extemporised or recited in his latter years. We heard
him so late as 1859 speak in his own church for more
than half-an-hour, from the spur of the moment, in
a most effective style. We shall refer to this address
afterwards. There was a refreshing raciness about its
delivery as well as style ; and his read sermon, which
followed it, fell comparatively flat. Perhaps had he
always recited, it might have suited better his impul
sive and impetuous genius, at least at times; but there
were other occasions when the paper formed a salutary
drag upon the rushing wheels of the chariot
Conceive his astonishment when, in the year 1849,
the Synod passed a resolution which virtually con
demned the practice of reading sermons; and the
indignation with which, at the cry of "Anderson to
the rescue !" he rushed forward, and, by a charac
teristically trenchant and manly speech, hamstrung
what threatened to be a most tyrannical measure. It
was one of these grand coups de main only competent
to a man of Anderson's prestige, readiness, and bold
ness. Ever since, reading has not only been permitted,
but has been steadily gaining the ascendant in the
United Presbyterian Church; nor do we hear any
complaints that the power and excellence of sermons
have suffered thereby.
We may be allowed for a moment to look at the
prospect here opened and shut so suddenly upon him,
like a vista momentarily revealed and withdrawn in a
forest, of William Anderson having gone to America
OBSTRUCTIONS TO ORDINATION. 45
to push his ecclesiastical fortune there. We cannot
doubt for an instant that he would have been triumph
antly successful. His fearless spirit of independence,
his daring originality of style, his constitutional Re
publicanism, his contempt for conventionalities, his
strong practical purpose, his union of general ortho
doxy of religious sentiment with deviations and
diversities in minor matters — keeping the main road
usually, but often springing out of it into bye-paths,
which led, however, in the same direction, and as
often returning to the main road again — would have
combined, with his eccentricities and his strongly-
pronounced individuality, to make him a great
power — a Henry Ward Beecher, and something
more — in New York or Philadelphia. Then, too,
there would have probably been an earlier pul
pit crusade against the "Peculiar Institution" than
actually took place. But it was otherwise ordered.
Glasgow, as it had been, if not his mother, his nurse,
while its University was his Alma Mater — and its
great man Chalmers, his intellectual model and
spiritual father — so it was destined to be the home of
his heart, the centre of his activities, the focus of his
power, and the depository of his dust.
The following is Anderson's reply to the Presbytery
anent using his manuscript, dated July i8th, 1821: —
" William Anderson to the Reverend the Moderator
and oilier Members of the Glasgoiv Relief
Presbytery,
" In reply to the demand of a pledge made at their
46 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
last meeting, and required of him before he be
granted ordination by them, as minister of
John Street Congregation.
"I read openly — in secret did I nothing — when can
didate for the favour of John Street Congregation;
and so long as the practice does not meet their
censure, so long as it continues to have their appro
bation, I could never accuse myself of impropriety of
conduct in making free and public use of my manu
script. But seeing it is a stumbling-block in the way
of the Presbytery; seeing I wished to be joined, and to
live in peace with the members of that religious deno
mination for admission into whose society I have pro
posed myself as candidate; and seeing I have never
yet acted with the obstinacy and purpose of an inno
vator, without reluctance do I now make promise, of
what I could at no time have hesitated to promise,
that when admitted into a neighbour's pulpit I shall
never obtrude the censured conduct on a congregation
which, I am taught to understand, account the reading
of Jesus Christ's Gospel an impropriety or crime: and
more, that even in my own I shall in the point of reci
tation, as well as in others, conform, or endeavour to
conform, with the customs of my brethren, whenever
such conformity shall not be obstructive, in the way
of discharging higher duties, whether as the guardian
of my own health or the guardian of the spiritual
interests of the congregation given me to instruct by
God.
"WILLIAM ANDERSON.
"GLASGOW, 18th July, 1821."
CHAPTER IV.
SETTLEMENT AND EARLY MINISTRY IN JOHN
STREET CHURCH.
THOUGH a very strong and bold man, Anderson had
also a sensitive disposition ; and the senseless persecu
tion to which he was exposed on account of reading
his discourses, had an influence on him of a depress
ing kind, which, we believe, he was never afterwards
able entirely to shake off. He felt, especially when
appearing in a new pulpit, or before a strange
audience, as if there was a prejudice against him on
their part which had to be encountered, and which, as he
scorned to conciliate, he must brave. Often, indeed,
his prevailing feeling was " simply a desire to get off."
Although an amiable and warm-hearted man, he
exhibited now and then traces that the iron had
entered into his soul at this early period, and felt that
hard measures had been allotted to him by those who
should have helped and cheered him on. But this, in
the long run, was better for him than had he been
nursed and dandled into a popular pet. To have
weakened Anderson would have been a difficult task,
but such indulgence might have acted as Capua did
on Hannibal — relaxing his efforts though not en
feebling his strength.
4& LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
But now he had to prepare for new labours and new
trials too. In John Street Congregation he found no bed
of roses. The church was in a very unhealthy condition.
It had been built by a party who had left Dovehill
after the death of the Rev. T. Bell. The property,
with the exception of a portion held in common, was
distributed among them — so many pews to each — and
every one had the letting of his own pews, which were
disposed of by auction, and went to the highest
bidder. Each proprietor had to pay a certain amount
of feu-duty, proportioned to the estimated value or
advantage of the pews, and this feu-duty, along with
the rents of the common pews and the collections at
the door, formed the church's revenue, and amounted,
at the time of Anderson's ordination, to about £200,
and this was the guaranteed amount of his stipend.
Owing to carelessness and irregularity on the part
of the former pastor, who had retired on an allowance
of £100 a year, to collect which the feu-duty had
been raised 30 per cent, the congregation had not a
reputable name, and was in a very disorganised con
dition. The communicants' roll was unpurged, and
required purgation so much that it was agreed to
invite all who claimed membership to call upon the
new minister. Few stood the test. A meeting for
the purpose of purging the list of members was held
every week for a whole twelvemonth — a source of
dreadful worry and exhaustion to Anderson. It would
have been far better had he undertaken the task of
forming a new congregation and building a new
church at once. In this disagreeable and fagging
SETTLEMENT IN JOHN STREET. 49
work Anderson was sustained by the freshness and
vigour of his youth — he was only twenty-three years
of age — and by that sense of duty which then, as
during all his long career, never relaxed for a
moment He felt himself more than almost any man
we have met, " Ever in his Great Taskmaster's eye."
This, he says himself in some MS. memorials which
lie before us, was "more at that time the spring of
his action than was love for his Master." His steps
were tuned less by love than b/ law ; and the spirit
of stern determination which never deserted him was
then less softened and sweetened than afterwards by
Christ -like tenderness. During his student career
Christ was more a doctrine to him than a person;
and it was not otherwise till he had been some time in
the ministry.
Discovering, from personal observation, the gross
ignorance of many of his members, he commenced
a course of systematic preaching. For two years
he preached a series of sermons which virtually
included a system of divinity. This benefited his
people much, but it benefited himself more. It riveted
and rooted in his mind what he had learned in a
cursory manner at the Divinity Hall. It vivified and
heated the cold stores of theological learning which
he had laid in previously, and, instead of dead fuel,
there was now living flame. It brought home doc
trines, which before stood afar off, to his heart and
personal experience. Of truly scientific, theological, or
exegetical training, there was none then in Scotland,
nor for many years afterwards; but in lieu of this,
D
50 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
and certainly next best, was the method Anderson
pursued with himself. At the end of his two years'
self-training he was probably better prepared to have
been appointed a divinity professor than many imagined
who were very ready to concede him genius, but who
denied him solid theological attainments, till his work
on " Regeneration" appeared. Such mistakes are often
made. Burke, because he had the most brilliant
imagination in the world, was long denied judgment,
or even knowledge, till it was found out that " he was
the wisest and most eloquent man of his age — his
wisdom being greater than his eloquence." When
Dr. Chalmers was appointed to the Edinburgh Theo
logical Chair, there was an outcry, " It ought to have
been Dr. Andrew Thomson ; he would teach theology
more successfully, because he had studied it more
systematically;" but the preference was justified by
Chalmers giving his students something better than
mere dry theology — the inspiration of his own reli
gious enthusiasm, and the impulse of his own restless
energy. We imagine that Anderson, had he been
appointed in middle-life to a Chair, would in like
manner have compelled those who might most bit
terly have reviled or ridiculed the choice, to admit
that "an ounce of mother-wit is worth a pound of
clergy," and that genuine earnestness, quickened by
the burning fire of genius, is more calculated to stimu
late young men than the heaviest loads of learning,
or the most scientific possession of them, if there be
little else. At the same time, let us rejoice that at
present in the United Presbyterian Hall there is a
SETTLEMENT IN JOHN STREET. 51
combination in its various accomplished professors of
almost all the qualities which are needed for the
instruction of candidates for the ministry, even in our
peculiar and perilous days.
Anderson took great delight also in his Classes.
From his examinations of young communicants he
soon saw the necessity of a more thorough training
for the young than either family instruction or Sab
bath schools could supply. He established two classes
which he taught every Tuesday and Thursday evening.
These he conducted for twenty-five years, never permit
ting any engagement, festive or other, to interfere with
them. Good Mr. Jameson of Methven used to exclaim,
in reference to his Bible Class, " O, that class ; I feel
often as if heaven were opening upon me there!"
Many can sympathise with this saying. The minister
in his class feels himself perfectly at home ; it is taught
generally in the evening when his mind is finely toned,
and has not fully subsided from the excitement of the
day. The wind is down, but the sea is still running
high. He is surrounded by young ingenuous faces,
or by souls dawning into immortal life ; and surely the
evening star coming out in the yellow west of an
autumn evening, is not so beautiful as the light of
immortal mind beginning to break from a youthful
eye ; and cold must be his heart, and dead his imagi
nation, if his tongue be not touched with fire. Espe
cially have such joys been felt in the evenings of
summer, or more delicious still, when summer is
swooning away into the arms of autumn, explaining
to artless youth the Pilgrim's Progress — that parable
52 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
of sanctified genius and wisdom, worthy almost to be
bound up with the parables of Celestial truth in the
Bible — while the soul of the inspired tinker seems to
have entered the room, and to have melted down
teacher and taught into one menstruum of wonder,
love, and worship ! That such pleasures were Ander
son's we cannot for a moment doubt from what we
knew of his temperament and of his love to children,
and the young generally ; and privileged must those
have been of his congregation who, as under-teachers,
or otherwise, were permitted to hear one weaned
child talking to other weaned children, and talking of
the Holy Child, who once lay in the manger and bled
upon the Cross !
These efforts and his style of preaching which became
less Chalmerian, and more Baxterian — very plain and
searching in its character — produced a powerful effect
in his congregation, and tended to raise its spiritual
tone to a very satisfactory pitch. With what he once
called to us " the mere mesmeric excitement of Revival
ism" he had little sympathy, but he liked to see people
in deep quiet earnest about religious matters ; and
this was the state of his church generally in his ear
lier years. From 1822 to 1830, he had to struggle
almost single-handed in his various labours. He had
not a proper Session nor staff of managers as co-work
ers with him ; and at first there was not a single agency
in the congregation. All these, however, successively
grew up around him. He got a capital Session. At
first the management was in the hands of the pew pro
prietors, many of whom resided at a distance, and
SETTLEMENT IN JOHN STREET. 53
cared little for the prosperity of the church ; but a suc
cessful movement was originated for raising a fund to
purchase the pews; and in this way resident members
gradually came into power, and ultimately the whole
property of the church was redeemed by the congre
gation. In all this Anderson showed a wisdom in
organizing with which he had not been previously
credited; and which showed that the power of his
judgment was equal to the energy of his will, and the
originality of his genius.
In addition to the other agencies which he set
agoing, and which began to buzz like a hundred fac
tory wheels around him, the strong central figure, he
had a Library established, and found, as all ministers
do, that it is in a congregation a fountain of intelli
gence and life, seconding his pulpit teachings, and
tending to ballast mere emotion with solid knowledge
and progressive Christian thought. Now, Congrega
tional libraries, though still very useful, are less neces
sary; but then, a good library in a church exerted a
power, especially over the young, the force of which
was quite incalculable, and to which many trace their
first literary tastes and aspirations, as well as often
their profoundest spiritual convictions, and rarest
spiritual, intellectual, and moral delights.
Up to 1830 Anderson was thus engaged in a severe
struggle, which allowed him scarcely any time for
relaxation. "And," as he used to say, "he would
decidedly have sunk had it not been for two things —
good health and a good wife." In his courtship, as in
that of most men of genius, a good deal that was
54 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
romantic entered, and to be altogether reticent on this
in his Memoir were to be untrue to his character, and to
present a mutilated version of his history. Two years
before he was licensed, and when attending Mr. Barr's
Church, Dovehill, he saw one day a young lady
who seemed to him a vision of loveb'ness — tall,,
dark-haired, and handsome in form — and for whom he
conceived an ideal passion. Mr. Barr had talked of
introducing him to a young lady of his acquaintance
who might suit him, but after that sight the proffered
introduction was no longer desired. It turned out,
fortunately, that Mr. Barr's young friend and the
creature of the day-dream were one and the same!
Her name was Isabella Binnie, daughter of Mr. John
Binnie, builder, Glasgow. They became acquainted,
and found an extraordinary congeniality in their
spiritual feelings. She was very devout, as he also was,
but her piety was more deeply tinged than his with
melancholy. He was of service in modifying these
feelings on her part, and her experiences instructed him
how to deal with similar cases in his ordinary ministra
tions; it was, in short, a "religious courtship," and ended
in a happy marriage in 1825. We did not meet with Mrs.
Anderson till the year 1848. She was then a comely
matron, with most motherly manners — possessed of
great good sense, her mind coloured at times with a
shade of pensiveness; a devout believer in Anderson,
from whose Millenarian views she had, she told us,
derived much comfort; a kind parent, and altogether a
true companion, friend, and helpmeet to her admirable
husband.
SETTLEMENT IN JOHN STREET. 55
While thus busy with congregational and matri
monial matters, Anderson was slowly but steadily
rising in the estimation of all his acquaintances,
and of his brethren in the ministry. It began to
be seen, though not of course so fully as in later
years, that underneath all his warmth of temper
and occasional eccentricity of speech, there lay not
only a vein of true genius, but an uncommon share
of common sense, blended with a degree of racy
humour. We find in the document already alluded to
an anecdote which is illustrative of this remark. We
may quote it. A vacancy had occurred in the church
at Tollcross — a village near Glasgow — and Anderson
having preached there frequently, had been appointed
Moderator of the Session during the interval. He had
on one occasion presided at the Sacrament, which
passed off well, and on Monday the Elders and Mana
gers assembled, as usual, along with the Ministers in
the Session-house. One of the Elders, who led the con
gregation, took the opportunity of saying to Mr. Ander
son, "You have been a good friend to us; we wish you
to do us another good turn still; we are in great per
plexity about a minister; the mind of the congregation
is distracted between Mr. Ney and Mr. Muir; would you
kindly say which of them you prefer?" "Oh," cried
Anderson, "I'll give you my opinion in a sentence: Mr.
Ney is a tall man, but very thin, and Mr. Muir is a short
man, but rather thick; and if you were to put them in
the bauks (scales), I think they would just about weigh
one another." A roar of laughter followed, under
cover of which Anderson accomplished his retreat.
$6 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
We may simply mention that Mr. Ney was called,
and that there was no man in the Relief body of whose
abilities and commanding eloquence Anderson enter
tained a higher opinion. Mr. Muir we believe to be
identical with the late Rev. Francis Muir of Leith — a
most genial and gentlemanly man, who married a sister
of the late distinguished wit, litterateur, and lawyer,
Sheriff Logan.
CHAPTER V.
AS A PREACHER— THE ORGAN QUESTION.
ANDERSON as a preacher rose speedily into notice and
popularity. He struck Glasgow "like a planet." Nor
was that then an easy achievement. Never were there
more eloquent or successful preachers there than at
that time. Chalmers was still preaching, if not with
all the ardour and vehemence of his first manner, with
great power and undiminished popularity. Edward
Irving was still there — although on wing for London —
addressing an audience, fit though few. Dr. Wardlaw
was in the prime of his life and his pulpit acceptance.
Dr. Heugh had recently arrived from Stirling, bringing
along with him a graceful presence and manner, and a
mind of rare activity. Dr. John Dick, the author of
the Lectures on Divinity, and the well-known book on
Inspiration, had never been a popular preacher, but
stood very high as a divine and a sagacious man. The
late amiable and accomplished Dr. Mitchell, and the
ambitious and eloquent Dr. Muter, were preaching to
large audiences in the United Secession body; and
there were, besides, other men of mark in the city pul
pits. But there was room for another orator, and an
entirely different style of speech, and that room Ander
son filled, and that new style Anderson supplied. He
58 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
struck at once to the heart of the people, and the people
at once owned and accepted him as the preacher for them.
He gave them exactly that strong, simple, yet stimu
lating food which they required. Many preachers of
great ultimate eminence attain their position slowly,
and after the wear and tear of many anxious and hard
working years; but Anderson sprung at once, if not to
the full management and control of his powers, yet to
the absolute possession of the field where these powers
were to be successfully displayed and gradually deve
loped. His evening lectures became crowded to suffo
cation. Long before the time hundreds were obliged,
disappointed, to turn away. And there appeared
month after month the plain, simple, bright-eyed, dark-
haired, large-mouthed, and firm-nerved man, who, be
ginning his services without any effort or ostentation,
reading the chapter with quiet earnestness from a folio
Oxford Bible, giving out with impressive simplicity a
psalm or hymn or spiritual song, and praying with great
richness of sentiment and unction of spirit, proceeded
to launch away into some interesting theme, now of
doctrine, now of prophecy, now of practice, and now of
immediate popular interest, and held his audience cap
tive as by a spell; now melted them to tears, now sub
dued them to silence, and now made them
"Spill rich laughter from their thriftless eyes ;"
but always sent them home with a deep, serious
impression — always convinced them of his own sin
cerity, and often of their need of a Saviour. As he
told us once, " Many who came to scoff remained to
pray." There was no doubt much both in his matter
AS A PREACHER — THE ORGAN QUESTION. 59
and manner that was bizarre and extravagant ; but
so it is, and ought to be, with men of original manhood.
Rising out of the red earth, some of it may be
expected to cling to them as they come. The roughest
men are usually the strongest. The grandest statues
in the world are naked. The rich virgin soil is often
as rank with weeds as it is fertile with golden grain.
You must allow the Esau his hairy skin, and Samson
the uncombed luxuriance of his giant locks. And
Anderson, unlike many popular idols, rose to eminence
not in consequence but in spite of his defects.
Yet these defects and occasional extravagances pro
voked a good deal of criticism ; more, however, of a
genial than of an ill-natured kind. Some attached to
his name the soubriquet of " Daft Willie Anderson."
A good story, too, goes of an English traveller, who,,
stopping of a Sunday in an inn near John Street,
inquired at the ostler, " Have you any crack preachers
in Glasgow?" " What's your wull?" rejoined the
man, rubbing his head; "crack what, Sir?" "Oh,
crack preachers!" replied the bagman; "in a large
city like this there must be some crack preacher or
other." "I dinna ken what ye mean, Sir, by crack
preachers, but if ye want to hear a crackit ane, you
have just to step in yonder," pointing to Anderson's
church. Crackit or not, daft or wise, our brave-
hearted divine persevered ; bore the laughter ; did the
good; retorted the shafts of scorn; resisted, too, the
enervating influences of popularity ; outlived his own
faults; and reared at last a basis for his reputation
which has not since been shaken.
60 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
During Anderson's long career in Glasgow his
subjects of discourse in the pulpit were exceedingly
miscellaneous ; boldly varied, and sometimes daringly
peculiar. There lingers still a class of men who hold
very narrow and stringent views, not only about the
Sabbath, but about what subjects should be treated
on Sabbath days. They forget that the Reformers
and early Puritans handled secular subjects in a reli
gious spirit, and extracted grand spiritual lessons
from the politics of the period, by a kind of alchymy.
Dr. Anderson often acted on the same principle. He
preached and lectured — no man forbidding him, in
that noble, free pulpit of his, surrounded by hundreds
of glittering faces and beating hearts — upon the duties
of the working classes to employers, and of employers
to them; upon the political questions of the day;
upon Negro Slavery and the American War; upon
home as well as foreign politics ; and yet, all the
while, he never forgot to carry on simultaneously
courses of elaborate sermons on all the important
doctrines of Christianity. His words have been emi
nently "words on the wheels" — pat to each popular
subject which came prominently up, and yet pervaded
to the core with the spirit of the Gospel of the Grace
of God.
There was one passion in Anderson's nature extremely
strong, and to which he had given very careful culture
— we refer to music. His love for poetry and paint
ing was considerable. No man, he says, in one of his
letters, relished the fine passages in poetry better than
he did; but then he had not thoroughly cultivated his
AS A PREACHER — THE ORGAN QUESTION. 6 1
taste or instinct in either of these directions. But it
was different with music. There he was a skilled
enthusiast. He sang himself, and sang with great
force and feeling. He drew up a music book, en
titled "The Sacred Choir," a collection of excellent
tunes, several of which were his own composition.
We have already pictured him singing at his father's
jubilee; and we have heard him singing in his
later days, "Wee Willie Winkie" to children. It
was fine to see him taking a child on his knee, and
to hear him singing that most delightful of nursery
rhymes (written by the late William Miller), his voice
slightly cracked with years, but his whole soul and
heart in the performance; while the child, at first
bashful and awe-struck when in the presence, and
exalted to the knee of the great man, speedily lost
these feelings in love for his condescension and unpre
tending simplicity.
It was only natural for Anderson to love instru
mental music, especially the organ. Himself all alive
and trembling to the influences of melody — the voice
of the organ seemed, as Shakspeare has it, "sweet
thunder," as if descending from a loftier sphere ; and
he could not feel the force or see the bearing of the
petty objections which were brought against it by men
who apparently preferred the nasal notes of a drowsy
precentor, or the creaking voices of septuagenarian
men and women to such a swell of sound as might
almost, besides enrapturing the living, awaken the
dead.
In 1829, organ worship was introduced into a Relief
62 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Church, Roxburgh Street, Edinburgh, where Mr. John-
stone was minister. This led to a great ferment in
the denomination. The case came before the Relief
Synod, where the use of the organ was condemned.
Mr. Johnstone left the church, and, in consequence,
Anderson flung himself into the controversy with all
his usual energy and boldness ; and, not content with
protesting against the decision of the Synod, published
a pamphlet or two, which may even yet be read with
interest and instruction.
This first pamphlet is entitled " An Apology for the
Organ," and is remarkable for the power and eloquence
with which he disposes of those objectons of " innova-
tion — sensuous character — Popish tendency of the
instrument," &c., which have been lately resuscitated ;
for the knowledge and the skill with which he manages
the scriptural argument on the subject ; and for the
masterly statement of the musical advantages of the
organ, only competent to a proficient in the art.
This pamphlet went through two editions, and in the
year 1855, a numerous requisition having been signed
in Glasgow for its re-publication, he issued it in a third.
He had previously published an appendix to it, includ
ing a history of the case which had suggested his
pamphlet, and remarks on a reply to it which had
appeared.
Anderson, after all that he so wisely and eloquently
said on the, subject, lived to see how this manifest im
provement in public worship was resisted in his own
denomination and others ; how, in a confusion of the
orthodox senses the smell of popery was felt in the sound
AS A PREACHER— THE ORGAN QUESTION. 63
of that noble instrument which soothed and sublimated
the soul of the Nonconformist Milton ; — which peals
through the church as though the everlasting boom of
the ocean, or the deep bass of the thunder had been
pressed into the service of the sanctuary, and made to
mingle homage to Jesus with their old praise of
Jehovah ; and the only objection to which, worth the
ink recording, or the breath expressing it, is perhaps,
that it is fitter for heaven than for earth, to lead the
worship of angels rather than that of men ! The proposal
to introduce this magnificent " Aid to devotion," which
many deem the one thing in the Romish worship
worth borrowing, and which has long been borrowed
by many evangelical churches, was received for some
time, both in England and Scotland, with a mixture
of fear and fury, as if the organ were the flourish pre
liminary to the entrance of the surplice, the liturgy,
the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and all the
absurdities and abominations of Popery besides ; while
in fact, it raises the gracefulness of public praise to
grandeur, rounds off and rolls up to heaven the vague
emotions of the assembly, and provides for prepared
spirits each first day of the week a rehearsal of joys
which may be recognised in higher stages of existence!
He lived also to see the organ at last made a matter
of forbearance and expediency in the United Presby
terian body, but this was long after his infirmity of
hearing rendered him incapable of enjoying it. How
painful it was for him to feel this disease creeping round
and deepening upon him, till it amounted to partial
deafness, and the "daughters of music" were brought
64 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
low and could sing but little; and even as poor Cowper
said he never expected to see hills till he saw them in
heaven, so our gifted and godly friend did not for a
number of years hear his loved organ, and could only
entertain the prospect of hearing it again as it accom
panied the songs and sweetened the services of the
first-born above !
We were seldom more pained than once in, we think,
the year 1864. We were preaching morning and even
ing in Glasgow, but had the afternoon to ourselves.
We went, as was often our custom in similar circum
stances, to John Street to worship. It happened to be
the quarterly Sacrament. Dr. Anderson was not offi
ciating, but he was there. After the services (con
ducted, we remember, with great unction and interest
by his colleague Dr. Macleod, now of Birkenhead, and
Mr. Alison of Kilbarchan), and when the congregation
was about to dismiss, the anthem was sung, "Crown
Him Lord of all." Anderson had had the place in the
book pointed out to him, and knew what was being sung.
But he could not hear one note. We saw him turning
his ear in the direction whence the music was issuing,
and darting a look of intense anguish and disappoint
ment. That look we shall never forget. All the agony
of age seemed condensed in it. We had often pitied
him sitting solitary in a great excited throng, and not
hearing a syllable of what was going on. But not
hearing, at the close of a communion day, a musical
ascription so concordant with his feelings to Christ the
King of the Church and the universe, and one so sweet
and noble in itself, — it seemed the severest of punish-
AS A PREACHER — THE ORGAN QUESTION. 65
ments and the greatest of privations. But the pang
would be transient, for his faith in immortality, and in
the harmonies of heaven swelling up for ever around
the Throne of Immanuel, was very firm; and he never
was destitute of a humble hope that his voice would
yet mingle with that eternal diapason, and that his
ear would be "unstopped" to drink in these blessed
sounds.
CHAPTER VI.
ANDERSON'S MILLENARIANISM.
THIS formed a fact so important in Anderson's history,
and reveals so much of his peculiar character as a
thinker and a man, that we must treat of it at some
little length. In his early days William Anderson
held, we presume, the common ideas about Christ and
the Eschatology of his religion. Christianity began
with a supernatural crown around its infant head, even
as old painters represent the child Jesus with a halo
round his brow. But, like the corona round a nebulous
star, that light had gradually faded, and was to return
no more. The religion of Jesus was to go on solely
through its intrinsic truth and energy, along with the
demonstration and power of the Holy Ghost, till it
gained universal prevalence. And at some uncertain
period hereafter Christ was to return to judge the
world and to take his people to heaven, and, as Hall
says, to leave nothing for the Last Fire to consume but
the objects and the slaves of concupiscence.
Dissatisfaction with this view of Christian history
began to be felt by many ministers simultaneously
in England and in Scotland. To the influence of
Cunningham of Lainshaw, and of Irving, over Ander
son, we propose immediately to refer. But there
MILLENARIANISM. 6/
were considerations suggested by his own reflec
tions, and strengthened by his own temperament,
which weighed strongly with him. He felt terribly
the thought of the lengthened prevalence of sin and
misery, error, paganism, and infidelity, which the
common theory implied, and conceiving that the
whole world was lying with the Wicked One, he
panted for a speedier and a supernatural deliverance
from his power. His ear was pained and his heart
agonised while listening to the groanings of creation,
and he earnestly prayed that they might soon be
turned into the jubilees of a regenerated world. He
believed that the missionary wheels were driving
heavily, and that ordinary means had to some extent
failed. Gazing at the "gloomy hills of darkness,"
over which his creed taught him that the vulture of
divine vengeance was hovering and preparing to
descend, he saw the light of true religion creeping up
so slowly, and illuminating them so partially, that he
began to despair unless behind them the dawning of
the Second Advent should break.
He, perhaps, underrated the influences of educa
tion, science, and progress generally, in ameliorating
the condition and improving the morals of mankind ;
and while he thought the direct influence of the
Gospel waning, he did not make so much allow
ance as he should for its indirect and reflex power.
He had, besides, a strong impression that the Kingly
element in the Mediatorial character of Christ was
greatly overlooked; or rather, that it was not yet
fully expressed, nor would be, till the Sufferer on the
68 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Cross and the Interceder within the Veil, became the
Monarch on the Universal Throne. At this prospect
his imagination caught fire, and then came in the
influence of his peculiar temperament; his organ of
Wonder was excited in the highest degree by the
prospect of the erst Malefactor of Calvary becoming
Sovereign of Jerusalem, of Judea, of the World, of the
Universe, with the palace of an empire as extensive as
the creation and as enduring as the sun, covering
perhaps the very spot where stood his Cross and
where yawned his Sepulchre ! Connected, and ming
ling strongly with this, there was a child-like passion
for Christ in a child-like nature. He learned, as we
saw, in the early years of his ministry, to appreciate
Christ as a person more than in his youth ; and it
seemed simply a corollary from this to long for His
personal presence in power and in glory. The desire
for Christ has been very strong in many Christians
who do not believe in the Second Advent, but expect
to meet Him at death. It was so with Samuel
Rutherford and many of the Covenanters. Whether
Anderson actually held the doctrine of Hades we arc
not sure, but we know that he inclined to it ; and this
perhaps led him to pant after seeing One on earth
whom otherwise he was not likely to meet till the
far-off and indefinite Judgment Day. There was in his
temperament also a degree of impatience which pro
bably served to intensify this desire. He fell on a
time, too, when "Deep was calling unto deep;" the
political convulsions of the Continent answering the
muttered thunders and struggling agitations of poll-
MILLENARIANISM. 69
tical and ecclesiastical feeling at home, like the
voice of Etna replying to that of Vesuvius ; and when,
to answer the question, "What shall be the end of
these things?" anxious inquirers were driven to open
the Sybilline books of prophecy ; when " young men
were seeing visions and old men were dreaming
dreams ;" and when many expected that the Kingdom
of God should immediately appear; — all this served
to prepare an ardent and sanguine Christian for
embracing a doctrine so exciting, and promising to
hope such speedy and splendid prizes as the Pre-
Millennial Advent.
But although thus prepared for adopting it, there
were circumstances and influences without which pro
bably he would not have adopted it so soon, or per
haps adopted it at all. Though Anderson was a man of
gigantic proportions, it might truly be said that a little
child could lead him. But there were grown men, and
men of no ordinary power, who became his guides into
a prophetic region where, sooth to say, guidance was
needful, since precipices and mists, dangerous pinna
cles of ascent, and fierce blasts abounded, as well as
glimpses of ravishing prospect and gleams of celestial
light. With such men as Coleridge he was not
acquainted ; not at all with him personally, and not
much we believe with his writings ; and it is a matter
•of regret that he was not, since the poet of the Ancient
Mariner was in theology, and not less in prophecy, a
" master in Israel," by whom Edward Irving, accord
ing to his own confession, profited vastly, and might
have profited more, if he had not quarrelled with his
70 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
instructor (see Henry Crabbe Robinson's Memoirs),
because he knew more than the pupil ! But it was a
far cry from John Street, Glasgow, to Highgate; Lain-
shaw, in Ayrshire, was much nearer, and to Lainshaw,
and the laird thereof, William Anderson repaired, and
sat at the feet of a man much inferior to himself,
although a man of piety, of respectable powers, and on
the subject of prophecy of very considerable attain
ments.
Cunningham, although connected with a good family
in Ayrshire, had become a business man ; had studied
the elements of trade in Holland, and had gone out to
India. He was a good scholar; knew Latin, Hebrew,
and Persian ; but had contracted somewhat loose reli
gious views. In Calcutta, however, he met Bishop
Middleton, and through his influence became a decided
evangelical Christian. Returned to Lainshaw, he be
gan to teach scholars in the neighbouring; village of
Stewarton, and to preach on Sundays in his father's
town house. He underwent much opposition as might
have been expected.
Cunningham was called, first, an Atheist, then a
Deist, and then an Evangelical Arminian, which he
actually was. Anderson had, in 1830, at the instance
of a clerical friend of Cunningham, gone down to
Stewarton and preached, where the Laird had an
opportunity of hearing him. The sermon treated, in
some of its particulars, upon the Millennium; and Cun
ningham, while professing to be greatly delighted with
it, said to Anderson, "I object to one thing — you have
given us a Millennium without a Christ." The result
MILLENARIANISM. 71
was that Cunningham indoctrinated Anderson with his
Millennial views, and set him on a course of earnest
study of the Prophecies, which tended to confirm him
in the belief. He became deeply interested in the con
version of the Jews, and their restoration to their own
land. Cunningham had startled him with the thought
that, perad venture, he might never see death; and
although he thought this at first the raving of a
maniac, he began to cherish it at last himself as the
Blessed Hope of a Christian. Alas, Cunningham and
Anderson are now both in their graves !
They separated ultimately, but Anderson missed
Cunningham the less, as, to use the words of Burke,
" Ere this orb had set, on the opposite quarter of the
heavens arose another luminary, and for his hour be
came lord of the ascendant" A luminary how infi
nitely brighter than the other! This was Edward
Irving. Anderson had known Edward Irving slightly
when that extraordinary man was Chalmers' assistant.
He had visited Anderson's school repeatedly. They had
at onetime lodged near each other, on the same stairhead
we believe. Anderson was a great admirer of Irving's
preaching when in Glasgow, although he seems then to
have preferred that of Dr. Chalmers. He has spoken
to us of Irving's genial private manner, of his stores of
anecdote and conversational humour. But he was yet
to experience the attractive power of his opinions, and
to accept his prophetical leadership.
To call Edward Irving the Christian Don Quixote,
can seem an insult to his shade only in the view of
those who have not learned to appreciate the noble
?2 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
soul, the disinterested benevolence, the genuine Chris
tianity of heart and spirit which lay below the battered
helmet, the melancholy visage, and the crazy environ
ment of that chivalrous knight. Many others will regard
it as the highest of compliments. What the Knight of
La Mancha strove to do for the extinct spirit of Chi
valry, Irving sought to effect for the lost genius of
Christianity. To some, indeed, he seemed to seek his
object by means as absurd as butchering sheep for men,
or combating windmills for giants. But there was no
denying the daring determination, the single-handed
gallantry, and the simple-minded sincerity of the com
batant. He threw himself into London as a brave
soldier rushes against a battery which is bathing his
footsteps in fire; seeing nothing but the one flag on the
summit which he must seize or perish. But although
Irving's success in London was, perhaps, the swiftest
and the most signal in the annals of Christian oratory,
he soon found that he was overmatched — one man
against two millions, nay, one man against the world,
the Devil, the flesh, and a corrupt Church to boot.
He sought for coadjutors, but he found none quite
equal to the situation, or fit to stand by his side. But
might he not be aided from above? Might he not call
for an ally from heaven to come down and help him ?
This thought came first to him probably in such night
watches of his spirit as he has described so plaintively
in his preface to "Ben Ezra," when listening on his
pillow to those great surges of sin and misery which
he heard raving and storming around in the Babylon
where he dwelt, and which were only the advanced
MILLENARIANISM. 73
waves of an ocean which was flooding the whole world,
and had done so for thousands of years. Oh, were
some mighty hand but to help him in "baling it out!"
Were but the Saviour to take to Him his great power
and to reign! Were but this hope of his, which he was
told also to be the old hope of the Church, to be ful
filled ! This set him with all the energy of his gigantic
body and soul to search the prophetic Scriptures, and
having found (or perhaps unconsciously inserted there)
what he sought and wished, he proceeded to publish it
in tones of musical thunder to the world. But, alas !
the world would not listen to the charmer, or, if it did
listen to him, it was more for his melody than for his
message; and if it listened it did not believe, and, worst
of all, the great expected Reserve Force was slow to
come into the field. The Hercules so vehemently im
plored, urged, wept for, argued with, stormed at even
to descend, would not. The issue, need we say, was
tragic, though sublime. In the prime of life, Irving
first withered like one of the trees described by the
poet —
" Grey haired with anguish, like those blasted pines,
Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,"
and then perished, leaving a wide but chequered fame;
a thousand noble sermons preached, but no great truth
discovered, or even half truth set in a clearer light; no
deliverance wrought in the earth by him, and even that
deliverance from heaven to which he had so often and
so eloquently pointed, neither come nor apparently
coming.
Yet the world will long cherish the memory of the
74 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
man — as when was true man ever forgotten? Mists
may for a season hide or exaggerate his proportions ;
winds of abuse may blow him out of sight; he may be
riddled with calumny or starved to death ; his ashes
may fly, no marble tells us whither; but sooner or
later, he will be revealed in his proper dimensions ;
his contribution to the great stock of manly utterances
accurately ascertained; his niche settled and railed in;
his statue elevated, and set unalterably on its own
base. Noble prospect to the true and the manly, and
to him alone ! The earth has never had yet so many
real men in its high places as to afford to be able to
drop even one of them from its list, and Irving too
feels, wherever his pure soul has now its dwelling, that
"The great soul of the world is just."
We have a letter from Edward Irving to Anderson,
very characteristic, to lay before our readers. But ere
we introduce it we have some preliminary remarks to
make. We showed above that there was a certain
affinity between Anderson's mind and antecedents of
thought and temperament, and the Millenarian doctrine.
And so there was a certain affinity between Edward
Irving and William Anderson themselves, which, had
their lot been cast in our days of freer communication
and franker intercourse between clergymen of differ
ent denominations, and living in distant places, would
have led to intimacy and friendship, although probably,
in their first meeting or two, they might, as Dr.
Anderson used to phrase it, "have flown at each
other's throats" in eager dispute and manly disagree
ment. But they were essentially brothers — " two lions,
MILLENARIANISM. 75
littered" in one age; although Irving was the older, the
larger, and the more terrible of the two. In rich sim
plicity of quotation, in antique cast of phraseology, in
long unmeasured sentences, in personal appeals, in sud
den short bursts of eloquence, in a fearless and some
what fierce spirit, blended with much gentleness, in the
mixture of cajolery and real simplicity, in occasional
wildness, and in sincere and burning enthusiasm,
Anderson was a striking though smaller similitude of
that " Shakspeare of the pulpit," that embodied flame
of meteoric fire, who like the wondrous tent or temple of
electric light to which we have already referred, hung,
broadened, fluctuated, shivered, faded, went out in
darkness, the pride, wonder, and terror of our ecclesi
astical heavens. But Anderson, with something of
Edward Irving's wild grandeur and strong vehemence,
had more of the plain, the direct, and the practical.
And yet although Anderson admired Irving to en
thusiasm, and followed him in his Millenarianism, he
was by no means in other matters his slavish disciple,
We find him, for instance, in his first Millenarian
pamphlet, speaking of Mr. Irving's errors (in refer
ence to Christ's humanity mainly), " over which I weep
when I reflect how much I am indebted to him, over
which I weep bitterly when I see how they take effect
in prejudicing the Church against the true doctrine of
the kingdom." This first pamphlet, entitled, "An
Apology for Millenarian Doctrine," appeared in April,
1830 ; but previously to this he had given a course of
evening lectures on the subject to very large and pro
miscuous audiences, including his own "well-beloved
76 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
flock," whom he thanks, because at the commencement
of the study of this subject they had endured him with
such patience. It was often necessary to go an hour
and a half before the service began to have the least
chance of getting in on these evenings. This tractate
(which was followed by a second part the next year)
contains the substance of these lectures. In the first
part he sets himself to remove certain pre-possessions
against the Millennial view ; and in the second, after
stating some pre-requisites for the study, he proceeds
to show the source, nature, and degree of the evidence,
and to speak of the overthrow of the anti-Christian
kingdoms, and of the elevation of the Church to uni
versal and perpetual external power. Anderson sent
the first part of the pamphlet to Irving, and his reply
is as follows, and speaks for itself: —
" LONDON, 13 JUDD PLACE EAST, isf June, 1830.
" MY DEAR AND Rev. SIR, — I wish you God-speed,
and shall remember you in my prayers, that you may
be strengthened to be a faithful witness of, and a
diligent looker for, the coming of our Great God and
Saviour.
" I have read your pamphlet (the exordium, I trust,
of a greater work) with much satisfaction, and admire
the dexterity and success with which you have justified
the truth. Such a method of offence and defence is
more necessary in the warlike region of Scotland,
which has lived two thousand years in the face of all
foes, spiritual and temporal. I am accustomed to say
that a Scotchman's hand is twice as near his weapon
MILLENARIANISM. 77
as another man's. They used to say in the middle
ages, ' Nemo Scotus sine pipere in naso,' and now it
is a proverb on the Continent, ' Fier comme Ecossois ;'
and the ' Perfervidum ingenium Scotorum' is well
known. I forget how Galileo characterises them, but
it is nearly to the same effect, with a noble tribute
to their patience and steadfastness. My notion is
that in the commonwealth of nations the Scotch
have been set to show forth the indomitableness of
man under all outward assaults and oppressions from
without ; the adamantine resistance — the asbestos
unconsumableness. This causes that they require
to be so much addressed in the way of warfare and
controversy, and has given to your essay more of
that character than I am now accustomed to, living in
this land of combination and long-looking policy. I
would advise you in the future parts of your work to
labour more in the way of edification, and to keep the
doctrine which you build up in continual contact with
the moral or spiritual man, which is the end of all
divine teaching. You will permit this to one of whom
you speak so kindly as having been your spiritual
benefactor.
" I do not wonder nor much blame, considering the
state of dormancy which the Church hath been in
concerning our Lord's human nature, and the awful
reports circulated of my doctrine, that there should be
so much suspicion of me ; and I am quite willing to
abide another seven years' ordeal, if it shall aid in
showing that truth to the Church, as the truth of the
Second Advent now begins to appear. My doctrine
78 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
is that our Lord's flesh was holy as his soul, and both
holy as God, without which atonement, and reconcilia
tion, and redemption are words without a meaning.
I hold that it was so from first to last, and as much
so at first as at the last. I hold that all the while it
was a creature substance, mortal and corruptible, the
same as his mother's, and, as all men's, 'part with
the brethren of flesh and blood,' and liable to all our
temptations; having the two conditions of the Fall — (i)
Mortality and corruptibility; (2) Knowledge of evil
as well as of good. Yet being so, I hold, further, that
the incarnate Godhead, operating according to the
personalities thereof — the Father as absolute God ;
the Son as God become man; Messiah seed of the
woman; the Spirit as the gift of the Father to the
believing God-man, who useth Him in the form of a
human will — did even bring perfect holiness out of
this mortal and corruptible flesh and blood. And so
men know as surely that by union with Christ, by
partaking of his flesh and blood, by indwelling and
inworking of Incarnate Godhead, they can bring forth
holiness, or holiness can be brought forth from them
in every member, as that, by our connection with
Adam, unholiness is brought forth. This is the basis
of sanctification — there is no other ; this is the basis
of religion in a fallen world — there is no other.
Man's will is exhibited in itself against God, and
drawing all the world with it ; to redeem man by man
is done by God's Son going into bounds of that will,
and keeping therein, bringing man's being and all its
dependencies back again to God, 'doing the will of
MILLENARIANISM. 79
God in a body,' and offering that body on the Cross.
Concerning the offering of that body I do not speak
at present, but only concerning the certainty and the
economy of its holiness. It was holy by no physical
change from this mortal we are of, but by the perfec
tion of that divine spiritual work which is able to
recover God's creature to God's service again without
adding one tittle to its original constitution, which
would be to give up the controversy, and to acknow
ledge that sin and Satan had succeeded in proving
the insufficiency of God's handiwork. This is the one
truth of Christianity — is the baptismal truth — that
before death and resurrection in this very mortal and
corruptible body, the law and acting of sin can be
laid entirely unto death (it was so in Christ), the law
and acting of holiness can be entirely and perfectly
brought to life (it was so in Christ), and good works
brought out of the mortal creature. Whether this be
not the doctrine of Paul, I refer you to Rom. v., vi.,
vii., viii., as the same is summed up in xii. I, 2.
" Farewell. May God exceedingly prosper you, and
open your heart to the knowledge and love of all
truth. I ask your prayers in the midst of my trials.
Farewell, again. — Your faithful friend and brother,
"EDWARD IRVING.
" P.S. — For other matters, I refer them till we meet.
If you can, do come to Albany, and be entertained
by me as you pass through London. " E. I."
In the Second Part of his "Apology," Anderson
SO LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
quoted that portion of Irving's letter in which he ex
plains his view of Christ's human nature, reserving his
views of that subject for another opportunity.
In the preface to the Second Part we find the follow
ing characteristic sentence: — "The conditions on which
the author pledges himself to proceed with the publi
cation of more of these lectures are nearly the same as
formerly — the continuation to him of means, health,
and reason, and the suspension of threatened judg
ments on the world, or a longer delay of the advent of
the Lord to transform his saints who may remain alive
unto his coming, 'for we shall not all sleep, but we
shall all be changed.' "
Nevertheless, no others were added to the series,
although in 1834 he published a pamphlet, entitled "A
Letter to the Author of Millenarianism Indefensible,"
which is valuable as containing a very complete account
of the literature of the controversy.
William Anderson was at various times blamed or
praised, according to the pre-possession of the parties,
for having abandoned his Millennial views. This, how
ever, he never did, although he preached the doctrine
less frequently. His hopelessness, however, as to the
efficacy of ordinary means of converting the world
rather strengthened in later years, and his conceptions
of the dark moral misery of the human race by no
means brightened. Shortly before his death, he said
that he did not expect to lie long in the grave; so what
he was so fond of calling the "Blessed Hope," may be
said to be still casting its serene radiance, like sculp
tured sunshine, upon his sepulchre !
CHAPTER VII.
HIS CONNECTION WITH THE VOLUNTARY
MOVEMENT.
THE Millenarian excitement had now lasted for four
years, and was beginning .rather to subside. Some
extravagancies of Edward Irving, his peculiar views
(much misunderstood, no doubt) about the humanity of
Christ; and the strange tongues of fire with which the
Row heresy, in caricature of Pentecost, had crowned
itself, while increasing the wonder had lessened the
public confidence in the movement. The Reform Bill
agitation, meanwhile, had begun; shaken the nation to
its centre, gained its object, and died away, leaving as
a legacy the "question of questions," as it was then
called, and may yet be called again.
The Dissenting mind, both in England and Scotland,
had for a considerable time undergone a process of edu
cation on this topic, in which the public had partially,
but only partially, shared. In England, Robert Hall
and Thomas Paine (a singular conjunction of names)
had, from different points of view, attacked Church
Establishments with consummate power and eloquence;
and in Newcastle an able minister of the Secession
Church, Mr. Graham, had followed up the onset in an
elaborate treatise. More lately, the disruption between
82 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
the Old Light Antiburghers, headed by Dr. M'Crie,
and their more liberal brethren, had stirred the ques
tion of the magistrate's power in religious matters
among Scottish Dissenters; and not many years after
came Mr. Ballantine's (of Stonehaven) philosophical
treatise on the subject; Dr. Thomson's (of Coldstream)
"Comparative View of English and Scottish Dissenters;"
and Andrew Marshall's (of Kirkintilloch) famous ser
mon preached in Greyfriars' Church, Glasgow, on the
text, "The dark places of the earth are full of the
habitations of cruelty."
The history of this sermon is curious. The author
of it, although known by his friends and his section of
the church to be a learned and talented man, had then
little popularity and no fame; the discourse itself was
in no way a very remarkable one — clear and sensible,
no doubt, but neither profound, nor comprehensive,
nor eloquent And yet its effect was extraordinary.
It found, in fact, the public mind, by this time con
siderably excited on the theme, ready for ignition,
and the slightest spark was able to set it on fire.
Replies and re-replies came thick ; the votaries of
Church Establishments got alarmed. A cry arose,
" Dr. Andrew Thomson to the front of the battle."
He was then the champion of the polemical ring in
Scotland, and had left terrible traces of his prowess
on the Apocryphists in both countries and on the
supporters of Patronage; nor had even Dr. Chalmers
come off quite scatheless from his sweeping blows.
Achilles, however, at the time was lazy or disin
clined, or otherwise engaged, and sent Patroclus
THE VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 83
instead, in the form of the late Rev. George Lewis,
who eventually went to minister in Italy. As a con
troversialist, he was speedily slain by the Hector of
Kirkintilloch, but although the "brains were out,"
" the man" refused " to die," and came forth to the
charge again, weaker and more ghostlike than before.
Andrew Thomson the while hung cloudily in the out
skirts of the arena, refusing to accept the challenges
that rung around his ears; and just about the time
when his friends and enemies, too, expected that he
could no longer keep silence, but must gird on his
dreadful panoply of- sarcasm and wit, of strong argu
ment and ferocious abuse, and come forth, he was
struck dead at his own door — to the universal regret of
Scotland. The controversy continued and threatened
to swell into a formidable agitation, -when the Reform
Bill engulfed it for a year in its deeper wave. But
no sooner was that question settled, than toward the
close of 1832 the Voluntary movement recommenced
in a more systematic shape, and aspired now to an
organized propagandism.
Ere Voluntary societies could be formed, popular
meetings must be held, and they were so, first of all in
Edinburgh and Glasgow. We happened at that time
to be in Edinburgh pursuing our student career, and
were present at the first Voluntary meeting in Broughton
Street Chapel. It was a stirring and successful gathering.
Dr. Ritchie, then in the prime of his powerful manhood
and of his platform popularity, already grey-haired but
erect as a palm tree, strong as a lion, with his finely-
developed chest and limbs, his towering forehead, and
84 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
his grey glancing eye, with its unspeakable twinkle of
humour and sagacity, led off in a very happy and charac
teristic speech. Dr. John Brown followed. He was then,
too, in the fulness of his powers of body and mind, with
smooth unwrinkled brow, with white hair surrounding
it like a half circle of glory, fine oval face, through
which gleamed his dark, mildly lambent eyes, and
with those strong deep crashing tones of voice which
rendered so well the vigorous sense and massive elo
quence of his oration. David King was the young
Hannibal of the occasion, and delivered one of his
clear, sensible, judicial speeches, which, coming from a
youth, created astonishment, less in themselves than
from the premature manhood of thought and language
they discovered. Altogether, the meeting was a great
triumph, and felt to be so both by friends and foes.
In Glasgow, meanwhile, they were not idle. There,
too, a meeting was held a short time after, which passed
off successfully, although not, perhaps, quite so well as
that in Edinburgh. More, perhaps too much, was ex
pected from Glasgow, then, as now, the metropolis of
practical Voluntaryism; while in Edinburgh, then, as
now, reigned Evangelicalism of the Church (now of
the Free Church) of Scotland type, with Chalmers in
its Theological Chair, and Gordon, Bruce, Gray, and
others, filling its most popular pulpits. The Glasgow
meeting took place on the I2th November, 1832. The
venerable Dr. Dick began the proceedings with a brief
decisive speech, after his usual manner; Dr. Heugh,
with characteristic suavity and tact, blended with energy
and boldness, moved the first resolution, which was
THE VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 85
seconded by Greville Ewing. The second resolution
was moved by the Rev. Alexander Harvey, Calton,
who afterwards gained laurels on the same subject in
his debate with MacGill Crichton of Fife, counted the
"Admirable Crichton" and the indomitable champion
of endowments, till floored by Harvey, who was a man
of vast volubility of speech and readiness of retort.
The third resolution was moved by Dr. Baird of Pais
ley, an accomplished man, and seconded by the solid
and sensible Dr. Stark of Dennyloanhead. The fourth
resolution was moved by Dr. Beattie, and was to have
been seconded by William Anderson. And then came
Andrew Marshall, as the trump card of the meeting,
with the fifth and final resolution.
The speeches on the whole, though sensible and
moderate in tone, are rather heavy, and would pro
duce little effect in our critical day. Anderson was
detained by indisposition from being present, but his
speech was printed with the rest. It is perhaps the
raciest of the whole. The conclusion we shall give,
not only for itself, but because one sentence in it
points to a pamphlet which had appeared previously
from Anderson's pen. Speaking of the duty of for
bearance to those who held opposite opinions, he says,
— " I appeal to this meeting as to the extent of this
forbearance. Is it that we forbear from exposing to
public view the nakedness of their system, or from
plying their understandings with the sharpest and
weightiest arguments which we can employ ; or ply
ing their sense of honour with appeals founded on
what we regard as meanness in their system ; or ply-
86 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
ing their consciences with burning remonstrances,
founded on what we regard its unscriptural constitu
tion. No, sir; such forbearance as this would be a
sacrificing of the cause of truth, and an unbrotherly
act of unfaithfulness. We shall smite them with all
our strength of reasoning, till we make them cry for
mercy — a cry to which we shall answer only by smit
ing them more heavily, till they cast away their crutches,
for they are only pretending lameness ; we know that
they can stand and walk vigorously, too, without their
aid."
In the month of October, that same year, Ander
son had published a little brochure, entitled, "The
Lame Restored," a plain spoken and effective pro
duction, which soon ran to a second edition, and of
which, in 1835, he printed a third and much enlarged
one. It is improved as well as enlarged, and contains
some very Andersonian hits. He says, for instance,
" I delight in particularity — it punctures and lets out
the wind of inflated theories." And here is his amus
ing picture of a probable female sovereign of the
Church: — " How highly honoured their Assembly will
that day be. How rapturously they will hail the
entrance of their royal nursing mother! How sweet
the music in their ears in the rustling of her petticoat
as she ascends the throne ! What torrents of denun
ciation they will pour upon the memory of Knox, who
in 1st Tim. ii. and I2th,* blew such a profane blast
against the 'monstrous regiment of women.' Knox
* " But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the
man, but to be in silence."
THE VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. S/
was a fool. The apostle only commands that a woman
speak not in the kirk in the way of preaching, but by
no means and nowhere forbids that she speak in
Church Courts in the way of ruling: speak thy will,
most gracious Madam; thy authority is most lawful.
In the administration of Queen Anne, of memory
so pious, we have heretofore had experience of the
qualifications of thy lovely sex for the nursing of
the Church I"
To the literature of the Voluntary controversy
Anderson afterwards contributed two other pamphlets,
derson afterwards contributed two other pamphlets.
It was determined in the year 1835 to have two series
of lectures; the one in Glasgow, and the other in Edin
burgh. Anderson gave the first of these in his own
chapel, John Street, on the 27th of February. It was
entitled, " The Opening of the Case." It is here and
there a little rough and personal in its language, but
has much racy force, and, especially in rebutting the
presumed complicity of Voluntaryism with Infidelity
and Atheism, is masterly and unanswerable. There is
a wealth of homely illustration and local allusion in it,
which must have told powerfully on the audience.
In the Edinburgh course he delivered the seventh lec
ture, "On the Sufficiency of the Voluntary Principle for
the Dissemination of the Gospel." He commences with
some striking preliminary remarks on the theological
qualifications of members of the Civil Legislature: —
" There is a native strength in the arms of a freewill
Christianity, which, even when the combat on our side
is maintained by an untutored rustic, is sufficient for
breaking down with scorn the artificial pugilism of the
88 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
most practised compulsory. Give me the most stolid
Dissenter, and I will furnish him with one brief sentence,
armed with which he may foil any of our adversaries.
It is this: 'Will you, sir, presume to maintain that Mr.
O'Connell, whom Dr. Chalmers and the late Dr. Thom
son so generously assisted, with their eloquence and in
fluence, to his seat in our Legislature in the agitation on
the Catholic claims — will you presume to maintain
that this same Mr. O'Connell has received a commis
sion from Christ for furnishing, with money exacted
from an infidel, the bread and wine of a Presbyterian's
Sacrament? I am not.' says our peasant, 'so learned
as to be able to understand your criticisms on the
Hebrew and Greek originals, nor have I philosophy to
comprehend the arguments of the judicious Hooker, but
I have some Christian feeling which revolts at profanity,
and some common sense which revolts at absurdity;
answer me my plain question, and make no evasions —
Has Mr. O'Connell received the Divine commission?
If you say, Yes; I will then appeal to my countrymen,
and my countrymen will know how to overwhelm you
with their scorn : I will say to them, Behold one who
boasts that he is a legitimate descendant of the Cove
nanters maintaining that the Lord hath ordained he
should be dependent on a Papist's legislation for
forcing an infidel charitably to furnish him with the
means of commemorating the death of the Redeemer!
Or should you prefer answering, No; and begin to
argue that the Legislature should be cleansed of all
Popery, and of all Prelacy to boot, and constructed of
sound and pure Presbyterianism, as was decreed by our
THE VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 89
fathers before us, then will I say, Let your establish
ment of the Church by the State lie in abeyance till
then; first try your hand at clearing and remodelling
the Legislature by the Presbyterian rule; act the
honourable and consistent part of the biographer of
Knox, who will not degrade himself by becoming the
pensionary of the Government till it have repented
of its errors and backslidings, and the King, Lords,
and Commons have solemnly ratified the Covenant.
Answer me, then, my plain question, yes or no — Has
Mr. O'Connell received the commission?'"
From this strain of stinging scorn and withering
sarcasm he rises into lofty eloquence, a flight in
which we shall not at present follow him. Toward
the close of the lecture, having quoted a passage from
Dr. Chalmers, he says — " There is here an exhibition
of self-contradiction for which it would be difficult to
find a parallel, except in the writings of the eloquent
but fanciful author himself." Chalmers might almost
have exclaimed, " Et tu, Brute!" For, let it be re
membered, that if Anderson had given him filial
homage, he had reciprocated paternal encouragement
and praise. On one occasion in Glasgow, when some
body was mocking at Anderson, Chalmers said with
indignant emphasis — "Sir, you talk in ignorance; I
know something of him; he is the most modest of
youths I know, with large promise ; I wish he were of
our Church ; and I am mistaken if he does not turn
out a formidable power." And so he now had — on
the side opposite to the Doctor! Yet as Anderson
never ceased to respect and reverence his old idol, so
9O LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
let us trust that Chalmers, in his large-heartedness,
never lost his original good opinion of his protege,
and never regretted the prophecy he made concerning
him, although it was not fulfilled exactly in the way
he expected or desired.
On went fast and fiery the wheels of the agitation ;
but by and bye they became entangled with the
Endowment movement and with the Non-Intrusion
controversy; and their sound and rush died slowly
away, as the Free Church, having rent the Establish
ment in twain, rose itself to be a Fourth Estate in the
land. It was a controversy conducted on both sides
with great ability, and with still greater heat and
animus, although of judicial and philosophic handling
there was little, unless in the work of Coventry Dick,
which was admitted to be a masterpiece, even by the
opponents of its theory. Much bad feeling was pro
duced, and many bonds of friendship — both among
clericals and laity — were snapped asunder in the
course of it, never to be again reknit. But it quick
ened the religious life of Scotland ; — it enlarged theo
logical views; it precipitated a disruption which had
long been inevitable; it thoroughly ventilated the
questions as to the relation of the Church to the
State; and it has been a distinct and high step on
the way to that Church of the future, which shall
come, will come, and will not tarry ; and which shall
be a Church without spot or wrinkle; — the spots of
worldly contamination, and the wrinkles of antiquated
and narrow opinions.
All honour to these powerful champions on both
THE VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 91
sides of the question — to Chalmers' venerable shade ;
to Gordon, with his rugged honesty and vigorous
sense ; to John Bruce, with his quaint but real genius ;
to the mild Gray, and the manly Cunningham ; to the
sturdy sons of Themis, who mingled more or less in
the contest, Moncreiff and Dunlop; to the cold but
marvellously acute Moderates, Cook, Inglis, and
the two Lees ; and to the then young hopefuls of
the Church party, now in their age, bitterly opposed
to one another — Drs. Candlish and Begg; and on
the other side to Dr. Wardlaw, facile Princeps, at
the time, of Scottish divines ; to Dick, with the large
Sicctitn lumen of his theology, and the consummate
clearness of his style ; to the versatile Heugh, and the
sturdy Marshall of Kirkintilloch ; to Drs. Brown,
Alexander, Ritchie, King, and Eadie; and last, not
least, to William Anderson, one of the most earnest,
most powerful, and most eloquent of all who drew
the sword and flung away the scabbard, in what
they thought, and thought rightly, the cause of free
dom, justice, fair play, and truth.
CHAPTER VIII.
PASTORAL, PUBLIC, AND POLITICAL LABOURS.
WILLIAM ANDERSON, though an admirable visitor
of the sick, was not famous for pastoral visitation.
We remember a story illustrative of this, which, un
like many floating anecdotes of the kind, we know
to be substantially true. Some person called, com
plaining that he had been eighteen years a member
of his congregation and had never been visited by
his minister. " You should be very thankful," replied
Anderson. " How that, sir; thankful for your neglect
ing your duty, sir?" rejoined B. " Sir, I never visit any
but those into whose houses God has entered by afflic
tion. It seems you have been eighteen years without
affliction in your family; few are so highly privileged.
I trust other eighteen years may elapse ere I be in
your house, sir. Good morning, Mr. B."
We have met those who have taken Mr. B.'s part in
this colloquy, and held that Dr. Anderson was too
peremptory and contemptuous in his treatment of him,
as well as wrong in omitting the ministerial duty of
pastoral visitation. A great deal, however, depends on
circumstances and on the habits of ministers, and on
the expectations and employments of congregations.
Pastoral visitation in many places is now simply a
PASTORAL AND OTHER LABOURS. 93
thing impossible, although it is still pursued with con
siderable energy and effect in others. In these busy
times members are seldom at home, in cities at least,
in the mornings, and the visitation becomes, therefore,
a partial one, to the family, while the head of the house
is, like Hamlet in the play, omitted by special desire.
In the evenings the minister, when he is not occupied
in public meetings, classes, &c., ought to be in his study,
and usually the members are too much occupied with
their own amusements or their own repose to desire
his company. People that want to see a minister may
easily find some other opportunity of doing so, and
some ministers, we believe, fix evenings for that pur
pose in their own houses. But, especially in an age
like this, no general rule can be fixed. In fact, the
pastoral tie itself is far from being so strong as it once
was in Scotland, and ministers are rapidly becoming
better or worse paid "servants of all work," including
sometimes and sometimes not that of visitation. To
discuss the causes and to speculate on the conse
quences of this state of things would take up too
much time, and would be foreign to our purpose.
Anderson, from the beginning of his ministerial
career, had determined to continue a student and to
become a public man; and to combine these characters
along with that of a regular visiter from house to house
he found impossible for him — it is found to be very
difficult for any man. Besides, he was not a visiting-
man. He had little turn for gossip or small talk, and
latterly his deafness was a difficulty in his way. But
he was at home in the sick chamber. Even where
94 LIFE OF DR- ANDERSON.
typhus was raving or cholera writhing he was to be
found, fearless as at his own fireside. He had a firm
nerve, a strong faith, a high sense of duty, and almost
a contempt for danger when met in duty's path. His
prayers by the bedside of affliction, as indeed every
where, were distinguished by unction, originality,
pathos, and an instinctive adaptation to the pecu
liarities of each case; and even when Azrael, the
Angel of Death, stood on one side of the bed, the
patient feared none evil when on the other there
appeared this grave, simple, sincere, kindly, earnest
minister of Christ, pouring out his heart to God for
his departing spirit.
Of Anderson's attention to the young we have
spoken before. Socially, too, he was always ready,
and delighted to mingle with those of his people who
used hospitality ; and then and there, as well as with
his brethren in the ministry, came out those rich stores
of anecdote, those racy reminiscenses of his past life,
those traits of human character he had noticed and
cherished in his memory; that unostentatious piety,
that honest, sometimes stern advice and rebuke, that
child-like enthusiasm, and that pawky humour, which
gave to his conversation such a charm and power.
Some charged him with dwelling too much upon the
dark side of human nature; but to counterbalance this,
we must remember that no one was more easily de
ceived by the semblance of goodness, or was more
charitable to offenders than he. But of these aspects
of his private life we shall have occasion to speak
afterwards, when we come to "Anderson at Home."
PASTORAL AND OTHER LABOURS. 95
In public, besides the advocacy in the pulpit of
ideas and causes dear to his imagination and heart,
he became soon a power, and by and bye the power
on the Glasgow platform generally, and specially in
the City Hall after it was built. When we come to
speak of his Jubilee services, we shall quote the apos
trophe to that City Hall as the scene of his triumphs ;
which at an earlier date would have been in bad taste,
but which uttered by a man retired from public life,
and standing on the brink of the grave, was as grace
ful as it was eloquent. To name all the public causes
in which Anderson was more or less engaged, would
be a difficult task, and the selection might be an
invidious one. Yet we must point to a few in which
he was more particularly interested, or in advocating
which he laid about him with more than ordinary
energy.
When the Irish Education question was agitating the
country, a great meeting was called in the Assembly
Rooms, when a motion in behalf of the plan of Lord
Stanley (afterwards Lord Derby), was moved by Sir
Daniel K. Sandford, and seconded by Dr. Anderson.
Both spoke with great power. Sir Daniel Sandford's
speech was so successful that it led to the desire in
the mind of the public, as well as in his own, that he
should be in Parliament. The effect of their joint
efforts was to carry the liberal measure with acclama
tion. Sir D. K. Sandford then, and at other times,
expressed his high opinion of Anderson's eloquence
and liberality of sentiment.
When the cause of Temperance was first broached
96 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
in Glasgow, under the auspices of Mr. John Dunlop,
Mr. William Collins, Mr. Robert Kettle, and other
estimable persons, Anderson became its ardent, prac
tical, and active adherent. He spoke and lectured ia
its behalf, not only in Glasgow, but all round the
West Country; until indeed, he said, that from over-
exertion, " Collins and his cause had nearly killed
him." He never, however, we think, became a member
of the Total Abstinence Society, although he highly
approved of its main end, the suppression of intem
perance, and was very intimate with some of its
principal supporters.
With the Reforming movement in the Methodist
body he was strongly sympathetic. James Everett —
that noble old man, who, after a life of eighty years
and upwards, during the greater part of which he was
engaged in the most varied, efficient, and incessant
ministerial, literary, and public labours, recently fell
asleep (we knew him well, and in our annual visits to
Sunderland we miss now with sorrow that white head,
that long, sagacious face, that stooping form, from our
audience), was, when he came down to Glasgow to advo
cate the new Church he had formed, admitted to John
Street pulpit, honoured with Anderson's warm esteem
and regard, and often expressed to us his reciprocal
admiration and love for our friend. " O, he was a
fine fellow," Mr. Everett's usual formula of panegyric,
and by which he used to designate even such friends as
Robert Southey, Ebenezer Elliott, Watson, and Hall,
was profusely applied to Anderson. We may men
tion here that Dr. Anderson had all along a favour
PASTORAL AND OTHER LABOURS. 97
for the Methodist body. He was the first to open his
pulpit to their preachers ; and to this fact he referred
Avhen, upwards of fifty years after, he preached — it
was amongst his last public services— at the opening
of one of their chapels in Glasgow.
To the Abolition of negro slavery, he was a warm
and an early friend. It was, by the way, when he was
addressing an Abolition meeting in Glasgow (in, we
think, the Trades' Hall) that we first had the privilege
of hearing William Anderson speak. This was in the
winter of 1836. We had seen him once before in 1830.
Dropping, on a fast-day afternoon, in company with
the long lost friend of our student days, George
Beveridge, of Stewarton (a remarkable youth of vast
lore of every kind, and great logical acuteness, who
died at the early age of twenty-five, having given
uncommon promise), into John Street Church, we
heard a sermon from a country minister upon the
text, " He that spared not his own Son, but deli
vered him up for us all, how shall he not, with him,
also freely give us all things?" According to the
usual custom, Anderson, as the minister of the church,
went up to make some intimations, and to pray. We
have a faint recollection of his appearance, as a dark-
haired youngish man, imperfectly seen in the dim
light of the spring afternoon ; but remember the
prayer as very striking, particularly one sentence of
it : " Hast thou given us thine own Son, and wilt
tkou not give us bread?" " That's a remarkable man,"
thought we, and said to our friend ; we had pre
viously only heard of him as " Daft Willie Anderson.''
G
98 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
This evening, in 1836, he preceded George Thompson,
the eminent anti-slavery lecturer. It was a crowded
tea meeting, and after tea Anderson was, we think, the
first speaker. There was a considerable impatience to
hear Thompson, who had newly returned from America.
Anderson knew this well, and consequently his speech
consisted chiefly of a panegyric on the coming lion of
the evening. It contained an estimate, although very
eloquent, somewhat overdone; but we remember the
pleasure with which we listened to the manly sense,
the cutting satire, the exhaustive, though exaggerated
criticism, and the strong, loud, unmitigated tones of
his voice. Dr. King followed in a neat, clear, and
very effective speech; and then Thompson delivered a
most eloquent account of his American experiences,
when, for the first time, we heard of William Lloyd
Garrison, and other early heroes of abolition.
When the American war began, and when a division
took place in the ranks of the Abolitionists, some of
them, including Lord Brougham, transferring their
sympathies from the enslaved blacks to the insurgent
whites, who seemed to them fighting as much for na
tional independence as for slavery, Anderson sided
with the North, and was, perhaps, in Scotland its most
enthusiastic partisan.
The following note is from the Rev. Dr. George
Jeffrey, Glasgow, dated February 18, 1873: —
" From the year 1844, until the time that God in his
providence settled the question of American slavery
by the sword, there was scarcely a single meeting in
Glasgow in regard to anti- slavery at which Dr.
PASTORAL AND OTHER LABOURS. 99
Anderson was not present, and at which he and I did
not speak. On account of circumstances connected
with ' Woman's Rights/ &c., he and I were left almost
the only ministerial members of the Emancipation
Committee. I cannot think of him without the remem
brance that he was the only minister with whom I
found myself on the Emancipation platform for many
long years, and on whom Mr. Wm. Smeal, its trusted
secretary, could ever depend. His last anti-slavery
appearance was on the occasion of Mr. William Lloyd
Garrison being in Glasgow, when I had the honour to
occupy the chair, and he presented the address. I
have been more frequently on the platform with
him than with any other minister. In regard to all
the public questions of the day I found myself most
generally beside him. Nothing could gag his mouth
on any question when there was need for an out
spoken statement of his principles. I cannot forget
the encouraging laudations he gave me as a speaker
when a younger man, and how much I appreciated
what I reckoned the generosity of his utterances.
His hearty praise of what I said on the * Ecclesiastical
Titles Bill' in a speech in the City Hall, 'On Hunga
rian Liberty,' and on ' The Mixing of the Meal,' was
something which I truly valued, for I knew it to be no
matter of mere lip service, though it might be the ex
pression less of the judgment than of the heart. Let
me say there is not one who has passed away from us
to rest whose loss I more deeply mourn."
Mr. William Smeal, the unwearied and valuable
Secretary of the Glasgow Anti-Slavery Society, in a
100 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
note of February 24th, 1873, after referring to Dr.
Anderson forming one of an Emancipation deputa
tion to London, in November 1837, says, " From the
period of his coming to Glasgow, Dr. Wm. Anderson
continued to the termination of his life, to be one of
the most ardent, zealous, and uncompromising friends
of the slave, whether in our own colonies or in any
other quarter of the globe. I have omitted to notice
the last occasion of Wm. Lloyd Garrison's visit to our
city, when he was entertained to a public breakfast in
the Merchants' Hall, in the summer of 1867. Dr. A.
prepared the address to Garrison, and presented it after
the breakfast, Truly the scene was a most touching
one during the reading of the address ; and when, amid
the cheers of the company, Dr. A. poured out his bene
dictions on the head of the honoured and venerated
champion of Slave Abolition in the United States."
No one in Britain sympathised more than Anderson
with " the cause of freedom all over the world," as the
old Whig toast had it. There was a throb in his
heart, a bright glance in his eye, and an eloquent
word on his tongue, for every struggling nationality ;
from Greece and South America, in the days of his
youth, to Poland in his middle life, and to Hungary
and Italy in his declining years. His house, too, and
his purse were open to exiled and battered patriots
from every land ; and when some of them deceived him,
he took the spoiling of his goods, if not joyfully, yet
patiently, while mourning much for the disappointment
of his hopes in those who abused his generosity. And
never was he more powerful, never did the black eye
PASTORAL AND OTHER LABOURS. IOI
get more terribly luminous, or the screeching voice
scream with a weirder power, or the eloquence and
the sarcasm, and the ire break out into more " torrent-
rapture," than when in the City Hall, or in his own
pulpit, he was thundering against Nicholas, or praising
Mazzini or Garibaldi, or backing Kossuth; or, above
all, denouncing Louis Napoleon, for whom he had a
-certain special fancy — in truth, he was the very darling
of his contempt and indignation ! How the death of
the ex-Emperor might have affected Anderson's feel
ings towards him we cannot, of course, say; but he was
not the man to allow conventional customs to alter
rooted convictions, and if he uncovered his head as
" he saw the wicked buried," it was for a moment, and
more in a spirit of general respect and pity to Man in
extremis than to the particular man sharing in the
universal doom. Nil de mortuis nisi verum was his
masculine motto.
We were fortunate enough to hear Anderson in what
was, perhaps, his loftiest mood on this his favourite
subject, and in his favourite spot,
" The haunt and the main region of his speech,"
in the City Hall of Glasgow, when Kossuth was
there in 1854. The meeting was in the afternoon,
and was a very crowded one, as afternoon audiences
usually are by the elite of Glasgow men; there were
few if any ladies. Whether it was that Anderson
was inspired by the subject, or by the audience, or by
the fact that he had Kossuth behind him, at all events
he rose at once into the whirlwind of his eloquence ;
and although there were opposing elements in the
IO2 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
meeting — some doubtful about the cause of Hungary,
others prejudiced against the great Magyar himself,
and not a few who thought Anderson's estimate of
him rather high — yet it was not long till he melted
them all down into one through the exceeding power
and thorough sincerity of his oration. Then we saw
the phenomenon of four thousand men moved as the
trees of the wood arc moved by the wind ; and it was
not mere brushwood either, but strong, stately, some
what reluctant oaks, over whom he was wielding a
master power, and from whom he was eliciting a rough
and noble music.
Even Kossuth, when he rose afterwards, at first
seemed tame in comparison with the "inspired
Willie." But he soon attained his own power and
took his own place, and as he spoke we occupied
ourselves internally in comparing with a critical
eye the two speeches as representatives of differ
ent classes of oratory — Anderson being the man of
nature and impulse, Kossuth one in whom nature and
impulse had been subdued and strengthened by cul
ture, calmed and toned down into that very high kind
of speaking which, although best suited for the refined,
tells more or less upon all classes and intellects and
ages of men, and alike in the open air and in the
Senate. Anderson had the gold within, but he lacked
the "golden mouth" without. This Kossuth possessed
in higher measure than any orator we have ever heard,
unless Daniel O'Connell,whom he excelled, indeed, in
philosophical thought and in taste, perhaps also in
Burkean wealth of fancy, but who surpassed Kossuth
PASTORAL AND OTHER LABOURS. 103
again in that wonderful humour and ease of transition
from one mood of feeling to another, and in strong,
sinewy, simple conversational style. Had Anderson
and Kossuth addressed an assembly of old Cove
nanters, or of American Indians, Anderson would pro
bably have been the favourite. With an Edinburgh
audience, or with a fastidious audience anywhere,
Kossuth would have had it all his own way. In
Glasgow, the suffrages were about equally divided.
But all agreed that it was an oratorical treat of
uncommon excellence, and the more so from the
variety of the materials.
In the evening of the same day, and in the same
place, Kossuth spoke again with still more effect ; and
the public were delighted with a speech, besides, from
the late Professor J. P. Nichol, LL.D., who was in the
chair, of a very dignified and thoughtful character —
perhaps going deeper into the philosophy of the
subject than any of the others, and delivered in soft,
tremulous, and thrilling tones.
Five years afterwards, having the afternoon of a
Sabbath day to spare in Glasgow, we went along with
a friend to hear Dr. Anderson. He commenced the
services by giving out a psalm, but before reading it,
proceeded to utter, as a sort of preface, a most extra
ordinary address. It was of a political kind, and
might have suited a hustings better than a pulpit. A
pulpit however, by the bye, it was not, for the congre
gation were then worshipping in the City Hall, while
their new church was being built. It was altogether
a most racy political oration in Anderson's boldest
104 LI?E OF DR- ANDERSON.
and most characteristic style, although the time and
the occasion gave it a somewhat outre aspect. This,
however, was not felt by the people. Immediately
after, Anderson calmly read the psalm, and after a
brief prayer, proceeded next to take out his MS., and
to read a good plain evangelical sermon on the text,
" The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall
feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains
of waters." Our object is truth, and therefore we
record this little trait of Anderson ; and at the same
time, must give the caveat that such outcomes of
political feeling, though they occurred sometimes,
were not the rule but the exception ; he was, in
general, as useful and practical a preacher as was to
be found in Glasgow.
Had Garibaldi made his intended visit to Scot
land, we may easily conceive the rapture with which
Anderson, then (1864) in the full possession of his
powers of body and mind, would have welcomed the
"Bravest, truest of all modern men,"
as he certainly thought him, and the torrent of elo
quence which would have awakened the echoes of the
City Hall, as he saluted the conqueror of Sicily and
Naples. Toward Mazzini, too, Anderson entertained
feelings of very warm admiration and respect, and
that these were reciprocated by the patriot, we know
from a note dated June 15, 1859, in which, in the view
of a great meeting to be held in the City Hall, we find
Mazzini writing Anderson thus, —
" DEAR SIR, — Allow me, on the eve of a meeting in
PASTORAL AND OTHER LABOURS. 105
•which you are going to propose a resolution concern
ing the Italian question, to thank you, with deep feel
ing, for your devotion to and defence of Italian liberty,
both in your pulpit and on the platform. You are a
noble man, fighting resolutely for a noble cause, and
your name will remain dear to me through (failure) or
temporary defeat. I have just now written the chairman
of the City Hall meeting what my views are about the
actual question, and the direction which the agitation
ought in my opinion to take, and hope he will com
municate to you these few ideas. — Believe me, dear
Sir, ever gratefully yours,
"JOSEPH MAZZINI."
We know not how far Anderson's sympathy with
Mazzini, in his peculiar path of politics, extended ;
perhaps he thought that he went too far, and pursued
the right not only at the expense of the expedient,
but often by the sacrifice of the right itself — justifying
equivocal means by an undeniable end ; but he
admired, in common with all who really knew that
wonderful man, his concentred persevering purpose,
pure as that of a seraph, persistent as that of a blood
hound (the propagandism, as Mazzini well phrased it
to us, of every moment) ; his union of the disinterest
edness of a Howard, with almost the subtlety of a
Machiavelli ; his lofty conceptions of rrian ; his con
tempt for all that was low, and mean, and selfish ; his
patriotic yearning over his country as she was, and his
grand dream of her as she would yet be, as well as
his great intellectual and imaginative qualities. We
106 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
cannot tell if he ever met with Mazzini in private, or
saw how these qualities were incarnated in his dark
fathomless eyes —
" Orb within orb deeper than sleep or death" —
in his brow, a great placid mass of white marble, as if
cut out from some noble statue, and his slight spirit-like
form, the whole reminding you of Dryden's lines —
" Arfiery soul which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay."
Anderson was sometimes charged with narrowness
of view. This arose from the intensity with which he
held, and the boldness with which he avowed his reli
gious and political convictions. But that he was a
broad-minded man withal, was proved by nothing more
than his connection and sympathy with these Italian
patriots. He knew very well that they were of a very
different religious creed from himself; that they were
not sound in the faith. But he knew that it was greatly
disgust at Popery and arbitrary power which had
driven them off from their centre. He regarded them
rather with sorrow than with anger ; and did not pro
ceed to read them lectures, in public or in private, on
their limited faith or unlimited doubt. He simply
showed them how, in his own case, love for liberty
could co-exist with a devoted belief in Christianity ;
and how hatred at Popery as intense as their own
might be found in unison with strong Protestant con
victions. And had they said to him — "Would thou
wert altogether such as we are except these thy
bonds;" he could have answered, "Would God that I
PASTORAL AND OTHER LABOURS. IO/
could bind your free and noble arms with these golden
links of Christian love, till from being brothers in Adam
we became all brothers in Jesus Christ"
In keeping with his occasional habit of preaching on
political topics, we may here mention a sermon which
he published in 1832, on the coronation of his Majesty
William IV., entitled " Christian Loyalty to Earthly
Princes." It is in many parts a very characteristic
and admirable sermon ; far worthier of being pre
served than many which we find in the collected
works of popular preachers. Nobly does Anderson
denounce passive obedience and non-resistance. And
thus he speaks of a class who are to be met still : —
" There are some preachers who presume to inculcate
that it is unbecoming of Christians to take a part in
political disputes, and they will prostitute the Scrip
tures in their advocacy of the perpetuation of abuses,
calling upon us to ' meddle not with them that are
given to change,' as if all desire of change implied a
discontentedness of disposition which nothing will
satisfy. Those declaimers against politics will usually
be found to be themselves the most violent political
partisans in the defence of corruption, that it be
allowed to fester undisturbed. It is impracticable
to dissociate the history of patriotism in this country
from the history of a Reformed Church. The Cove
nanters and the Puritans are the heroes at once of its
religion and its liberty."
Anderson was often accused of political preaching;
but while the charge was exaggerated in detail, he
could not and did not seek to deny it in principle,
LIFE OF DR, ANDERSON,
nay, he defended it He held that while religion
.should neither, on the one hand, be the lord of
monarch*, nor, on t!,<: otl,< .•,<!.• •.:.;•/< of pov/'-r, if 1):)']
its own sphere of legitimate political action. A 1 though
not seeking to level any rank, it should seek to leaven
all It should, and were it in a healthy ' .omlition it
>. ;!'!, pro'.Iaim ari'l < nfor'.<:, a/, far a«, moral iUdilofl
can, the truths that the great broad principles of Chris
tianity apply to our present political state; that poli
tical evils should be assailed by Scripture arguments;
that political men should be tried by Scripture rules;
::..-:« t.V f.,!v:Iioo'l, tim<: vrrvinjj, 'lupli'.ify, an*! K-r-
... ... ; ;«;,,;, ,,f v,,- ;..-,; . -.houM h': ', 1 1 h j ' :'. t .':' I to til':
criticisms of the pulpit as well as of the press; and
that the weight of the Cross in its moral spirit
•J.ouM I,-: filing in mor<: fr^ju':nt.ly ^' ' /.- '•• ;- '!--•:.'
r,f -;•',! poll' '.:!'.:< /:-:... A . it J. '...'.'I All'Nrr.OM
felt this intensely)/ what a poor »1ii-inlcin;'. .p'>t ,,\
ground the Pulpit has become when compared with
the iron pavement which supported it in the days of
our fathers! It was then a pinnacle commanding a
view of both worlds. On it the Knox, the Melville,
the Owen, and the Howe stood up in majesty, like
the composite creatures in the visions of Ezekiel, with
' , .: f,V, . ',.,<- uplift' 'I to I)' •.-:.. '•: -Ilip, aJlOlllf.T
;/M/ K.nnin;-; C,','\ . l'-v a:. 'I M ' < >n< iliation to rrn:n,
tj.irl hov/"l in holy Contrition, aii'l a fourth loo!:
: .i;, ;,roun'l in rij'.hl-o.r, ii.'li;'.u:M ion at. the v/ron- ,
and abuses of the Church and the age. The thun-
<lers such men uttered against wickedness in high
places were not mere boltless sounds; they shook it
PASTORAL AND OTHER LABOURS. TOQ-
if they ditl not shako it clown, and this because they
were tin1 echoes of profound earnestness, of the voice
of dod in Hie souls of preachers. In this high position
they were sustained by the general opinion of the
Christians of that day, who, although wrong in their
notions of the financial and the legislative relations of
tin- Church to the State, were right in their belief that
the Church has a general supervising moral, intellec
tual, and spiritual authority over civil as well as sacred
questions, and that religion, if really effectual on the
public as on a single individual, touches, tests, and
rules it at every point. I low different with Chris
tianity in its present state!
,\o doubt the genius of the (iospel of Jesus Christ-
is working for the liberties and political as well as reli-
gious pro; Mess of man, and is seeking silently to sap
tin- foundations of the principal grievances ol society.
Still, we arc persuaded that had there been more such
manly exponents of that genius in our pulpits as
William Anderson, men speaking in the spirit and the
power of John Knox and Martin Luthcr.it had been
belter alike for politics and for religion.
CHAPTER IX.
THE POPISH CONTROVERSY.
IN mentioning several public causes in which Ander
son was interested, we omitted the Popish controversy
advisedly, because we saw that it would require a short
chapter to itself, both from its own magnitude and the
importance attached to it by Dr. Anderson. He was a
vehement supporter of Catholic emancipation, and an
opponent as determined of the Established Church of
Ireland, so that he might be said to come into the
arena of the Popish controversy with clean hands. If
ever man deserved the name of Protestant, it was he.
His whole life had been a protest and a struggle. He
might have taken up the language of Burke, and said,
"Nitor 111 adversum is a motto for a man like me. I
possessed not one of the qualities, nor cultivated one
of the arts that recommend men to the favour and
protection of the great. I was not made for a minion
or a tool. At every step in my progress in life I was
traversed and opposed. I had no arts but manly arts."
Anderson's contest was with the innumerable shams
he met with on his way. He had a sermon on shams
which we would have gone a number of miles to hear,
and which no doubt would have refreshed the soul of
Carlyle, who found the thing in abundance all around
THE POPISH CONTROVERSY. Ill
him, wandering nameless; and who, in an evil hour
for it, and a happy hour for his own fame, invented a
name that shall last as long as there are shams in the
world. And when Anderson looked to the Popish
Church, he found a vast system of shams which
awakened all the scorn and contempt that were in his
manly nature. He looked on Popery as the caricature
of Christianity, bearing to it such a general, staring,
impudent resemblance, connected with a total dissimi
larity of spirit and expression, as we sometimes notice
in two countenances — like as eggs in one sense, and
yet in another as unlike as is an egg to a diamond.
It is a counterfeit of the religion of Jesus, though exe
cuted by a very masterly hand. At a distance, how
similar the two! You are reminded of the famous
story of the two bunches of flowers, one natural and
one artificial, by which the queen of Sheba is said to
have tested the wisdom of Solomon, and tortured, as
well as tested it, till at his command the window was
opened, and along with the air of heaven came in the
bees like a cloud of witnesses and settled the question.
It were easy to show that, though Christianity and
Popery profess to be supernatural, to have a distinct
head, and to possess a unity; in reference to the first of
these qualities, the supernaturalism of Christianity is
charily used, and the vindex never brought in but when
there is a nodus digmts; while Popery has diffused,
cheapened, and degraded supernaturalism; substituted
a glaring meretricious lustre for a chastened and
solemn light; multiplied beyond all measure miracles
and interventions; made drafts on human credence so
112 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
numerous and so large that they could not fail to be dis
honoured; although it seemed to think that the true way
of destroying scepticism was to increase the demands
on and the difficulties in faith, as though a man doubt
ful of the common facts of history were told to reassure
himself by swallowing all the Arabian Nights' Enter
tainments ! How for the true celestial centre — Christ —
it has substituted the false earthly centre of the Pope,
its system revolving in a movement as absurd as
though the planets and the sun were turning round
the earth ; and how the unity produced by this false
centre is pretentious and plausible, but unnatural and
forced; the unity of dead, not of living substances; the
compactness of a crushing despotism, the uniformity of
a landscape covered with snow — the obedience pro
duced by Popery resembling the hush of a school over
which presides a tyrannical pedagogue; that produced
by Christianity the hush of a large assembly over which
an orator has breathed his spell, subduing the most
contradictory elements into one; the power of Popery
being the force of fear, that of Christianity the magic
of love.
Anderson felt all this and much more, especially
when he contemplated Popery from his peculiar pre-
millennial point of view, as the enemy against whom
Christ was to direct the first bolts of his vengeance
when He returned again. And while he abhorred, as
A Liberal, the very appearance of persecution for con
science sake, he thought that many Liberals took far
too light and shallow a view of Popery, which he re
garded, not as a bad form of Christianity, but as an
THE POPISH CONTROVERSY. 113
untameable monster, a ferocious and Anti-christian
intruder upon the Church, or, as he had a grim delight
in always entitling it, " The Man of Sin."
His productions on the Popish question, although
not large or numerous, are exceedingly rich in know
ledge of the subject, and are full of all his characteristic
strength of statement — of close reasoning when he
pleases, and fierce declamation when that mood comes
upon him — besides being seasoned with the rough
salt of his peculiar, and, in its own style, matchless
humour. Alas ! that the manner in which he uttered
his humorous passages cannot be retained as well as
the matter — the savage glee shining in the face, the
audible smack of the lips, the voice (like Sir Walter
Scott's) becoming plaintive with excess of merriment,
while there were unshed tears of riotous satisfaction
in his eyes, and a kind of neigk, or, Scottice, nicker
broke from his lungs when he had reached the climax
of his satirical or ironical triumph. And yet there
was not one trace of malignity in it all ; there was
nothing diabolical, nothing even impish. It was just
a manly, healthy nature enjoying its sense of the
absurd, the quizzical, the grotesque, in an exqui
site degree, and all the more when the feeling was
connected with a religion which, but for the serious
damage he believed it to have done to humanity and
to God's truth, he must have regarded with a contempt
leading to incessant and uproarious laughter.
In his remarks on the Genius and Power of Popery,
he shows how that system deceives its votary with the
delusion that he is religious, while it at the same time
H
1 14 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
by its accommodations gives liberty, as he phrases it,
" to live at a distance from God, in a state of estrange
ment from him;" that it lends licence to men to com
mit sin, and delivers their consciences, after committing
it, too easily from a sense of guilt; and that it favours
intellectual indolence in religion, and a mere mechani
cal worship. These, and other propositions, he enforces
and illustrates with much power and perspicuity.
There will be various opinions as to his " Man of Sin."
Anderson is thoroughly convinced, indeed, of the truth
of his own theory, and says that, " I regard the proof
here of the Pope being the Man of Sin, as being of
the character of a demonstration." He is quite as cer
tain as the Irish minister, who, after going over in the
pulpit all the Apostolic marks of the Man of Sin,
closed by saying, "And now, my friends, if I were to
put this photograph of the old scoundrel into the hands
of any decent Bow Street detective, I am quite sure he
would bring me back the Pope!" We are not so con
fident as the worthy Milesian, or as our noble friend,
of the identity of the two. We understand that Dr.
Eadie, in his forthcoming book on the Thessalonians,
intends to bring all the weight of his learning to bear
on the confutation of this common view, and to prove
that the Man of Sin is a mysterious personage to be
revealed in a future age, and immediately before the
coming of Christ.
But if .Anderson's tractate be no thorough photo
graph of that phantom called the Lawless One, it is
certainly an able and graphic picture of Popery in
some of its aspects, especially in its arrogance and
THE POPISH CONTROVERSY. 1 1 5
presumption. These Anderson lived to see culminat
ing in the memorable events of the year 1869-70,
when the (Ecumenical Council sat in Rome, and by
decreeing the Infallibility, manifested the fulness of
that pride which " gpeth before destruction," and the
excess of that haughty spirit which precedes a fall.
The tractate on the " Mass " is longer, more elabo
rate, and on the whole more valuable than the others.
It aspires to a comprehensive character, and has a dis
tinct scientific value. It is his chef-d'&uvre as a Con
troversialist, just as his Regeneration is his principal
production as a theologian. In six chapters it goes
over — ist, The Priest and the Altar; 2nd, The Con
secration ; 3rd, Its Elevation of the Host for Adora
tion ; 4th, Its Oblation as an Expiatory Sacrifice ; 5th,
. The Sacramental Communion by the Priest ; and 6th,
Its Communion by the people ; and is altogether a
terrible piece of critical anatomy, by a hand that
never trembles while holding the scalpel — nay, that
sometimes brandishes it aloft in savage exultation as
if it were a tomahawk ! It ranks with Justice Keogh's
charge, and Froude's English Rule in Ireland, as
one of those productions which touch the very raw of
the Popish question and of Papistical feelings, and are
sure to be followed by cries of pain, raging blasphe
mies, and threats of murder. It evinces a knowledge
• of the controversy quite as great as Dr. Cummings,
but wielded by a far more powerful hand, and shows
that begun familiarity with Era Paolo's History of
Trent, which led him afterwards to the project of
. translating it into English. All must regret this was
Il6 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSUJN.
never accomplished. Had Dr. Anderson performed
this task, and prefixed a volume developing the pre
vious history of the Apostacy, we venture to say that
his name would have been ranked hereafter with our
greatest Pro-Protestant standard authors — our Bar
rows, Chillingworths, Middletons, Kurds, William
M'Gavins, and Blanco Whites.
All of these productions were lectures delivered—
that on the Mass in Dr. Wardlaw's Church, and the
others in the City Hall; and those delivered in the
latter place were attended, he tells us, by audiences
of four thousand persons, chiefly of the operative
class. Some may think that he was wrong in appeal
ing such questions to an audience of common people
who were not qualified to weigh his statements, and
might, besides, be supposed prejudiced against Popery.
But while the Scottish humbler classes may have
.little learning, they have much common sense; and
that is a balance which Popery fears, and has good
cause to fear, since in it its proudest pretensions
and most subtle arguments have often been weighed
and found wanting. While admitting the exist
ence of popular prejudices, and deducting much on
account of them, we should not forget that they are
rooted in righteousness, in past experiences, which do
not come to the surface as arguments, but which send
up from below throbs of power, and exert a pervasive
and perpetual influence. Burns nobly speaks of a
"tide" of Scottish prejudice which shall boil in his
veins till the floodgates of life shall shut in eternal
rest; but there are more prejudices in Scottish hearts
THE POPISH CONTROVERSY. 1 1/
than are infused by the story of Wallace, and one is a
prejudice against Popery — the old enemy of our civil
and religious liberties, and the murderer of our saints;
and if that has, to some extent, merged in the open
partiality of our upper ranks, or the philosophic im
partiality and indifference of our savans and philoso
phers, it exists still in the hearts of the better and the
more intelligent of our mechanics and our peasants,
and it was of these hearts that Anderson's rude but
powerful eloquence made him the lord and master.
One illustration of this power we have heard con
nected with these Popish lectures. He had, in the
course of a lecture in the City Hall, wrought up his
own feelings and those of his audience to such a pitch
— it amounted almost to frenzy — when painting the
enormities of Popery, that he felt impelled to close
with a tremendous imprecation on the Pope! and
the sympathy of four thousand people was with
him to such an extent that when they dispersed our
informant overheard some of them, in remote parts
of Glasgow, when repairing home, repeating the
words with enthusiastic approbation, as if they had
come from the authentic judgment-seat of Almighty
God, and were not the utterances of Anderson's own
excited heart.
Some critics and "goody" people may object to this;
but, in the first place, they are not competent judges
of a man of genius like Anderson in his loftier mood,
"Inspired beyond the guess of folly,"
by pure moral indignation, when his anger might
be said to come down " like fire and brimstone from
LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
the Lord out of heaven ! " and when he might be com
pared to one of the seven angels pouring out purged
perdition from his dark vial, while he himself was
clothed with linen clean and white. De Quincey says,
the grandest oath in rhetoric was uttered by a Dissent
ing minister in Cambridge — grander than even the
famous one in Demosthenes' oration on the Crown,
"By the shades of them that fell at Marathon" — who,
after appealing to his audience, by this and by that, in
a long swelling catalogue closed by saying, " By the
Iliad, by the Odyssey ;" but we think Anderson's curse
was sublimer far. However, secondly, we believe
that Anderson himself, in any way but as a conscious
minister of the Divine displeasure, would not have
plunged a finger of Pio Nono into the fire that never
shall be quenched !
In 1852, Dr. Anderson delivered another series of
Lectures in the City Hall (November i;th, 24th;
December 1st and 28th), on "Penance," which he
afterwards issued in a small volume. These lectures
are somewhat more discursive, and also more humor
ous than those on the Mass, but equally earnest,
logical, and exhaustive. As a specimen of his scath
ing satire (in which he could be at times as strong
as Lord Brougham, and far more genially humorous),
take his account of the Popish Limbus of Infants : —
" Ever since Christ came the Limbus Patrum, where
the souls of the patriarchs, &c., were detained J:ill his
coming, has been untenanted, the Pope, who holds its
key, being puzzled how to dispose of it. Interme
diately, under Limbus Patrum, and above Purgatory,
THE POPISH CONTROVERSY. 1 19
lies Limbus Infantum, the region of infants who die
unbaptised — not perfectly dark, but with the least per
ceptible light — with the climate neither wintry cold
nor summer warm, but temperate, say at 50° of Fahren
heit — tens of thousands of acres broad and long for
the vast population, all covered over with a kind of
creeping, broad-leaved dock-weed, under which the
melancholy infant spirits cower and weep. Their
parents having been negligent about their baptism, or
having never heard of such a thing, or the priest having
wanted intention at the time of performing it, the little
helpless victims are doomed by the Papists' god to
suffer for eternity the punishment, not of sense — no, he
is more merciful than that, but of loss — he must have
some gratification of vengeance — i.e.t not the pains of
hell, but the privation of the bliss of heaven. This
distinction of the scholastic doctors betwixt the punish
ments of sense and loss is an ancient one; but the rare
genius of Bellarmine greatly improved it. The punish
ment of Limbo, he says, is on the one hand not so bad
as annihilation, but on the other not much better.
Is not that acutely discriminated ? Remember who
Robert Bellarmine is: Facile princeps, the None-such of
Popish divines. And yet, I protest it is superior theo
logy to that of those Protestants, an opprobrium to the
name, who consign multitudes of children two regions
further down. Reflect, especially, that when the
Puseyite perjury hold the same views with the Popish
apostacy on the necessity of baptism, they at once
limit the genuineness of its administration to a much
narrower circle, making no allowance for the heretical
120 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Dissenters, nor midwives either, I suppose, and have
made no provision for such mitigated punishment as
that of Limbo. Their Moloch-massacre of infants is
far more fiendish, both for extent and cruelty. Gener
ous, freedom-loving England ! whose aristocracy legis
late, and whose people patiently endure, the taxation
of millions of her wealth for the pampering of the in
fanticides. Yea, pious England ! who bribes them so
high for the blaspheming of her God !"
We see here the germ of his coming Defences of
Infant Salvation.
We give one other passage, in which his scorn
inflames into red-hot anger. Fastidious people may
call it verbally coarse; but all earnest men, who look
more to sense than language, will call it terribly true
and powerful : —
" Had I time, brethren, to quote the enumeration of
these good works, with which, as a fertilising shower, he
represents the believer, justified by faith, as descend
ing upon the earth, your indignation would know no
bounds that Rome, all ulcerous, leprous, putrescent,
fetid with profligacy, with its fumes and vapours steam
ing and reeking up to heaven to obscure the sun, should
yet, in pretended concern for virtue, the hypocrisy of
which stinks most abominably of all, have dared to
denounce the holy Luther as an enemy of good works.
It was an inexpressible villany. It exceeded that of
the Devil in his accusation of Job. There was philoso
phy, and a sharp insight into common, unregenerated
human nature in that insinuation, ' Doth Job fear God
for nought?' But, when Pope Paul III., with his two
THE POPISH CONTROVERSY. 121
little bastard Cardinals behind him, accuses Martin
Luther of unbridled licentiousness, because he had
espoused in public wedlock Catherine von Bora — Satan,
with some remaining sense of dignity, will have no
personal communion with him, and delivers him over
to the tutelary care of him whom Milton describes as
'the least erected spirit that fell.' "
In 1853, Anderson, though he had been a man of
war from his youth, appeared for the first and the last
time as a public challenger. Dr. Cahill, a well-known
champion of the Papacy, had been lecturing in Glas
gow. Dr. Anderson challenged him to a public
debate on the subject of the Mass. Dr. Cahill
declined in a courteous, cautious letter, in which,
however, some of the most offensive Catholic tenets
are brought forward like poison wrapt up in jelly.
Yet to do him justice, we admit the truth, and are
ready to endorse every sentence of what he says about
the evils of public disputations on religious topics :
" Public animosities are engendered, religious rancour
is inflamed, social harmony is disturbed, the charities
of the Gospel are extinguished, and even the ties of
long matured friendship are but too often rent asun
der by the mutual argumentative recrimination of
theological combat." Anderson, however, was of a
different opinion, and in an Exposure which he soon
after published of Dr. Cahill's letter of declinature, he
adduces with great freedom and force reasons for his
belief in public debate. And he takes occasion, with
a fidelity to truth which redeems the savage Salva-
toresque force of his picture, to draw some of the more
122 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
obnoxious features of the Roman Catholic system :
its impudent claim to unity, its appeal to authority,
its contempt for private judgment, and its aversion to
progress. In the course of this remarkable pamphlet
— many thousands of which were put into circulation
throughout the country — he throws some fierce side
glances in the direction of the Council of Trent, which
seems his natural game, and which draws him toward
it accordingly, at whatever stage of his argument he
is, with irresistible attraction.
Perhaps, after all, Anderson as a controversialist,
does not suit this " mealy-mouthed " generation so
well as he might a former one. There is rather too
much of the Scaliger, the Luther, the Bentley, and the
Andrew Thomson, in his style of dealing with his
opponents — too much "horse-play in his raillery,"
too much plain speaking in his language, and some
times not a little that is one-sided in his views and
judgments. But those who read and applaud Thomas
Carlyle's furious diatribes have no right to blame
Anderson. In both, such language is the escape of
men, too terribly in earnest to have either time or
inclination to pick their words, to round their sen
tences, to check their enthusiasm, not to be at once the
'fire and the fire-engine. There is a demoniac force
within them which must speak in " flame words," or they
die ! There is in them, too, as in many brave honest
. men, a certain noble scorn with which they are fond of
blowing away as through snorting nostrils these
sophistries, evasions, and meannesses in controversy,
which are beneath argument, baffle logical exposure,
THE POPISH CONTROVERSY. 123
and can be reached only by contempt. Enough that
Anderson's strong utterances of anger and scorn were
altogether disconnected from personal feeling to his
adversaries ; that his anger was that of a childlike
nature, and might be called inverted love, that in
its day it did good service ; and that its echoes are
not altogether forgotten yet by the survivors of the
tens of thousands who at various times and places
listened to it as to a powerful voice pealing from
above !
CHAPTER X.
AS AN AUTHOR.
ANDERSON was comparatively late in appearing as an
author, so far as works of elaboration and size were
concerned. But it was quite clear from the beginning
that his peculiar powers and his longings for wide
sympathy would lead him irresistibly, and with effect,
into the field of the press. If he had never given
himself the highest literary training, there were, never
theless, the elements of successful authorship in him.
He had power of thought, great copiousness rather
than selection of words, a fertile if not filtered spring
of imagery, a clearness and practicality of purpose,
and an ever ready, almost riotous, vein of humour.
His reading had not been very extensive, and we miss
in his writings that indescribable something connected
with a thoroughly learned mind — those far-flashing
allusions — that general rich result, in style and
imagery — which charm us in Burke and Macaulay.
He was emphatically a man of one book ; and this,
while it secured the proverbial strength of a one-
booked man, as of one dwelling in a castellated tower,
denied him the free prospect and the artistic calm of
wider culture. There were certain writers he often
wished he had read more carefully and lovingly. He
AS AN AUTHOR. 1 25
praised Burke, for instance, highly, but had not
studied him. Coleridge, as we said, was substantially
a fountain sealed. Of the German Goethe, Schiller,
Lessing, Fichte, and so forth, he knew very little.
And of the modern school of daring prose and verse
writers, who have done so much to revolutionise our
literature, and, to some extent, our thought — such
as Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Tennyson, Carlyle,
Bentham, Hazlitt — although his knowledge was con
siderable, it was by no means extensive. Godwin he
always abuses, without apparently having mastered
his principles, or got familiar with his main works.
On the other hand, certain authors who agreed with
him in the chief articles of his creed, he, on that
account, rather over-rated. Rowland Hill, certainly
one of the sincerest of men and useful of preachers in
his time, but also one of the most twaddling of writers,
was a first favourite in his early days, and he seems
to have imitated him in that seria cum jocis which
distinguished his pulpit style of preaching. On
Douglas of Cavers his verdict was far too lofty.
He could not, indeed, rate too highly that author's
learning and judicial calm. But few will now concede
him oracular depth and Baconian breadth, and he is
now emphatically, more than even Isaac Taylor, an
author left behind. In the beginning of his preaching
life, Anderson was a great admirer, and to some extent
an imitator of the popular French sermon writers,
Massillon, Saurin, and the rest ; but he did not remain
long in love with their strained and artificial style, and
their singularly shallow and commonplace thinking,
126 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
but came under the manlier, bolder, though belated
influences of Edward Irving, not merely as his guide
in prophecy, but as his model in writing.
We have already had occasion to characterise some
of his earlier published productions while pursuing
the stream of his story. None of them could be con
sidered a serious trial of strength, and the style in
most is subject to certain critical drawbacks, although
eloquence and ingenuity are common to all. There is
one of them we have not yet named, to which we
must object upon another ground, and which serves to
support a special charge against the character of his
culture. Wide reading usually either reveals or creates
wide sympathies and wide mindedness. These came
in a large degree to Anderson in his later days, but
the opposite qualities are visible in his sermon entitled,
the " Prospects of the World," preached at Aberdeen,
in 1841. This is a discourse which we might put into
the hands of his friends if we wished them to be more
deeply impressed with an idea of his powers of mind,
and into the hands of his enemies if we wanted them
to see his weaknesses of temperament and limitations
of view. The spirit he displays to Robert Owen, a
sincere mistaken enthusiast, and the language with
which he covers him all over as with the slime of the
Dead Sea; the gloomy onesidedness of the view he
takes of the increase of evil and the spread of doubt
— society and the Church rushing emulously on to
destruction, and jostling each other as they run ; the
deep shade at the back of the picture in which he per
haps unwittingly throws the grand agencies of good
AS AN AUTHOR. I2/
which are working in the world, and the fearful stress
which he lays on the Second Advent as the only con
ceivable counter-weight to the Superstition, Atheism,
and Licentiousness of the Times, are really appalling;
the discourse rising here and there into a morbid
eloquence worthy of Foster in his darkest mood, but
not leaving on our minds the impression of being a
true and philosophically measured statement of the
case ; and the result, we fear, as leaving no alternative
but utter spiritual ruin for the earth and universal
atheism, or a fiery baptism from heaven, must have
been to some indeed cheering, but to others bewilder
ing, and to many the occasion of the most dismal and
disheartening doubts.
We may only add that Edward Irving, in many of
his writings, has exposed himself even more than
Anderson to the charge of the undue use of a single
dark tint in his pictures of the present state of the world.
The "Man seated on the cloud" may see the fields
slowly getting white unto harvest, and view the tares
growing along with the wheat, if not with complacency,
yet with calm; Irving gets impatient, and, dreaming
that it is all dead ripe, cries out in fury to the sickle to
begin instantly its dread semi-circles of destruction.
Anderson, it must be observed, while believing to the
last that nothing but a supernatural intervention could
save the world or rid it from its many monster evils,
did not on that account (as was to a great extent the
case with John Foster) lie down in the wheelway, like
the waggoner in the fable, and make no effort to re
move these evils by his own exertions. Instead of
128 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
this he took, as we have seen, an active part in every
political, social, and religious reform. He supported
the Reform Bill. He was the zealous and devoted
friend of Missions. He lent his countenance and his
aid to every agency in Glasgow for suppressing
vice and for instructing ignorance. And, when the
Corn Laws seemed to him to obstruct the progress
of society, and to bring starvation to so many hearths
and homes, he was again found at his post, and deli
vered a lecture on the subject which is not the least
interesting or characteristic of his minor productions.
It contains some powerful and pathetic passages.
Burke, in the close of his matchless picture of Hyder
Ali invading the Carnatic, when he comes to speak of
the horrors of hunger, cries — " But I drop the curtain,
and leave it to your general conceptions." The curtain
dropt by this great master, Anderson ventures thus to
uplift: — " Hunger! What shall we say of Hunger? The
strongest appetite of our material constitution — that
which stimulates to nine-tenths of human exertion —
without which the world would lie down in ignominious
sloth. O, you may be certain that when the Creator
designed it should be that within us which without fail
would secure our activity and the employment of our
powers, He made it strong and imperious in its
demands. Well, hunger is the denial of this principle's
claims, man's life-appetite baulked, its gulph-like
vacuity unsupplied, its gnawing turned in upon itself
through failure of its proper materiel. Even in her of
the ladiest and most fairy- like form; even in him of
the most spiritualised heavenly-mindedness; even in
AS AN AUTHOR. 129
the old man of fourscore years, in whom all other pas
sions have expired, how strong is the appetite for food I
What violence is done to nature when it is denied
gratification! What disease, what gnawing of rheuma
tism, what corrosion of cancer, what grinding of stone,
may be compared with the torment of hunger! How
devoutly thankful the greater part of us need be, that
we must draw on our imaginations for understanding
what hunger is, even in a moderate degree; when all we
know of it from experience is, after a plentiful morning's
repast, to have had dinner delayed till the evening;
or when we were thoughtless children to have wan
dered too far from home on the summer holiday,
among the hungry grass of the hills, without having
made provision for the journey."
With the like fidelity to truth, he paints the cold
of famine, and then the shame of poverty — "the
shame of its withered countenance and lean and
shrivelled person — the shame of its patched and anti
quated raiment — the shame of its mean and ill-furnished
dwelling — the shame of its ragged children — the
shame of its paltry subscription — the shame of turning
away without making a purchase, or returning home
without entering like the rest to enjoy the holiday
sight — the shame of being dependent on chanty and
begging for alms."
These all, however, were but preliminary to more
valuable productions. In 1844, he issued a volume of
sermons which met with general favour from the
press, and some of which contain perhaps the best
specimens of his writing. We have a great many of
J30 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
his sermons in MS. on our table, from which another
volume might and probably may be compiled, and
some of them are very original, and contain powerful
passages, e.g., one on the Power of God, and another
on Pleasing God. But we have found nothing in any of
those we have perused superior to some of the better
parts of his first volume. Perhaps the three most
interesting sermons in it, at once in their subject and
in their treatment, are " On God's Omnipresence,"
"Religious Melancholy," and the "Re-union of Friends
in the Heavenly World." In the first, we find much
of the deep introspection and strict questionings of
the conscience which distinguish Foster, particularly in
his preface to Doddridge. The Re-union of Friends in
Heaven, a favourite theme with Anderson, is handled
with much beauty and pathos. How fine the con
ception of a mother who has lost her child meeting
with a son whose mother has perished, at the Judg
ment Seat, where Christ says, "Woman, behold thy
son," and, " Son, behold thy mother," and the wounds
of both hearts are healed. Beautiful — but is it
true ? Might not the woman, like the mother in
the history of Solomon, her bowels yearning over her
own son, cry, "Ah, that's not mine. He never came
from my womb, he never lay on my bosom ; where,
where is my own child?" Alas ! Anderson only casts
a gleam of light on a shut mystery, like sunshine on
a closed coffin, or moonlight on a troubled sea,
" Brightening the storm it cannot calm."
His sermon on Religious Melancholy may be con
sidered an argument against his former self, for at
AS AN AUTHOR. 131
one time he seems to have been far from a cheerful
Christian. He meets the charge that Christianity is
a melancholy faith by pointing to Infidels, and asking
if they are happy. He might have gone farther, and
asked if any man, of any religion, is perfectly or nor
mally happy. It is quite clear that man (apart altogether
from the fait accompli of the Fall) at present is in a
half-developed, imperfect, transition state, with his
lower and higher natures engaged in undecided con
test, with the contradictory elements of his composite
being unreconciled ; and to predicate happiness, which
implies harmony and peace, about such a creature, is
absurd. So far as any man attains approximately to
harmony within, and as he combines with this health
of body and circumstances of comfort without, he is,
but still imperfectly, happy. To this end Christianity
undoubtedly contributes more than any other spiritual
cause. But even it fails in producing complete har
mony and perennial peace. And while as a life it is
so noble, as a discipline so useful, and as a hope so
precious — so long as it is yet surrounded as a doctrine
with so many difficulties and dark shadows, and is
itself only in the bud of development — its influence in
producing happiness must be limited. Nor do the
records of Christian biography sustain Dr. Anderson's
theorem about the cheerfulness of Christians. In our
own age, if Infidelity or Scepticism has had its Byrons
and its Shelleys, Christianity has had its Fosters and
its Halls, and its Robertsons of Brighton — all noble
vessels, with the flag of the Cross floating over them,
but all "built in the eclipse and rigged with curses
132 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON,
dark" — not to speak of the Johnsons and the Cowpers,
the Brainerds, the Martyns, and the Miltons of the
past. We have selected these instances, and we could
have selected more from various sects of Christians, lest
it should be thought that either Evangelicalism or the
want of it led specially to displace, and have included
Hall, proceeding on the view which not Olinthus
Gregory, but Morris gives of his state of mind. Irving
was in every way an exceptional case. Chalmers
kept in exuberant spirits by his incessant activity.
In this, as in various other parts of his writings,
Dr. Anderson aimed his shafts, and with terrible
effect, at that low, coarse, profligate infidelity he
found near him. He seldom alludes to what is one of
the most interesting, painful, yet unquestionable facts
of our modern day — the existence of scepticism
among men of high spiritual pretensions, exemplary
life, and religious aspirations. To cast at such men
the names of Rousseau and Paine, were altogether to
mistake the position, and to fall short of the mark.
Anderson himself was changeful in his moods. It
was with his experience as with his face. A certain
deep and dusky gravity lay on his countenance till
some happy thought arose, or pleasurable incident
occurred, and then it glowed with glee, and when the
glee subsided it was into an impression of quiet com
placency most delightful to behold. And so it was
with his mind. A deep, dark current of cogitation
ran below, but often brightened at thoughts of the
love of the Father — at the sight of a child — at a beau
tiful prospect — at sacred music — or a glimpse from
AS AN AUTHOR. 133
the mountains of vision of the expected glory of the
coming King. He says in his sermon: — "We are
all responsible for gladness of heart towards God,
inasmuch as we can, by meditation, place ourselves
under the influence of the scenes of Bethlehem, of
Calvary, of the garden of Joseph, of Mount Olivet,
and the Throne, which, contemplated by faith, will as
necessarily produce joy of heart as the finding of
treasure or the gaining of a victory." This was his
own experience, we doubt not.
Another delightful sermon in this volume is entitled,
" The Claims of Children," and is written with a pen
which he has dipped in his own heart. Another still
is a discourse entitled, "The Cloud of Witnesses,"
preached at Fenwick on the first Sabbath of May,
1853, upon the occasion of the renewing of the memo
rial stone erected to Captain Paton, one of the Cove
nanting heroes. Anderson preached it standing on the
gravestones of some of the martyrs, and with three
thousand people as his audience. The sermon is a
good one ; although, coming from such a man in such
inspiring circumstances, it might perhaps have been
better.
Dr. Anderson took part in a course of lectures deli
vered in Glasgow to young men in 1841. His lecture
was, " On the Influence of Young Men on the Pros
pects of Society and the Prosperity of the Church,"
and was a very able and useful one. We give the
introduction : —
" Towards the close of the fifteenth century, about
the year 1495, there might be seen a man of the
134 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
name of Trebonius conducting a school after a fashion
of his own. At that time the Avorld had need of
eccentric men, and John Trebonius was one of them
who met its exigencies. What may have been the
character of his demeanour towards adult men bio
graphy has not recorded. We can easily imagine,
however, that as a scholar of superior attainments,
and a philosopher of the highest class — that class
which makes human nature the subject of its study
and contemplation, with much besides of the prophetic
spirit in him, calculating far into the future, and de
void of which all philosophy must be lean and dwarfish;
thus accomplished, I say, we can easily imagine that it
was with slight ceremony Trebonius treated the rude
nobility and ignorant priesthood of his times. But
when he entered his school he was affected with the
most profound reverence. No persuasion could induce
him to appear covered before his boys. 'Who can
tell,' said he, ' what may yet rise up from amidst these
youth ? there may be among them those who shall
guide the destinies of the empire.' Schoolmaster this
of the right sort ! Worthy of the pupil whom God
sent him to be educated ! Martin Luther was one of
these boys ! and you may depend on it, that in the
school of Trebonius the heaven-trained Reformer
learned more than the accidence of his grammar and
the construing of his Nepos.
" Those whose interests specially claim my attention
at this time are of an age farther advanced than was
that of Luther and his schoolmates, when Trebonius
felt such respect for them : but that my way may be
AS AN AUTHOR. 135
clear, I must ascend still earlier than the years of
boyhood. To a contemplative mind, what a mystery
is an infant! There it lies in its cradle, nothing in all
nature besides to be compared with it for impotency :
and yet, such principles and energies may be slum
bering within that tiny form as shall send him forth,
when developed in his manhood, as an angel of light,
not only to gladden and honour his father's house,
but, as a philosopher, to advance the sciences and
arts ; as a poet, to charm all around with his song ;
as a patriot, to conduct the counsels and arms of
his country; as a divine, to illuminate and awaken
the church ; as a philanthropist, to affect with happy
influence the whole world ; and at last, as one of the
nobler of redeemed spirits, to excite to higher rapture
the anthems of eternity. Think of the infant Luther!
Carry back the light of Time and cause it to shine
on his cradle, and feel how you have need of being
defended against the temptation to worship him !
Or, woful alternative ! that babe may be developed
as a demon, not only to anguish the hearts of the
parents that begat him, but to be the scourge of
the earth, and at last to deepen the blasphemy
of the abodes of despair. Think again — think of
the swaddling bands and cradle of Napoleon!
— these two — Martin Luther and Napoleon Buona
parte — the one or the other this suckling may become.
" All you who love the sublime, come and see! Nor
shall we permit the fables of phrenology to spoil our
mystery for us as we gaze on the child. Of such
mystery there is little in the mature man. From
Ij LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
what we see in him at present, we can predict with
considerable certainty whether the world shall profit
by him or not, and the imagination has no scope in
surveying him ; but there are no limits to its specula
tions in contemplating a child. And in the hope of
charity, that the one whom I now place before my
mind shall take the angel's path, is it enough that for
his father and mother's sake I should smile to him
and make sport for him ? Nay, but for his own sake
I shall mingle my sport with reverence and respect.
Were I merely to make frivolous and mocking play
with him, the remembrance of it might in a future
day overwhelm me with shame, when he is revealed
as one of nature's nobility. Nor shall the circum
stance of his being of humble birth, cradled amid
meanness and penury, restrain my imagination so as
to diminish my respect. Some of the most illustrious
forms of humanity have come forth, like Christ, from
the cottages of the poor. Luther, when at school, was
an alms-boy, wandering from door to door and begging
for his bread and the means of his education."
His book on "Regeneration" appeared in 1850,
and the first edition was exhausted in a few years.
The second appeared in 1861, published by Adam and
Charles Black, Edinburgh.1 We need say little more
about it than that of all Anderson's works it is the
most elaborate, thoughtful, systematic, and complete.
It treats of the Nature, the Characteristics, the Neces-
cessity, the Instrumentality, the Agency, the Develop
ment, and the Manifestation of Regeneration; and in
the course of it he touches more or less fully upon
AS AN AUTHOR. 137
such vexed questions as the entrance of Evil, Original
Sin, Eternal Punishment, Irresistible Grace, and the
Nature and Extent of the Atonement. Its views are
those of a Moderate Calvinist, and are expounded
with great clearness and energy. While it is sys
tematic and strictly logical, it is also very practical in
its tendency, and singularly close and urgent in its
appeals. It consisted originally of a series of lectures,
delivered to his own people in his own church. That
such a book should be popular in an age like this — a
book on the New Birth, when so many are doubting
the Old — a book on the Work of the Holy Spirit, when
so many, if they have ever heard of a Holy Ghost,
deny his existence or his personality — a book on
Regeneration, when Creation itself is not conceded —
can hardly be expected. But it has found, and may
long keep, its own place as a masterly theological
treatise, and none the less that we see in parts of it a
certain relaxation in the iron scales of old-fashioned
Scottish orthodoxy.
Dr. Anderson never became what is commonly called
a Broad Churchman in creed or position ; but the
generosity and catholicity of his nature are fully
more legible in his later than in his earlier outcomes,
whether in the pulpit or the press. And though he
never was an Evangelical Unionist, yet his sympathies
with that body were strong, and his esteem for some
of its leading men — such as our friends Dr. James
Morison and the Rev. John Guthrie — included admi
ration and brotherly love, as well as latterly ministerial
communion. Indeed he had been from the beginning
LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
unusually wide and catholic, and had exchanged
pulpits with various denominations — Congregational-
ists, Baptists, Wesleyans, and others.
In 1860 he issued a second volume of Discourses.
Of those we may say, in general, that while they have
not the racy originality, the fanciful richness, the
Andersonian boldness and peculiarities of his first
series, they have a deeper vein of thinking, greater
massiveness of style, and, if less brilliant, are calcu
lated to be more useful. One of them, " Uncharitable
Judgments Judged," is a masterpiece of moral anatomy
and searching thought. It pierces to the "dividing
asunder of soul and spirit," discerns the thoughts and
intents of the heart, and you read it more in awe and
silence than with applause. Lord Brougham has ex
pressed his strong admiration for it, and he was only
the leading exponent of a very general feeling.
Of his Anti-Popish productions we have already
spoken. Of his Letters on the Death of his Son, and
his contribution to the literature of the benign doctrine
of Infant Salvation, we shall have occasion to speak
when we touch on his family bereavements ; and some
of his speeches and lectures may be more appro
priately characterised when we come to the public
occasions when they were delivered. His last pro
duction, "Filial Honour of God," was published by
Hodder and Stoughton, London, in 1870. It is full
of those deep-sea soundings of the human heart, those
novel views of Scripture, that independent force of judg
ment, and those sudden and unlocked for appeals to
the inner man and the conscience, in which Anderson's
AS AN AUTHOR. 139
great strength lay. In the Appendix appear two
papers of much value — one on "A Collection of Testi
monies from Varied Authors to the Reward of Good
Works in an After Life," and another on "Gethsemane,
and What its Cup Was" — so thoroughly were his
evangelical tendencies, and his eager researches into
Scripture exhibited at the very last, and so vividly
" Even in his ashes lived their former fires."
Dr. Anderson, when preparing his volume on the
Fatherhood of God, frequently remarked that he had
more hope of young ministers and students of divinity
coinciding with his views than of those more advanced
in life. This suggested to a friend (who many years
ago had greatly profited by his ministry) the idea of
placing Dr. Anderson's books in the hands of divinity
students ; and accordingly arrangements were made
to carry this into effect. The Divinity Professors of
the various Colleges in Scotland were corresponded
with, who readily agreed to take charge of the volumes
for their students. In Edinburgh University the books
were distributed by Professor Crawford ; in Glasgow
University, by Professor John Caird ; in St. Andrews^
by Principal Tulloch ; and in Aberdeen University, by
Professor Milligan ; also, in the Free Church Colleges
of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen, respectively,
by Principal Fairbairn, Professor Rainy, and Professor
Brown. The students attending the Halls of the
United Presbyterian, Reformed Presbyterian, Con
gregational, and Evangelical Union Churches, were
likewise supplied with copies. Books were also sent
to the Professors and Tutors of all the Dissenting
140 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Colleges in England and Wales for their students ;
including the Independents, the Baptists, the Wesley-
ans, and their various sections, and the English Pres
byterians. Each of the divinity students of the various
Universities and Colleges above enumerated received
a single volume; while to the Professors and Libraries,
were sent copies of Dr. Anderson's Treatise on Regen
eration, Discourses, and Filial Honour. In acknow
ledgment, numerous letters were received, all referring
in eulogistic terms to the esteemed and honoured
author. It may be stated that the number of volumes
distributed was upwards of 1800.
Ere closing this view of Anderson as an author,
we have a few words in addition to offer. His style
is essentially a spoken style. Indeed, almost all
his works consist of sermons or lectures originally
delivered to audiences. Nor has he, in general,
elaborately polished and artistically prepared them
for that more fastidious auditory to which books
address themselves. Hence you often feel, " We wish
we had heard this ; it would have told better in the
delivery than when read, as now, in the cool closet."
This defect Anderson's style shares with that of
Chalmers and many other popular preachers. Still
you can read it with interest and admiration, which
is not always the case with the effusions of orators,
\vhen transferred from the glowing lips to the calm
page. The speeches of Fox, for instance, and the
sermons of Dean Kirwan are absolutely illegible.
But the qualities which made Anderson's style popular
when uttered — force, boldness, quaintness — render it
AS AN AUTHOR. 14!
readable when printed — readable but not classical, or,
perhaps, permanent. But, alas, how few sermons of
the present age seem destined to live ! Hall's may,
for their perfect English ; Robertson of Brighton's, for
their abundant thought, pat to the period and edged
with beauty — the lofty and perilous paths bordered
with flowers over which they conduct. Of Caird's and
John Ker's we augur also favourably. But whatever
be the future fate of Anderson's discourses, they
contain in them much that deserves not to perish —
much profound thinking, deep spiritual dissection, with
gleams of real genius shining above a stratum of solid,
manly sense.
To the modern students of Theology and Her-
meneutics Anderson's treatises must appear somewhat
deficient, not so much in knowledge and learning as
in the absence of that scientific method, that calm
ness and catholicity in investigation which are now so
commonly taught in our Universities, and still more in
those of Germany, and cannot be fully learned, per
haps, anywhere else. Alike in discussing theological
and critical questions, he is far more of an advocate
than of a judge — he debates rather than decides, and
sometimes declaims instead of reasoning. It would
have probably been otherwise had he undergone a more
thorough training in his youth. Occasionally, instead
of answering his opponent, he strikes him down. In
systems and in men — opposite to his own and unlike
himself — he allowed too little that is good and true;
and in critical estimates of books his feelings often
outran his judgment. Sometimes his love for certain
142 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
men led him to exaggerate the merits of their sermons
and writings, and sometimes his dislike at others
deepened the anathemas which he poured on their
literary failures or theological mistakes. But he was
more a man of the past than of the future. He did
not seem fully aware of the fact, that such is the
even balance on which many most momentous theolo
gical questions are resting — the weight of evidence
and of talent on both sides being so equal, and
the progress on every branch of cognate science at
the same time being so vast and so startlingly rapid
— that whatever savours of dogmatism in statement,
and the imputation of motives, and the use of invec
tive, is now generally tabooed. The sky of modern
investigation has become a clear, stern azure, in which
the thunders of ancient polemic are meanwhile heard
no more.
It is interesting, however, now to contrast with the
balanced sentences, and bated breath, and hesitating
tones of modern divines, the grand oracles of convic
tion, and sometimes of curse, pealing out from the
sanctum of the orator's soul, as from a shrine — the full
assurance or "absolute shall," as Shakspeare has it —
the undoubting, unwavering words springing from a
sincerity as profound as that of the martyrs and
Reformers, which are to be found in Irving and in
Anderson. They seemed strange even in their own
age. They seem a great deal stranger now when
opinions are so diverse, and when the Law and the
Testimony, erst the acknowledged umpires, are them
selves being tried so as by fire.
AS AN AUTHOR. 143
A recent sceptical writer avers that the "Popular
Christianity of the ninteenth century is not that of the
first and second centuries. The early Christian, if re
called to life, would be utterly bewildered at the loose
way in which his creed at present sits on its most
eminent professors; at seeing them burn incense to
gods whom, though not bearing the names of heathen
deities, he would nevertheless stigmatise as idols and
demons. To him it would be altogether astounding
and abnormal that this world should be now-a-days
so much to everybody, when the very key-note of his
creed is that it should be next to nothing, Vilius alga;
that even the so-called regenerate should be devoting
themselves with so much assiduity to worldly pursuits
and money-making during the brief interval of time
which separates them from Eternity; that the Scrip
tures should not be consulted on every occasion to
which they apply, but, on the contrary, be quietly
ignored or set aside; and that the debates in Convo
cation on the Athanasian Creed should not awaken
infinitely more attention than the debates on the
Public Health and Ballot Bills." The supposed
resuscitated Christian might form, perhaps, strange
conclusions from this state of matters. But were he
reading the works of Irving and Anderson, he would
soon see that the "ancient spirit" had not long left
the Church, and was not beyond the hope of recall,
returning probably in a yet nobler and more primitive
shape, with equal earnestness and with greater breadth,
with similar simplicity, but with more candour and
more chanty, than it assumed in the works or pulpits
144 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
of these two sainted and true-hearted men, "of whom
the world was not worthy."
[At the close of this volume will be found a
number of Dr. Anderson's better passages, which
will be found very interesting in themselves, and
furnishing a very fair specimen of his works.]
CHAPTER XI.
ANDERSON'S MERIDIAN.
WE now come to look at William Anderson as he
appeared in the full meridian of his powers and of his
fame. That, indeed, in the West country had long
begun. His name was a household word; it had
passed from a jest to a proverb of power and popu
larity in all the regions through which the Clyde rolls
her waters; and beyond them, through the fair dis
tricts of Kyle, Carrick, and Cunningham; and thence
wherever in Scotland the Dissenting Churches had
any place or influence. We remember there was a
little misgiving connected with his name, even after
his remarkable powers were fully acknowledged.
" Very clever, odd man; nothing daft, certainly, about
him, but still very queer and eccentric; were he but
giving these oddities up, what a great and useful man
he would yet be." Such critics failed to see that with
a man of William Anderson's order his eccentricities
were a portion of himself, as distinctly as his stature
or the features of his face; they did not arise from
affectation, they were not the exuberance of mere
youth, they arose from the peculiarity of his nature
and the individualism of his genius, and, therefore,
while time might soften and culture prune, they
I46 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
would never altogether remove them. This is, indeed,
a very common mistake in judging of men of real but
eccentric genius.
Growth is justly expected from them, as from all
healthy minds; but it is expected, also, that their
peculiarity, whatever it be, will disappear along with
their growth, although it were as reasonable to hope
that adult years shall remove a cast in the eye
or the scar of an early wound in the forehead. How
vain this hope, and the well-meant criticisms founded
on it, will appear when we consider the literary history
of such men as Walter Savage Landor, Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Wilson, or Carlyle! Such men are char
tered libertines, they deal with language, and with
thought too, as they please — toss them about as the
autumn wind leaves; often in the agony of their ear
nestness, or in the fury of new excitement, they seize
on rude and unpolished words, as Titans on rocks and
mountains, and gain artistic triumphs in opposition to
all the rules of art. These men we must just take as
they are, and be thankful for as they are. We must
give them their own way; and whether such a permis
sion be granted or not, it is likely to be taken. "Canst
thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his toncrue
o
with a cord which thou lettest down ? Will he make
many supplications unto thee ? Will he speak soft
words unto thee ? Will the unicorn be willing to
serve thee, or abide by thy crib ? Canst thou bind the
unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow
the valleys after thee ? Wilt thou believe him that he
will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn ?"
ANDERSON'S MERIDIAN. 147
No ; like the tameless creatures of the wilderness, or
the chainless elements of the air, such men obey a
law and use a language and follow a path of their
own.
Sometimes, however, it takes a long while to have
this privilege generally conceded ; sometimes not till
the man is near his end or past it. To Anderson this
came while he was still in the prime of life. To the
applause of the masses, which he had early, was added,
first, that of his own brethren, who, appreciating the
worth of his character and the honesty of his inten
tions, were the more ready to own the power of his
eloquence and the reality of his genius. Then came
in such dropping salutes in his honour as the praise
of Sir Daniel K. Sandford, himself a man of high
culture, brilliant eloquence, and Attic taste. We can
not positively say how at this period Edinburgh was
affected towards him. Its standard has always been
somewhat exclusive, and modelled upon certain highly
accomplished persons who were born within its walls,
perambulated its streets and courts of law, and been
buried in its own proud mausoleums. Subsequently,
we shall see how Anderson took metropolitan audiences
— or at least audiences meeting in the Scottish metro
polis, although mixed with many provincial elements
— by storm.
There was, however, another scene which promised
a fuller and a fairer ordeal, where many men of
merit, rejected by the provinces and by provincial
metropolitan cities, have met with a rapturous recep
tion, although it must be granted that there many
148 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
pretenders too have obtained a footing they could
hardly have got anywhere else — namely, London —
and here Anderson also had to repair. It was in the
capital of the world that Irving first felt
" Like a swimmer that has found his ground" —
first met with a mirror gigantic enough to reflect his
own full-length image. And it was a London audience
that first set a decisive seal to the floating reputation
of Chalmers, by the declaration coming from the fasti
dious lips of George Canning, as from its mouth-piece
— " The tartan beats us all."
The visits of Anderson to London were not numerous.
They extended at intervals over a period from about
1833 to 1850. He appeared first as one of a deputation
from the Anti-Slavery Society, then on behalf of the
Scottish Missionary Society, at another time to try by
his preaching to resuscitate Albion Chapel, and once
more to plead the cause of Dr. Adam Thomson's
cheap Bibles. It was on one of these occasions
that he appeared on the same platform with Daniel
O'Connell, pleading the Anti-Slavery cause, and
received a high practical eulogium from the most
eloquent orator of his time. Each speaker was allowed
only ten minutes; but Anderson became so powerful
that O'Connell, who seemed enraptured, allowed him
to go on, and he sat down amid a tempest of applause.
So far as occasional visits gave London an oppor
tunity of judging Anderson, it welcomed him with the
greatest unanimity of enthusiasm. In the pulpit, his
strong West country accent and deep doctrinal preach
ing were counterbalanced by so much that was bold,
ANDERSON'S MERIDIAN. 149
unconventional, practical, and eloquent, that his sermons
were listened to with general admiration. But it was
on the platform that he was the special favourite. In
Exeter Hall he found himself at home at once, nearly
as much so as in the City Hall, Glasgow. He hit the
Cockneys, as he did the Glasgow folks, between wind
and water. What they first recognised in him was his
fearlessness. He made no efforts, as many Scotchmen
do, to conciliate them by mincing his words, attenuat
ing his tones, and mangling his accent. He spoke in
his natural manner, and his motto was, "Whether ye
bear, or whether ye fbrbear." Along with that frank
fearlessness there was a strong grasp of the facts and
bearings of the particular theme which he handled — he
not only knew them, but knew their weight, their
measure, and their number, and it was hard to tell
whether the minuteness with which he recollected, or
the logical clearness with which he stated them, and
the inferences to which they led, were the more admir
able. Then there were bursts of tempestuous eloquence,
which recalled the memory of the days when Edward
Irving was thundering in the Caledonian Chapel.
And, best of all, there was a running fire of sarcasm
and wit, which, although very plain and free, yet was
exceedingly palatable to the English taste, and elicited
as loud laughter and as hearty cheers as were ever
heard within the precincts of Exeter Hall. We have
heard of him once demolishing a West Indian, who
stood up to defend slavery there, in a style so masterly
and scathing that laughter at his demolition became
blended ere long with pity for his misery ; for
ISO LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Anderson drew his net of sarcasm round and round
him in a merciless mesh till he literally writhed, and
had ultimately to rush out of the room.
During these visits to London, Anderson became
acquainted with and preached for many of the leading
divines in London : — Dr. Tidman, Foreign Secretary to
the London Missionary Society; Dr. Morison, the genial
and frank-hearted editor of the Evangelical Magazine;
Dr. Blackburn, the accomplished editor of the Congrega
tional Magazine; that fine fatherly man, Dr. Leifchild,
of Craven Chapel; Dr. Alex. Fletcher, of Finsbury
Chapel ; Rev. James Sherman, of Surrey Chapel ; the
famous Dr. John Campbell, of the British Standard,
who continued to the close one of Anderson's fastest
friends, and whose facile and powerful pen never
seemed to move more rapidly or with more force than
when praising Anderson's character and analysing his
works; and last, and by no means least, alike in him
self and in Anderson's opinion of him, Thomas Binney,
now, we think, the sole survivor of these eminent men,
and around whom — the Nestor of Non-conformity —
there has gathered what Chalmers calls "the grandeur
of age without its infirmities," and who, in the union of
a certain degree of eccentricity with real worth and
genius, bears a striking resemblance to Anderson him
self. He probably met when in London, at all events
he knew him well when in Scotland, Edward Miall,
the distinguished "Liberator" of the Church, who,
although not yet an old man, stands now — the last of
the early Voluntary champions — like a lonely pine
upon a mountain summit, whose fellows have all fallen,
ANDERSON'S MERIDIAN. 151
but which still overlooks the prospect with unaltered
confidence, and confronts the blast with unflinching
courage.
These visits to London bore one memorable result in
Anderson's experience, and had nearly borne another
of still greater importance. It was, we believe, Dr.
Blackburn who first suggested to Anderson the idea
of removing to London, and becoming a minister of
the Gospel there. Much might have been said pro
and con on the motion — Translate or not William
Anderson to the metropolis. It is clear that had he
about the age of 40 or 45 entered London, being then
in the full vigour of his body and mind, he would have
taken a very high place among London clergymen.
He would have gathered a large steady congregation,
with Scotchmen for its staple, and with a considerable
sprinkling, besides, of that class of the English who
like the condiment of oddity along with the good solid
food of Gospel truth. On the platform he would have
been a great power, perhaps unequalled at that time,
among London divines. The United Presbyterian
Church in London has had, and has many most
respectable and able men among its ministers. But
notoriously, since the days of Dr. Waugh, she has
never had one that has ridden triumphantly on the
popular wave as Anderson could have done, could
not, in fact, have helped doing. He had a magnetism
in him which, out of a vast mass of people like that
collected in the capital, would have drawn to him his
own audience, and that in a short time.
On the other hand, London would have tried even
152 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
his iron constitution, and probably, as with Irving,
cut him off ere his prime was past. Peace and repose
he would have enjoyed none. His sensitive heart
would have bled more copiously than even in Glas
gow, as he saw the enormous sin, and ignorance,
and sorrow around him — sin he could not reclaim,
ignorance he could not enlighten, and sorrow he could
not alleviate. And although literary men would
have hailed him at first as a curiosity, and respected
him as an honest and able man, they would, by and
by, have flocked away from him as they did from
Irving. And we doubt, too (founding this on some
things we saw in Glasgow), if his doctrines, particu
larly his Millenarianism, would have suited the
new school of Sceptics (or Considerers, as they may be
called in the original meaning of the Greek word),
who have now existed for many years, and are found
in all churches.
On the whole, Dr. Anderson acted wisely, we think,
in remaining in Glasgow. In London, it was sug
gested to him that he should publish a volume of
sermons, which he did in 1844. He alludes to this
in the epistle dedicatory of the first volume of his
Discourses to his church in John Street, where he
says, "When recently in London, as a deputation
from the Scottish Missionary Society, I was advised
and urged in various quarters to publish a volume,
including some of the sermons I preached upon
that occasion." Ministers of note visiting London for
the first or second time often receive captivating
compliments, flattering requests, and seducing hints.
ANDERSON'S MERIDIAN. 153
It is a custom of the place, and creates a kind of
belated clerical honeymoon in their feelings, so strik
ingly contrasted it is with the cold indifference of the
provinces; but, in Anderson's case, the praise seems
to have been more than usually abundant and sincere,
and was felt to be so by himself, and on this hint he
spoke by publishing his very admirable and racy
discourses.
A gentleman who once visited London could, when
he returned, give no description of the capital except by
reiterating the words, "Wonderful! oh, wonderful, most
wonderful !" This was better than John MacDiarmid
of Dumfries, who, when he visited it for the first time,
sent home letters to his paper about it so long, and
laboured, and overflowing with particulars, that Allan
Cunningham remarked, that " Mr M. seemed to think
that he had discovered London." Anderson preserved
the proper medium, and although he frequently alluded
to and narrated passages in his London trips, he never,
either in correspondence or conversation, became prosy
in their description. One glimpse we get of him from
Mr. Colin Rae Brown, the well-known Glasgow littera
teur, who, in a letter to us, describes him (they resided
in the same hotel) getting up very early in the summer
morning and hieing to Covent Garden to watch the
unloading of the vast carts and waggons of vegetables
and fruit there — always the first authentic symptom
that London's brief night is past, and that her long,
long day of manifold business has begun.
How characteristic this of Anderson's everlasting
freshness of heart and mind, and of that sleepless
154 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
love of Nature — and especially in its Flora — which
distinguished him! How he loved the grass, the
flowers, the trees of the wood, the sparkling foam
of the ocean, the wave of mighty forests, and the
rush of sounding waterfalls; the deep solitude of
Highland glens, the floating down of the thistle, the
falling flakes of the snow, and the bells of the budding
clover; the ivy with tremulous filial hand hiding the
nakedness of the ruin, and the pine throwing her
cones like loose reins on the neck of the hurrying
blast! No one detested affectation in the proclama
tion of love to Nature more, or practised it less; he
did not like the class called " Exclaimers," and he
himself seldom exclaimed, and yet few in reality
had a deeper, truer, or wider passion for the beautiful
and sublime. This arose from that poetic nature in
him which was far stronger than he ever had the
opportunity, or perhaps the power (from culture and
circumstances) fully to express.
In 1847 to°k place the Union between the Relief
and the Secession bodies. This had been talked of
for a long time, had gone on at first after the talk had
become action with considerable alacrity ; had come
to a sort of stand-still, but was at last consummated
in the month of May, 1847, in Edinburgh. There
never, indeed, had been any serious obstruction,
although, of course, there was a good deal of petty
prejudice to overcome. Till indeed the Voluntary
Controversy arose, there was little love lost between
the two bodies. The Relief were thought by the
Secession somewhat lax in discipline, and in doctrine
ANDERSON'S MERIDIAN. 155
too. The Secession were deemed by the Relief rather
harsh, narrow, and Pharisaic. In both of the notions
there might be some truth, but there was far more
exaggeration. Both parties had, in fact, unknown
to each other beyond the partition wall which sun
dered them, been rapidly growing, and had in that
silent growth thrown off almost all that was really
objectionable in either. But the Voluntary ques
tion gave them a common object, a common watch
word, and a common foe. And hence for a good
many years their nuptials seemed so fixed, and their
proximity to each other so great, that all romance of
courtship and of marriage fled, and it resembled at
last rather a shaking of hands between friends in the
market place, or the marriage of two middle aged
persons who had been long engaged, than the
espousals of ardent lovers.
Both, however, were well matched, and seemed in
some points the complements of each other. The
Relief brought a somewhat younger spirit, as well as
in some respects larger views ; and if its men were
not so numerous, their culture was fully as liberal,
and their popular power as great. On the Secession
side were Brown and King, and Young of Perth, and
Stark of Dennyloanhead, and Stark of Forres, and
Harper of Leith, and Macfarlane and Eadie of Glasgow,
and Davidson of Edinburgh, and Angus of Aberdeen,
and Mackelvie of Balgedie, and a host of others.
On the Relief, were Anderson and Struthers, and
M'Dougall of Paisley, and Lindsay and Taylor of
Glasgow, and Gorrie of Kettle, and M 'Michael of
156 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Dunfermlinc, and Edwards of Glasgow, and Auld of
Greenock, Brown of Wishaw, and Brooks of Johnstone,
and Beckett of Rutherglen, and many besides. Not long
before the Union, Heugh and Mitchell, and Balmer of
Berwick, and Duncan of Midcalder, had died; Ritchie
had resigned his charge; and on the Relief side, some
patriarchs too had departed Simeon-like, while the
desire of their hearts was almost in their arms. On the
other hand, many of the present luminaries of the
Church were as yet below the horizon. On the whole,
however, both denominations brought to the erection of
the new temple a mass of most admirable material —
their spirit, if not enthusiastic, was very harmonious,
and the excitement, if not so violent as that which
accompanied the birth of the Free Church four years
previously, was more rational, and gave a more trust
worthy augury for the future. It was a Union, in
short, of which, as Sir Philip Francis said of the Peace
of Amiens, everybody was glad, but nobody was
particularly proud.
Dr. Anderson was from the first friendly to the
general idea of the Union, although he felt a little
sore at the hard names which had been thrown at the
Relief body by some of the Secession, and had said
at the Synod that he had a little bit of cold hard
ice in his bosom which must be melted ere he could
go heartily into it. It is told that a Sabbath or so
afterwards Dr. John Brown, of Edinburgh, appeared
unexpectedly in John Street vestry, and said, "Mr.
Anderson, I have come to preach for you this morning,
if you will allow me, and to try to melt that bit of ice
ANDERSONS MERIDIAN. 157
about the Union you said there was still in your breast."
Anderson received him most warmly, mounted the
pulpit, gave out the psalm, and in announcing Dr.
Brown announced also his purpose, and said that he
felt the ice already fast melting away.
At the soiree held in honour of the consummation of
the Union on the evening of the I3th of May, 1847,
Anderson was one of the speakers. His subject was
the duties which Dissenters owe to themselves and to
the community around them. He first recapitulated
the story about the ice, stating that it was, however,
not icy hatred or icy contempt he had felt for the
Secession, but icy fear, knowing their feelings to the
Relief, and that the last particles of that ice had been
removed by that warm room and the many warm
hearts it enclosed. He then expressed his con
viction that the Relief body had that day, in propor
tion to their numbers and their wealth, contributed to
the common fund their due quota of learning, piety,
and zeal for the Gospel. He next launched out on his
theme, and delivered a brief, bold Andersonian speech,
in which, while speaking of increased missionary enter
prise as one result of the Union, he said, " But another
great arm must go out on the other side preserving
the symmetry. We have a great mission to show that
the purest form of Christian faith is not only consistent
with, but in the highest degree inspiring of, the spirit
of civil liberty; to disabuse the mind of liberal sceptics
of that great prejudice against our faith, generated so
unhappily by the conduct of too many professors, that
Christianity is inimical to civil liberty."
158 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
In April, 1850, he received the degree of LL.D.
from his own University, that of Glasgow. He had
said previously, when the thing was mooted, that he
would not take a D.D. from Glasgow University, as
its Senate had not been in a position to judge of his
divinity. For such honours Anderson had no special
desire, as he had no need of them whatever. He
never, with some, manoeuvred to obtain a degree,
nor, with others, purchased it. We think he rather
regarded degrees with a slight feeling of contempt.
We remember his once speaking with scorn of the
false and factitious advantage a divinity degree con
ferred on clergymen over their superiors and seniors
in public advertisements, meetings, &c., so that the
small doctors often took precedence over the older or
the greater man. We suspect he accepted the degree,
for which he certainly never applied, to oblige the
friends who wished him to get it and the University
which frankly conferred it on him. It added nothing
to him, but it took nothing away; it could not raise
him, but it did not lower him; it did not make him
more respectable or eminent, but it did not make him
ridiculous. Most of his admirers preferred plain
"William Anderson" to Dr. Anderson, although many
also thought that giving him a degree, so richly
deserved, rayed back honour on those who bestowed
it, and served somewhat to redeem the practice from
the general contempt into which it was fallen. He felt
it, however, a great honour, and valued it highly in his
later years.
During these years of his meridian fulness and
ANDERSON'S MERIDIAN. 159
brightness of success, his labours continued most abun
dant. Diligent as ever among his people, and frequent
as ever in his pulpit, he was ready as ever to speak at
soirees, to assist brethren, and to attend all sorts and
sizes of public meetings. In the City Hall he con
tinued to lay about him like a man inspired ; his
eloquence resembling the description so often given of
that of Charles James Fox — the whole man being in an
ecstacy of convulsive earnestness, his voice screeching
or yelling out his words, his eye shooting out black
fire and horror, his words pursuing each other like a
crowd running from a conflagration, and the audience
partaking almost to agony in his high wrought excite
ment, and moving almost to frenzy to his stirring
eloquence. When a hiss, as was sometimes the case,
questioned the accuracy of his statements, or rebuked
the asperity of his language, he would probably take
no notice of it at the time, but pass on to some triumph
ant point in his argument, and then pausing, look
his opponents in the face, and in broad Scotch, and
with an eldrich squeel, cry out, "Hiss noo, if ye dare."
Nor meanwhile were his private studies neglected.
He had been, as we saw, a good student, a first-rate
mathematician, and excellent Latin scholar, and knew
some modern languages. His mathematics he aban
doned, but he did not permit himself to rust in his
Latin or his French. If he did not read many of the
new books of the day, he made up for this by his dili
gent perusal of the newspapers. He had especially
great delight in reading the Times. For some years
he made a point of reading every leader in the leading
l6o LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
journal, and also the chief part, often the whole of the
foreign correspondence. In this way he passed many
pleasant hours in his later years, when deafness
deprived him of conversation. A friend used to send
him a vast number of tid bits in newspapers and
periodicals, which greatly refreshed him. He had con
siderable interest, too, in the higher literature and
poetry of the day, had read Festus, and the Life-
Drama, and other poems of the age, and became
acquainted with some of the rising litterateurs — notably
with Mr. Charles A. Ward of London (whose nom de
plume is Feltham Burghley), a man of real genius, and
with whom he carried on a long correspondence. One
of the last poems he read was Olrig Grange, and he
greatly enjoyed it, and especially what it says of
formal professors of religion. It may be mentioned
here that William Anderson in his early ministerial
days knew Robert Pollok, the author of the Course
of Time, saw, we think, that poem in MS., and
although he was not an enthusiastic admirer of it as
a whole, admitted great merit in particular parts, and
regarded the memory and early fate of the author
with warm sympathy and sorrow.
To students and young preachers, Anderson was
always accessible and friendly. He loved the young
fermenting brain, the self-forgetting enthusiasm, the
crude but exuberant life of young men, their heartfelt
aspirations and half-fledged pinions, and in their society
his flesh and feelings became, in Job's language, "fresher
than those of a child;" and he exemplified the truth of
the saying, " that the Sons of the Morning are always
ANDERSON'S MERIDIAN. 161
young." And yet he was faithful in rebuking their
faults, in correcting their prejudices, in guarding their
judgments, and in abating their self-opinion and rash
assumptions. When surrounded by a knot of aspiring
youths, he delighted to tell them stories of his own early
days, his successes and defeats, his ecstacies and his
chagrins. Yet withal, he never compromised his self-
respect, or lowered his dignity by a single iota. Some
times too, as with his other friends, he would lift up a
book that was interesting, read passages from it, invite
their criticism, challenge their sympathies, over-ride their
remarks when they were captious or smacked of envy,
and endorse them when they were candid and just.
And now surely Anderson might have been expected
to follow thus the " ever running year with profitable
labour to his grave." But besides the family losses
which disturbed his serenity, there were other circum
stances before him calculated to test his manhood and
his faith. These we shall detail when we come to
speak of his decadence and decline; and we shall close
this chapter by showing him in what we may call the
climax of his power, as standing up in Edinburgh
and speaking at the Tercentenary of the Reforma
tion. This was on Wednesday, the i6th of May, 1860.
After some others had delivered their speeches on
various aspects of the Reformation, Anderson rose
to handle its defects. His rising in the Music Hall
excited quite a sensation. The look of the man, as of
some old Puritan or John Knox redivivus; his sudden
appearance (he seemed, said a countryman who was
present to his next neighbour, " like ane just rising up
L
1 02 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
oot o' the grund"); the daring treatment of the
theme; the manner in which, after having given the
Reformers their meed of praise, "good measure, pressed
down, and shaken together, and running over," he pro
ceeded to find "hairs in their neck;" the happy reason
he assigned for this, that " his worship of the Peerless
One and his devotion to Protestantism might remain
pure and entire;" the freedom and force and fearless
ness of his strictures on Luther and Calvin (strictures
which, to its honour, the meeting adopted as its own,
and cheered to the echo); his admirable hits at the
Confession of Faith, and the blunder it committed by
producing the case of Herod gathering his assembly
of high priests and scribes to demand where Christ
should be born, as a proof of the right of the magis
trate to call synods; and the noble closing remarks,
in which he denounced our trimming and paltering in
a double sense and sacrificing to a feeling of false
brotherhood with other Churches our original manly
attitude as a Voluntary Church, renders this, perhaps,
Anderson's chef d'ceuvre, and certainly no speech of
his ever received such rapturous applause from an
audience, or, when printed, ever made a more profound
impression. One thing, in our judgment, it lacked —
namely, a proclamation of the non-finality of the
Westminster Confession, or of any other elaborate and
lengthened standard of religious opinion. But this was
not so manifest, even to Anderson's keen prospective
glance, as it has become of late to most men who "discern
their time" and the manifest stream of its tendency.
CHAPTER XII.
ANDERSON AT HOME.
IT is seldom that the great author or preacher trans
lates well or fully into the man. Often something,
nay much, is lost on the way, and the imposing, over
whelming leader of the people, whose words are laws
and stamp an earthquake, is found in private to be a
very common-place or selfish individual, self-travestied
into an exceedingly small, consequential, and shabby
version of the public man. To say that no man is a
hero to his valet is to say too much; to say that few
men are, is to state what we believe to be the truth.
On the other hand, some of the greatest authors or
preachers have been very delightful companions ; and
even when their conversation has not been equal to
their writings, their bonhomie, geniality, humility, and
child-like simplicity have rendered them general favour
ites. How many have spoken to us of Edward Irving
as in the undress of private life the most fascinating of
men ! Not a few, we believe, remember Dr. Andrew
Thomson, the Thunderer of St. George's, as combining
the manners of a gentleman and the intellect of a
giant, with the utmost frankness, cordiality, and fun.
Of Professor Wilson and of Sir Walter Scott and
Dr. Chalmers we need not speak. Many who enter
1 64 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Thomas Carlyle's company deeply prejudiced against
him are converted, less by the wonderful power of his
talk than by his kindly ways, his farmer-like homeli
ness of manner, and his broad Annandale accent.
De Quincey's suavity, humble air, and politeness were
almost painful, when you remembered what an intellect
and imagination, what learning, and subtlety, and
genius belonged to him. And without placing Ander
son exactly beside such dii majorum gentium, on this
point he was entitled to rank with them. From his
pulpit, on which he stood as on a throne, he subsided
into private society as easily and gracefully as a wave
from its sweeping power and crested majesty into the
level of the deep. He did not descend with com
pulsion and laborious flight. He did not assume a
mock humility. In the pulpit, on the platform, with
thousands cheering him to the echo, or convulsed with
laughter under the sting of his humour, till it threatened
sometimes to become the sting of death, or paying him
that tribute of silence which is the "best applause,"
he had been simply a child, inspired and influenced
with a fine frenzy. When it was over he was a child
still, free to sport and play, his work over and his
holiday begun.
Emerson describes some of the Neo-Platonic Philo
sophers as "babe-like Jupiters sitting amidst their
clouds, and conversing with each other and with no
contemporary." Such an epithet is as appropriate to
Anderson. He was a babe-like Jupiter both when he
sat throned on thunders among the clouds, and when
he plucked buttercups and chased butterflies in the
ANDERSON AT HOME. 165
fields. Sydney Smith describes a young lady who
once in his company at dinner, in her terror and con
fusion, began to crumble her bread ; and he says that
in the presence of a Bishop he always did the same —
in that of an Archbishop with both hands ! We
imagine that few ladies, or men, or children crumbled
their bread at Anderson's side, or, if they did so once,
they never tried it again. The danger was of feeling
too much at ease with him. Instead of merely coming
down to your level, he got into yourself, and it became
not condescending intercourse but incorporation, till,
in delightful interchange of souls, you forgot you were
in the company of one of the most extraordinary men
of his body.
In these moods how delicious was the "twa-
handed crack " — how pleasantly profitable his remi
niscences of the past, of his college days, of departed
ministers and friends — and how, when he got some
racy anecdote to recount, he " rolled it like a sweet
morsel under his tongue ! " You almost heard the
operation even before it strengthened into a chuckle ;
and how abundantly ready he was to listen to what
you had to say, which, in spite of his deafness, he
caught up with marvellous celerity and general cor
rectness — sometimes, indeed, getting you to repeat it
twice while he was pondering a reply, if it was an
argument, or preparing a Roland for an Oliver if it
was a joke ! And then he had his serious moods, in
which, from his point of view, he bemoaned the state
of the world ; or told some lamentable story of moral
failure and delinquency — always, however, more in
1 66 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
sorrow than in anger ; or, perhaps, at the "witching
hour," the Clyde heard wailing down the valley, and
the large stars of midnight looking in, he would strike
on a weird and eery note, recount a ghost story,
rehearse some of those warning voices —
" Earnest whispers heard among the hills "
at dead of night, and how their portentous tidings
had been fulfilled ; or in half shuddering, half raptur
ous tones speak of the unexpected and cloudy coming
of the Son of Man !
At other times he was fond of darting on a favourite
volume (we use the word advisedly), and proceeding
with child-like rapture to read to you its better pas
sages, looking round the while as eagerly for your
opinion, as if they were from his own pen. We
have witnessed often young authors reading their own
MSS., and have pitied the helpless droop of their faces
if you were not pleased; but seldom have seen a coun
tenance fall as Anderson's did, when the words of
others fell flat upon his hearer. We found him one
day at Uddingston, when he must have been 65 years
of age, deep in Tasso, repeating with intense delight
some of his lines, and pointing out their exquisite
melody and smoothness. He had, we think, only
mastered Italian at a late period of life, and this
reminded us of Robert Hall, when, in his grand
climacteric, he read Macaulay's paper on Milton, in
which he sketches Dante, and was found a day or two
after on his back, with an Italian Grammar in his
hands commencing the study of that language, that
he might be able to read the great poet for himself.
ANDERSON AT HOME. l6/
Although Dr. Anderson's critical faculty had not
received much culture, and was not certainly one of
his leading powers, yet in sincere enthusiasm for litera
ture, and warm appreciation of what he thought good ,
as well as in honest and unmeasured disgust for what
he disliked, we have seldom met his equal.
We may perhaps be permitted to describe as briefly
as possible one or two of our meetings with Anderson,
in which there was involved some element character
istic of his character. One of the first times we met
him was in his own house in Glasgow, in 1847, having
called on him along with our mutual, and mutually
much esteemed friend, Dr. Hamilton MacGill. He
was kind and pleasant but grave, and we thought, not
then knowing his ways, somewhat distant. Swarthy
solemnity seemed the expression of his face, and we
wondered if the rumour which ran, that he could keep
audiences in roars of laughter for hours, were true.
We remember only one of his remarks. Talking of
public speaking, he said, "there are two kinds of it,
speaking with the throat, and with the lungs. The
first fatigues the speaker less — the other impresses the
audience more. Almost all who speak a great deal
and preserve their health, speak with the throat. The
minister's sore throat and bronchitis affect chiefly those
who speak with the lungs." The remark was new to
us then, but is undoubtedly in the main correct, and
had been founded on extensive experience.
In the year 1848, we had Anderson assisting at our
Communion, and then for the first time we saw him in
all the genial deshabille' of his private manners, and
1 68 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
learned to love as we had long admired him. There
occurred a scene which has been pictured under
fictitious names elsewhere, but which is far too charac
teristic to be omitted here. We give it nearly as it
happened, and Principal Tulloch, who was present, can
verify our statement. (Dr. Anderson had that day told
us the particulars.) Dr. Anderson was sitting one day
in his study, when a stranger is announced, and in stalks
an elderly man of majestic presence, mild expression
of face, and with long grey hair floating down his
shoulders. He accosts Dr. Anderson, " I have long
known you, sir, and highly esteemed your character.
You are one of the few ministers in this land who have
advocated the ancient Hope of the Church. I, sir, am
Jesus Christ ! I am newly arrived from heaven ; and
you are the first man in Glasgow I have called on."
(He was, of course, an escaped lunatic.)
Dr. Anderson evidently did not like the somewhat
ludicrous turn we heedlessly gave to the story, but if
it was folly, he answered it accordingly, without a
moment's hesitation. "That's nothing to another story.
A minister was one day sitting in his study reading
Sartor Resartus, when a stranger is shown in of a
very remarkable appearance. His stature is tall, his
complexion and hair dark as night ; his forehead is
furrowed with deep scars, his large eyes gleam with
what Milton calls ' black fire ;' his air is majestic, but
unspeakably melancholy; his aspect altogether that
of a fallen prince. He approaches the clergyman, takes
him by the hand, and accosts him thus, ' I am happy,
sir, to see you ; you have done justice to some of my
ANDERSON AT HOME. 169
fastest friends, who have been greatly misunderstood
in the world, such as Shelley and Byron. I have
come to thank you in person. I am that much misre
presented character — Lucifer!'5 One can conceive
the effect of the rejoinder in a company which
consisted entirely of clergymen. We record it as
a specimen of those witty and rapid retorts in which
no man excelled him in his social hours, as well as
sometimes in church courts and public meetings.
They seemed to come on him, as they did on Sydney
Smith, by a species of inspiration ; and we thought
the volcanic fire sparkled the more brightly from
the contrast with the dark background of his normal
gravity, like a wall of lava.
A week or two afterwards we assisted him in turn
at his Communion in John Street. We were much
interested in the services of the whole day. The con
gregation we found large ; and, thanks to him, one of
the best singing congregations in Scotland. It was
thrilling, almost to the sublime, to hear their morning
psalm. His sermon, though hardly in his highest vein,
was interesting and forcible — it was on the reconcile-
ableness of the Kingly with the Fatherly character of
God — a favourite theme, and often touched on in after
years. His prayers were minute, comprehensive, and
earnest. But the most striking part was his table
service. During the consecration prayer, he held the
elements in his hand. While lifting up the cup, and
pouring out a most eloquent and almost awful prayer
for the coming of Christ, as he stood there so like an
ancient Jew — dark and solemn — the thought flashed
1 70 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
across our mind, " Here is the Kings cup-bearer! "
The awe-struck feeling was communicated to the large
audience, who were silent as the grave, and seemed
eating and drinking under the shadow of the coming
chariot; and if the morning psalm approached the
sublime, the evening anthem sung by the whole con
gregation standing exceeded it, and rose to the
sublime of dreams, when the vision of the night is
heaven.
In private we enjoyed exceedingly his familiar and
friendly talk. We saw him, we recollect, in his own
family, under the influence of a fine private organ,
played with the accompaniment of a female voice, and
his spirit seemed to rise upon the billows of sweet sound,
as if each wave were a step of Jacob's Ladder lead
ing upwards to the Eternal Throne ! We then met, as
formerly mentioned, his wife and also the members of
his family. There was one of these with whom we
felt en rapport almost immediately. This was his son
William — a young man of remarkable promise, inherit
ing, if not his father's genius, yet all his sympathy
with genius, more than his nervous temperament, and
an acuter metaphysical intellect — fed, too, by a far
wider and more diversified reading. We linger as we
remember little traits and incidents connected with
this amiable youth, who was deeply loved by his
father. We recollect him accompanying us on the
Sabbath morning to church — his father, then in the
full vigour of middle age, stalking on swiftly before,
and the son whispering to us as he passed, "I ken he's
no prepared very well to-day." We recollect returning
ANDERSON AT HOME. I /I
in the evening, too, along with "young Willie," as
he was then always called in contradistinction to his
father, and pausing with him at the bridge over the
Clyde, where the noble stream, which had been all day
serving God in its own way up among the hills, was
pouring its dim waters below the arches with a strong
yet stilly sound, as if it hushed its voice in unison with
the solemnities of the eve of Sacramental Sabbath rest.
In 1849 we saw more of "Willie," and watched
with interest the metaphysical tendencies of his mind.
We found that he was an invaluable assistant to his
father — his taster of books — his referee in contested
matters of expression, grammar, and dates — the link
connecting him with the literature and philosophy of
to-day — a kind of living "whatnot" — or revolving table
of literary help to his sire. To him the father read his
lectures ere they were delivered, from him he learned
the impressions they had made, he ferreted out quota
tions for him, he gave him sometimes advice and
always sympathy, and in many points was to Dr.
Anderson what young Burke was to his father. Alas!
there was too soon another point of resemblance
between them ! We remember accompanying young
Willie that year on a morning call to our friend, the
late Professor Nichol, who had never met him before,
but who, partly for his father's sake, whom he warmly
admired, and partly for his own ingenuous and intel
lectual look and manner, received him with all that
frank urbanity with which he so easily won and for
ever kept the hearts of the young. We met this
interesting youth for the last time in the year 1854,
1/2 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
while returning from the Kossuth conversazione at the
Observatory, Glasgow; parted with him in Sauchiehall
Street amidst the shadows of the night ; and toward
the close of 1855 heard that he had left the world,
exchanging the weakness of a nervous system and the
yearnings of a truth-seeking, earnest, unsatisfied spirit,
for the strength, the light, and " the glorious liberty of
the children of God." Lamented by his father much,
he was lamented even more by his student friends, who
still cherish his memory in their heart of hearts. He
died 29th Sept., 1855. His mother had preceded him
nearly a year, having departed this life on the Qth
of Nov., 1854. Over the son's tomb there is the
following inscription from Anderson's pen : —
In U&p.mtmam qucqtte
GULIELMI ANDERSONI, S.S. Theologise
Studiosi, qui matrem in coelum
cito est secutus : eheu ! quam cito,
patri, fratri, sorori re-
lictis, multisque aliis lugentibus
Subito ercptus!
Obiit Sep. 29, A.D. 1855,
Natus 27 annos.
An infant called David Binnie Anderson, who was
a special pet of his father's, had died before either of
them, January 28, 1835, aged five and a-half years.
Another son, John, the eldest, died in June, 1865, aged
forty.
Death produced a curious complex effect in William
Anderson. No one could love his children or his wife
better than he did ; no one could more sincerely
mourn their loss, and yet there was an element of
joy connected in his mind with death which few can
ANDERSON AT HOME.
173
share. Millenariamsm was not a mere theory with
him ; it was a fixed idea, and that idea generated a
lively hope. He did not look to re-union with his
friends across the gulf of innumerable ages, nor on
the other side even of his own grisly. grave; he looked
up from the tomb to the blue sky as smiling down the
prospect of a speedier meeting. We once attended a
funeral, where, as the dead man was going down into
the grave, a lark arose from the very margin of the
sepulchre, and poured out a strain of melody to the
May sun, as if it was the spirit of the departed triumph
ing over death, and ere entering the gates of heaven,
leaving this fine strain for a legacy. Anderson needed
no such winged voice to cheer him as he laid his
beloved ones in the dust. The hope was beating and
singing unseen in his own bosom. And whatever we
may think as to the Millennial hypothesis, we freely
grant that held as Anderson held it, or as Irving held
it, it was a well-spring of perennial peace in their
breasts, and mingled a joy with their grief which the
world could not give or take away, and which ordinary
theories of resurrection do not supply with equal force
or in a form coming so nearly home to the heart.
Dr. Anderson was married to Margaret Jane
Hamilton, his second wife, on the 6th day of
February, 1856. As this lady still lives, we can only
say that her union with Dr. Anderson was a source
of great comfort to him in his closing days. She
was a most kind nurse to him, and her assiduities to
the poor and the sick were unremitting. One son was
the offspring of this marriage, born on August 3rd,
1/4 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
1857, and who died July Qth, 1868, aged ten years
and eleven months.
Dr. Anderson's only daughter, Mary, now Mrs. John
Wilson, Craigpark, Glasgow, is still living.
William Willie (so called after his father and his first
Willie) was the name of his son by his second wife, and
of him he has left a delightful memorial. His sermon
on the Re-union of Friends in the Heavenly World was
exceedingly popular, and he was often requested to re
print it. This he did in 1868, along with a prefatory
Pastoral Letter to the members of John Street United
Presbyterian Congregation, containing a somewhat
lengthened and very beautiful tribute to this Ben
jamin, the child of his old age, with some notes of his
death-bed sayings appended. In reference to this
letter and its appendix, one is reminded of the old
story of Agesilans the Spartan King. He is amusing
himself with his children, and mingling with their sports
like one of themselves. A stranger is suddenly intro
duced. Agesilans looks up and asks him, " Are you a
father?" He replies, "I am." " Then let us play out
the game, boys." So, if the reader of this Pastoral
Letter is a father, and especially a father who has been
bereaved, or even although not a father, if he be consti
tutionally a lover of children, let him read this pro
duction, and it will beguile him of not a few tears.
We would not advise mere critical and cold-blooded
persons to read it at all. They may find other subjects
to scoff at besides the devoted, doting (if you will)
affection of a noble old man of 70 years of age, for a
brave, beautiful, virtuous, and gentle boy, who had
ANDERSON AT HOME. 1/5
wound himself round the hearts of both father and
mother, and a host of others, who had made his father,
as he tells us, young again, and whose loss brought
home to him for the first time the woes of age ; who
for ten years had spent a cheerful bird-like existence
in this strange world, yet was not unaware of its
sorrows and mysteries, and of the consolations the
Gospel has supplied to the one, and the solution it has
promised to the other, and whose death-bed disclosed a
resigned, pious, and benignant spirit, so that when he
was passing away his parents might have said in the
exquisite language of Leigh Hunt —
" Yes, still he's fixed and sleeping !
This silence too the while —
Its very hush and creeping
Seem whispering us a smile
Some thing divine and dim
Seems going by one's ear,
Like parting wings of cherubim,
Who say, ' We've finished here.' "
William Willie lies now near Knox's Monument in
the Glasgow Necropolis, with the following stanza in
scribed on his tombstone :—
" We wonder if it will be long
Till Resurrection day;
When we will meet him glorified.
Come quickly, Lord, we pray."
In his truly magnificent sermon on the Re-union of
Saints, Dr. Anderson had supported very strongly the
doctrine of infant salvation, of universal infant salva
tion, although he held that a higher place in the climes
of bliss would be given to the infant children of the
176 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
good than to those of the wicked. And many years
afterwards, when his warm friend, William Logan's
"Words of Comfort," after a race of unexampled
popularity and usefulness, was going into another new
and enlarged edition, William Anderson prefixed an
introduction on the subject full of all his usual quali
ties of strong reasoning, bitter sarcasm, and earnest
practical appeal. The scorn he casts upon those
writers who, while professing to believe in a gospel of
mercy, and a God whose name is love, yet can hardly
admit the salvation of infants, and have been driven
to certain hesitating and half-hearted concessions on
the subject by the pressure of public opinion acting on
their fears, is expressed in language of well-deserved
indignation and savage irony, fitted to pierce below
surfaces of the most pachydermatous character, and
touch the very quick of half-slumbering consciences.
On a subject like the salvation of infants, Dr. Anderson
felt that he did well to be angry. While he appre
ciated the idea of pardoned guilt, he liked better still
that of untainted innocence, and he found this in
children ; he shuddered at the conception of that
innocence being confounded with hardened sin in one,
common condemnation, under the eye and the hand
of a just and a merciful God, and he felt that the
sublimest and loveliest attitude assumed, or whichever
shall be assumed by the Son of Man was, when he
stood and said, " Suffer little children, and forbid
them not to come unto me ; for of such is the kingdom
of heaven."
Although it is perhaps shooting a little. beyond the
ANDERSON AT HOME.
point, we cannot close this sketch of Anderson's home
life without referring- to his retreat at Uddingston,
where at last he found out the peaceful hermitage.
Here he was perfectly at home among his flowers, his
family, and his friends ; his three families they might
indeed be called. It was a nook or " coigne of van
tage " he had long fancied and where he united the
otium with a true paternal dignitas. Some, indeed,
thought he had retired too soon, for beyond a little
stoop of the shoulders, and an almost imperceptibly
increased deafness, there was little else of the old about
him. His sympathies, tastes, feelings, and looks were
more of a man who had not yet past his prime. But
for a long season there he had more leisure for reading;
more time for quiet meditation — he heard the tumult
and was still. And when he emerged it was always in
quest of some public duty he had to discharge, some
private sorrow he had to soothe, or some brother
minister to assist, or sometimes to take a little run into
the country or down the coast. Better won, or more
thoroughly enjoyed leisure there could not be, and in
its peaceful bosom, ere his evil days yet draw nigh, or
the years come in which he must say, there is no
pleasure in them, we shall leave him.
M
CHAPTER XIII.
DECADENCE AND RETIREMENT.
DR. ANDERSON had no more than other ministers
any particular longing theoretically for a time when he
should take or receive a colleague. We suppose he
did not think the relation a very happy idea. Nor did
he judge the prevailing practice of multiplying colle
giate charges a healthy symptom in the Church. As he
knew the history of that sort of charges very well, he
knew how often colleagues were forced on reluctant
ministers; how often their election was a sheer signal
of distress, a disguise of a declining cause, or a pretext
for shelving the senior pastor, or the result of intrigues
on the part of the junior aspirant and his partizans,
and how frequently it led to dispeace and heart
burnings between the clergymen, still more frequently
between their families, and often also to the formation
of parties and schisms in the congregation itself.
There were, too, peculiarities about himself and his
partner of which he was thoroughly aware. The bare
idea of such a thing as a colleague to Willie Anderson
must, he knew, be felt generally to be absurd. Sir
Walter Scott makes Rob Roy say, what a ridiculous
thing it would have been to have fixed to the door of
Glasgow College the advertisement — " Wanted, a tutor
DECADENCE AND RETIREMENT. 179
for Rob Roy's sons." Equally ridiculous seemed the
idea of an assistant to such an extraordinary and
unique character as Dr. Anderson. Then, as it was
known, that although the most warm-hearted of men,
he had, like most such persons, a peculiar temper and
liked his own way. Some remembered the story of
Sir David Baird's mother, who when she heard that
her son and another soldier were chained together in
the dungeon of Tippoo Saib, exclaimed, " Pity the
chield that's tied to oor Davie!" and began to com
passionate the prospective case of even a very strong
man being connected with this restless Titan. And
then the main objection was that Anderson was not
only not an old man — not much above 50 — but that he
was as vigorous and active as he had ever been, doing
as much work, and doing it as well and with as little
fatigue, as ever he had done — his congregation, too,
being prosperous.
Had the proposal of a colleague been made to
him by others about this time, we can conceive the
whirlwind of contempt with which Anderson would
have blown it back in the faces of the unlucky
projectors who had presumed to dictate to him !
But the thought had occurred to himself as early
at least as 1853. We gather this from some words
he used and hints he threw out to ourselves about
that time. One reason for his wishing a colleague,
as he stated afterwards at the Presbytery, lay in the
increase of what he characteristically called "that
abominable deafness." He had an eye, too, to the
preparation of more works, specially on the Popish
I So LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
controversy. At all events, his wish having become
well known, the congregation proceeded in 1855 to
call the Rev. Alex. Macleod, then of Strathaven,
now Dr. Macleod of Birkenhead, a gentleman who
had often preached in John Street, and by his able
and eloquent discourses had most favourably im
pressed alike Anderson and his people. He was
settled accordingly in the same year. It were quite
vain to seek to conceal the fact that, after some years,
what we may almost call the normal consequences of
a collegiate charge began to show themselves. On
these, however, we shall say nothing. This only let us
notice, that Dr. Macleod always entertained and still
entertains the highest esteem for Dr. Anderson, as he
showed by the interesting article he wrote after his
death in a Glasgow paper ; that Dr. Anderson never,
so far as we have ever heard, said a word of his
colleague but what was friendly and favourable, and
that when the latter published a volume of admirable
essays, Dr. Anderson forwarded it to us to review
in a Dundee publication, and even distributed slips of
the notice in all directions.
Whatever differences, however, were to develop
themselves, matters for a very considerable time went
on in a smooth easy current. Without Anderson's com
manding power or privileged position, Dr. Macleod
had a fine rich fancy, great stores of language, and a
distinctly modern vein of thought and feeling, besides
being a working minister, and a thoroughly simple-
minded and sincere man. The congregation continued
to prosper, and at last it was determined that a new
DECADENCE AND RETIREMENT. iSl
church should be built The old one, which was
exactly Anderson's age, having been finished in 1799,
the year he was born, was pulled down in 1858, and
the present very handsome and commodious edifice
erected in its stead. It was opened on the first
Sabbath of January, 1860, by Dr. Anderson himself;
in the afternoon, the late excellent and accomplished
Dr. John Robson preached, and was followed by Mr.
Macleod in the evening. The collection amounted to
£1,134. The cost of the church was £10,000, and is
now free of debt.
Dr. Anderson preached on the words, "For other
foundation can no man lay than that is laid," &c.
Towards the close of the sermon he took occasion
to refer to the old place of worship, and stated, as
a remarkable fact, that it was not till John Street
Church was lent for meetings on the Anti-Corn
Law question, and other kindred objects, that it
began signally to prosper. He brought this in
to convince the people that such questions were
not unworthy of the countenance of church-goers.
Anderson himself said, " When all Glasgow else
denied accommodation, our old house hospitably
opened its doors to the Anti-Corn Law Agitation.
What desecration ! cried infidel tories. Alas, what
desecration ! cried pharisaic professors : our church
was at that time in great depression, but it was the
turning-point of its recovery — -from tJiat time the pros
pects of our church began to brighten?' This had been,
of course, before the City Hall was built. While
granting the circumstance Dr. Anderson stated, to be
1 82 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
a remarkable one, it is obvious to notice that a church
like that of John Street could not fail to be more
extensively known, and to become a centre of greater
attraction after it had been identified with a popular
cause, and frequently overflowing. The church was
seated for 1300, but more than once there has been an
audience of about 2000 assembled in it ; and nowhere
does a large audience tell more in appearance or
in effect upon the speaker — they are so compacted
together into one unity, and their repose or their
emotion, their silence, or their breathing aloud, seems
that of one big Being.
Shortly after this Dr. Anderson removed to Udding-
ston, near Both well, where he was to spend the
remainder of his days. The place and the neighbour
hood are both beautiful. The house stands in the
midst of a garden, which slopes gently northwards up
a little hill. To the south a fine prospect expands, in
cluding in the distance Bothwell Castle and the Clyde.
Toward the west, you discern the vast dense pillar of
smoke which proclaims the presence of Glasgow.
Eastward is Bothwell Bridge. We recollect after
lecturing one night in Hamilton, to which Dr.
Anderson had sent his machine to take us to Udding-
ston, when we reached Bothwell Bridge, noticing a
dark figure moving on the side of the road — it was
Anderson who had walked this length to meet us. We
thought it a curious conjunction at the " mirk hour,"
in the centre of Bothwell Brig. The night that fol
lowed was, we think, the only one we slept under his
roof at Uddingston, although we visited it often before
DECADENCE AND RETIREMENT. 183
and since, and it was a night of great enjoyment ;
Anderson being full of talk, and in his frankest, kind
liest vein, yet with touches, too, of solemn thought and
feeling as the night wore on to morning. Udding-
ston is near and united by a railway to Glasgow, and
in the city, of course, Anderson was frequently found.
On Sabbath morning he usually drove in to preach in
John Street, and returning, spent most delightful
evenings in his sweet rural solitude. Very little served
to make Anderson happy: a stroll through his garden,
a new book, the unexpected entrance of a friend, a
humorous anecdote told him, the putting on for the
night of his favourite Jewish cap, a tune on some
musical instrument — any such trifle, was quite suffi
cient to soothe his spirit after excitement or labour,
and to open up all the sluices of his heart and his con
versation. Easy to open, it was not so easy to stop
their outflow.
Meanwhile Mr. Macleod was called to Birkenhead,
and removed there in 1864. Anderson was again left
alone, and could not now venture to re-assume the
entire charge of his congregation. In October, 1865,
the Rev. David MacEwan, of South College Street,
Edinburgh, was settled as junior pastor in John Street.
After this Dr. Anderson's connection with that church
was merely nominal. He regularly, indeed, dispensed
the Sacrament in his turn, and preached about once
a month in his own pulpit, but he took little part
otherwise in the oversight of the congregation. Some
times, indeed, he called on old members when they
were sick, and on old scholars of his evening classes,
1 84 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
besides attending funerals. With Mr. MacEwan he
was on the best terms — highly respected his abilities
and character, and received the utmost reverence and
filial attentions in return.
But although Anderson's labours in John Street
were thus reduced to a minimum, he became a general
blessing to the churches in and all around Glasgow.
He took a special interest in the United Presbyterian
Church, Uddingston, often preaching or lecturing on
week-night evenings, when, we were told, some of his
raciest addresses were delivered. And on Sabbaths
— chiefly Anniversary occasions — whether in United
Presbyterian or Free Church, or in the Establish
ment, or among the Methodists, the Cameronians,
the Baptists, the Congregationalists, or occasionally
among the Evangelical Unionists, Anderson was
found ever willing to be in the midst of them. All
were glad of his aid, and to all he gave it most cheer
fully, without money and without price. In this
godly guerilla warfare Anderson, indeed, had always
delighted. Even in the early days of his ministry he
had gone forth to the country villages to teach and
preach, sometimes on week evenings and sometimes
after his Sabbath day's work was over. And in after
years he had been in the habit of giving lectures, near
and at a distance, on general subjects, although always
with a religious bearing. One of his favourite themes
was Conscience, an expansion of that early essay in
Milne's Class — a very thoughtful and well-reasoned
defence of the originality and supremacy of that "voice
within the breast." And there was a lecture on Music
DECADENCE AND RETIREMENT. 185
we were never fortunate enough to hear, but which
has been described to us as of no little scientific
value as an exposition of the subject, and as, besides,
exquisitely humorous in spirit and very felicitous in
style.
Presbyteries latterly he seldom if ever visited. There
was one exception to this in the year 1866, of which
we congratulate ourselves on possessing an account
from one of his co-Presbyters whose words we gladly
borrow. It may be premised that there was a kind of
uneasiness about heresy abroad in the United Presby
terian Church at the time, and that while Dr. Peddie
tabled an overture on the subject in the Edinburgh
Presbytery, the late excellent and amiable Dr. Lindsay
had undertaken to bring forward a similar motion in
Glasgow. Dr. John Brown Johnston, Govan, in a letter
dated December 21, 1872, says as follows: —
" My recollection of the thing is quite distinct, — Dr.
Joseph Brown came to me one day and said, ' What was
the motion Dr. Lindsay tabled last Presbytery ? ' I
told him it was a motion, or notice of motion, similar
to one tabled by Dr. Peddie a week before in the Pres
bytery of Edinburgh, calling on Presbyteries to be
diligent, careful, &c., &c., in recommending, enjoin
ing, and so forth, strict adherence to the Confession.
Dr. B. said he had got a letter from Dr. Anderson,
and he gave me said letter to read. It began with
some such question as, ' What does Dr. Lindsay mean
by that insensate motion of his ? ' and then the writer
said playfully and sarcastically, ' If you with your
powerful argumentation, or Dr. Johnston with his meek
1 86 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON
complacency, do not restrain me, I shall come down
and give them a bit of my mind.' I do not vouch
for the very words, but I am not far from them, and
the sentiment I am quite sure about. Dr. Brown sug
gested that we should go up to Uddingston, which we
did next day, and spent several hours in talking over
the matter. He was very angry, and strongly per
suaded that, under cover of a general recommendation
or injunction, there was a blow designed for certain
individuals. It was ultimately arranged by us that Dr.
Lindsay should be met ; the terms of a counter motion
were agreed upon, and the parts of the discussion were
to some extent provided for. On the morning of next
Presbytery meeting the old man came quietly up the
passage with a babe-like look of innocence, though
bent on mischief. I was sitting beside Jeffrey (Robert)
who said to me, as the phenomenon came on the
the horizon, ' Dear me, what's up to-day ? ' I said, ' I
had no doubt it was the Confession business that had
drawn him out.' ' What side is he on ? ' said Jeffrey.
I said, ' I was sure he would be against Dr. Lindsay.'
Just as we were talking, Dr. L. rose and withdrew
his motion, saying it had come to his knowledge that
some brethren regarded it as a kind of insinuation
against their orthodoxy and honour, and as nothing was
further from his mind than any such charge, he wished
all record of his proposal to be obliterated. A few
minutes thereafter Dr. Anderson left the court, and
as he passed me in going out, he whispered with a
funny look of disappointment, ' He has henned/ Next
time I met him we had some diversion about the way
DECADENCE AND RETIREMENT. iS/
in which Dr. Lindsay had spoiled our eloquent
harangues."
Dr. Anderson told us that he had marked the Con
fession in four places as containing matter opposed to
the Word of God, and even to the general belief of
the most, if not all, of his brethren.
To the projected Union between the Free Church
and the United Presbyterian body Dr. Anderson was
averse from the beginning, although he took no active
part against it ; and latterly, we have been told, the
sternness of his opposition relaxed. To us in private
or in correspondence, his tone of dislike, and the
reasons he assigned for it, were invariably the same.
How he regarded that great theological movement,
called the Broad Church Movement, which, beginning
in England has extended to Scotland, and is passing
over the whole Church, we cannot speak with definite
certitude. Opposed as he was to rash speculation and
foregone conclusions, and full of profound reverence
for the past, he was friendly to free inquiry, to scien
tific, philosophic, and theologic advance, and held
it foul scorn that Christianity could be believed in
danger from any researches however profound, or
progress however rapid. Indeed, as a Millenarian, he
regarded all the present agitations in the Church as
only the swell in the morning billows to be allayed
by the rising of the sun. At the same time he has
referred in strong terms to us of the manner in which
some of the most working, able, and useful men in
the Scottish churches (alluding specially to some
well-known ministers in the West), had their labours
1 88 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
interrupted, their usefulness injured, and their feelings
tortured by the inquisitorial proceedings and captious
criticisms to which they were subjected. At the same
time, as we have said before, he could not by any
means be called a Broad Churchman, and his opinion
about the Canon, Inspiration, and other vexed ques
tions of the day were, with perhaps a few modifications,
those of his clerical neighbours. These, however, were
questions which he did not seem to us to have very
deeply studied. His views of the Atonement had
always been liberal.
At length the Jubilee year approached, and in
March, 1871, the fiftieth year of Dr. Anderson's
ministry was celebrated in a series of interesting meet
ings. Full accounts of these have been published and
widely circulated. We have only space in this Memoir
for a rapid sketch. On Tuesday, the 7th of March,
the proceedings opened by a sermon from Dr. Eadie
on Acts xxvi. 22, 23. The sermon, which was able,
and closed with a glowing encomium on Anderson's
character and labours, was addressed to a large
gathering of members of the congregation and their
friends, of ministers from the Glasgow Presbytery,
and from distant parts of Scotland. At four o'clock
a dinner was given in Carrick's Royal Hotel — the Rev.
David MacEwan in the chair. Dr. Anderson, in reply
ing to his health, said some remarkable things —
among others, that " he never was actuated in writing
one line or in speaking one sentence by the desire of
human applause, not only not as a first motive, but
not even as a secondary motive." Perhaps he meant
DECADENCE AND RETIREMENT. 189
consciously, for no one knew better than he how
insinuating and stealthy a feeling love of approbation
is. He said that "he had been an idolater of duty — of
doing what was right and of abolishing what was
wrong. To gain approbation was never the actuating
motive, but when it came, there was never a brotherly
human heart that received the salutations of friends
more congenially than he did."
In the evening a soiree was held in the City Hall,
which was filled to overflowing. The proceedings were
of a very harmonious and delightful character. In the
course of the proceedings Rev. David MacEwan, the
Chairman, presented Dr. Anderson with ;£i2OO on a
silver salver, in a warm-hearted speech. On the salver
was the following inscription : —
"Presented by the Congregation of John Street
United Presbyterian Church and other friends, in
token of their esteem and admiration, to the Rev.
William Anderson, LL.D., on the completion of the
fiftieth year of his ministry in that Church, together
with Addresses from the Presbytery, Session, and
Congregation, and with the sum of £1200, which
Dr. Anderson has generously devoted to the founding
of ' William Anderson Scholarships' in connection with
the United Presbyterian Church. — 7th March, 1871."
To this Dr. Anderson delivered a reply fraught with
all the vigour, manliness, eloquence, and affection of
his very best days. After a rapid survey of the diffi
culties and trials of his early years, and how they
were surmounted, he came to the counterbalancing
advantages ; and prominent among those were the
IQO LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
"salutations of the City Hall, crowded with thousands of
intelligent, unsophisticated artisans and shopkeepers."
And now he burst out into the following apostrophe,
Avorthy of a Fox or Burke, leaving Parliament the
scene of his triumphs for ever — " Dearly beloved Glas
gow City Hall ! — I have had, or have, four homes
on earth — the venerable home of my father's house ;
the sweet home, first and last, of my own house ;
that earnest, oft-experienced, of the heavenly home,
the Church in John Street; and the joyous jubilant
home of the City Hall. At our family re-unions here,
though the bigger brethren with their clarionets dis
coursed sweeter music, yet I am ready to flatter myself
that the natural notes of my ram's horn sometimes
excited to higher raptures the shout of liberty. At
all events, your cheering response greatly animated
myself. Good City Hall ! you have proved a happy
home to me. And when I feel as if this evening I were
bidding thee farewell, it is with a heart overflowing
with gratitude for the manner in which thou hast
contributed to the joy, the honour, and the usefulness
of my life."
He afterwards passed some graceful compliments
on John Street, as having received him along with
his odious manuscripts at a time when not another
Presbyterian Dissenting Church in Scotland would
have done so, stating that they had "made him what
he was." Before handing the cheque to the purpose to
which he had destined it, he told the meeting that he
used to have every week in his house a levee of
students, that he had a class of instruction for students
DECADENCE AND RETIREMENT. 19 1
in Divinity, and had a warm heart to them still. He
closed by speaking of himself and his merits, and his
prospects, in the spirit of the deepest humility. After
Dr. Anderson had concluded, interesting and instruc
tive addresses were delivered by the Revs. Peter
M'Dowall of Alloa (Moderator of the United Presby
terian Synod), Dr. J. Logan Aikman, and Rev. Dr.
Jamieson, who suggested in his speech that Dr.
Anderson should spend the evening of his days in
preparing one or two more volumes of such admirable
discourses as he had previously ssued, and which
might form a very precious legacy to generations yet
unborn.
And thus was Anderson's long life of power and
usefulness virtually ended. He had closed a career of
unflinching honesty, unswerving integrity of purpose,
and of that highest kind of consistency — consistency
not to party or creed, but to his own conscience
and convictions. Jubilees are often matters of mere
form and show, emphatically got up for personal
or party motives. But if ever there was a spon
taneous expression of love and admiration for a man,
it was that which took place on Tuesday the 7th
of March, 1871, in the City Hall of Glasgow. In
the language and in the spirit of Paul, he could
there exclaim, " I have fought a good fight, I have
kept the faith." And if he might be said that even
ing to have metaphorically died, he died on the
field of battle where he had often contended for civil
and religious freedom, for the cause of God and of
man, and with the shout of victory ringing in his
192 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
ears as it had rang a hundred and a hundred times
before !
Yet Anderson himself was not yet prepared for
resting under his laurels, ample as they were. He felt
a salient spring of energy to encounter the work which
his hand yet might find to do. But God arranged it
otherwise. He was to live indeed for another year,
and in the course of that time to preach not a little,
sometimes with much of the force and the fervour of his
ancient manner, and to discharge many minor duties.
But beyond that he was to do no more and to advance
no further. How happy the reflection that he had done
what he could ! Dr. Johnson inscribed on his watch
seal the words, " The night cometh, when no man can
work." Anderson did not need any such memorial to
quicken his recollection or to inspire his efforts. The
spirit of that solemn text had long been written on
his heart, and was indeed but another name for that
"idolatry of duty" which he had spoken of as a
weakness, but in which nevertheless he justly gloried.
CHAPTER XIV.
LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH AND FUNERAL,
DR. ANDERSON had originally an iron constitution —
more wiry, indeed, than robust, but capable of under
going vast labour, and of throwing off the effects of
intense excitement like "dewdrops from the lion's
mane." Like many students and clergymen he chose
to create new difficulties for himself, and new trials for
his constitution, by the practice of pursuing his studies
far into the night, or rather morning ; but even these
did not seem for a long time materially to affect his
system. Many predicted that he would live as long
as his father, and from some expressions in a letter to
us, dated 1853, we think that at one time he himself
entertained a similar expectation. But as Locksley
says in Ivanhoe, he did not allow for the wind in the
calculation of the arrow flight — he forgot to take the
temperament into account. His father was cool, he
was warm ; his father resided in a country village, he
lived and worked hard in the relaxing atmosphere of a
great city. He had more too than the average amount
not only of labour and excitement, but of suffering and
anxiety. Hence the "days of his years were not to
attain to the days of the years of his fathers," although
he was to pass the allotted term of man's life, and to
N
194 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
die ere yet his eye had waxed dim, and ere his natural
strength had very much abated.
Some years before his death, Dr. Anderson had had
a very severe attack of pleurisy, which came on him
in the pulpit, and had to be assisted out by some of
the audience. From this, however, by the giving up of
preaching and public excitement for a season, and by
visits to the country and the coast, he greatly rallied.
When he visited Dundee in the summer of 1867, he
seemed in excellent health. He walked indeed more
slowly, and climbed hills and hilly streets with more
apparent difficulty, but otherwise he was much as he
had been in former years, and in his private manners
and conversation, while there was perhaps a little more
of the garrulous, there was also more of the mild, the
gentle, the paternal. He was then on his way to
preach for an old friend of his, and he had few dearer
— the Rev. James Stirling of Kirriemuir. This gen
tleman was endeared to him not only by his amiable
manners, excellent abilities, and sterling worth, but
by the fact that both had been pupils at the feet
of Edward Irving, and continued all their life after
wards to hold his views with unabated confidence.
Mr. Stirling had even been, we think, in Kirkcaldy
Church in 1828, when it fell, and made a narrow
escape. How glad would he have been to contribute
his reminiscences of his friend, and to recount particu
lars of that last delightful visit of Dr. Anderson and
his wife to his own hospitable abode in the North,
where there used to be a kind of general conspiracy
in the family to make their guests happy! But he
LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND FUNERAL. 195
was first summoned, although a ^considerably younger
man than Dr. Anderson ; and both, we trust, are now
re-united above. At Kirriemuir, too, he met another
very old friend, the late Rev. William Allan of
Arbroath — a man who, with some peculiarities, pos
sessed a vast fund of knowledge and much kindness
of heart, and who overflowed with anecdotes of Dr.
Anderson's early days.
Our last interview with William Anderson was on
the evening of the 22nd December, 1869, in a mutual
friend's place of business in Maxwell Street, Glasgow.
It was only a momentary encounter. We were hurry
ing to some public engagement, and he was hurrying
home, and there was little else than the grasp of the
hand and the interchange of a few words of kindly
feeling; and we parted, so far as this world is con
cerned, for ever. "In famous feather" our journal
records him to have been, and we remember that he
seemed looking well, besides being in excellent spirits.
We thought him like a man destined to live other
fifteen or twenty years.
Interest in a man deepens and becomes more
intense and lingering when we know he is drawing
to a close. We then mark his every word, his every
motion, his every look, register his every journey,
find something oracular in the postscripts of his
letters, and something prophetic in the strokes of
his pen. Hence we note with interest a journey Dr.
Anderson took to Stockton-on-Tees in April, 1871.
Mr. Bogue, son of a useful and active elder of John
Street, was to be ordained on the 2/th of that month,
196 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
and Dr. Anderson not only agreed to take part in
the ordination services, but, showing his friendly and
genial spirit, said : — " I feel peculiarly glad that John
goes to England. I earnestly wish I may be allowed
to be there at the planting of his tree, to water it
as I best can." He started accordingly along with a
party of friends for the South. Dr. Anderson, as they
went along, admired exceedingly the coast scenery,
and was delighted to see Colonel Gardiner's house and
monument, and the memorable field of Dunbar. At
Newcastle they met Mr. T. N. Brown, one of the
able Editors of the Chronicle, who once resided in
Glasgow, and was one of his warmest admirers
and most devoted friends. Mr. Brown was in waiting
at the station, and Dr. Anderson was exceedingly
glad to meet him, and interchange a brief but cordial
greeting.
Arrived at Stockton, he took up his abode in Mr.
A. B. Murray's house, where he at once made him
self at home, and became a great favourite with the
children. On the day of ordination, Dr. Anderson, in
consequence of another clergyman not being able to
be present, agreed to take his place, and preached with
all his wonted energy and fire, from Matt. xvi. 18, on
the Perpetuity of the Church. He was present after
wards at the dinner, and spoke with his usual readiness
and humour. On Saturday he visited Durham, and
was much struck with that grand old city, and with
the massive grandeur of its Cathedral. On Sunday
morning he preached again a powerful sermon, and
then gracefully introduced the Rev. John Bogue, M. A.,
LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND FUNERAL. 197
to his people. On Monday, along with a party, he
went to Saltburn by the Sea, and was charmed by its
bold precipitous cliffs, its wide expanse of sandy beach,
and its far outlook on the German ocean. The Cleve
land district, that hive of industry and mine of wealth,
seemed to astonish him. Returning from their long
walk, one of the company asked Dr. Anderson if he
did not feel tired. He replied, " I am a little ; there's
been a good deal of it mind for my seventy-two, legs."
By his own request, while the rest of the party walked
to the pier-head, he had been left sitting at the foot of
the cliff beside the sea. On their return back, he
remarked, "What a power there is in those waves,
which seems to be wasted. I've been watching them
all this time, churning, churning, churning, and yet
they have made nothing of it. Could all that force
not be utilized some way ? " Next day he returned to
Glasgow greatly gratified by his rapid Southland run.
Dr. Anderson closed his pulpit career on Sabbath
the 24th December, 1871. He preached in the fore
noon in Parliamentary Road Church, Glasgow, the
occasion of it being the erection of a tablet in honour
of the memory of their excellent pastor, Mr. Walter
Duncan. His text was, " Thou shalt call His name
Jesus ;" and he closed it by saying, with marked
emphasis, that as long as God gave him breath he
would preach Jesus ! In the afternoon he officiated in
the Rev. J. G. Stewart's church, Calton, an old Relief
Church, where Harvey, the Voluntary champion, had
been the minister. On returning home, he felt himself
fearfully exhausted, flung himself in his chair, and
I98 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
cried, " I am done ;!' and immediately after retired
to rest.
It is interesting to note one ceasing to do anything
that he has done long — done well — and done as no
other one could do it ! A First Napoleon giving up
his sword — a Pitt closing his bureau — a Sir Walter
Scott dropping his pen for ever — how impressive
and affecting! And so we feel no little emotion,
when we see Anderson, who had preached with such
power and unction and effect for fifty years, leaving
the pulpit to return no more, and uttering the Amen of
his long labours in the words, " I am done ; I am done,
and my work is done with me," like a weary wave,
which, at the close of a long day's wandering, after
wrestling against many a rock, and writhing under the
scourge of many a tempest, helping to propel many a
fair vessel, and catching many a gleam of warm and
cheering sunshine, at last breaks, all spent and shivering,
upon the shore.
Early in spring he caught a severe cold, which
confined him for some time to the house. From
this he had partially recovered when another attack
of cold supervened, now, however, attended with
a more formidable element — congestion of the lungs.
After a brief convalescence, the disease recurred with
such violence as to make recovery doubtful. He
rallied from this, but seemed henceforth to have a
strong presentiment that his end was drawing near.
On the Saturday before the April Communion,
1872, conversing with his friend, Mr. L., after refer
ring, in lowly terms, to his defects as a minister, he
LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND FUNERAL. 199
said (in substance), "But I am not afraid oi judgment
or to die — not in the least. At death I do not
expect a great manifestation of glory. I believe
that my soul shall be at rest in a state of happy
consciousness till the Resurrection. Then I expect
to be prepared for taking part in glorious work."
The Bible lay open beside him, where he had just
been reading the words, "I know whom I have
believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep
that which I have committed unto Him against that
day." This struck the friend present the more, as he
seldom referred to himself specially. He had not
heard him do so for forty years.
In April this year Dr. Anderson received a letter
from Dr. Hamilton MacGill, the respected Secretary
for Foreign Missions, requesting him to speak at
the Missionary Meeting at the United Presbyterian
Synod. Dr. Duff and he were to have the principal
part of the speaking to themselves. Dr. Anderson
was not restricted to time. He would have been
glad to consent — alike from interest in the subject,
appreciation of the attention implied in the request,
and respect for Dr. MacGill, whom he much loved,
and who warmly reciprocated the feeling — but his
state of health rendered it altogether out of the
question, and he therefore respectfully declined. This
was the last special public engagement in which Dr.
Anderson was invited to take part.
During summer he improved somewhat, but said,
in June, to a friend — " My health is such that, while
I may dree out this summer, I have no hope of
200 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
surviving the winter. I have been arranging my books
and other things, and so far setting my house in
order." By August he was able to go about the
house, and to take a short walk in the garden. He
read a good deal, and when Mr. MacEwen visited
him he, according to his good old fashion, took
down Knox's History of the Reformation — a special
favourite — and read to him a page and a-half. In
subsequent visits Mr. M. found him calm, and full of
comfort.
Dr. Anderson had the previous year spent a short
time in Crieff, where he resided in the house of Mr.
Campbell, merchant, to whom some of his last letters
were addressed. He meant to go there again in
autumn, but was forbidden by Dr. GofT, his faithful
and esteemed medical attendant. He said then,
" I look forward to a dark winter ;" but long ere
winter darkened around him, he had entered on the
everlasting summer of the skies.
To an old friend, a few days before his end, he
remarked — "Some two hundred times, or oftener,
have I given out in public worship these lines of the
Psalmist —
'My soul, wait thou with patience
Upon thy God alone,' &c.,
and now I find them very refreshing to my own soul."
"The Lord," said he, "be praised for the past, and His
will be done for the future !"
To the same friend shortly before his death, raising
his right hand and extending his fore-finger, he
remarked, " The great wheel of Providence is moving
LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND FUNERAL. 201
round and fitting all into its proper place." This was
said in special reference to his own case.
At another visit, when the words in Isaiah xli.
10 were quoted — "Fear thou not; for I am with
thee : be not dismayed ; for I am thy God : I will
strengthen thee ; yea, I will help thee ; yea, I will
uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness "
—he added, with a characteristic smile, "What a
grand staircase of promises!"
To the Rev. Dr. Jamieson and Rev. Robert Niven,
who had called on him, he recommended Isaac
Taylor's "Restoration of Belief" as a book which
he had found of great use to him in his affliction and
immediate prospects.
During the night he soothed his wakeful hours by
broken words and murmured sentences of hope and
joy. Sometimes he was overheard speaking of a
" fiery chariot," and at another time he broke out into
the fine characteristic expression, " I shall soon stand
on the glorious Mountain of Souls ;" adding, as if to
supply the reason of this strong assurance, " What a
grand thing to have an Advocate who can answer
all — the one Mediator, Jesus Christ ! "
He had an interesting interview with the Rev.
David Russell, Glasgow (son of the late Dr. Russell
of Dundee — a man whose praise is in all the churches,
whose memory is still deeply cherished by many in
the town where he so long and ably laboured, and
whose book on " Infant Salvation " was very dear to
Anderson's heart), to whom he held out his hand and
bade him feel his pulse, remarking " that there were
202 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
two contending tides in it — the tide of life and the
tide of corruption." He seemed to be glad to see the
minister of another denomination near him in death,
that he might give him a parting fraternal embrace,
and show his catholicity at the very last.
Speculative doubts had very little perplexed Dr.
Anderson's mind. He had marvellous firmness of con
viction. And hence on his deathbed we find nothing of
that yearning desire to know which has characterised
many noble men in their last hours — no cry like that
of Goethe's, " More light !" or like Schiller's, " Many
things are now becoming plain and clear to me." He
lay before the great unfolding gates of the universe,
quiet and calm, as if he saw what was within already
— not like one straining his eyes toward some unex
pected burst of intelligence or blaze of glory. John
Foster saw in Death the uprise of a luminary who was
to shed light upon the dark problems of this earth,
which had nearly driven him to despair. Anderson
looked upon it as a black, narrow chasm, over which
he was to leap in an instant, and find himself
caught on angels' wings, and carried swiftly upwards
to the " Mountain of Souls ! " He said to his col
league some two days before he died : — " Tell the
congregation that, brought near to death, in look
ing back to the past I see much dissipated time
and energy, for which I have to ask forgiveness
both from God and them, but that I have a comfort
able assurance that mercy will be extended. Tell
them that I now pass into the eternal world without a
suspicion or fear of acceptance — but more, not without
LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND FUNERAL. 203
hope of some measure of favourable recognition. And,
in faithfulness to truth, I would farther say, that my
prophetical views have helped in no small degree to
give me my present comfort."
To one of his dearest and oldest friends he said,
"Farewell — farewell! we meet again; we meet again!"
Early on Saturday, September 14 (the day before
he died), he seemed revived and quite collected. On
the words, " It is I, be not afraid," being quoted, he
said, "Yes, but I long to be home;" then after a pause
he added, " I feel very grateful that I suffer no pain."
Raising his right hand and closing his eyes, he
emphatically said, " Thanks — thanks ! " It was at
the same time that he, of his own accord, and unex
pectedly, made a pleasing reference to the extensive
currency that was about to be given to his works
amongst the Professors and Divinity Students in
England and Scotland.
During his last illness he felt much pleasure in
repeating favourite hymns, especially from the old
Relief Hymn Book, with which he had been long
familiar. On this same Saturday morning he repeated,
with perfect accuracy and evident delight, the whole
of the following hymn : —
" Wait, O my soul, thy Maker's will;
Tumultuous passions, all be still !
Nor let a murm'ring thought arise;
His ways are just, and good, and wise.
"He in the thickest darkness dwells;
His work performs, the cause conceals;
But, though His counsels are unknown,
Judgment and truth support his throne.
204 LIFE OF DR- ANDERSON.
" In heav'n, and earth, and air, and seas,
He executes His firm decrees;
And by His saints it stands confess'd,
That what He does is always best.
" Wait, then, my soul, submissive wait,
Prostrate before His awful seat;
And, 'midst the chast'nings of his rod,
Trust in a wise and gracious God."
Sabbath, the I5th, came, and he met it in compara
tive calm and perfect consciousness ; but as the day
advanced his weakness greatly increased, and death
drew near. About noon, three friends of the Congre
gation called on him. He recognised them, and said
to one, stretching out his hand, " I am wearing away."
His last words, uttered in a low and feeble tone, were,
" Near the Kingdom." He fell then into a sweet sleep,
which, about three in the afternoon, was exchanged
for the sweeter, deeper, longer sleep of death.
And thus passed away from the midst of us a
right manly, true-hearted, gifted, and pious spirit.
"Prospect House" was the name of his Uddingston
abode. The title suited the owner. He lived in
" Prospect." Like the Pilgrim, he lay continually in
that chamber looking toward the East — the name of
which is Peace. Let us trust that with him prospect
has become possession; faith, vision; hope, fruition;
and the great darkness, marvellous light. His
life, and death, and few, but fine last sentences,
all bear out the comparison we have often made
between him and one of the ancient Covenanters,
who turned to man a side of iron, to God a heart of
love, and who had too thoroughly understood the
LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND FUNERAL. 205
responsibilities, and discharged the devoirs of life,
to dread Death — nay, who, like Renwick, thought
it at one time welcome as a bed to the weary,
and, in another and a loftier mood, a summons to a
marriage.
He was buried on the igth September. We found
ourselves impelled that day westward, and regretted
that we were the only person from Dundee or its
neighbourhood who could go, but knew that many
hearts were travelling beside us unseen. Arriving,
we found our way into John Street Church, where the
crowd was beginning to assemble. We were shown,
by mistake, into that part of the vestry called the
"Doctor's room." There we had often been before,
and never remember Dr. Anderson more agreeable,
more full of geniality and good humour, than when
presiding at his simple mid-day meal during the
interval here. Now he was for ever absent. Yet we
almost expected him to enter, and started when the
door opened, and " another came." We found we
were, unwittingly, intruders, and that this was the
room where the clergymen who were to officiate had
been appointed to meet. We passed to the church
above, and took our place in the front of the pulpit
where the clergymen were to sit. We found ourselves
seated between two old friends — the Rev. Alex. Ruther
ford and Dr. Gunion, of Greenock, who, alas! is now
himself dust, and shall soon be ashes. We talked a
little in whispers with him ere the service began. He
told us he had been baptised in this church. We
may add that Dr. G. that day walked beside us to the
206 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
grave, and saw us off at the train ; our last word to
him being a promise of coming through to Greenock
to his aid. He died on the I2th February, 1873. He
was a man of great talent, thorough honesty, and a
warm heart.
The attendance was large. The people — the middle
and working classes of Glasgow, who respected and
loved Anderson most — were there in their strength,
and we felt that no one had come for the sake of mere
form and fashion, but from the impulse of sincere
attachment. It was altogether a very different scene
from the funeral of Edward Irving. That, Anderson
who was present, assured us, was a meagre and miser
able affair. The service at last began. The Rev. Dr.
Jamieson of St. Paul's Parish Church, read with im
pressive simplicity some passages of Scripture, includ
ing (we admired, considering Dr. Anderson's well
known sentiments, the good taste of this) one of Paul's
strongest pre-millenarian chapters from Thessalonians.
Then came a good, earnest and comprehensive prayer
by Dr. Edwards, a man much esteemed by Anderson.
Principal Fairbairn of the Free Church College fol
lowed with a short, though grave and devout supplica
tion. Dr. Gunion referred, as we were leaving the
church, to a prayer he heard Dr. Anderson himself give
at the funeral of his old friend, M'Dougall of Paisley,
as a masterpiece of simplicity, pathos, and admirable
characterization of the man.
The procession then proceeded to move through the
crowded streets towards that grand old Necropolis,
which is surmounted by a statue of John Knox, and
LAST ILLNESS, DEATH, AND FUNERAL. 2O/
where we were to deposit the dust of a man who bore
a striking resemblance to Knox in fearlessness and
the combination of great tenderness with rugged
power. We passed between the High Church and the
Barony, and could not but dart a thought aside to the
brawny man (Norman Macleod,) who had so recently
ministered there, and who had succeeded Anderson
in the lawful autocracy of the pulpit and the plat
form of Glasgow. We were now in the heart of the
scene so magnificently pictured in Rob Roy, although
the city of the dead has marvellously increased as well
as changed its aspect. But still the Molendinar Burn
runs on, and still the old firs sing their everlasting
requiem in the blast, and still from the height may be
seen the great metropolis of western wealth stretching
below,
"A monster sleeping in its own thick breath."
Through the many mausoleums or monuments of
Glasgow's distinguished dead, we approached Dr.
Anderson's resting-place, and after the coffin was
laid low, we drew near, and cast a last lingering
look at it, and paid a final parting reverence to one
of the truest men we ever knew, as well as one of
our own warmest friends, and with whom we had
enjoyed more thorough communion and genial inter
course than with almost any other minister. Requiescat
in Pace !
Next Sabbath, the 2nd September, the Rev. J.
Logan Aikman, D.D., and the Rev. David MacEwen,
preached to crowded audiences very eloquent and
impressive discourses. The one on the words, " David,
208 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
after he had served his own generation, by the will
of God fell asleep;" and the other on the words,
" There is a great man fallen asleep in Israel." The
latter has appended to it a vivid sketch of Dr.
Anderson's life. Both, at the request of the Session
of John Street, have been published.
CHAPTER XV.
CORRESPONDENCE.— (SECTION I.)
WE propose to give specimens of Anderson's corre
spondence, and a very few specimens too of the many
letters addressed to him.
Letter writing, as an art, Anderson had never
studied, nor are we prepared to say that it was his forte
as it was that of Cowper, or of Jameson of Methven,
or of Thomas Carlyle, to all of whom a letter seems
the best mould into which their best thought can
possibly be cast, into which indeed it seems to rush as
of its own accord. Still, Anderson's letters are often
very characteristic, full of canny Scottish sense, of
honest and hearty expressions of opinion, sometimes
of overflowing tenderness, and sometimes of sly and
caustic humour. None of them appear written with
the view of publication, and to " publish letters any
more than sermons, not left expressly for publication
by the author, is to be an assassin of posthumous
reputation, and a sacrilegious trafficker on the memory
of the dead." This rule has had many exceptions,
but there are soundness and sense in it notwithstand
ing. We have decided therefore to be somewhat select
in this department of our task.
. We have a number of letters to Anderson from
o
210 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Cunningham of Lainshaw, but none which are of
general interest.
With Henry Drummond, M.P., he had also some
correspondence. That was a very different man from
Cunningham — a man of great practical shrewdness,
readiness of speech, brilliance of wit, and force of
character, strangely blended with much that we must
call childish fanaticism, and with considerable partyism
to boot ; resembling, in fact, very much one of Crom
well's fighting saints — who put their trust in God, and
kept their powder dry ; he looked up with the one eye
to the coming Messiah, and kept the other to the fixed
centre — prices current and bank accounts. His letters
to Anderson, however, have no share of his humour or
other well-known Parliamentary qualities, but are full
of dreary prophetical platitudes and logomachies
which can have no manner of interest to present-day
readers.
We must go down a good way in Anderson's history
ere we can find any letters worth presenting to our
readers. In the signatures to those subjoined the
initials only of the writers are given : —
Dr. ANDERSON to Mr. ROBERT A. BOGUE, Glasgow.
DEAR MR. BOGUE,— I have said it a hundred times,
and I care not to whom or by whom my statement is
repeated, that my youth was withered by being at
first placed in a city charge, and that I am compara
tively a stunted tree this day from the blighting of
that awful frost. For three years at least I never knew
what it was to be of a joyous spirit — harassed day
CORRESPONDENCE. 211
and night with anxiety about these sermons and
lectures. Ask Mrs. Duncan, who kept my house the
first twelvemonth, about my life of misery. The closer
witness of the next two years is away, I am sure,
with the remembrance of the manner in which
she sympathetically shared the burden. — Yours very
affectionately, W. A.
Dr. ANDERSON to JOHN STREET CHURCH.
Saturday, nth February.
DEAR BRETHREN, — In consequence of being called
away to assist at the dispensation of the Lord's
Supper in the country, I shall not be present with
you to-morrow to share your enjoyment of the Rev.
Hope M. WaddelFs ministry. I lament this for another
reason besides the loss I shall sustain.
If present, I would have spoken a few words in
the way of seconding Mr. Waddell's appeal to your
liberality. I pray you listen to me when I do so by
means of epistle. Some of you may be ready to make
abatements from Mr. Waddell's representations, as if
through partiality he had over-coloured the picture of
the prospects of the Mission to Old Calabar. Any
such partiality cannot be imputed to me ; and my
opinion, formed from all I have heard and read is, that,
excepting China, of course, where the prospects are
so magnificent, there is no other department of the
missionary field which gives such cheering promise of
success as that of Calabar. I earnestly appeal to you
that your contributions bear a good proportion to the
importance of the cause. You will be addressed in the
212 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
afternoon on a subject nearly as interesting — the pros
pects of the Church of Christ in Ireland — by one of
the excellent brethren from Ireland whom our Synod
have taken by the hand. — Yours, dear brethren, with
much affection, W. A.
Dr. ANDERSON to JOHN STREET CONGREGATION.
In 1864 the Doctor had been unable for some time
from personal affliction to preach. In prospect of an
important collection on the first Sabbath of 1865, he
addressed a letter to his people, of which the follow
ing is an extract : —
That you should have preserved so well the unity
of the Church is at once a matter for thanksgiving to
the grace of God, and a reason for the admiration of
observers. Continue ye in this grace, and take care
that you lose not your character.
Those who have been educated at the College are
wont to speak fondly of it as their Alma Mater, i.e.,
their Bountiful Mother. How much more may not
many Christians take up their parable and say
Alma Mater of their respective churches in which
they have been reared. And I am bold to say, not
withstanding all her shortcomings in the discharge of
her maternal duties, that it is a goodly number who
have reasons to pronounce with fervency Alma Mater
on John Street. Alma Mater, then, let that be the
watchword for next Sabbath-day's collection. Brethren,
our dear and Bountiful Mother has an ugly spot on
her brow. She is spotted with debt. Let us in a
spirit of filial honour have it washed away, that,
CORRESPONDENCE. 213
among other considerations, she may in her present
urgency, when she looks out for one who may help
her in the education and training of her children,
appear more fair, and more enticing for the union.
Alma Mater, then, I say again : and express my hope
that the contribution of next Sabbath will be such as
it is fit to begin a new year with. — Yours, dear
brethren, in the love of Christ and his Church,
W. A.
Dr. ANDERSON to his Daughter, MARY, when a child.
DEAR MARY, — Last week I was at Aberdeen, and
William was at Benlomond, and John was weaned,
and Mamma was unwell, so you got no letter, for
which we were sorry. You are not to think we were
forgetting you. At Aberdeen, when I was seeing
the Queen's beautiful yacht and the Prince's little
hammock, I was wishing you had been there to
see them too.
Mamma and Aunt Jane will be down at Largs in
eight days to bring you and Susan home. Well, I
think you will be glad and sorry and laughing and
crying, all at the same time, when you leave all the
dear friends at Largs. For two or three days you
will be very happy at home, but after that you will
be saying, "I am wearying to see Miss Sutherland
and all the sisters." What will we do then ? I think
you must write them a letter; and perhaps about
New Year Mamma will let you take a sail to see them.
And perhaps Miss Sutherland will allow some of
them to come up to Glasgow and see you.
214 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
I am sorry that when you come home you will see
neither Tio's dog nor pussy, for they are both away.
But the organ is playing beautifully.
I have not time to write any more. But when you
come home I will tell you about a good girl who died
very happy, saying, " O that Jesus, I will soon see his
shining face !" YOUR PAPA.
Rev. GEORGE GILFILLAN to Dr. ANDERSON on the death of
his first WILLIE.
LONDON, gth Nov., 1855.
MY DEAR SIR, — I take the opportunity of a little
leisure here, on my way to preach at Bristol, to write
to apologise to you for not sooner expressing my deep
sympathy in your recent distressing bereavement. I
had intended to do so, but put it off from day to day.
Assuredly the delay was not owing to any want of
sympathy. The loss of such a son in such a way to
such a father must have been altogether overwhelming.
The cry, "The Bridegroom cometh," was seldom uttered
with more piercing intensity and amidst circumstances
of more pathetic interest. It was a masterpiece of
enmity in the Great King of Terrors to deny you a
single word from your son's lips — a single look from
his dying eye — or even the sad satisfaction of receiving
his last breath. How thankful you must be that that
enmity is limited to earth, and cannot deny you the
hearing of his halleluiahs, or the sight of the smiles of
his everlasting victory. But at present you know the
devil "hath the power of death," and often cruelly
acerbates the evils of that unavoidable curse.
CORRESPONDENCE.
I knew well and loved much your departed son
admired his fine talents, taste, and acquirements —
loved him for his warm heart and social virtues — and
had hopes that time would have indurated his system
for a successful battle with the world. It has been
otherwise ordered, and perhaps — nay, certainly — it is
better both for him and all of us. He will henceforth
live in your and our memory as one of those sweet
bright mornings does, which, though early overcast,
has yet enchanted while it shone, and with whose
recollection no dark association has blended. God, to
copy Hall's fine accommodation of the language of
Virgil, has showed your amiable and admirable son to
the world, and then hastened to make him up among
his jewels. — I am, dear Sir, yours very truly,
G. G.
DR. ANDERSON to a Bereaved Parent.
" Sept. 8, 1857.
Have I not reason to apprehend that your sorrow
for the dead is somewhat morbid ? From experience
I can at once sympathise with you and warn you.
The death of my promising boy David at five and
a-half years of age did me great good, but William's
continues a bitter agony, as intense as that awful
morning. I thought that by calling my new-born
child William Willie I would get some soothing ; but
it is of no avail — rather the reverse. How is the
insensible infant to supply the place of one who, had
he lived, would have been so helpful to me with my
new volume of Discourses ? Every page I write I feel
his want. You will also have your imaginings of how
2l6 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
it would have been much better had your dear child
been spared to you. Oh, the unbelief ! Let us both
exercise ourselves to correct feeling by faith, and
persuade ourselves that it was far better for all parties
that matters should have been arranged for us as they
happened.
DR. ANDERSON about his Books.
%th November, 1859.
I feel very happy in the thought of your aged
mother enjoying her ease under the shelter of your
roof, and that my discourses anywise gratify her. Per
haps, in her meditations, she may think, " I wonder
what Mr. A. himself thinks of his book." Well, tell
her, that when I have had patience and time to read it
myself, there is nothing in the volume which I can say
anything- like satisfies me but " Christ the saint's life,"
and "Christ a master." All the rest I could wish
purged and amended.
How fast time flies, and how much labour to be
gone through ! I have in my manuscripts yet matter
for three or four as good volumes, which I would not
like to perish with my death, but which would require
painful preparation for the press. I will never accom
plish it all ; but I hope to be spared to do a little of it.
Your labours of zeal and love are less manifest now ;
they will be more manifest hereafter, I mean, than
mine. — Yours, in honest speech, W. A.
Dr. ANDERSON on Re-writing " Filial Honour"
I am very nearly done with what I may well call a
CORRESPONDENCE. 2 1 /
second writing (many pages have been written twice,
thrice, and more times), so that I will have little to
do when I return but rapidly write out a clean copy
for the press. And yet I am engaged with the most
difficult question, amid the many I have encountered,
in treating of Resignation — Christ's prayer of agony
for deliverance, and Paul's glorying in and gladness for
his afflictions. I have clear enough views about the
manner in which the difficulty is to be resolved. The
difficulty lies in expressing them, so as, on the one
hand, to be understood by humble minds, and, on
the other, to afford no grounds for the objections of
captious minds. After trying various ways for pre
senting the case, and turning the illustration of one
hour upside-down the next, I think I found a clear
path by which to walk to my conclusion, which I hope
will be to-night or to-morrow forenoon. It will be, I
think, the most interesting and profitable department
of the whole treatise.
Dr. ANDERSON on the Rev. HOWARD HINTON and others.
May I, 1860.
I have received a remarkably genial note from Mr.
Hinton, London, but written immediately, evidently
without having read my " King-Father," and merely in
reply to my observations in the note, in which I told him
how his evangelical philosophy had influenced my youth,
and in which I expressed my wonder at the negative
heresy gaining such ground among the Nonconformists
of England, and asking him if he had any explanation
to offer. He replies he cannot explain, and that he is
confounded.
2l8 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Mr. Hinton states that he is seventy years of
age complete ! That comforts me a little ; but I
will not presume on it. Dr. Macfarlane writes me
that my Homily in the journal, buried, as he says,
there, sweetened his Sabbath evening for him, and
demands a volume of similar mood. I could furnish
two volumes such. How much I am misunderstood
in the public! They think of me as only an outre
protester and controversialist, whereas few have written
so many experimental sermons.
At Mr. Brown's funeral to-day, when I read the
Scriptures and Mr. Macleod prayed, such was that
prayer, that Mr. Macleod's eyes were the only eyes
there not streaming with tears, his own heart the only
one not suffocated with emotion. His intellectual exer
cise prevented him being affected to the extent we
were. He had a noble subject in the dead, and
excellent subjects in the living, and he made most
extraordinary use of them. It was of a very special
inspiration. At no funeral did I ever hear anything
like it. He is a great man, both intellectually and
morally, my colleague. W. A.
Rev. JOHN ANDERSON to his SON, Dr. A.
(Written when he was past Ninety.)
KILSYTH, 22nd January, 1861.
MY DEAR SON, — It is now some considerable time
since we saw or heard any thing respecting the health
of William. Are we from this to infer that he is now
fully recovered, and again running about? I have
good reason to be thankful for the state of my health.
CORRESPONDENCE. 219
I felt indeed very uncomfortable during the three
uncommonly severe cold days — mercury as low as 24
below freezing, but since the ordinary winter weather
set in I am considerably easier. The rest of your
relatives here are in their ordinary comfortable way.
The distress among the weavers here is not better.
The want of work is the want of provisions for the
stomach. Yesterday 460 were served with soup and
scones. The expenditure about £22 weekly. The
weather here is foggy and dark to an uncommon
extent. For these three months past I do not know
if we have had three days of sunshine, putting it
altogether. — With best wishes for you all, I am, your
affectionate Father, J. A.
Dr. ANDERSON to Rev. ROBERT GARDNER, Annan.
July 20, 1860.
DEAR MR. GARDNER, — I take your sending of the
" Nonconformist " as a very kind act. I was told that
a notice of my book had appeared in the paper, evi
dently by the pen of Mr. Miall himself. Your atten
tion will save me going in quest of a copy. My
purveyor in Glasgow has been unwell, and I am not
furnished of late with the incense of the Press so plenti
fully as I once was. He sends off my books to Editors,
and waits for notices like a fisher for trout.
Write me something about yourself and Mrs.
Gardner— only do not ask me for any service, unless
it be some grand necessity on a Sabbath day (no
soiree), some anniversary or such a thing, when you
need the roar of my old trumpet. Old James
22O LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Hutcheson said to me, at the Garibaldi meeting in
the City Hall, when I was myself — " I saw you in
your cradle, sir, and you were crying — and I am glad
you are crying still."
Mine old Father — I was out to see him this week.
He has completed his ninetieth year, and is running
the ninety-first. I found him hoeing cabbage. His
mind still clear as a brass bell. Ready to depart — but
willing, if the Lord will, to live a little longer, and see
what comes of the Pope. Is not that consolatory ? I
am only sixty-one years of age ; if I attain to his, I
may do something yet. — Affectionately yours,
W. A.
Dr. ANDERSON on his Tercentenary Speech at Edinburgh.
Thursday ', May 17, 1860.
DEAR MR. L., — I never had a more difficult subject
in hand — " The Defects of the Reformation." I, who
am almost every Sabbath magnifying in prayer
towards God the blessings of that Reformation which
all the other speakers will be recommending them
selves by extolling, am appointed to the work of
diminishing from its glory! I am sorely beset, betwixt
the fear of being odious and the resolution that I
must not compromise the Truth. Never was I in
a poorer state of health to prepare a speech —
(after reaching Glasgow yesterday morning I had
nearly telegraphs * I would not be present, so
unwell was I — perfectly dizzy, with bile, occasioned
by preaching in an oven on Sabbath evening at
Broomhouse, and then coming out to the cold air)
CORRESPONDENCE. 221
— and never did I proceed to a platform with more
humility, diffidence, and desperation. The rumble of
the train, I suppose, shaked off the bile to some extent,
and I went to work with my pencil and succeeded
wondrously. I sent notice to Mr. Renton that I would
be present in time. Went to the Star Hotel, and got
a room for myself. Wrote for an hour. The half of
the speech was written in the train and that hotel. Is
not that a curious story ? A friend assures me that
I never performed a feat like it, in steering through
difficulties, and adjusting the balance betwixt charity
and faithfulness. I never in my life had greater
reason to say, "Not unto me!" I take the success,
for all my friends assure me it was a great success, as
a kind merciful recompense of grace for my labours
in the Anti-Popery cause. That friend assured me
that it was because no human being could doubt my
Anti-Popery zeal that they bore with my exposures
of faults in the Reformers in a way which they would
not have tolerated in any other man. I feel I am
pretty safe within our own Synod. What will be the
result outside I care little for. W. A.
Dr. ANDERSON on Popularity.
May 9, 1860.
I never in my life sought for an opportunity of
magnifying myself. Circumstances, ordered I believe
of the Lord, together with a sense of duty and liking
for the work, coerced me into positions in which I got a
measure of public favour. The feeling remains with
me at this day in its entireness. I never, never, seek
222 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Honour of man. They press me up into the high
places of the field at times, and still the sense of duty
compels my submission ; although at times I have a
good liking for the battle.
Dr. ANDERSON to the Rev. GEORGE C. HUTTON, Paisley.
April 3, 1861.
DEAR Mr. HUTTON, — Were I to say that I am
deeply obliged to you for your notice of my book on
Regeneration, it would no more properly express my
feeling than it would, I think, yield much gratification
to you. You wrote, no doubt, as a friend, but not to
oblige me. Here is the expression of my feeling : I
am encouraged by this Hail Frater! of an acute honest
mind. I would not lose your notice for a hundred of
the undiscriminating saccharines. How true it is that
there is a sweet zest in acids when well mingled, i.e., to
a cultivated taste ; I do not mean in punch, but critical
commendation.
I have said enough for my time, but there is a great
space of blanc paper before me which I wish not to
make impure but to occupy.
ist. You are most perfectly right about my wasting
the pages of a Catholic book with these ebullitions of
temper. But it was not originally composed as a
Catholic book. I design it for a small circle ; and in
the harrowing revision (harrowing to my heart — oh,
that William had been there !) I modified as little as
I could, just to get through.
2ndly. Observe, that even although there was some
thing called original righteousness in Adam, it
CORRESPONDENCE. 22$
not affect my argument of the necessity of Regene
ration ; since unquestionably, according to my theory,
there is no such righteousness in any born child of
Adam.
3rdly. I class the "doctrine of a vague original
righteousness in Adam with the doctrine of innate
ideas, i.e., if I understand either of the dogmas.
4thly. You have not done me full justice (not in
tentionally, of course) about faith. You have treated
(no that's not the word, but I have not time to
correct it) about faith in the abstract ; I have most
distinctly treated of it as faith in the concrete — not
faith that Jupiter has so many satellites, &c., but that
God has made a gift of His Son for the salvation of
me, an undone sinner. The intellectual conviction of
that must move the heart, or I do not know what
either intellect or emotion is. — Much love to you,
W. A.
Dr. ANDERSON on an Old Class Mate.
6th, March, 1860.
From your note I was afraid that the notice of Dis
courses in the Reformed Presbyterian Magazine might
only be slightly favourable. " You are ill to please,"
if you are not satisfied. I regard its review as one of
the very best. It was much needed — a testimony to
the theology of the book. Coming from the quarter
whence it has proceeded, it is a phenomenon. That a
son of Hutcheson should be hailed with such gene
ral paternity by a Cameronian is a striking sign of
the times. I have long yearned, now that so few
224 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
class-fellows remain, to have some communion with
William Anderson, of Loanhead. From the Greek
Class through to the last, he was Gulielmus Anderson,
major, and I minor. As I grew up, I did not like
minor, though I had great reason to be proud of my
major ; he was a very distinguished student.
Well, I think it was in the Moral Philosophy Class,
I was rejoicing in the undivided honour of my name.
A wag called me Anderson solus. That continued
for a fortnight or so ; when in one morning steps my
major! Contrary winds had prevented his timeous
arrival from Ireland. I will perhaps take advantage
of this notice of my book in his denominational organ
to renew " auld langsyne " with him. — Affectionately,
W. A.
Dr. ANDERSON on " D'Aubigne on Servetus."
August 22, 1864.
D'Aubigne's oration is under his own mark, though
good. That of Felice, at the commemoration at Paris,
was very much superior.
I am inclined to charge D'Aubigne with a de
signed imposition on the ignorant, when he says
Calvin pleaded for saving Servetus from the stake.
He was Servetus's most bitter accuser, demanding
his death; and it was only when the odium was
strong against him that he began to plead that
Servetus, instead of being burned, should only be
hanged !— Affectionately, W. A.
CHAPTER XVI.
CORRESPONDENCE — (SECTION II.)
Dr. ANDERSON to Dr. M'MICHAEL, Dunfermline.
May 31, 1868.
I WAS the first individual of whom I knew, that
went about pleading both with Free Churchmen and
United Presbyterians for confederation, acknowledging
one another's licence and ordination, and inter-calling
one another's preachers and ministers — the acceptor of
the call of the other denomination subjecting himself
to the discipline of his newly-adopted church. For
this I pled vehemently. But I have never been an
advocate of organized administrative Union : — First,
because I am sure it is not imperative. There has
been much unscriptural trash, yea, heretical talk, on
this subject, as if the unity of Christ's Church consisted
in such organization. Secondly, because there are
many men on both sides who, for a generation, could
not coalesce. Thirdly, because I question if this
united body would not be a frightful tyranny, under
which the rights of the people would be sacrificed.
Nevertheless, that hearty good -will manifested by
Buchanan, Rainy, and others has quite overcome me
into a species of acquiescence in the prospect.
Ecclesiastical Establishments ! When I was a
226 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
young Melancthon, I thought that in the course of
ten, or at most twelve years, or say fifteen from this
organization of the Voluntary cause, we must cast out
the devil. When I found that his possession was so
inveterate, my expectations subsided, deferring this
prospect till that Great Event which I now burden
with all my expectations. But behold how God
works — how He is claiming all glory for Himself —
in what unexpected ways He has abolished slavery
— desolated the base House of Austria, &c., &c. —
and now not less wonderfully is ejecting the demon
of Church Establishments ! I am like to say, just let
us sit still and wait, and let God do all Himself. He
will do it better without any co-operation of ours : all
our pecking is turned to mockery. How happily
circumstanced we old Relief men are in this respect,
that we have always been on the winning side ! In
my own special case, in conflicts with brethren,
Presbytery, and Synod, I was always, except in the
organ case, on the winning side. I never either
protested or dissented except in that case and the
United Presbyterian decree on reading. I blew up
the latter on the spot, and the organ case is
nearly won. W. A.
Dr. ANDERSON to Dr. M 'MICHAEL.
Dr. Anderson attended the funeral of the late Rev. W.
M'Dougall, Paisley, one of his most esteemed friends,
who died February 20, 1867, and whose funeral sermon
was preached by the Rev. Professor M'Michael: —
So far as the sad circumstances would permit, we
CORRESPONDENCE. 22/
had a gratifying day yesterday at Paisley. About
seventy ministers, it is reckoned, turned out.
You have in many respects a noble character for
your secondary theme (after Christ's) on Sabbath.
In my prayer yesterday, in enumerating those graces
which gave us good grounds for rejoicing over him as
saved, after noticing his faithfulness as a preacher to
the great verities of the Gospel, my very next stric
ture, as Father Thomson would have called it, was
his strict veracity in all his intercourse betwixt man
and man. Had I been making an oration or preach
ing a sermon, I would, in the very first instance, have
cleared the way for expatiating on his other graces
by dashing out of it the prejudices in the minds
of many, occasioned by his use of his great gift of
humour ; and then demanded where was the instance
in which he ever used it maliciously, and, when it was
used sharply, in which it was not warranted, and
served a good end. " He gave offence " at times, did
he ? Yes, to his honour, we his friends boast of him,
that he had the boldness, courage, and faithfulness to
give offence in the rebuke of the unworthy.
I have occasionally very sore stounds and aches of
heart. He was but three months younger than myself,
and his death has brought my own very near to my
imagination. — Fraterniter, W. A.
DR. ANDERSON'S TESTIMONY AS A VOLUNTARY,
PROSPECT HOUSE, UDDINGSTON, Dec. 19, 1866.
To the Committee of Heritors for rebuilding the Manse
and Offices of the Parish Church of Bothwell.
Gentlemen, — I am willing and ready to pay my
228 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
equitable proportion of the expense of the building
of a new, reasonably commodious, and reasonably
elegant manse for him who is the ecclesiastical incum
bent of the parish, according to the law of Victoria,
defender of the faith, and nomination of his Grace the
Duke of Hamilton. And I am ready to do so the
more willingly, that I hold the present incumbent in
much personal respect. But I resolutely object to the
rule by which you meditate to levy the assessment. By
purchase and feu I am proprietor of about two acres
imperial of land. Naturally, and through injury done
by the works of a neighbour, they are two of the least
worthy acres in the parish. But I am willing and
ready to pay for them in the proportion of extent
which they hold to the rich acres of the policies,
gardens, and farms of Bothwell Castle, and of those of
Thornwood and Viewpark, and all the other landed
properties throughout the parish. I am willing, I say,
to pay in this proportion. But you meditate exaction
on me by the rule of the worth of the land as increased
by the buildings which have been erected on it, by
which rule the assessments for ecclesiastical pur
poses on the lordly domain of Bothwell Castle would,
in the progress of feuing and building in the parish, be
reduced to farthings.
Perhaps you have law on your side for making the
exaction. I question that. But although the proof were
made clear that you have, my determination would not
be in the least degree affected. From my youth, in
anti-slavery questions, corn-law questions, &c., &c., I
have been engaged in exposing and denouncing those
CORRESPONDENCE. 229
whom God denounces, when He says, " Woe unto them
that decree unrighteous decrees !" And I am resolved
to abide by my post, so long as I have ability, as a
witness-bearer against all evil-doing and all evil-doers.
In the present instance, I will give my testimony by
passive resistance of your decree. Gentlemen, if you
will have the money, you must come and take it. I
shall not offer you the least active resistance when you
appear at my door to spulzie my library or bed-room
for the comfort of your minister. I calculate that ten
pounds' worth of books or bed-clothes each year for
two or three raids will cover both the original charge
and law expenses. I can afford that, though my
income is small. I pay as much annually for the help
of churches which, like that of the church at Bothwell,
are so poor that they cannot give roof-shelter to their
ministers, but depend on the aid of charity. But, sirs,
I warn you, that although 7 can afford to be spulzied,
neither the ecclesiastical nor civil administration of
Bothwell parish can afford to undergo, before the tri
bunal of the public, the exposure which the reive will
most certainly entail on them. You have my gage for
it in my subscription ; its an old and tried one in the
cause of civil and religious liberty. W. A.
Extracts from DR. ANDERSON'S Letters to Miss DOBSON,
Dundee,
In reference to an illness of a threatening nature
which preceded Willie's death by some months, the
Doctor says —
We have not ceased being very anxious, but we
230 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
are not desponding. I was greatly tried. I could not
say " Thy will be done," supposing that will might be
that he should die ; I could only say, " Oh that it may
be Thy will that he should live, and I will be more
careful of him that he may be fitted for usefulness,
especially to Thy Church." I cannot be much more
diligent than I have been in his education, but the
Latin, arithmetic, and other secularities were diminish
ing attention to the pious element, and I felt rebuked "
when I reflected that should he die the remembrance
of his promising scholarship would afford me no com
fort, and that I should have laboured more to call
forth manifestations of heavenly discipleship which
would have afforded subjects of consolatory medita
tion. Do tell E. [a boy in whom he felt deeply
interested] about this, that all of you, should he
die soon (which the Lord prevent), will be comforted
only by one thing, that he furnished you while living
with good evidences that he believed lovingly in
Christ.
On the 8th July, 1868, the day previous to Willie's
death, the Doctor writes —
We have just been renewing our unmurmuring
resignation of him to the Lord in prayer, over the
insensible breathing, yet beautiful piece of clay. We
are all wonderfully composed. I wish we may be able
to preserve the composure to the end.
Shortly after Willie's death, Dr. Anderson wrote: —
The further we proceed the more do we feel that
his companionship, his training, his serviceableness,
formed a great part of our life, and that his removal
CORRESPONDENCE. 231
leaves an awful craving, yearning void, which will never
be filled up in this world, but which we must, partially
at least, occupy with other duties — other pleasures are
out of question. The solitude is at times like some
thing positive; the silence a low, deep, grinding kind
of delirious sound. The long winter nights are to be
our trial — especially mine; when, after tea, the two
hours' lessons were my life. He enjoyed them so well ;
took them so well in; never felt them a task; and
when mamma would interfere, fearing the over-excite
ment of brain, and would say, " Let us have a round of
dominoes," I question if there was in all the world
such domestic happiness as we enjoyed the evenings
of last winter.
On the 3Oth November, 1868, Doctor Anderson
thus wrote —
I have not had such a poor time of ill health for
a long period. I feared, at the beginning of the last
week, a return of my old congestion, and went down
to Glasgow yesterday to say a word about Mr.
Roberton, our deceased elder, with much fear and
trembling. I got through the service much more
vigorously than I expected, and am this morning,
though very weakly, yet with my chest little injured.
There was nearly a scene. Having stated that Mr. James
Roberton had " served his generation " long and well,
and that it was more an occasion for thanksgiving
than sorrow that he had reaped the harvest of his
excellence, and that there was little in the case of
that which was often the bitterest ingredient in the
cup of the decease of friends — hope ait off, I was
232 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
nearly suffocated in pronouncing these words, and the
whole church was moved. I felt the necessity of
rallying my whole strength; and happily the next
sentence on my paper was on a point of interest, and
of a different character. We returned home in the
cold, dark evening, our two selves, with our hopes cut
off, to our desolate dwelling.
In the spring after Willie's death Dr. Anderson
said : —
We find that the opening of the spring is bringing
us no relief; with some new associations it is rather
increasing our sadness. That he is away, we cannot
dispute ; but when I think what he was — look at his
portrait, remember those lessons, the helpfulness to us
which for the last two years he in many ways was — I
cannot realize the idea of our having to pass the rest
of our life, though it should be but a few years, with
out one who was so large a part of our very existence.
I may get excited a little in argument with a friend
for a few minutes, but I never know what it is to have
a sensation of happiness. But for the remanding of
myself to the reflection that all is for the best, and
that if we are faithful we shall see it to have been
such, I would weary of life as a vanity and a burden.
But though that hope greatly mitigates the affliction,
it leaves much of the pain of present loss unremoved.
On 6th October, 1869, Dr. Anderson writes: —
I am at last in the press with my work on " Filial
Honour of God," and for a few months will have some
relief, from the manner in which it will engage and divert
my mind. After my manuscript has lain aside for many
CORRESPONDENCE. 233
years, on reviewing it some parts of it pleases me, others
not. I expect it to produce an impression, from its being
a manifesto against heretical orthodoxy or orthodox heresy,
both on the subject of the rewards of a saint's good
works and Christ's prayer in Gethsemane. I took
an hour and ten minutes out of it last Sabbath even
ing, at the opening of a course of lectures under the
auspices of the Glasgow Young Men's Christian Asso
ciation. There could not be less than 2000 persons
present in our own church, I was in good trim, and
blew the trumpet loud. It was on the reward of good
works. Mr. L. said that for an hour there was not a
cough among the multitude, such was the excitement
of mind by this now old subject. I got home a little
before 1 1 o'clock. I was never more prostrated ; but
by Monday, after my siesta, I was considerably re
covered. I must, however, take care of the like again.
Alluding to conversations he had with Miss Dobson,
Dr. Anderson observes —
I fear I have disturbed your faith a little, but,
happily, you have a mind which can stand that. I
wish you and all others to be redeemed to the New
Testament hope of the Resurrection, satisfied that our
departed friends' souls are at present in safe, happy
keeping against that day, in a state of conscious repose,
which I cannot particularly explain ; only I am certain
they are not glorified. Were I certain of that, I would
not care much about the Resurrection ; and, on the
popular principle, I see no need of it, and, accordingly,
the hope has about become extinct in the Church.
" I will raise him up at the last day " is the gospel
234 LIFE OF DR- ANDERSON.
promise ; only to depart into the safe keeping of Christ
is far better for some who are troubled, and have finished
their course like Paul, but not for all, otherwise all of
us should wish we were dead. Do you ? /do not; I
pray for a little longer life.
Dr. ANDERSON to Miss DOBSON on Pulpit Work.
l6/// January, 1 87 1.
As for myself, I am very well considering — con
sidering that I am in my 72d year — but I am very
much abused, both by others and by myself, by their
exactions and my own compliance. Since June last
there have been only three Sabbaths on which I did
not preach — not seldom twice, and in the most of
these cases on special occasions when effort is
necessary — anniversaries, &c. Sometimes, for three
or four days afterwards, I am quite exhausted and
speechless. I must change tack or go down — so I
must ! and though for next Sabbath I am free,
after having been away about 50 miles to Cumnock
(where I saw Peden's grave and thorn), it is very likely
some necessity will come in at the door, and I will
yield.
Father Paul, my great literary delight, is getting
but small justice from me out of this crazy nervous
ness. I hope I shall get some escape so soon as I
get out to hold communion with hoe and spade with
mother earth. I will then get sleep which I am not
getting now. I will sometimes lie from three o'clock
till seven without a wink.
Dr. Anderson, in one of his last notes to Miss Dobson
CORRESPONDENCE. 235
— one of Mrs. Anderson's long-tried and valued friends
— dated I7th March, 1872, says —
As for myself, the disease of old age is plainly
wearing on me. I am better than I was, but I gather
strength slowly, and if not always out of sorts, never
joyously in the old sorts, so boyishly exuberant in
spirits as you have seen me. I am to an extent, at
times, of morbid melancholy, tried with the reflection,
as for hours I lie sleepless, if I have faith which
would sustain without murmuring such a course as
Mr. 's, and that yet my days and nights, but for a
sudden removal, cannot be far away.
Dr. Anderson, in a note of June 4th, 1871, to the
Rev. Robert French, M.A., Dunfermline, says —
I rejoice to hear of your getting on well, but bear to
be admonished. The facilities acquired in City Mis
sionary work are a great stumbling-block in the way
of a well-pondered system of personal theology, and
of accurate writing. W. A,
Dr. ANDERSON to his Daughter, Mrs. JOHN WILSON,
anent his Jubilee.
PROSPECT HOUSE, March 16, 1871.
DEAR MARY, — Your note has touched me very
tenderly. I was never much elated about the Jubilee.
Its counterbalancing signals of the future affect me
more than its mementoes of the past. Nevertheless,
the three Addresses by Presbytery, Session, and
Managers exceeded anything I had anticipated, and
Mr. MacEwan's conduct and speeches I felt to be
236 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
overpower! ngly kind. I was not, however, greatly
moved with joy. Ah, the agony ! you're the only
mitigator of it. Elizabeth entertained me with some
particulars on the road home. I stopped the cab at the
gate and sent it home. Elizabeth hastened off to the
house. I went up the avenue alone, reflecting —
" Four sons in the grave, every one of whom would
have made my honour his own, and Mary left alone
to identify herself with me ; and my poor, feeble wife
waiting me in that mournful manse ! " You are very
good, Mary — few so good — but you in your oneness
could not compensate for all this. With difficulty
I kept my feet, and managed to the door. —
Affectionately, YOUR FATHER.
Rev. Dr. WARDLAW, Glasgow, to Dr. ANDERSON.
LANGSIDE, March 21.
MY DEAR SIR, — I thank you for your brotherly
note. The allusion to Millenarianism in my lecture
was clearly out of place in your pulpit. The inappro-
priateness of it in this respect came upon my mind
after it was delivered. I felt it, and thought of
explaining to you ; but I was confident there would
be no serious offence or umbrage in your mind. Were
anything further of the kind called for in my argu
ment, you are not the man who would wish me to
abstain from it on the ground of mere courtesy. But
it is otherwise; and you may rest assured you will
have no occasion given for any explanation on your
part to your own flock, or any controversy before them
with one who has much more pleasure in- agreeing
with his brethren than in differing, and, when he does
CORRESPONDENCE. 237
differ, is desirous to differ in love. — Yours, with true
regard, R. W.
J. SHERIDAN KNOWLES to Dr. ANDERSON.
EDINBURGH, 24/7* Feb., 1851.
MY DEAR SIR, — I thank you for your very kind
letter, and for the promise of your work on the Mass.
It will be the first on my side of the question that I
shall have perused, should you do me the favour to
forward it as above. I have hitherto confined my
researches to the Essays of Roman Catholic theolo
gians — if theologians they may be called — relying
upon God's holy written word for the means of
answering them. J. S. K.
The late Rev. Dr. BENJAMIN GOODWIN, Bradford, on
Dr. Anderson's Works.
February 21, 1860.
I have read Dr. Anderson's second series of sermons
with great interest. They are altogether of a superior
cast ; as vigorous in style as they are original in
thought; untrammelled by traditionary orthodoxy,
either in phrase or dogma, they are yet decidedly
scriptural and evangelical. Though I could not
pledge myself to a concurrence in everything ad
vanced, I admire the candour, the independence,
and fearlessness with which the Doctor utters his
convictions.
I was much pleased also with the pamphlet which
accompanied the book ["Exposure of Dr. Cahill's
Reply"]. Dr. Anderson is just the man to enter the
lists with the bold, the blustering, and unscrupulous
238 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
champion of Popery, Dr. Cahill. I heard him at
Bradford some few years ago, and wondered that none
of the ministers of the town noticed the guantlet that
was thrown down in the face of Protestantism by
placards in big letters in very conspicuous parts of the
town. My spirit was stirred, but my strength was
gone. I sincerely hope and trust that a man so
qualified as Dr. Anderson, will be ever ready for the
field. B. G.
Rev. Dr. THOMAS GUTHRIE, Edinburgh, on Dr. ANDERSON.
November 18, 1859.
Many thanks for your kindness in sending me the
volume of sermons. I am much gratified, but not
surprised, by such snatches of them as I have had
time to take. I have often heard my late friend,
Dr. Burns, Kilsyth, speak in the highest terms both
of the head and heart of Dr. Anderson.
They are full of originality and power, and, I
hope, will secure a wide circulation. Nobody can for
one moment doubt that Dr. Anderson is a man who
thinks for himself, and has the moral courage to state
plainly and forcibly what he thinks, as a faithful and
fearless ambassador for Jesus Christ. T. G.
HENRY WARD BEECHER to Dr. ANDERSON.
BROOKLYN, N.Y., Oct. 29, 1864.
MY DEAR SIR, — I received this morning, from Mr.
M'Cleate, a package containing four volumes of your
works, which you have been so kind as to send to me.
I shall add them to my library with great satisfaction;
CORRESPONDENCE. 239
and as soon as this great and decisive election is
ended, I promise myself a pleasure in reading them.
They remind me of the great kindness which you
did me, now about a year ago, before a Glasgow
audience. I believe that events will ere long satisfy
every honest man in Scotland that I spoke the words
of truth and soberness among them, and that I did
not mislead. Praying that you may find your years
filled with the consolations of Christ, I remain, my
dear Sir, very truly yours, H. \V. B.
Rev. THOMAS BINNEY, London, to Dr. ANDERSON.
UPPER CLAPTON, LONDON, E., March 23, 1870.
MY DEAR SIR, — I have read every word of your
book,* — indeed, I had done so before it had been three
days on my table, — but I cannot write to you very
fully, for I am oppressed and overwhelmed with cor
respondence. I think your argument demonstrative,
but I fear some of your Scotch friends will think that
you hit rather hard. In the first sermon I ever pub
lished (in 1827), " On the ultimate object of the Chris
tian Ministry — to present every man perfect in Christ
Jesus," I stated the matter and enforced it; and in
my volume on " Money," there is a section on the
rewards attached to beneficence. I am not sure that
the passage you quote from " Salvation by fire," &c.,
is the strongest that might have been taken. I sup
pose the popular character of the sermon accounts for
the sort of notice taken of the lurking prejudice in the
minds of the class supposed to be addressed. I rather
* "Filial Honour of God."
240
LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
think that was not the case with the sermon of 1827,
which was one ad denim. If you would like to see
either this sermon or " Money," I will forward them.
As to " Gethsemane," I have not been able to refer
to my own piece on that subject, but my impression
is, that it is distinctly said that the cup from which
Christ prayed to be delivered was not the cross itself,
but the mental pressure under which he seemed to be
sinking. The prospect of what was to be endured
might appal, though no thought should for a moment
rise up in the form of a wish to escape it. But it is
a difficult subject — and I remember in writing the
sermon, now some six and twenty years ago, I did
not feel that I had got to the bottom of the subject ;
and perhaps we never shall.
I was very much amused by what you say on page
220. You seem to refer to yourself as " a younger
brother " — and that I, the old one, will not " resent
your remonstrance as a presumption." I said to a
Glasgow lady, "how old do you think Dr. William
Anderson is ? " " Well," she said, " I suppose about
eighty ! " You yourself seem to say that you are
seventy-two, or in your seventy-second year. I expect
we should find we are near of an age, seeing that I am
not yet seventy-two, though in my seventy-second
year — but I always say, " I'm an old man between
seventy and a hundred ! " I think I must be feeling
the effects of age more than you, for I am amazed at
the vigour with which you write — the elastic spring of
your words/ and the sweep you give with that broad
sword of yours, defying all comers ! I cannot but
CORRESPONDENCE. 24!
think your work must commend itself to every fair
reasoning and reasonable man, — but many of the
Scotch are neither the one nor the other if the least
point in the " Standards" is questioned. Excuse this
hasty note. I have written some dozen or twenty at
this sitting, and some of them long ones. — Yours, my
dear Sir, very truly, T. B.
Rev. WM. BARR, Jedburgh, on Dr. ANDERSON'S Character.
FRIARS MANSE, JEDBURGH, 26th Sept., 1872.
The mournful event of Dr. Anderson's death did
not take me by surprise. From what I had recently
heard, it was evident that the end was fast approaching;
and when at length intelligence came that it had
transpired, although it deeply affected, it did not
astonish me: it seemed like the deeper darkness in
which the gloaming closes — only a thing to be expected,
and even welcomed.
In the decease of our friend a luminary of the first
magnitude has set in the hemisphere of time, and risen
in that of eternity. His light, no doubt, was peculiar —
sui generis, one may say — and to some his course might
appear exceedingly erratic; yet his motion athwart the
intellectual and moral heavens was not by any means
that of a mere comet, blazing for a season fantastically
and with awful portent, and in the end going suddenly
out in utter darkness, without leaving in the horizon
one lingering trace of its departed glory. He was, on
the contrary, if not a fixed star, at least a planetary
orb of refulgent brilliancy; and while personally he
has been withdrawn from our midst, never more to
Q
242 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
shine in these parts, and to dazzle his fellow-men by
the lustre of his genius and the splendour of his
eloquence, his works and his memory remain, and
will continue for ages to reflect upon an admiring
posterity the light of pure doctrine, high morality,
and noble enterprise, which he shed so clearly and so
forcibly while he lived.
I have no doubt that justice would so far be done
to the memory of the Doctor last Lord's Day in the
pulpit of John Street, which he so long and so
honourably occupied, and possibly elsewhere. My
long acquaintance with him, and Tny profound admi
ration of his worth, would have induced me, if
possible, to have expressed myself somewhat formally
and at length on the subject ; but, unfortunately, my
constitutional temperament unfits me for the tender
task of preaching a funeral sermon, and I have never
been able, in the course of my ministry, to undertake
anything of the kind. The thought, therefore, was
abandoned nearly as soon as it suggested itself.
It happened, however, that in the forenoon of last
Sabbath I had occasion, in the course of my regular
exposition of the Gospel according to Mark, to preach
on the Parable of the Sower, and I took opportunity, at
the close of that exercise, to make a brief allusion to
the sad event. It was not difficult — it required little
fancy, I mean, to do so. Dr. Anderson was one of the
greatest spiritual sowers of his age — one who trod the
field with giant step, who sowed liberally and with
both hands, and who was not only instant in season
and out of season in doing his work, but strong and
CORRESPONDENCE. 243
stalwart in its execution even to old age. He had his
idiosyncracies, no doubt — some would, perhaps, be
disposed to say, his vagaries or eccentricities ; but still,
withal, his singularity arose not so much from any
oddity by which he was distinguished as from his rare,
unrivalled greatness. Like the king of the forest, he
towered high above his fellows ; and any little notch
or irregularity of form which marked his lofty structure
was not only compensated for, but obscured, and in
great measure veiled from view by the hugeness of
his colossal size, and the pervading beauty of his
general outline. He was, in short, a singularly great
man, whether viewed in his private or in his public
capacity. Great in his power of thought, in the
accuracy and extent of his knowledge, and in the
range, velocity, and fiery vehemence of his genius ; he
was equally great in the nobility of his character — in
the vastness and variety of his exalted operations, and
in the energy, zeal, and dauntless courage with which
he did his life's work. Deducting everything that the
severest criticism could possibly urge to his disparage
ment, enough still remains to stamp him one of the
greatest, if not the greatest, divine among his com
peers ; and we shall look long, it may be feared, and
look eagerly, before we see his like agaia
Circumstances did not warrant me to give myself
the melancholy pleasure of being at the funeral, as I
should have liked; but although not there in person,
to " weep with those that weep," I need scarcely say
that my sense of the loss which the Church has
sustained, and sympathy with those more immediately
244 LIFE OF DR- ANDERSON.
bereaved, were not the less sincere and profound. —
Very sincerely yours, W. B.
Rev. JAMES WATSON, New Annan, Nova Scotia^ on
Dr. ANDERSON'S Death.
October 17, 1872.
In the death of Dr. Anderson I have lost one of my
oldest, dearest, and most beloved friends. It is up
wards of 30 years since I came to Nova Scotia, and
during all that time he kept up a regular correspon
dence with me. Every British mail that came to
Halifax I looked for something from Dr. Anderson,
and, with the exception of two or three times, I never
was disappointed. Newspapers, pamphlets, sermons,
lectures, and books, found their way from him to New
Annan. I have received most of his publications.
When he sent me his volume on Regeneration, the
following inscription in his own hand was written on
one of the fly leaves — of which I do not deny I feel
proud ; perhaps I should say, truly grateful. It is —
" To the Rev. James Watson, with the assurance of the
high esteem in which I hold him, as one of the oldest,
worthiest, and most affectionate of my friends." — W. A.
Professor William Milligan, D.D., The University,
Aberdeen, in a letter of September 23, 1872, says —
Since you wrote to me, your friend Dr. Anderson
has been, I see, taken to his rest. He must have
possessed a great deal of character, and independent
vigorous thought — the former not easily found now-
a-days, when every one is moulded in the same iron
mould both at school and college — the latter a gift
CORRESPONDENCE. 245
looked upon with great suspicion by most of those who
affect to be leaders of our churches. It is pleasant,
however, to think that Dr. Anderson outlived the diffi
culties of his youth, and that in his old age he enjoyed
the respect and love of all who knew him. It ought to
be an encouragement to younger men to persevere
in being faithful to themselves, however D.D.s may
whisper distrust or Assemblies frown. W. M.
Professor F. J. Falding, D.D., of Rotherham In
dependent College, Yorkshire, in a letter of date
September 30, 1872, thus writes —
I was greatly affected by the notice which I saw in
the papers of Dr. Anderson's death, shortly after I
had received those books of his which you were so
good as to send me, and I am sure you must have
been much moved by it. I remember his tall, dark
figure as it appeared to me when I saw him in his
pulpit, nearly 30 years ago. How energetic he then
was ! How keen and incisive his language ! With
what interest the congregation listened to his voice !
And now he who was so faithful a servant, as a son
gives " Filial honour to God " in the Father's house
above. May we, my dear friend, in our appointed
sphere of service, so work while it is called " to-day,"
that we also may enter the mansions prepared for us,
even as he has done. F. J. F.
Professor J. R. Reynolds, D.D., Cheshunt College,
London, writing in March, 1873, says : —
I have always entertained the greatest respect for
246 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Dr. Anderson, and feel that our students owe a debt
of obligation to the kind friend who has made it
possible for them to come into contact with a mind so
richly stored, so profoundly spiritual, so fervent and
strong. His was logic on fire with love, and his dis
courses are models of exposition, argumentative force,
and persuasive power. It is difficult, nay quite im
possible, to track the influence of such a mind into
homes and pulpits of a second generation ; but unless
the ministers of the Gospel and the Divinity tutor can
be content to leave the indirect results of his work with
God, he might often be cast down. Dr. Anderson's
work may not be visible, but it is living on in regions
of which he never thought. J. R. R.
The Rev. Chas. Garrett, Wesleyan Minister, Bootle,
Liverpool, on Dr. Anderson's Works : —
By the translation of Dr. Anderson I feel as if I
had lost a personal friend. I never met him but once ;
but I have for so many years been an eager and de
lighted reader of his works, that I seemed to know him
intimately. Reading one of his sermons is to me as
exhilarating as a walk on the hills of my native county.
His rugged thoroughness ; his perfect loyalty to Christ;
his scorn of everything mean and selfish ; his sympathy
with the oppressed and suffering ; his yearning anxiety
to lift the whole human family into a nearer relation
ship to God, are such, that his name will always be
precious. Such men adorn the doctrine of God their
Saviour. They show us that God's grace can make
humanity noble. I thank God he ever lived. Let us
CORRESPONDENCE. 247
follow him, if with unequal steps, and by and bye we
too shall go up out of the wilderness, leaning on the
Beloved.
Rev. Dr. Geo. Turner on Dr. Anderson's Meetings
with Students in Divinity : —
Dr. Turner of the Samoan Mission, now (1873) on a
visit to this country, in speaking of these meetings with
the Students during the winter session of the College,
says — I can never forget our meetings in the John
Street vestry. My brother Missionary, Dr. Nisbet, and
many more, some on earth and some in heaven, met
with our greatly-respected head instructor and coun
sellor. He looked upon us all with as kindly an interest
as if we had been his children ; and there he sat, some
times with the leg thrown over the arm of the chair,
and in the most easy, unofficial, fatherly way, heard
our Virgil and verses of Greek and Hebrew, togethe r
with the occasional essay, and diversified and finished
up the hour with useful hints on pastoral duties, notices
of the current literature of the day, and sometimes
cuttings from his correspondence. He especially in
terested us at one time with some of Mr. Wm. Logan's
London letters, depicting the terrible realities of Mis
sionary life down in the very lowest strata of city
heathenism. These meetings did a young Student like
myself a world of good. And many with whom I have
met in this country, after a long interval, have said to
me, as the late Dr. Gunion did last year at Dunoon —
" You remember too our meetings with Dr. Anderson in
the John Street vestry."
248 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Rev. TIYO SOGA, Caffraria, on Dr. ANDERSON.
The following is part of an interesting letter
addressed to John Street Church by Rev. Tiyo Soga,
in reference to Dr. Anderson's Jubilee. The letter
was written in January, 1871, being about six weeks
before the Jubilee, and within six months of Mr.
Soga's death : —
DEAR CHRISTIAN BRETHREN, — That Jubilee of
service time marks the advance of the time of life in
the case of your beloved pastor. That thought mingles
an element of sadness with your rejoicings, for it says
the time of final withdrawal from work on earth can
not, humanly speaking, be far distant. Yet these aged,
venerable, wise, holy, experienced servants of God,
though they themselves may long for their heavenly
inheritance and rest, we would fain retain with us long.
We are not willing that they should go. A native
Christian, four years ago, referring to the esteem and
love they bore to a venerable missionary, the Rev. John
Brownlee, whose jubilee we were then celebrating,
made this remark, that, if a human being, on reaching
old age, could be recast like a piece of worn-out iron,
they should with joyful hearts restore their beloved
friend and father to his vigour of youth and manhood.
I for one cherish a like feeling in reference to my
esteemed father, Dr. Anderson.
It is now twenty-three years since I came into
contact with the Doctor. It was on a Sunday evening
in the Shuttle Street Sunday School, in connection
with Greyfriars United Presbyterian Church, Glasgow.
That evening the Doctor took possession of my soul
CORRESPONDENCE. 249
and feelings. It was not by anything he said that
he impressed me as he addressed the scholars of
the Sabbath School. At that time I but imperfectly
understood the English language. It was his exceed
ing fellow-feeling towards a strange boy that won
my heart.
I early perceived that Dr. Anderson was a man of
unfeigned faith in God ; of love to His dear Son ; of
great and devout and reverential attachment to His
holy name. All this the members of John Street
Church — who sat longer than I under the Doctor's min
istry — know full well. But, in addition to these higher
characteristics of a Christian's soul, Dr. Anderson im
pressed me much with his universal humanity, which
is the fellow-feeling to which I have already referred.
But it developed, and glowed, and intensified the
longer I sat under his ministry.
Dr. Anderson has a large heart for his fellow-
creatures. He is a lover of his species. He sees God's
image in man, and the object of the Saviour's redeeming
love and grace. His frequent advocacy of the cause of
the suffering and destitute poor in Glasgow — the terms
in which that suffering and destitution were expressed
— often made me think that there were few men who
felt the woes of their distressed fellow-creatures with
the sincerity and earnestness of Dr. Anderson. Here
is my opinion : In this fine trait of a Christian's heart,
Dr. Anderson and Dr. Guthrie meet, though in other
respects they are Christian champions of different
mental constitutions.
The sympathy of the Lord Jesus Christ with human
250 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
woes was one of Dr. Anderson's favourite themes, and
perhaps this, as a subject for the exercise and the com
fort of his own faith, was the root and the matter of
that pitying heart that was so conspicuous a feature in
Dr. Anderson's character.
The UNITED PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD to Dr. ANDERSON.
The Rev. Dr. Eadie, in addressing the Synod on the
"Anderson Bursary" fund in May, 1871, said — This
gift (of .£1200) Dr. Anderson had got from his friends
for his genius, high eloquence, and industry in that
congregation for half a century. He hoped, therefore,
the Synod would accept the gift very thankfully, and
authorise the Moderator to send a formal letter of
thanks to Dr. Anderson.
We give the Synod's letter : —
We have it in charge from the Synod, as being its
present mouth and hand, to convey to you the enclosed
copy of minute, with such added words as may less
formally express the sentiments which animated the
Court on the announcement, by your esteemed col
league, of the munificent destination made by you of
the public gift which had been lately tendered you by
the affection and admiration of many friends.
We need not say how grateful to our own feelings
is the duty laid on us by the Synod's appointment.
But we are not now to give expression to our personal
esteem and regard. We are rather catching, as we
can, the spirit which pervaded a full Synod on the
occasion referred to, to be the channel of transmitting
to you the love and honour of a whole denomination.
CORRESPONDENCE. 251
We do not exaggerate when we so speak. You are
indeed held in the highest regard by the entire United
Presbyterian Church, which has a grateful delight in
her chivalrous child of genius, Dr. William Anderson.
All of us dwell with pleasure on the many services
you have rendered to the cause of truth and freedom,
as maintained by our body, and cherish admiringly
the recollection of your unflinching fidelity to great
principles, dear to all our hearts. Those of us who
have been in part your associates in work and warfare
— your full compeers are now few on earth — know
what courage your tried bravery inspired into our
hearts ; and still younger brethren have felt and will
feel the impulse given by the example of so good a
soldier of Jesus Christ. You are by far too true a lover
of the brethren not to feel the privilege of having been
able to win, by long and earnest service, the affec
tionate confidence and esteem of so great and noble
a brotherhood as we venture to say our loved Church
contains.
That esteem, we may say, was scarcely enhanced
by the intimation of the generous arrangement to
which the accompanying minute* refers — we all felt it
* The following is the minute which was agreed to by the Synod : —
"The Synod, in accepting this gift, so valuable in itself, and so gene
rously presented to them from one who is held in such high esteem by
all the brethren, and who has laboured with so much acceptance for
the long period of fifty years in one of their churches, agreed to record
their unanimous and cordial thanks to Dr. Anderson, their full appre
ciation of his interest in the effective training of their young men for the
ministry, and their earnest prayers that a life crowned with so many
years of eminent and successful service may be still prolonged in
increasing comfort and usefulness,"
252 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
to be so much in keeping with your known charac
ter. Exceptional and unexpected acts wake up new
admiration ; the normal only confirms the old.
One higher award of approval yet awaits you.
Ere it come, may you be spared and strengthened to
do further service to our Lord. But at length may
there be given you the welcome which has all heaven
in its bosom — " Well done, good and faithful servant,
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord ! " — Believe us,
dear and honourable Father, to be, in name of the
Synod, yours faithfully,
(Signed) JOHN EDMOND, Moderator.
WILLIAM BECKETT, Synod Clerk.
8/A Jttftf, 1871.
CHAPTER XVII.
MISCELLANEOUS.
"Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost."
ON this principle we propose to devote a chapter to a
collection of floating anecdotes and memorabilia from
Anderson's life.
There is no use denying the fact that Dr. Anderson
was what is called a character, distinguished as much
by outreness and oddity as by originality and power.
Perhaps the public sometimes remembered this too
well, while several panegyrists were disposed to forget
it. In some of his letters there oozes out a certain
soreness about the impression of his oddity, which was
prevalent, as if it were exaggerated, and as if it tended
to lower him in the public eye. In this, however, we
think he was mistaken. Characters, who possess at
the same time high qualities of head and heart, are
always popular favourites, and are better loved and
more sincerely admired on account of their oddities.
So was it with George Buchanan, with Professor
Wilson, with Thomas Chalmers, with Professor Kidd
of Aberdeen, with Edward Irving, with Sydney Smith,
and with William Anderson. And. those critics who
attempted to smooth down the angularities of his
254 LIFE OF DR- ANDERSON.
character, and to make its rough places plain, got, and
deserved, little thanks, no more than would a painter
who, in drawing his likeness, had omitted the pits in
his skin, or the sallow hue which overspread his
countenance.
There are hundreds of stones, true or false, floating
about Anderson's peculiarities. But we must here,
as with his correspondence, be select, and that for
two reasons : First, It is very difficult to decide as to
the authenticity of many of these; and, secondly, just as
too many anecdotes introduced into conversation tend
to lower, if not to degrade it, so is it still more in
biography. To turn a Life into a jest-book, is to thrust
it down to the level of a jest-book, which, though one
of the smallest, usually becomes by and by the dullest
of compositions.
Still, as professing to be a faithful limner, we must
trace the vein of humour and queerness which wound
itself through all Anderson's grave and solemn history.
We have given some specimens of it already. An
anecdote has been kindly handed to us, which we now
give in his own words : —
"That reminds me of an incident in the beginning of
my ministerial life. I had just been licensed to preach,
and was despatched to Kirkintilloch to officiate on the
coming Sabbath. The mode of conveyance was by
the night canal boat, leaving Glasgow at 9 o'clock ; the
cabin of these vessels was so narrow that the knees of
passengers sitting opposite touched. In the centre
was a long narrow table, at the stern end of which sat
a fiddler, whose duty it was to fill up the gaps between
MISCELLANEOUS. 255
the political and theological discussions which often
made pleasant those otherwise weary night voyages.
Opposite me sat an old grey-headed man, the whole
make-up of whom indicated a Cameronian Elder of
the "straitest sect," and on my right sat a young man,
going to the same place, the twinkle of whose eye
seemed to say, let us have some fun ; and hardly had
the boat left the wharf till he looked over to his old
friend, and said, l Ay, David, man, say ye hae been in
Glaskie, hae ye ? What i' the world hae ye been there
for, man ? Its na a journey that every body taks ; and
above a', wha wid ha'e expectat to see ye there?'
' Weel, ye s'ee/ replied David, ' my dochter gat married
to a lad that stays there, an' they wad ha'e me to gang
thro' an' see them.' ' Weel, David, an' what think ye
o' Glaskie?' ' O, man, it's an awfu place, it's aboon a'
my thochts, I had nae idea o't, an' I'm just gled to
get awa' hame again.' ' Weel, David, an' wha did ye
hear preachin' ?' ' O, ye ken, I gaed to our ain place,
o' course ; we ha'e a kirk in Glaskie, ye see.' ' But
ye dinna mean to tell me, David, that ye didna gang
to hear Tammas Chalmers, do ye ?' ' Aweel, aweel
(scratching his head as if in a dilemma), I's no say that
I didna, but then, do ye see, it was on Thursda' nicht,
an' I didna think there wad be meikle sin, when it wisna
the Sabbath day ; but, man, he's an awfu' man that : I
never heard a man like him, for I was sittin', whan, an'
afore I kent whar I was, I was up on my verra feet,
stretchin' o'er the beukboard, wi' my e'en wide starin',
an' my mouth wide open, feared I wad loss a word.
But ca' ye yon preachin' ? Na, na, it was rank black
256 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
prelacy ; man, he read ilka word o'd ; na, na, nane o*
that abomination for me, — na, na.'
"I thought I might have a little banter with the old
man also, and so I said, ' David, ye need not be so
hard against prelacy or read sermons, for ye know it is
a fact, which ye cannot deny, that you read prayers
yourself every morning.' With a smile of contempt,
mixed with pity, the old man fixed his eyes on me,
and in a solemn tone said — ' Laddie, ye'll na ken wha
I am, or ye wedna speak that way, for ony body that
kens me that has been an Elder o' the Cameronian
Kirk o' K for aboon thirty years, wid na set
sic a sin too my door ; na, na.' ' But, David, I have
good ground for what I have said, and I know that you
do read prayers every morning/ At this reiterated
charge, the old man's wrath began to wax warm, and
rising to his feet, he exclaimed, in a passion, " It's a
lee, it's a lee ; fa ever tald ye that I care na, but it's a
black lee.' Feeling that I had perhaps led him far
enough, I said, 'Be calm, David, and answer me a
question ; do ye not read the Psalms of David every
morning ?' * To be sure I do ; but what has that to do
wi1 the lee ?' ' Well, David, are not David's Psalms
the best prayers ever written ?' The face of the old
Cameronian relaxed into a smile, as he sat down and
exclaimed, ' Ay, laddie, but ye ha'e caught me noo,
ye ha'e caught me noo.' ' But, David,' I continued, ' I
am afraid that from the way you have been talking
you do not know what a sermon means.' ' I sud
think,' he rejoined, ' I sud think that a man wha has
been an Elder o' the Cameronian Kirk aboon thirty
MISCELLANEOUS. 257
years, sud ken what a sermon means, if ony body kens.'
' Well, David, let me tell you that a sermon is a pro
clamation ; now you know that when the king makes
a proclamation, it is written on paper, and read at the
Cross, and that it is not a proclamation unless it is
read ; now, you know that the gospel is the proclama
tion of the King of kings ; therefore, as all proclama
tions must be read, so a sermon, being a proclamation,
must be read, or it is not a sermon.' David looked
dumfoundered ; the boat had reached our destination,
and the old Cameronian, in stepping out, exclaimed —
' Tuts, tuts, laddie, ye'r ower muckle Latin for me.' "
The story of the " brown bawbee " is well known.
Speaking of the disproportion between wealth and
liberality in giving, he described a fashionably-dressed
lady approaching the church, and after sailing along
in all the majesty of crinoline and consciousness of
position and cash, depositing from a white gloved hand
in the plate — what ? Five pounds, or a sovereign, or
even a shilling ? No, but a brown bawbee ! The
hideous anti-climax of this, as told by Anderson,
elicited shouts and screams of laughter. He is said
to have added : " I stood beside the elders in the
porch last Sabbath evening, and observed how the
people cast their gifts into the Lord's treasury. I
exclaimed, ' There they go ! Three a penny — three
a penny !' "
Sir D. K. Sandford, of the University, and Dr.
Anderson spoke many years ago at a great education
meeting in Glasgow. On the way home Anderson
walked with a strong partisan on the religious side of
R
258 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
the question. Anderson said to him, "Tell me,
honestly, Mr. , what personal benefit you your
self ever derived from the reading of the Bible in the
day school?" "Well, to tell the truth, I cannot say.
Your question reminds me of one circumstance to
which I may refer. The class had been reading, for a
lesson, the i/th chapter of Job, where it said, 'he that
hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.'
Another scholar and I had a bad habit of fighting
occasionally, and I often came off second. ' Now/ I
said to myself, ' I see how I can master him.' " He
resolved to take the words referred to in a literal sense,
and for several days was at great pains to wash his
hands with soap and water. When he thought he had
got them in first-rate fighting order, he threw himself
in the way of his pugilistic schoolmate, quarrelled, and
fought. On this occasion, however, it turned out that
the now enthusiastic religious educationist got a greater
thrashing than ever ! and that night he had the candour
to acknowledge to Anderson before parting, in South
Portland Street, that he had not a very pleasant recol
lection of any benefit he had derived from the use of
the Bible in the day school.
Stories of his unbounded charity are rife. It was
said that he generally came home with his pockets
empty; that his vest was sometimes given away to
applicants for charity, and that he appeared at his
own door with his coat buttoned suspiciously tight to
conceal the deficiency. This may be mythical, but it
is certain that he often gave away his own clothes
when he could lay hold of them ! We have heard of
MISCELLANEOUS. 259
(though this, too, wants confirmation) jelly cans which
had been surreptitiously snatched by him from his
own aumry for the relief of poor, fevered families,
stowed in his pockets, bursting and betraying the
secret in rather an uncomfortable way, and of cakes
and confectionery prepared for an evening party given
by him to beggars who chanced to enter. Most of
these stories must be taken for what they are worth.
We believe that they are founded on fact, although
exaggerated in details, and that the conjoint liberality
and absence of mind from which they are said to have
sprung \vere real attributes of his unselfish and un
worldly character. Such stories never would have been,
forged concerning a cold-blooded and niggardly indi
vidual. In proof of this, the late Mr. S. Barr, who
led for many years the psalmody in Dr. Wardlaw's
Church, told a friend that when he had fever Dr.
Anderson called regularly to see him, and the first
thing he saw, when he opened his eyes and was
conscious, was Dr. Anderson kindling the fire, and
handing "gingerbread parleys" to the children out
of his pockets.
Dr. Alex. Macleod relates a story of Anderson which
he heard him tell in his own pulpit. He was expound
ing the words, " He that putteth not out his money to
usury." " Does that mean," he said, " asking ten per
cent, or more? Not entirely. It means also the spirit
in which the per cent, is taken. There was once in this
church a poor widow, and she wanted twenty pounds
to begin a small shop. Having no friends, she came
to me, her minister. And I happened to know a man,
26O LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
not of this church, who could advance the money to
the poor widow. So we went to this man, the widow
and I, and the man said he would be happy to help
the widow. And he drew out a bill for twenty pounds,
and the widow signed it, and I signed it too. Then
he put the signed paper in his desk, and took out the
money and gave it to the widow. But, counting it,
she said, ' Sir, there are only fifteen pounds here.' ' It
is all right/ said the man, ' that is the interest I
charge.' And, as we had no redress, we came away.
But the widow prospered. And she brought the twenty
pounds to me, and I took it myself to the office of the
man who lent it, and I said to him, ' Sir, there are the
twenty pounds from the widow.' And he said, ' There
is the paper you signed, and if you know any other
poor widow I will be happy to help her in the same
way.' I replied, * You help the widow ! Sir, you have
robbed this widow, and if you do not repent you will
be damned.1 And, my friends, I kept my eye on that
man. And before six months were over God smote
him, and he died." A correspondent in Edinburgh
adds to this story the following: — "And when his will
was produced and read, it appeared that on the very
day I had spoken to him he had put to it a codicil
leaving fifty pounds to the poor. Poor deluded
mortal, to think his soul's salvation could be bought
for fifty pounds."
Dr. Macleod gives a story he heard from Anderson in
his own school days. Two girls were one day playing,
and one of them started the question whether it was
right for children to play. She said her minister had told
MISCELLANEOUS. 261
them the day before that Christ was nowhere described
in the Bible as having ever laughed once ; he was the
Man of Sorrows. The other girl stopped her game
straightway, but instantly she added, " I dinna ken,
Maggie, but I think the minister was surely saying
mair than he had any richt to say. We read that Jesus
went to a marriage at Cana of Galilee. The marriage
folks would likely, like other marriage folks, be happy
and laughing. D'ye think the Lord would sit glooming
at them without even a smile on his face ? No, no,
Maggie. I would not like to say ' laughing/ but I am
quite sure if he went to a wedding he would be happy
like the rest while he was there. I think we might
finish our play noo."
Dr. Macleod alludes to a story of Anderson taking
snuff as he was uttering the words, " My soul cleaveth
to the dust," but refers to it to contradict it. We have
heard a similar story of his raising to his nose a
tremendous pinch as he was quoting the words, " All
is vanity," and discharging it into his nostrils,
while he added, "This also is vanity." But such
stories are mainly for the groundlings. Although he
snuffed, he condemned the habit in others.
Now and then, like other popular men, he took
liberties with his people which no man of less power
could have ventured on but at his peril. He was very
unequal, and sometimes his discourses bore little trace
of preparation or evidence of power. Once we heard
him in this mood on the 8th Psalm, and, as a whole, it
was totally unworthy of his reputation. And yet it
was in it that he described graphically, as already
262 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
narrated, the effect of "Chalmers' Astronomical Dis
courses" on his young mind. A friend of ours walked
into Anderson's Church on the forenoon of a New
Year's Sabbath. The preacher was long of appearing ;
when he did appear, after the singing, he prayed,
read a chapter, gave out a number of more verses to
sing and returned to the vestry. When he re-appeared
he had some MSS. in his hand. " My friends," he pro
ceeded, "I have no sermon for you this morning, but
having given to my female class the subject of "Time"
for an exercise, three of their essays are so good that
I propose to read them to you in lieu of my ordinary
work, and they are much better than it would probably
have been." He read them accordingly, then prayed
and dismissed the assembly.
On one occasion when officiating in the City Hall,
Dr. Anderson was to preach in the forenoon and Dr.
Macfarlane, of Erskine Church (a gentleman much
endeared to Dr. Anderson), in the afternoon. Dr.
Anderson was to have lectured on the passage in
Peter on the Duties of Wives. When he should have
begun the exposition, however, he told his people that
he had been looking at Dr. Brown's Lectures on the
subject, and had found the whole delicate matter so
much better handled than he could, that he would
read them from the volume, which accordingly he
lifted up and laid on the pulpit, saying, with a
humorous twinkle in his eye, "You are a favoured
people this day ; you are to hear Professor John
Brown in the forenoon, and Dr. John Macfarlane
in the afternoon !"
MISCELLANEOUS. 263
Once lecturing in the City Hall about this time,
when he was reading Dr. Brown for a Sabbath or two
on the Duties of Women, he said, when a number of
ladies meet and have nothing very edifying to speak
about, what can they do but bite ? A titter was the
reply to this home-thrust.
Dr. Alexander Macleod, in his " Reminiscences of
Dr. Anderson," says —
" He was once addressing a crowded meeting in the
City Hall on some Church finance business or other,
when he had occasion to speak of ministers' stipends —
at that time a more delicate subject for a minister to
speak about than now. And he dashed into the
shabby treatment they received in something like the
following style : — ' If a doctor comes to see you when
you are dying, he will drug you, and drug you, and in
gratitude to him you will add a codicil to your will to
the effect that he receives a considerable sum over and
above his bill of fees. If a lawyer come to see you
and make out your will, you will instruct your imme
diate attendants to give him a beautiful statuette or a
gold ring in recognition of his services, for which services
he will take care to be well paid besides. But for the
minister, who perhaps alone of all the three does you any
real service — who visits you daily and pours out his
sympathy and instruction into your soul, you not only
have no acknowledgment of service to make, but you
often do not even bequeath to him the poor reward of
thanks.' One would think that courage could hardly
venture further than this. But this was not all. The
audience by this time were on fire with the justice of
264 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
this droll exposure of unequal treatment for ministers.
And Anderson burst out in one of his good-natured
furies into this further appeal: — ' And why should we
be singled out for this unthankful treatment ? I will
ask this assembly of Glasgow merchants and profes
sional men, are we less gifted as a class ? Have we
less intellect or scholarship ? I appeal to yourselves.
We beat you in the classes of your boyhood. We
took the best prizes out of your hands at college. And
we could have distanced you in your own line of things
if we had become merchants, or doctors, or lawyers.'
When he had got to this point, he was able to do any-,
thing with the audience ; and he struck in forcibly
with the business in hand — and carried his resolution
nem. con.
" The peculiarity of Dr. Anderson's method in deal
ing with an opponent was, not so much to deal a heavy
blow as to expose some ludicrous side of him to the
audience, and leave that to the bloodless blow of their
laughter. That was how he dealt with the arguments
of Father Cahill in those ever-memorable lectures on
the 'Errors of Romanism' which he delivered nearly
twenty years ago in the City Hall of this city, and in
many a hall and church besides throughout the land.
He had unearthed, in some way or other, the scapu-
lary charms which some earnest devotees of the
Roman Church were said to wear upon their breasts at
that time. He held up the charms themselves — pieces
of calico shaped like hearts. He told his audience
how, if they wished to be safe, they should buy one of
these and put it on the naked breast ; but if they had
MISCELLANEOUS. 265
plenty of means, and wished to be safer still, they
should buy two, and put one on the breast above, and
one on the back behind the heart. Then came the
climax. * We have heard of many ways and means of
salvation. There is in the oldest dispensation of all,
salvation by works ; and in the Mosaic dispensation,
salvation by 'works of the law. And in the new dis
pensation, we have salvation by grace ; and we have
had, since that new dispensation was set up, many
comings and goings between the old and the new —
salvation by pilgrimages, salvation by priests, salvation
by the Church ; but this is the first time in the history
of the world that we have been offered salvation by
clouts' One is not surprised to learn that it was some
minutes before the lecturer could proceed.
" For the most part, Anderson's sermons abounded
in analyses. His knowledge of the pathology of the
human heart was very great. So was his knowledge
of the methods of grace. With one notable exception,
the sermons we heard him preach had the Gospel
rather in their heart, and at the background, than on
the surface. In that one exception we refer to, it
was put on the very surface, and in a form as simple
as the homeliest Evangelist could proclaim it. This
exception was his unwritten, and in many respects
perhaps his greatest sermon — the sermon on the
woman and the lost piece of silver. In this sermon
he fairly revelled in objective statements of the
Gospel. His whole face lighted up as he told of
the love of God, and worked out the truth, that the
silver, though lost, was, in God's estimation, silver
266 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
still. Nobody who heard that sermon could honestly
say that the way of salvation was not made very plain
in the preaching.
" It was a great privilege to sit and hear him from
day to day when he was at his best. The truth came
from the mint in the soul in a shape so rare, so fresh,
so truth-like, that it was impossible, if there was any
desire to learn at all, not to be instructed. He was a
truly great expounder of the philosophy of the Gospel
method, and the fitness of that for all human needs,
And in dealing with ' the great hope,' as he ever called
it — 'the second coming of Christ' — he was more than
an expounder. He rose into the highest powers of
preaching, and proclaimed the truth with a direct
ness, fulness, force, and fire, which sent it home into
thousands of hearts throughout the country.
" We remember a wonderful effect produced by him
once by the mere emphasising of a word. He was
reading the sentence — 'When He had by Himself
purged our sins.' ' By Himself,' he said. Then, after
a pause : ' Not by his preaching, nor his miracle-
working, nor his example even ; no, but by Himself- —
Himself — body and soul — on the Cross — He purged
our sins.' "
Dr. Macleod further remarks in his "Reminiscences:"
" Our own conviction respecting Dr. Anderson's
preaching was that there was an unworked vein in
the man's nature which, if he had cared to work
it, would have raised him to a yet greater height
of excellence and power than he reached. This
unworked vein was his tenderness. Sometimes it
MISCELLANEOUS. 267
cropped up when he was addressing bereaved mothers,
or dealing with penitent and distressed souls."
When he assisted at our communion in April, 1866,
he announced for the subject of his " Table Address,"
the History of the Doctrine of Assurance in Scotland,,
then proceeded to unrol a huge MS., and read for
more than three-quarters of an hour a most elaborate
and excellent address on the subject. We became
afraid that there would have been no time for the
communion, and we sat for half-an-hour's time rather
uncomfortably. If the people thought the subject
scarcely appropriate, and the discussion of it rather
lengthy, he made up for it in the evening, by one
of his most masterly discourses — forming, we think,
the germ and outline of his volume on " Filial Honour
of God," afterwards to be published.
These were not affectations; they were simply
eccentricities. Fie knew, too, that nothing tends to*
deaden all impression in churches more than a common
place manner of treating routine services. And hence
he never was commonplace. He never even uttered
a family prayer or a grace before meat but what con
tained something peculiar, something that struck at
the time, and that stuck to memory afterwards. Being
really an original man, all this cost him little ; had he
been one whit less than he was it would have strained
him to exhaustion. No doubt he was, as we have
granted, sometimes poor, but there is difference between
the voluntary poverty and ordinary dress of a million
aire and the " looped and windowed raggedness " of a
beggar.
268 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
In Dr. Anderson's house you were sure to meet with
all the remarkable " wandering stars " of the Christian
Church from every quarter under heaven — America,
the Continent, Australia, and Caffraria. Among these
was the late famous Tiyo Soga, who died in August,
1871, the first ordained preacher of the Caffre race.
This gentleman entertained a very warm affec
tion for Dr. Anderson, which was cordially returned.
Dr. Anderson, indeed, regarded him as a son. He
was educated for the ministry by John Street Con
gregation ; publicly baptized by Dr. Anderson, and
ordained in John Street Church in 1857. Soga trans
lated the Pilgrims' Progress, and, when he died, was
engaged in translating the Bible in the Caffre tongue.
When Dr. Anderson was informed of Soga's death,
he said, with uplifted hands, " What a great loss to
Caffraria and the Church of Christ. His death, however,
does not take me by surprise."
A marble tablet to his memory was prepared in
Dundee, and sent to Caffraria at the expense of a
benevolent gentleman in Edinburgh. Dr. Anderson
supplied the inscription, which we may copy here ; —
Tins STONE
Is to keep us in remembrance of
THE REV. TIYO SOGA,
The First Ordained Preacher of the Caffre Race,
lie was a Friend of God ; a Lover of His Son ; Inspired by His Spirit ;
A Disciple of His Holy Word ;
A devoted Missionary who spent himself in his Master's service ;
An ardent Patriot ; a large-hearted Philanthropist ;
A dutiful Son ; an affectionate Brother ; a tender Husband ;
A loving Father; a faithful Friend; a learned Scholar;
An eloquent Orator ; and in Manners a Gentleman :
A model Caffrarian for the imitation and inspiration of his countrymen.
MISCELLANEOUS. 269
This inscription has been translated into Caffre by
that able and devoted missionary, the Rev. John A.
Chalmers, who has taken Mr. Soga's place at the
Board for the translation of the Bible for Caffraria.
Father Gavazzi was also a great favourite of Dr.
Anderson, and admired him much in return. He
presented him with a handsome ebony staff, with
golden head and appropriate inscription. This staff
Dr. Anderson, in his last will, was kind enough to
leave to the present writer, who values it highly for
the sake of both its previous possessors.
These miscellanae might have been multiplied in
definitely. Enough, we think, has been told.
REV. GEORGE C. HUTTON ON DR. ANDERSON.
Perhaps this is as appropriate a place as any
for introducing some pithy and just remarks on
Dr. Anderson, delivered in a sermon on his death,
by the Rev. Mr. Hutton, Paisley, on September 22,
1872. After sermon on Job v. 26, "Thou shalt
come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of
corn cometh in in his season," Mr. Hutton thus
observed : — During the week a noble servant
of God has been carried to his grave ; one who, for
for more than half a century, held high the banner of
truth and right in the West of Scotland. It is little to
say that Dr. William Anderson was an ornament and
tower of strength in his denomination in his day ; he
was a moral force in the ecclesiastical and public life
of his time. His trumpet gave no uncertain sound,
no wavering notes in the battles of Anti-slavery, of
2;o LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
Voluntaryism, of Protestantism. In the thick of the
fight his weapon pierced keen, and fell heavily on
error and wrong, but always without malice or hurt to
character. His charity was as true as his blow was
strong. His indignation against wrong-doing was
genuine, its expression withering, often volcanic ; and
its explosions, like a purifying storm, broke vengefully
amidst the platitudes and shams of his generation.
On the platform, in the pulpit, and in private inter
course he could rebuke in thunder, and admonish as
well as cheer and comfort the penitent, the afflicted,
and the inexperienced with the softest tenderness.
His intellectual powers were of a high order, and they
were cultivated and disciplined to an eminent degree.
In exposition and analysis and application of truth he
was a master ; as a theologian he was independent and
courageous above most ; and, in his chosen depart
ments, exact, profound, and luminous. Of the Popish
system he had made a deep study, and his later years
were much spent in personal investigation into some
of its leading chapters.
Like every enlightened Christian he was catholic in
his feelings, and a friend of ecclesiastical union when
that could be secured to the advantage of truth ;
but he had no sympathy with compromise or the
appearance of injustice to principles.
His infirmity of deafness caused him to retire com
paratively early from regular public labours, although
till within a recent period he preached with frequency,
and was ever ready to assist brethren of whatever
evangelical denomination. While the state of his
MISCELLANEOUS.
health and other providential circumstances prevented
him for a considerable number of years from occupy
ing this pulpit, he was known and admired in this con
gregation as well as throughout the length and breadth
of the Relief body, as subsequently he was hardly less
widely known and appreciated in the United Presby
terian Church generally, of which, with the true spirit
of brotherhood and patriotism, he was a loyal and
staunch adherent and champion. Like many superior
men he was superficially judged by careless outsiders
and indifferent students of human nature.
I suppose it was one of those who accosted me in
a steamer : " Well, I see from the papers that a good
story teller is gone." " Who is that ?" I somewhat drily
asked. "Dr. Anderson" (or perhaps it was a more
familiar title, Willie Anderson, I rather think), replied
the critic, adding with a satisfied air, " He could tell a
good story? Doubtless this was true, though far from
penetrating. (How quickly disposed of are the best
in posthumous remark ! And happily, it is a small
matter to be judged of man's judgment. There is one
that judgeth us even the Lord).
In private intercourse Dr. Anderson was instructive
and charming, and his pleasures were not only simple
and innocent but elevating. To trim his plants and
flowers, to rear his vegetable favourites, divided with
his studious hours the daily leisure. It was a privi
lege, if only once enjoyed never to be forgotten, to sit
with him amid his tomes, or to walk in the garden at
his available ear, and hear him descant on books or
men, on problems of theology and history, of nature and
2/2 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
human life ; on questions of the day, and questions of
man's chief end, as one and another were successively
started, or suggested by subtle links of association ;
touching nothing he did not illumine and freshen.
His last experience was in keeping with the firm
tenor of his hopes as a Christian. " Near the King
dom" ("the kingdom" — that was one of his great
words). "Near the kingdom" he was heard to say
within a brief time of his departure. Shall we say—
we may as our mood arises: —
" Now is the stately column broke ;
The beacon light is quenched in smoke ;
The trumpet's silver sound is still ;
The warder silent on the hill ! "
We will rather say, " He has come to his grave in a
full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in his season."
We will rather say, " Though dead he yet speaks" to all
who love truth and right. From "far up the height"
to which he was ever pressing, he calls to us behind,
" Work while it is day." " Blessed are the dead which
die in the Lord from henceforth : yea, saith the Spirit,
that they may rest from their labours, and their works
do follow them." For, " to him to live was Christ, and
to die is gain."
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHARACTER OF ANDERSON.
IN considering the character of a man like Anderson
there are three main questions to be answered — What
was he? What wrote he? What did he? To answer
these questions we shall now address ourselves.
What was he ? He was, then, a man of very wide
and warm sympathies with human kind, and especially
when he saw or heard of humanity being crushed or
trampled on. It mattered not whether it was a white
or a black man who was oppressed, or whether they
were Poles or Magyars, or negroes, or overwrought
artisans, that suffered — it mattered not whether it was
a multitude or a single man that was feeling the iron
heel of power — Anderson's heart was moved from its
depths, and then he seemed attired with sudden bright
ness like a man inspired. We do not believe that in
the breasts of Las Casas, or Burke, or Clarkson them
selves, there ever burned a purer flame of indigna
tion than in Anderson's. It was unmingled with a
particle of personal feeling or desire to create a sen
sational impression ; if ever man did well to be angry,
and was angry and sinned not, it was he.
2/4 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
In conversation, when he heard of any unrighteous
or cruel action ; any mean extortion ; anything
at once disgraceful and dastardly, how his face
sparkled into fury, and his eye became a dart of fire !
In public it was the same on a larger scale. To
denounce a giant wrong a giant spirit seemed to
spring up, and though the duel was fierce, its result
was not for a moment doubtful, and loud cheers were
always ready to proclaim the victory. In the pulpit
he did not hide this terrible talent under a bushel.
He once said to Dr. Macleod, " I have kept that
church of mine together by indignation" Quiet,
placid, and even couthy, as he usually looked in his
pulpit, the audience knew by past observation how he
could shoot out boar-like bristles, or even unfurl a set
of porcupine quills at a moment's notice, and hence
there was a trembling mingled with their mirth when
they laughed, and a certain awe overshadowed their
spirits when they admired. Often, however, as he
told us, the following was his method: — "Some
ministers when they flytc at their flocks are too
serious and severe — nothing with them but the cold
steel. I rebuke my folks in a funny kind of way, so
that while they are looking sad and maist greeting on
the one side o' their face they are laughing on the
ither, and very rarely do they take offence." We
suspect this auld-farrantness was principally, however,
in his later years.
He was, it need hardly be noted, distinguished by
boldness and independence of thought and action.
Should such a man as I fly ? was his motto in action.
CHARACTER OF ANDERSON. 275
Should such a man as I take my opinions on trust and
tie myself to the chariot wheels of any mere man ? was
his principle in thought. This rugged and manly
independence was in him a very different thing from
mere pride of intellect or the desire of being singular.
It arose from his strong love for truth, his conscien
tiousness, and his loyalty to God as the supreme Arbiter
of conduct, opinion, and destiny. We have seen how
he felt latterly the galling yoke of human documents,
absurdly supposed by some to be divine ; and against
some things in them all the Protestantism of his nature
rose with almost as much energy of resistance as
against the dogmatisms of the Church of Rome. He
was favourable to a revision and a shortening of the
Standards; was not afraid (as we have noted already) to
criticise them with considerable severity, and he never
at any period of his history yielded to them a tithe of
that homage with which he bowed before the authority
of the Spirit speaking in the Word of God. And not
only on religious questions, but on all others — philo
sophical, literary, and political — he thought and spoke
for himself. He called no man master upon earth.
And along with this there was a courage which always
rose with opposition, and which feared not the face of
man.
Anderson was often called, and most unquestionably
was, a man of genius. Whatever definition we adopt
of that fine and rare quality — whether we call it a
superabundance of the genial nature, or the power of
original thought steeped in feeling and irradiated with
imagination, or the power of uttering impassioned
276 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
truth, Anderson had it in a large measure and in pure
quality. It produced at one time sudden and electric
touches of fancy, anon bursts of broad humour, and at
a third time long and highly-wrought passages of
eloquence, invective, description, and pathetic appeal.
Its unexpectedness was perhaps its most remarkable
quality. It shone around you sudden as sheet light
ning in a dark night, and seemed to take himself as
well as others by surprise. You saw this in the smile
which mantled on his cheek and glistened in his eye
when the good thoughts or felicitous witticisms came
upon him.
And yet, still more than a man of genius, was
Anderson a man of strong common sense and keen
intuitive perception. He could reason, and he often
reasoned well, but his power was immediate insight.
He saw things at a glance. He was eminently a
sagacious man. He had hardly the philosophic
faculty of gathering principles out of hosts of facts
through a power of calm and wide generalisation.
This was too slow a process for him. He sprang, but
not blindfolded, to his results, and he seldom lost his
balance — almost always he reached the firm ground
at which he aimed. When, as sometimes, however,
like the tiger, his first leap failed, he seldom tried a
second, but retired growling to his jungle. For a
man of his years, strong idiosyncrasy, and firmly-
held opinions, he was wonderfully progressive, even
to the close. But we thought that he was too tena
cious at times of his character for consistency. We
live in an age when rapid and unreasoning change of
CHARACTER OF ANDERSON.
opinion is condemned as severely as ever it was. But
we live in an age, too, when the continual coming in
of new evidence, the vast progress knowledge is
making, and the swift way in which points of view
are shifting, and horizons of theory retiring, render
frequent change of opinion inevitable, even on the
most important of subjects, and in the strongest of
men. It is far better to be inconsistently right than
consistently wrong. But these remarks apply much
less to Anderson than to many other great men in
churches, who change, indeed, readily enough up to a
certain point, but who seem to think it inconsistent
with their dignity of position to continue a progressive
movement, and who at last stand still like Lot's wife,
while truth, led by angels, is advancing with gigantic
strides to the distant Zoar.
We have spoken repeatedly of Anderson's child-like
spirit. A child himself, how dearly he loved children !
We see him still approaching the bedside of a young
maiden, who in the season of spring had been seized
with some trifling illness which prevented her, however,
attending the marriage of a school companion, and
saying to her, naturally much disappointed, " My dear
girl, be of good cheer — just think on Giegowans? It
is told of an American author and preacher that he
would not hear of any of his children being baptized
till a minister could be found as innocent as they
were to perform the ceremony, and when he became
acquainted with Dr. Channing, he thought here was
the proper man come, and got them baptized accord
ingly. We are sure had he known Anderson, he would
2/8 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
have allowed him to officiate in the matter, as he
could say with the Psalmist —
" I surely have myself behav'd
With quiet sp'rit and mild,
As child of mother wean'd : my soul
Is like a weaned child."
Anderson was a man of sterling honesty, and con
tinued to be so all his life. Many public men, perhaps
the majority of them, begin by being perfectly honest
and sincere. But to retain this is the difficulty. To
continue honest amidst the blandishments of flattery
and the claps of multitudes, the confidences they are
obliged to give, the reticence they must observe, the
glare of publicity by which they are surrounded,
the calumny and sinister inferences to which they are
exposed, the pains and penalties which follow speaking
out, or acting firmly, the fear of man which causeth a
snare, the desire to please everybody, which forms a
snare more dangerous still ; the snare for consciences,
deadliest of all, involved in an early and implicit sub
scription to articles of faith and conformity to rites of
worship, not to speak of the general dilution of false
hood in which the conversation and ceremony and
manners of society at large are steeped — in all this there
are tests and trials for honesty provided which few
indeed are able to surmount. Anderson came out
as scathless from these as any, and far more than
most; he lived and died an honest man, and needed no
other inscription on his sepulchre than that he
did so.
Anderson was a most disinterested and sclf-sacri-
CHARACTER OF ANDERSON. 279
ficing man. This was less generally known or less
cordially granted than his honesty. His having mar
ried a rich wife probably contributed to the delusion,
which was at one time widespread, that he was a
money lover. Nothing could be more entirely untrue.
Avarice was a total stranger to his nature. Love
money he did not. Save money he could not. About
money he had no thought except how most freely
and generously to give it away. The rather large
sum presented him at his Jubilee went all to the
Anderson Scholarships. In this he might be wrong,
and for this he has been blamed ; but this, at all
events, clears him from the current charge. And, in
fine, after discharging all obligations, he died leaving
very little money.
Anderson, though not precisely a scholar or savan,
was a man of very wide knowledge alike in secular
and sacred regions. His knowledge of men, however,
was greater than that of books, and those who thought
him a simpleton or a man who passed through life with
half-shut eyes were widely mistaken. "They quite,"
says Dr. Macleod, "misunderstood the man who looked
on him as a great grown-up child who could not care for
himself. He could take care of himself and of those
who misjudged him too, and he was as capital a man
of business, in business matters, as Glasgow possessed."
What Dr. Macleod says of Anderson's business apti
tude and acuteness is no doubt true, but, as Carlyle
says of Burns, " there was a generous incredulity in
his heart." He was often taken in, taken in sometimes
by rank impostors, especially by those who made a
28O LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
great pretension to religion, or who were of the " seed
of Abraham," although, alas ! only according to the
flesh ; taken in by self-seeking friends, and sometimes
by flatterers, whose incense he despised but bore with;
and taken in by pretended penitents, a class he treated
always with characteristic but over-much tenderness.
In all this he bore a striking resemblance to the
admired of his early days, Edward Irving, who at
one time half-filled his house in London with unfor
tunate people — broken-down preachers, and so forth —
and for all this both should be honoured more than
blamed, since both in this imitated their Master,
with his inseparable following of fishermen, lepers,
publicans, sinners — the very offal and refuse of
society.
In labours we have seen in part already how abun
dant he was. His idol, Duty, exacted a tremendous
tax from its worshipper. For thirty years — from 1824,
say to 1854 — we question if more manly work was
ever condensed by any man of the age into the same
compass — what with preaching in season and out of
season, in his own church, in other men's churches, in
halls and schoolrooms — at Sacraments, sometimes in
the fields — with lecturing at home and abroad on fifty
different subjects — with speech-making on platforms
and in Presbyteries — with visitation of the sick — with
laborious preparation of most of his sermons and of
many of his speeches — and latterly with preparation
of his works for the press. Withal, he was often in
society, and there he never seemed distrait or in a
hurry. Then there was the care of his own family,
CHARACTER OF ANDERSON. 28 1
and great and gracious attention to the families of
his friends and flock. And even when he resided in
town, in later years, he had a garden to look after,
which was indeed a relaxation, but a relaxation which
included bodily labour and loss of working time.
Glasgow is a busy place — its ministers have always
had the character of being busy persons — but we
question if, with the single exception of Chalmers
during the few years he was there, it has ever had a
busier citizen than Anderson. But Chalmers, after
eight years' labour, fled from under the burden, feeling
it too heavy for him to bear. Anderson might stagger
below it at times, but sustained it, on the whole, with
marvellous energy and patience for a full quarter of a
century.
William Anderson was a man of genuine, though
unassuming and uncanting piety. That piety might
be called hereditary, coming from his parents and
their parents. It was modelled directly on that of
Christ Himself — the real, not the imaginary Christ
of Leonardo da Vinci and other melancholy limners
— the Christ who, while " holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners," was yet the most human
and social and genial of men. It was entirely free
from pretension, face-making — " Stand by, I am holier
than thou"-ism — and was, on the whole, a happy reli
gion. He saw, indeed, and acknowledged the awful
gloom and the deep difficulties by which, in this our
little life, and in this bud and dim dawn of being we
are surrounded. But his temperament did not lead him
to dwell long on these. He looked on the Gospel as a
282 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
glad sunbeam from heaven which had shot across this
darkness, and thought that an influence which had made
saints rejoice amidst the agonies of death, and mar
tyrs smile amidst devouring flames, must have a reality
and a power in it, and should be cherished as a source
of peace in the bosom, hope in the heart, and fearless
confidence as to the Future of the Church.
He had also a spring of gladness peculiar to himself in
his expectation of Christ coming to reign on the earth.
This, some who once entertained it have seen pass
away from their belief like a magnificent sunset, with
all its purple and its gold, and what seemed gems and
arches and galleries of glory, disappearing like what it
was — " The baseless fabric of a vision, an unsubstan
tial pageant faded, and leaving not a rack behind."
But to Anderson its hues remained fresh and untar
nished till the very end ; they seemed to his eye, as he
stood upon the Pisgah of death, to merge in
"Heaven's bright pomp descending jubilant."
And as during his long life he continued ever gazing
up to the heavens, we may say, as the poet says of
Stephen, that
" God's glory smote him in the face."
Assuredly, when in his higher mood he talked of the
Advent, his " face became as the face of an angel."
His writings we have already characterised severally
and seriatim. We may be expected now to say a word
as to their net value and ultimate fate.
It is unfortunate that so many of them are contro
versial in their character. Had Anderson been less of
CHARACTER OF ANDERSON. 283
a polemic and more of an utterer of sweet musical and
poetical thoughts, his fame as a writer had been greater
than it is, or is likely to be. How soon polemical
writings perish ! No one seeks to preserve them after
a certain date, any more than to prop up a fallen thistle
or thorn ; but let a flower or a hedge of blooming
hawthorn begin to totter to its fall, every passing-
beggar will become its patron, and discover that there
is in his heart some dim instinct of beauty unknown
even to himself. Thus Clarke's a priori argument
(supposing its credit to fall or to threaten to fall) would
fall amid utter silence, while an attack on Taylor's
"Marriage Ring" would make unknown thousands
eloquent. Many Protestants even would mourn less
the want of Chillingworth's great works, or Isaac
Barrow on the Papal Supremacy, than some of the
sublime hymns of the Catholic Litany, such as the
Dies Irae. And so we would cheerfully have wanted
some of Dr. Anderson's controversial publications had
he given us more sermons like that on the Re-union of
Friends in the Heavenly World.
We have another remark to make. Polemical works,
to be permanent now, must be the result of most
extensive learning, of the most practised logic, and
of the profoundest philosophical culture. The oppo
nents of the Evangelical system possess all these, and
the defenders of it must possess them, too, or they
are nowhere. In these, as we have repeatedly said,
Anderson, with all his mighty force of mind, and all
his true and fervent genius, was deficient, and if his
" Regeneration " survive, it will be saved so as by fire.
284 LIFE OF DR- ANDERSON.
On the other hand, we fondly anticipate a prolonged
existence for some of his sermons that are, and for
ethers that may yet be printed.
What has he done ? He has fought a long and
gallant battle, we will not say for Christianity merely,
far less for sectarianism, but for Truth and Liberty in
their myriad forms. He was the advocate in Glasgow
of every good and noble movement, for half a century
or more, for almost all popular measures, and for
many of them long before they became popular. From
John Street pulpit there came the first peal of the
thunder which awakened Glasgow to any new Liberal
movement, and that was generally returned through
out the land in a thousand echoes. When other men,
ministers included, shrunk back from the responsibility
and perils of a young cause, Anderson stood forward
to bear the burden, if necessary, alone — to dare the
danger, even when he had to " fecht for his ain haun."
And who that saw him throw himself, like another
Horatius, in glorious abandonment, upon any strong
tide of popular enthusiasm, but must have admitted
him to be the man of the Westland people, and some
times called him, tremblingly, the Spirit of the Storm..
So long as men in that quarter of Scotland, or indeed
in any part of it, respect moral worth, sterling honesty,
indomitable courage, public spirit, and true Chris
tianity, shall they respect the memory of William
Anderson, the " Only one."
He now sleeps well. He has not lived to see the
grand dream of his life, the Second Advent, fulfilled,
but has, we trust, reached the foot of the throne
CHARACTER OF ANDERSON. 285
by a nearer way. In him the author of this Memoir
mourns a true friend to himself, besides one of
Nature's "sturdiest bairns," and one of God's most
gracious, yet humble, devout, and true-hearted children.
And thus are the lights of our Scottish horizon
going out one after another. First there was Norman
Macleod, dying in his full strength, his breasts full of
milk, and his bones moistened with marrow. Then
there was Anderson, coming to the grave like a shock
of corn, fully, but not more than fully ripe. And now
Thomas Guthrie, the active and warm-hearted philan
thropist, the genuine orator, the man of the marvellous
physique, built like a tower of strength and state,,
younger in years than Anderson, but older in consti
tution, has followed him to the sepulchre. Who shall
now guide us in the perilous times, and in the deep
waters, which are before the Church ? Echo answers
Who ? The giants are gone ! The thunderers sleep
upon their quenched bolts — the grand old oaks are
down; and behold what a crop of mushrooms are
growing in the now unshadowed pastures ! Yet they
are not all mushrooms that we see in the naked field.
There are still alive some noble men in all the deno
minations of Scotland — and never had these men a
more manlike, a more difficult, yet divine work to do.
REMINISCENCES OF DR. ANDERSON.
BY THE RKV. GEORGE BROOKS, JOHN-STONE.
(In a Letter to Mr. W, L., Glasgow.)
MY DEAR SIR, — You have more than once ex
pressed a wish that I would commit to writing some
of my personal reminiscences of the late Dr. William
Anderson.
My personal intercourse with Dr. Anderson did not
commence till 1833, when I became his co-presbyter.
It was not my privilege ever to be admitted into
the inner circle of his friendship. Between 1833
and 1847, the date of that auspicious Union which
threw Relief ministers less exclusively on the society
of each other, because it so greatly extended the
sphere of their brotherly intercourse, I saw enough of
him to enable me to lay up a fund of recollections
concerning him which might not lend much assistance
to his Biographer in preparing his Memoir, yet may
have some value as the testimony of an independent
observer. For the sake of order, I shall speak of him
as I saw him in the pulpit, on the platform, in the
parlour, and in the study, using, however, the licence
of epistolary correspondence in introducing my recol
lections in the place where they happen to occur,
rather than in the place to which, according to tlrs
arrangement, they belong.
REMINISCENCES. 287
Dr. Anderson took from the outset a conspicuous
place as a preacher. He professed to have been
greatly stimulated by intercourse with distinguished
fellow-students, naming, amnog others, the Rev.
William Ney of Tollcross, who was, like himself, a
native of Kilsyth. I have heard him reporting several
passages from the discourses of that companion of his
youth, which showed that in intellectual and imagina
tive power the two young men were kindred. He
had also been brought into close contact with Dr.
Chalmers ; and while he dwelt with admiration on the
genius and benevolence of the eminent pulpiteer
and philanthropist, he did not forget to hint how
much he had learned of the art of domiciliary visita
tion by witnessing his example. To what extent he
imbibed his millenarian views from Edward Irving
I do not know, but there is no doubt that he was
powerfully influenced by him in his style of thought
and expression; nor would it be rash to affirm that
from Edward Irving, the prince of modern declaimers,
Dr. Anderson learned his consummate invective or
indignation, as from Laurence Sterne he learned his
sarcasm. For one of the elements of his effectiveness
he was indebted to Rowland Hill — the power of
grafting pathos on humour, or of raising a smile that
the plaintive or serious thought might sink more
deeply. He was a diligent reader of the French
pulpit orators ; and in the earlier years of his ministry
he did not hesitate, when his leisure or original com
position had been unduly curtailed, to give a free
translation of one of the discourses of Superville.
288 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
I may be permitted to specify here some of the
features of his preaching which, according to my
opinion, rendered it so attractive and so powerful.
He possessed the rare faculty of looking at every
object with his own eyes, and describing it as it
appeared to himself. Hence his speaking, although
not always original (how could it be ?), was always
fresh, presenting old facts and truths in new lights.
He had mastered the invaluable art of presenting his
deepest thoughts in a simple and intelligible form:
instead of being, as some of the lanterns of the pulpit
are, a dark lantern, he reserved whatever he felt he
could not bring to the level of the general capacity.
He bestowed great and growing attention on the
cultivation of his style. If he was sometimes charge
able with negligence, or even ruggedness, it was not
because his taste was at fault, but because he sacrificed
everything to usefulness. There is a paragraph in
the first volume of his Sermons which cost him a
whole day's labour as he was strolling along the
beach at Largs or Fairlie. It occurs in the discourse
on Loving God, beginning on page 193. One of the
charms of his preaching was, that he was not ashamed
to allow his hearers the privilege of seeing him make
up his mind. I used to contrast him with Professor
Lindsay, of whom I never knew how warmly I loved
him till the Monday morning, never to be forgotten
by me, when I read in the Glasgow Herald the notice
of his sudden death. If you inquired what was Dr.
Lindsay's opinion on any subject, he would not
answer unless his mind was matured ; Dr. Anderson
REMINISCENCES. 289
would have told what were his present views. It was
interesting to an intelligent audience to be permitted
to watch every step of the process by which a man of
his native vigour arrived, on all sorts of subjects,
at the conclusions in which he ultimately rested.
Another thing which greatly contributed to his popu
larity was, that there were so many points in Christian
doctrine and duty which he had revolved and re-
revolved, till he had struck out views which were
distinctly his own.
When I first enjoyed the opportunity of hearing
Dr. Anderson as a platform speaker, his appearances
were somewhat unequal. He often spoke without
sufficient preparation, and hence there might be ex
pected great failures as well as great successes. Beside
Drs. Wardlaw, Heugh, and King, who were all first-
class men of the platform, he was shown to disadvan
tage. But as he advanced in years, and began to feel
his own weight and his own responsibility, he prepared
more carefully, and then he never failed to rise to the
occasion. In consequence of my distance from Glas
gow, I never heard him in the City Hall, which was
the chief scene of his oratorical triumphs — the City
Hall which he so touchingly apostrophized in his
speech at the Jubilee Soiree. I have heard him often
enough elsewhere to convince me that in his speeches
were the masterpieces of his eloquence. Give him
time without stint or limitation ; give him an audience
with intelligence to appreciate an argument, and sensi
bility to respond to an appeal, and humour to relish
a joke; give him a theme which enlisted all the
2QO
LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
sympathies of his own noble and generous nature,
whether it was National Education, or the Abolition
of Slavery, or the Repeal of the Corn Laws, or the
Restoration of the Lame, or the Wrongs of Hungary,
or the claims of the Westminster Assembly — and he
would pour out a stream of oratory diversified with
original thought, and acute reasoning, and pathetic
narrative, and brilliant declamation, and burning
passion, and withering sarcasm.
In his sermons, perhaps, the last of these qualities
was sometimes in excess. For the most part he
complied with the examples of the sacred writers,
who reserve the vials of their indignation for hypocrites
and incorrigible offenders. Sometimes, however, he
displayed more of the spirit of the Roman satirist than
of the Christian preacher— as if he delighted in the
writhings of the culprits under his merciless flagella
tions. In a platform speech, which is a more secular
thing than a sermon, use and wont impose fewer
restraints; and certain it is that he made a liberal exer
cise of this privilege. Who can ever forget his birling
of the "brown bawbee?" I once ventured to ask him,
at the close of a fierce philippic which had moved my
pity for his bleeding victims, " How does it happen that
a man of so much benevolence has so much scorn?"
He answered, " Perhaps the scorn is as genuine as the
benevolence." He was right. Because he was so
benevolent he was so scornful.
Dr. Anderson was a fluent talker; but he was a
fluent talker to whom it was profitable as well as
pleasant to listen. On the briefest call, he was scarcely
REMINISCENCES. 29!
seated (he generally dispensed with the formality of
- shaking hands) when he began to pour forth his
thoughts on any subject that might be suggested:
He told me that, when a student, he was on intimate
terms with James Bell— son of the well-known Rev.
Thomas Bell, Dovehill — and used to visit him in the
evenings for the purpose of learning the contents of
any new book which that insatiable book-glutton had
devoured during the day in his privileged sittings
behind the booksellers' shop-counters. He followed
the same plan through life. If he knew or suspected
that your attention was much given to any one branch
of study — let it be language, or literature, or history,
or science, or philosophy, or theology — he directed
the conversation so as to elicit the last results of your
reading and reflection. On one occasion we had
agreed to exchange pulpits. When he arrived by the
last conveyance on Saturday night, he was surprised
to find me still at home. He had mistaken the day.
To find a gig or a cab in a country town was not so
easy then as it is now ; but instead of being fretful or
fidgety, while the means of his return to Glasgow
were in preparation, he continued his conversation on
some of the public questions of the day as cheerily
as if he had been at his own fireside.
The Relief ministers of the last generation were an
eminently public-spirited body of men. They felt an
anxious interest in all that affected the cause of evan
gelical religion, or of civil and religious liberty. It was
a rare luxury to attend the meetings of the Glasgow
Presbytery, when, in the confidential intercourse of
2Q2 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
the dinner table, whatever interested the friends of the
Christian Church and of the country was freely dis
cussed by Father Thomson, with his rugged but
robust common sense— by Dr. Thomson, with his
calm and dispassionate wisdom — by Mr. Brodie, with
his cultured and classical taste— by Dr. Struthers, with
his almost oracular sagacity— by Dr. Anderson, with
his many-sided acuteness— by Mr. Harvey, with his
rough-and-ready practicality.
Dr. Anderson was well informed to the last on
all public matters. He was a deeply experienced
Christian ; for, indeed, with such a temperament, with
such a structure of intellect, living in such an age and
in such a city, it was almost inevitable that he should
have passed through many a conflict before he could
say on his death-bed, "My soul, wait thou with
patience upon thy God alone." Being a man of
marked idiosyncracies, he seemed to have a special
attraction for persons whose mental manifestations
were somewhat singular: he found them out, or they
found him out. He had a large collection of cases in
which he had been brought into contact with persons
of various sexes, and ages, and ranks, and grades of
intellect, who, as sceptics, or profligates, or waverers,
or penitents, or backsliders, or mourners, presented
extraordinary phases or phenomena of Christian expe
rience. Some of these cases he delighted occasionally
to recall in familiar conversation. As he unfolded
the details with all the skill of a spiritual patholo
gist—as he gave scope to the gushing emotions of his
deeply sympathetic nature— as his eye kindled and his
REMINISCENCES. 293
eloquence brightened, I oftened regretted that no
record of them had been preserved. To a certain
extent he has made use of them in his work on
"Regeneration;" but most of them must remain un-
chronicled. "I never caught John Bunyan tripping
on anything relating to experimental religion," he
once said.
Only once, as far as I remember, did he speak to
me about the treatment he received from the Glasgow
Presbytery at the date of his ordination. It is needless
to conceal that he retained a deep sense of the injustice
done to him by his fathers and brethren on that
occasion. The months that intervened were months
of agony. He used to go home after the public alter
cations and weep, as he thought within himself, " What
can there be in my preaching of the gospel that tends
to make people laugh ? " He was greatly consoled by
the visits and conversation of Mr. M'Naughton, of
Milngavie, " the Nathaniel of the Relief Synod," and
especially of Mr. Fergus, of Campbeltown, of whom he
said, " He was a wise man ; he lectured through the
whole book of Proverbs." It is right to notice, that
notwithstanding his high qualifications for the office
of the Christian ministry, and the general acknow
ledgment of these qualifications, Dr. Anderson was
oppressed with a habitual sense of unworthiness. In
a letter to me — where he had no inducement to assume
the affectation of humility, even if affectation had not
been his utmost hate, the object of his implacable dislike
—he stated that often a sense of unworthiness hung
so heavily on his heart that he seriously deliberated
294 LIFE OF DR- ANDERSON.
whether it was not his duty to tender his demission.
I have sometimes wondered whether it was not a sense
of growing unworthiness, as much as a sense of growing
unfitness, which induced him at length to retire from
the active duties of the pastorate. Somehow this
feeling steals on many ministers of the gospel as they
advance in years : more and more they deem the
pulpit to be indeed what Spencer of Liverpool called
it in his youth, " an awful place ;" and when they arc
obliged to retire from the work to which their life has
been devoted, it would be hard to decide whether the
preponderating feeling is that they have ceased to be
fit, or that they have ceased to be worthy to serve God
in the gospel of his Son.
Dr. Anderson was not a great reader. He knew
very little about books in proportion to his age and
standing. On the publication of the first volume of
his Sermons, I pointed out to him a coincidence in his
line of argument with that of Dr. Paley. He surprised
me by stating that he had never read Paley ; although
this statement, perhaps, would have been less surpris
ing to one who had not been so thoroughly drilled in
Paley by the prelections of Dr. Chalmers. Instead of
reading many books, he read a few till he had made
their contents entirely his own ; for although he might
not be able to give a methodical account of them, or
to recite long extracts, it was always evident how com
pletely the whole had undergone a process of assimila
tion. Whatever he perused, fructified in his own mind.
He was, to a certain extent, a man of one book ; nor
was the one book to which he gave his attention
REMINISCENCES. 295
always what others would have considered the best.
Glasius was his authority in hermeneutics, on which
there are now so many excellent manuals in English
and German. Though he might not know the litera
ture of the subject, he understood the subject itself,
and understood it far better than many who have com
pleted a five years' curriculum in a Divinity Hall,
superintended by some of the most accomplished
divines in Christendom.
Like most of his contemporaries, he was a good
Latiner, according to the standard of Latin scholarship
fifty years ago. According to the same standard he
was a good Greek ; for the study of Greek has made
more rapid advances in Scotland during these fifty
years than the study of Latin. Dr. Eadie is a Greek
scholar of another order than Dr. Brown. Dr.
Anderson was more proficient in Hebrew. Before the
Union he used to contend that every minister should
know at least as much Hebrew as would qualify him
to appreciate the results of modern research in that
language. He knew a good deal more. His study of
the Bible was so thorough and so exact, that when his
attention was turned to any of the more difficult
passages, he seldom failed to be able to enumerate
the leading opinions concerning them, and to assign
reasons for that which he preferred. In walking with
him one Sabbath from his house in Portland Street to
his Church in John Street, he said, " I often find my
lecture in Glassford Street." Knowing his ripeness
in the Scriptures, I did not imagine that it was there he
began to meditate on the passage he intended to
2Q6 LIFE OF DR. ANDERSON.
expound. I inferred that it was often only at the last
moment, when his mind was stimulated by the near
approach of the hour of service, after being solemnized
by his morning devotion, that his subject assumed the
shape in which it was ultimately presented.
Baillie's Letters engaged much of his study at one
time, and it furnished to him a wide field of research in
the religious history of Scotland and the English Com
monwealth. Then came Father Paul, opening up to him
the whole range of the Popish Controversy. I never
could understand how he attached so much value to
Hobart Seymour's Mornings with the Jesuits. He began
to study theology more systematically after he returned
to Uddingston. I received several letters from him
while he was preparing his book on the Fatherhood of
God, and by his request I suggested to him some of
the quotations which he there introduced. I have no
doubt others were suggested by more intimate friends
with larger libraries or of more extensive reading. I
wish you had asked some of them to furnish their
reminiscences of our lamented father (brother was he
not ?) rather than me : now you have mine.
DR. ANDERSON'S JUBILEE SPEECH.
WE have already referred to Dr. Anderson's jubilee.
We shall now give his speech at length, and add some
of the press notices of the event.
On Tuesday evening, 7th March, 1871, a soiree was
held in the City Hall, every part of which was filled —
the desire to be present having been so great that the
tickets of admission were all disposed of many days
before the meeting. The Rev. David MacEwan occu
pied the chair, and on the platform, besides the Rev.
Dr. Anderson, were numerous ministerial and other
friends connected with the different sections of the
Church and from various parts of the country. When
Dr. Anderson rose to reply, he was received with enthu
siastic and prolonged applause, the whole assemblage
rising to their feet and greeting him with loud cheers
and waving of handkerchiefs. His appearance, as he
stood before the vast gathering was very interesting,
and not a little gratifying to those present, as it would
have been to his numerous friends at a distance, many
of them now in foreign lands, had they been privileged
to witness the scene. His aspect seemed little changed
from what it was some forty years ago ; and his eye
and countenance had much of their wonted fire and
freshness. As he spoke, the energy he displayed — the
298
strength and clearness of the familiar voice, with the
spirited accompaniment of not a few of his well-known
gestures, afforded pleasing evidence that his natural
vigour was but little abated ; and, along with the
recollection of the fact that his revered and honoured
father preached for more than sixty years, gave cheer™
ing expectation of still many years of usefulness in
the future.
Dr. Anderson said — There is not, I think, a greater
misnomer than that of calling such occasions as the
present the celebration of jubilees. A jubilee in Israel
was a time of liberation of slaves and bondsmen, and
of the restoration of lost inheritances. To many it
was like a new birth, or life from the dead. Is there
anything of this nature in the present celebration ? I
feel it deeply and sadly to be the signal of the very
opposite. Those past fifty years I have exulted as a
freeman in proclaiming the Gospel and in pleading and
promoting the cause of liberty, of chanty, and edu
cation ; whereas this your jubilee, as you call it, insti
tuted for my honour, is an emphatic signal that soon
I shall be withdrawn from the field and, at best, shut
up at home, away from the activities of the happy and
busy scene ; and instead of its being like a new birth,
it is the signal that, at best, I shall soon be overtaken
by the impotency and dotage of old age. Ah, no,
friends, it is r^Q jubilant occasion for me.
But, Mr. Chairman and friends, if for your term
jubilee, which implies an occasion of happy prospects,
you substitute that of commemoration of past advan
tages — mercies bestowed by God on myself, on which
JUBILEE SPEECH. 299
you felicitate me — and profits which you are kindly
pleased to acknowledge you have derived from my life
and labours, then all will be consistent betwixt the
nature of the demonstration and its characteristic name.
And notwithstanding my verbal criticism, this is truly,
friends, what you mean. You design that the occasion
be one, not of jubilee expectation for the future, but of
thankful commemoration in retrospect of the past. As
such I accept of your salutations and greetings with a
high appreciation of their value. For mark, Sir, I am
well persuaded that they are tendered in sincerity, and
that, not to speak of hypocrisy, they are not merely a
formal courteous acknowledgment of an old man,
who for fifty years of ministry has behaved himself
respectably and without reproach, but that they are
genuine expressions of warm affection and much re
spect. And I am the more persuaded of this, in that,
making allowance for some over-colouring, I feel
conscious that I am not undeserving of your salu
tations. Sir, notwithstanding all your intimacy with
me, you never heard — nor did any man or woman ever
hear — me utter a boastful word either of my abilities or
performances. But, Sir, the circumstances are peculiar,
and not only warrant but require that I speak in a
manner which to some may appear vain-glorious. I
must defend you, Sir, and friends from the charge of
flattering ; I must defend myself from the charge of
being delighted with the vain incense ; besides, junior
brethren may profit by the reflection, that if in old age
they would be honoured like me they must in youth
and manhood work like me.
300 DR. ANDERSON'S
Well, Sir, on the review of what I may call my
public and official life — towards God, I see much to
humble me, much to deplore, much to confess, much
for which to entreat forgiveness, if not of the nature of
great perversity, yet of the nature of great deficiency
both in respect of work left undone and in respect
of the genuine motive of spirituality by which what
was done was actuated. If, according to a doctrine
favourite with me, I expect any reward at the hand
of God, it must be on the principle stated by the
Westminister Divines, " that God is pleased to accept
and reward that which is sincere (meaning thereby
genuine), though accompanied with many weaknesses
and imperfections." That is all my expectation
towards God. I am deeply sensible that the weak
nesses and imperfections exceed what is genuine a
thousand fold : yet, Sir, TOWARDS MAN — I speak of
my public life — I have done my duty with much
faithfulness, generosity, and self-denial. A few
have surpassed me, but equally I contend that
few have equalled me in assiduous labour. Not
only my strong companionative attractions, but
my literary and scientific tastes, have I sacrificed
extensively to my sense of duty to the Church and
the public.
There are four spheres of labour, Mr. Chairman,
which you and I, and our brethren in the ministry of
the Gospel, are called to occupy. First, there is the
outer sphere of citizenship, patriotism, and philan
thropy ; secondly, the ecclesiastical sphere of the
Church Catholic ; thirdly, the denominational sphere;
JUBILEE SPEECH. 30!
and fourthly, the innermost congregational sphere.
Well, Sir, with regard to the first of those spheres —
that of citizenship, patriotism, and philanthropy, for
what cause in any of these departments of duty were
my advocacy and co-operation ever solicited in vain ?
Some excelled me in ability and perhaps in zeal in
their pleadings and efforts for one object, and others
in theirs for another; but the friends of liberty and
progress were always sure of me, with my abilities,
such as they were, for the battle of right against
wrong, in whatever quarter it might be waged. It
is few whom their connections permit to be thus
universal in their sympathies.
Secondly, there is the ecclesiastical sphere of duty
to the Church Catholic. Within that sphere I have
gained some credit for my hostility to the foulest
and most malignant of all the enemies of the Church
— the impostor Man of Sin. But, Sir, I take to myself
far more credit for my helpful fraternising with
brethren of all evangelical denominations. Not long
ago, in the course of one month, I preached — at
canonical hours, observe — in an Independent church,
an Established church, a Free church, and a Methodist
church. A short time before that I had preached in a
Baptist church ; and latterly I have preached in two
churches of the Evangelical Union ; and have had a
Sabbath afternoon of more than common congeniality
of feeling in fellowship with a church of the Reformed
Presbyterians. Even at this day of boasted liberality,
such freedom of Christian communion is singular.
But, Sir, fifty years ago it was my rule, yea, my law
302 DR. ANDERSON'S
of asserted liberty. Happily the constitutional princi
ple of the denomination to which I belonged — that we
are at liberty, yea, obligated, when asked, to hold
ministerial and Christian communion with all who
hold the Head — saved me from being restrained by
the fear of Presbyterial censure ; but my grand advan
tage was that I was notorious for my controversial and
dogmatic spirit, so that no one could charge me with
a Laodicean Latitudinarianism. I had learned to make
the distinction how two persons might agree in hold
ing in high admiration the Head, when they disagreed
in their opinions of the colour of the hair — one saying
it was brown, and the other contending it was yellow
— and to this disagreement about the shades of the
hair were they to sacrifice the fellowship of uniting in
the praises of the Head ? I adjudged it to be as
absurd as sinful ; and it has been one of the aims
of my life-work for fifty years to break up the pre
tentious bigotry— pretensions of a pure orthodoxy,
when it is exactly what the Scriptures denounce
as heresy, as consisting especially in a proud, self-
sufficient, ill-natured violation of the communion of
the saints.
As to the denominational sphere, cosmopolitan as I
* have shown myself to have been in respect of the
Church Catholic, none of my more immediate brethren
will complain of my being deficient of the esprit de
corps, originally as a member of the Relief Synod, and
latterly as a United Presbyterian. So long as I was
not incapacitated by the failure of hearing, I took a
place among the most forward and ardent in Church
JUBILEE SPEECH. 303
Courts, and was charged with a large share of their
commissions. And not only before, but since the
incapacitating affliction, no one has traversed the
denominational circle more thoroughly on ordi
nation occasions, anniversary occasions, induction
occasions, church-opening occasions, missionary occa
sions, soiree occasions, all kinds of occasions of special
consequence. My praise as a serviceable brother is in
all the churches.
On entering into some account of my labours in the
interior and central sphere, I would do great injustice
to myself were I to take no notice of the eleven
months of anguish to which I was subjected by the
prosecution of the Presbytery for my using my manu
script in the pulpit, and for certain alleged errors and
improprieties in my preaching, such as — that in two
of my sermons I had quoted Shakspeare. Of these
proceedings I say nothing further at present than that
they tainted my name with a suspiciousness of my
soundness in the faith, and of my seriousness as a
preacher. I suffer to some extent from the remains
of it at this day. Thus dafriaged in reputation at the
raw, inexperienced age of 23, I was delegated to be
the minister of a church — the opprobrium of the
churches of Glasgow, through the failure of the once
promising but latterly lamentable ministry of my
predecessor. Such a chaos of disorder, and worse
than disorder, it is difficult to imagine as existing in
any society worthy of the name of a church ; and, it
was in a manner single-handed and single-minded
that I was tasked to its regulation and purification —
304 DR- ANDERSON'S
for its Session was but the name of one, and itself
needed to be purged.
There were no congregational managers, and
secular affairs were administered by a committe of
pew proprietors, some of them not members of the
church, and who, instead of being helpful, were for
many years obstructive of our progress, till by an
extortionate price we redeemed the property out
of their hands. If I had been made acquainted with
the difficulties of the position, I would have been
a most presumptuous youth in undertaking to occupy
it ; but I was to a great extent ignorant of them, my
only anticipated difficulty, and that of itself formidable
enough, being, that I might be unable to uphold a
creditable performance of the exercises of the pulpit.
How painfully my ignorance was dispelled on ad
dressing myself to the administration and discipline
of the disorderly mass ! Everything was to be done,
either in the way of reconstruction, or laying new foun
dations, or overturning and clearing out what was old.
Of course, qualified coadjutors, both in the Session and
in other departments, were gained, but it was with diffi
culty and gradually, and it required many years ot
anxious and patient labour to raise the church to a
respectable position, and to equip it with institutions
for its evangelical work. To enter into any detail
of the difficulties and engagements, and the labours
by which they were overcome and executed, is out of
the question ; and I conclude this apparently vain
glorious vidimus of my official life, but which, in the cir
cumstances, I trust you will regard excusable, by saying
JUBILEE SPEECH. 305
that, placing myself as much as I can In the position
of a neutral observer, I contemplate with wonder the
manner in which God gave me at once the strength
and the heart for the work I have accomplished.
There follows now a question, which it will be far
more agreeable for me to answer : — What is the recep
tion with which my labours have met in the various
spheres in which I have expended them ? Well, in
the outward sphere of citizenship, patriotism, and
philanthropy, I received my share, and sometimes a
little more, of the obloquy of the pro-Slavery and
Tory press; but it was greatly outweighed by the
salutations of the City Hall, crowded with thousands
of intelligent, unsophisticated artisans and shopmen.
Dearly beloved Glasgow City Hall ! I have had, or
have, four homes on earth — the venerable home of my
father's house; the sweet home, first and last, of my own
house; that earnest, oft experienced, of the heavenly
home, the church in John Street; and the joyous
jubilant home of the City Hall ! At our family re
unions here, though the bigger brethren with their
clarionets discoursed sweeter music, yet I am ready
to flatter myself that the natural notes of my ram's
horn sometimes excited to higher rapture the shout
of liberty. At all events your cheering response
greatly animated myself. Good City Hall! you have
proved a happy home to me. And when I feel as if
this evening I were bidding thee farewell, it is with a
heart overflowing with gratitude for the manner in
which thou hast contributed to the joy, the honour,
and the usefulness of my life.
U
306 DR. ANDERSON'S
The statement which I have made of my com
munion with brethren in the sphere of the Church
Catholic contains sufficient evidence that I have been
widely honoured within the various denominations.
In some quarters the "Hail Brother!" has been as
warm as it was unexpected. — Within the denomina
tional sphere everybody knew that that unhappy
prosecution to which I have reluctantly been obliged
to refer being terminated, I presently rose to be a
son, a brother, a favourite and elite. I was so helpful
to them — the bugbear manuscript proving to be a
means by which I was so very helpful. But, Sir,
though I knew well, from happy experience, that I
was loved and respected, that address from the
Presbytery has taken me by surprise. All I will
say is that I feel as if it were too severe of you,
brethren, so to overwhelm me with assurances of
your esteem, that I can find no language adequate
to express my gratification. It is an extraordinary
kindness.
How has the John Street Church treated me ?
That is the main question for the occasion. I have
already, when eulogising myself, spoken of them as if
I had made them what they arc; but when turning to
speak on their behalf, I contend that they are entitled
nearly as much, if not wholly, to say that they have
made me what I am. Why, Sir, without them I
would never have been a minister, in Scotland, at
least. I am convinced that there was not another
Presbyterian Dissenting Church in it which would
at that time have received me as a minister,
JUBILEE SPEECH. 307
demonstrated to be so imbecile as to be dependent on
those odious manuscripts — yea, so profane — yea, so
sacrilegious, as to desecrate and defile the pulpit with
their nuisance! John Street welcomed me, notwith
standing the odious incumbrance. That was their first
act in making me what I' am.
But their second was better. They gave me ample
scope for placing before them, for their Protestant
judgment, my own honest opinions, though new to
them, or contradictory of their former beliefs. Nor
was it in a latitudinarian spirit they did so. There
is not a church in Glasgow more faithful to the
doctrine that the great object of our Lord's First
Advent was to make propitiatory sacrifice for our
sins on the Cross. But suppose any of you
ministers — I would it were you all — were privately
converted to the blessed hope of his pre-millenial
appearing in glory to establish the kingdom of God,
which of your churches would give you scope and
liberty as John Street Church gave me for expounding
your views? This is but a specimen of much like it.
There are some friends who are pleased to speak of
my originality, and call it genius. It is most absurd.
The explanation is that John Street Church gave me
scope for the expression of my own views : if the like
of which liberty were allowed to many of my brethren
in the ministry, they would shine as originals far more
brightly than I do. It is John Street Church that
has made me the apparent original genius that some
repute me to be.
Elders, members of the Session, hail, brethren ! —
3o8 DR. ANDERSON'S
brethren in truth; and you will permit me to asso
ciate with you in sad and yet happy imagination the
departed dead. I, on my part, bear witness for you
that I cannot conceive of a class of men, at once
more independent in their personal judgments, and
yet more respectful to their presiding Moderator ;
and I trust that you are equally prepared to bear
witness for me that you cannot well conceive of one
more divested of all airs of clerical authority in
occupying the Moderator's chair. It was — was it
not ? — a rare fraternity of counsel for the church's
good — myself always receiving the deference and
honour of an elder brother, but never in any manner
exacted. — Brethren in the management of the temporal
affairs of the church — all the injurious treatment
which for many years I received from the Proprietary
Committee has been amply redeemed by you as
Congregational Managers. Your treatment of me has
been generous, not only beyond my expectations, but
beyond my wishes.
To the Church in a body I render grateful thanks
for the happy life they have given me with their
affection and respect, with their forbearance — for,
notwithstanding all my boasting, I sometimes needed
that — their sympathy in dark days of bereavement ;
and they have been an honour to me as trained
under my ministry. Sir, had I been their only pastor,
never was dying father more anxious about the future
of his daughter than I would have been on my death
bed about the future of this church. But I am saved
this affliction. I am saved it, Sir, by you. Never was
JUBILEE SPEECH. 309
father pleased with his daughter's espousals more
than I am with this church of my love and pride being
committed to your care. May the Lord preserve you
to enjoy as happy a jubilee as mine !
Did I just say, friends, that you had been an honour
to me ? Are you not ? Behold the palpable demon
stration (holding up the bank cheque) ! I need not
explain on what principles I steadfastly refused to
attend your jubilee meeting were a sixpence asked
from the congregation for myself. They have done
well and are doing well, and all to which I am entitled;
but when you were resolved to approve yourself a
church worthy of my training, it is impossible you
could have done it in a manner more gratifying to me
than that in which you have done it. Well, the prin
cipal object is the rearing of a well-instructed ministry,
advanced in culture and in science ; but you want to
do the two things at once, both to execute that great
object and to honour me ; and I have really earned a
bit of Roman Catholic theology from it. I wondered,
and have exposed the Papists for saying, that they
performed Mass to the honour of the Virgin, or to the
honour of Paul. I wondered at that. Mass is the
sacrifice of Christ, and yet they perform Mass to the
honour of the Virgin. Well, friends, you are helping
education to the honour of me. The great object is
the rearing of a well-instructed ministry ; but you take
advantage of the opportunity of being stimulated by
respect and honour for me, and this is the manifestation
you make of that respect.
You heard Mr. Mitchell say something about
3io DR. ANDERSON'S
students. My house had its regular levee of students
once every week. I had a class of instruction for
students — my heart was very warm towards them —
and I trust the day is coming when an Anderson
Bursar will have a high place of power in the noble
new College of Glasgow. — I thank you, Mr. Chairman,
as Convener of the Committee for gathering up these
contributions. Afterwards I shall meet with the Com
mittee, and we shall determine upon who are to be
the custodiers of that money, how it is to be invested,
and various things in that respect ; but, meantime, I
hand it over to you for the education of young men in
the College of Glasgow.
In concluding, I give warm thanks to God, who for
such a long time has strengthened me in being an
instrument of some good. I make humble confession
that I should have done far more, and more when I
see how friends esteem me. I did not know that I
had such power over men's hearts as these documents
show; and had I known it, I would have found my
responsibility to be still greater. I am not yet quite
leaving the church, but somewhat withdrawing from
it. I bless God that it is in the hands of one who will
care for you so well. O let him be preserved for his
own sake, for your sakes, and for my sake! And,
brethren, forgetting the things which are behind —
though you have in many things done well — forgetting
the things which are behind, press onward to per
fection ; for you have not yet apprehended that for
which Christ apprehended you when He laid hold on
you, and put you into the vineyard that you might
JUBILEE SPEECH. 311
work there. May God bless us all in our several
occupations !
The speech of Dr. Anderson elicited frequent
appreciative expressions from the assemblage, and at
its close he resumed his seat amid loud and long-
continued applause. After sitting down, he handed
the bank cheque to the Chairman, by whom it was
passed to the Treasurer of the Bursary Fund, Mr.
Robert A. Bogue.
DR. ANDERSON ON FREE COMMUNION.
In connection with the Jubilee we may here quote
a few sentences from the last paper on which Dr.
Anderson was engaged for the press, but which, by
his last illness, he was prevented from completing : —
" I proceed," he says, " to what directly pertains
to my special subject — those peculiar principles of
Gillespie, the founder of the Relief Church. The
usual time for the observance of the Lord's Supper
had come round. By the dispensation of this sealing
ordinance of our faith was the foundation of the Relief
Church properly laid. Mark, therefore, the grand
characteristic. On the Saturday, on the occasion of
distributing tokens for admission to the Lord's table
next day, Gillespie stood forth and emphatically
proclaimed — ' / hold communion with all who visibly
hold the Head, and with suck only?
" When we consider, on the one hand, the compre
hensiveness of these terms, and, on the other, the
denominational animosities amid which they were
uttered, how apostolic Gillespie appears ! The apostle
312 DR. ANDERSON'S
John, when inculcating brotherly love, expresses him
self thus — ' Brethren, I write no new commandment
unto you, but an old commandment which ye had
from the beginning. The old commandment is the
word which ye have heard from the beginning.' But
it had been so covered up and perverted by traditions
of men and other evil influences, that practically it
was almost all the same as if it had never been leeis-
o
lated. He therefore adds — ' Again, a new command I
write unto you, because the darkness is past, and the
true light now shineth.' So was it with the command
ment for Free Communion. It was old and from the
beginning; but practically it had fallen into such
desuetude, that when Gillespie proclaimed it to that
generation as a principle of the denomination which
he was founding, like Paul he seemed to many ' to be
a setter forth of strange gods.'
" The union of Boston with Gillespie was of great
consequence. Boston was in all respects worthy of
his father, the author of the 'Fourfold State;' and he
was liberal and zealous, as a Free Communionist, as
Gillespie. Though neither of them was of a pro
selytising spirit, and even to a fault non-aggressive,
having the charge of so great a principle committed
to them, yet the cause, by its intrinsic power — it was
the cause of sanctified liberty — prospered greatly.
They soon organised a Presbytery, and afterwards
a Synod. At the first meeting of that Synod, in the
year 1773, it was declared and enacted as follows: —
'With respect to the overture concerning minis
terial and Christian communion, the Synod were
ON FREE COMMUNION. 313
unanimously of opinion that it was agreeable to the
Word of God and their principles occasionally to
hold communion with those of the Episcopal and
Independent persuasions who are visible saints.' "
The following paragraph also may be of interest,
from its being the last ever penned for the press by
Dr. Anderson— in April, 1872— and from its clearly
showing his thorough catholicity of spirit:—
"Ordained as a minister of the Relief Denomination,
under its banner I commenced, about the year 1824,
to open my pulpit at canonical hours, more especially,
of course, to deputations in the missionary cause of all
evangelical denominations, and for thirty years nearly
continued singular in doing so— singular in the honour
of enjoying the ministerial fellowship of such men
as Dr. Cook, Dr. Urwick, Richard Winter Hamilton,
Valentine Ward, Carey, Jun., Knibb, Knill, and a
multitude more whom I might name."
THE PRESS AND DR. ANDERSON'S
JUBILEE.
THE following tributes to the character and worth of
Dr. Anderson appeared in the columns of the local
and provincal journals named : —
The Glasgow Daily Herald, March p, 1871.
The public might have appropriately enough joined
in celebration of Dr. William Anderson's jubilee on
attaining the fiftieth year of his services as a clergy
man in Glasgow. He belongs not merely to his
congregation, but to the city. As he himself explained,
in a speech which only those who are ignorant of
his character and the work he has done will regard
as egotistical, he has faithfully fulfilled his duties in
those four spheres of labour to which he was called
— the sphere of citizenship, the ecclesiastical sphere
of the Church Catholic, the denominational, and the
congregational.
Speaking only in name of those who have heard
and who have known Dr. Anderson as a citizen, we
may allude for a moment to the services which
in earlier and more vigorous days the reverend gen
tleman was ever rea.ly to perform in the cause of
DR. ANDERSON'S JUBILEE. 315
freedom and in aid of the distressed. Unfortunately,
they have to be recalled, for a generation is growing
up which knows not the man whose voice was always
first, and clearest, and strongest in Glasgow when
wrong had to be denounced, and the trampled rights
of individuals or of nations had to be asserted, The
last occasion on which Dr. Anderson withdrew from
his enforced retirement was when the French Empire
collapsed at the first strong push of Germany, and the
Republic, with fair promise, took its place. He was
never an admirer of the man of the Coup d'Etat,
and he hailed his downfall and the establishment of
the Republic with his old eloquent rapture. With
this arid a few other exceptions, Dr. Anderson for
several years past has been unable, through physical
infirmity, to take his old place at our public meetings,
and to show the world how warmly the heart of the
patriot and the citizen beat beneath the clerical
vestment.
But though little known among the sons of good men
and true who are rising up, the fathers who still survive
can never forget the co-operation of the original and
highly-gifted clergyman. They will remember with
what force of argument, with what bitter eloquence
of invective and sarcasm he attacked the slave trade —
at a time when it was far from popular in Glasgow
to attack the monstrous evil. They will remember
his impassioned appeals in favour of the oppressed
nationalities, his scathing exposures of national crimes,
and wickedness in high places, his honesty and fearless
ness in handling every question of the day upon which
316 THE PRESS AND
he was called to speak, and that hearty "siding" with
liberty, freedom, and truth, which made him such a
valiant champion in their cause.
Dr. Anderson's career in Glasgow, looked back
upon for fifty long years, is a specially noble and
honourable one, of which he may well be proud,
and for which Glasgow herself ought to be grate
ful. There is something pathetic, and at the same
time humorous, in the apostrophe which the "old
man eloquent" makes to the City Hall of Glas
gow, that has so often rung with his voice. The
"dearly beloved City Hall," the "good City Hall,"
has been a happy home to him, for there the natural
notes of his ram's horn have sometimes excited to
higher rapture the shout of liberty. Its very name
stirs up his blood still like the trumpet call in the ear
of the old war horse. He bids it farewell with a heart
overflowing with gratitude for the manner in which it
has contributed to " the joy, the honour, and the use
fulness of his life." The citizens of Glasgow return
the farewell with equal gratitude, and with regret that,
while his intellectual strength is not abated, and the fire
of liberty still burns clear within him, Dr. Anderson,
though still as willing as he was a generation ago, is
now physically unable to fight the good fight either as
captain of a band, or, as he had sometimes to do, like
a spiritual Hal o' the Wynd, " for his ain hand."
The Glasgow Evening Citizen, March 8,
The celebration yesterday of the pastoral jubilee
of the Rev. Dr. Anderson, of John Street United
DR. ANDERSON'S JUBILEE. 317
Presbyterian Church, possesses more than a merely
denominational interest. The vigorous sterling catho
licity of the man constituted him, from an early period
in his long and useful ministerial career, a power in the
Christian community, whose influence bore strongly
and with effect against the barriers raised by narrow-
minded prejudice and bigotry in the path towards
that kinship in feeling which ought to be a leading
characteristic of our churches. Like all earnest men
possessing broad sympathies, and driven to give
them effect in practice by the restless earnestness
of the spirit within, Dr. Anderson has been sub
jected, by people incapable of recognising the glow
of his humanity, to misconstruction of his acts,
misunderstanding of his words, and even something
as nearly approaching persecution as the times would
tolerate.
We can scarcely recall without a sense of shame that
he was prosecuted by his Presbytery for the use of
manuscript in the pulpit, and for "certain alleged errors
and improprieties in his preaching, such as that, in two
of his sermons, he had quoted Shakspeare." Sustained
by the genuine perfervidum wgenium Scotorum which
we so often hear of, but so seldom encounter in
actual life, Dr. Anderson has outlived these assaults
of ignorant intolerance, and taken the place in public
esteem sure to be won by a whole-souled, energetic
man living a just life, and doing with his might the
work given to his hand. In his speech at the soiree
in the City Hall last night, he made, like another
clergyman of the day, an "Apologia pro sua vita"
318 THE PRESS AND
which was at once a vindication and a revelation, and
strongly marked by that force of character which
distinguishes Dr. Anderson, and has so greatly pro
moted his usefulness as citizen and as ecclesiastic. His
generous devotion of the magnificent sum, subscribed
for presentation, to the foundation of scholarships in
connection with the church, was in thorough keeping
with his life and acts ; and — though that would have
no weight with the donor — it will tend, in generations
to come, to preserve fresh and green the memory of
an upright man and able and eloquent preacher.
The Star, Glasgow, March 8,
The jubilee of the Rev. Dr. William Anderson,
which was celebrated last night, must be considered an
event of at least city importance, and ought not on
that account to be allowed to pass with only the
ordinary notice. For the past half-century he has
been one of the city characters. Unlike so many of
his clerical brethren, who go about their stated work
in a quiet and unostentatious way — who act up to the
maxim of the old stoic, and think that " the man has
not lived badly who at his birth and at his death
escapes the notice of mankind," Dr. Anderson has
been the foremost man in the fray at many a fight
where the interests of liberty, education, and philan
thropy were involved. For the last fifty years he has
not simply, as he himself puts it, with a self-conscious
ness of merit which might seem to run into conceit to
those unacquainted with his stirring public career,
" behaved himself respectably." He has earned what
DR. ANDERSON'S JUBILEE. 319
seems, from various little incidents connected with the
occasion, to have been a most enthusiastic jubilee, not
simply by his position at the head of a large congre
gation for the requisite period, but also by the large
share which he has taken in the important public
events which have made up our social history during
the past half-century. How he is esteemed by his
congregation, his special ecclesiastical denomination,
and by Scottish Presbyterianism in general, appears
from the large and widely representative platform
which appeared in the City Hall to do him honour.
It is not, however, so much with his clerical character
as with his character as a citizen that the public are
specially concerned, although it is impossible to
restrain remark upon that catholicity of sentiment and
contempt for narrow sectarianism which characterised
him, at a time, too, when the principles of religious
toleration were not so fully understood, and liberality
of religious sentiment was not so much in vogue, as at
the present time. The stand which he took against
his Presbytery fifty years ago, when a stripling of
three-and-twenty, for seeking to prevent him from
introducing his " odious manuscript " (as they styled it)
into the pulpit, and from practising such glaring impro
prieties in the pulpit as venturing upon " profane illus
trations from Shakspeare," showed even then his power
and determination to distinguish between the true and
the merely conventional. That early contest, from
which, after nearly twelve months' struggle, he came
off victorious, gave indication of that power and
indomitable inclination to truth and right which he
320 THE PRESS AND
afterwards displayed to such purpose in his platform
appearances.
As a stout advocate of civil and religious freedom,
and a stern opponent of oppression and wrong,
he found ample scope for his powers in such sub
jects as the Romish Controversy, the Abolition of
Slavery, the Poor-laws, and the extension of popular
and unsectarian education. Although now in great
measure withdrawn — and that not by his inclina
tion but his misfortune — from any very active part
in public affairs, he will be readily admitted, by all
who are acquainted with his earlier public appear
ances, to have done good work in his day. One of the
most graceful and unsectarian acts of his life was per
formed on the occasion of his jubilee. His friends and
admirers collected for him a sum of money amounting
to £1200. This he absolutely refused to accept for
himself; and it is by his direction to be devoted, not
to any sectarian end, but to the noble and praise
worthy purpose of founding a bursary or bursaries
in our new University. The higher education in
Scotland would not long be in its present starving
condition if some of our citizens, better able to afford
it than Dr. William Anderson, were to show their
appreciation of his conduct by imitating it.
The Dundee Advertiser, March p, i8ji.
We observe with pleasure the proceedings in Glas
gow on Tuesday in reference to Dr. William Anderson.
This distinguished gentleman having attained the
fiftieth year of his ministry in John Street Church,
DR. ANDERSON'S JUBILEE. 321
received the reward of a most magnificent jubilee.
Jubilees are often matters of mere form and show, got
up emphatically for personal or party motives. But
if ever there was a spontaneous expression of love and
admiration for a man, it was that which took place in
the City Hall in Glasgow on Tuesday evening. Dr.
Anderson is a man who has had his enemies and
fought his battles ; but, as he has lived on and followed
his clear and manly course, his enemies have died out
or been transfigured into friends, and his battles have
been exchanged for repose under the laurels he has
won by them.
For almost the whole course of his ministry and
public life his name has been identified with all
the causes which benevolence has prompted and
Christianity inspired in the West — with the educa
tion of the lower classes — with Parliamentary Reform
— with the Abolition of Slavery — with the Voluntary
question — with the struggles of the patriots in
Hungary, Italy, and Poland — with, in short, every
phase of civil and religious liberty all over the world.
He has wielded the thunder at once of the platform
and of the pulpit ; and in the press, too, his power has
been strongly exercised and widely felt. He retires
now, but not altogether, into inglorious inaction.
In Dundee, though less known than in the West,
Dr. Anderson's powerful voice has been heard, and he
has not a few friends here who will, we know, heartily
join with us in congratulating him on his jubilee, and
in wishing him long life and health still to
" Pursue the triumph and partake the gale."
-^22 THE PRESS AND
The Hamilton Advertiser, March 18, 1871.
The Jubilee Services held last week in Glasgow in
honour of the Rev. Dr. William Anderson were of no
commonplace character, even in the necessarily rare
classs of commemorations to which they belong. The
case, we fear, is not frequent in which jubilee honours
are reached by a minister who, besides working hard
in his own pastoral sphere that has grown large under
him in the heart of a great city, has from the first
stood forth as a public man, of strong individualism,
fervid sympathies, and very pronounced opinions,
and mixed in the excitement of all public questions,
ever ready to do valiant battle for the truth and the
right
Dr. Anderson's prime secret of strength lies in that
apparently vague but really best understood and felt
of all things — character. His fearless independence
of thought and robust moral earnestness, seeking vent
in words now winged with tempest, now instinct with
tenderness, but always racy, original, rath as dew, and
having a ring in them well symbolled by the trumpet-
tones of his own familiar voice, are all constituents or
manifestations of a strong and healthy individualism
which he never acquired, but always had, and which
he preserves unbreached and uncorrupted to the
present hour. As long back as we can remember,
Dr. Anderson was universally reputed and respected
as the sturdy, honest, earnest, original man he this day
is ; and one feature of the late commemoration services
that interested us more, perhaps, than any other, was
his own singularly fresh and characteristic speech, so
DR. ANDERSON'S JUBILEE. 323
representative of the man throughout, demonstrating
that he is, and has all along been, what it was a moral
necessity for him to be, the fresh, fearless, enthusiastic,
and unselfish champion of freedom and goodness that
he is; and that, were fifty more years to be allotted to
him, his sound young heart would beat true in him to
the end. Could anything have been in finer keeping
with the man, and more representative of the spirit
of his entire career, than the generous act— for we
know his means are moderate — by which he handed
over to a benevolent object the entire testimonial
sum, large as it was, that had been subscribed in
honour of him?
No man could kindle more readily into enthusiasm
than Dr. Anderson has ever shown himself prompt to
do, but it was always at the bidding of a high moral
purpose. This enthusiasm could drive him into, and
sustain him through, the acquisition of a new language
late in life, when that enabled him the better to
master the sources of a great public question. His zeal
for liberty, civil and religious, sympathies with all
true advance, and scorn of bigotry and Avrong,
amounted to a very passion. And yet, with all his
boldness of purpose and strength of tone, where is
the public man that ever made fewer enemies? Say,
rather, where are his enemies ? As for his friends and
admirers, where are they not ?
All honour to the old man eloquent ! He has
reached his jubilee ; may it be long yet ere he reaches
his life-goal ! May his be a prolonged and peaceful
and golden eventide ! J. G.
324 THE PRESS AND
The Ardrossan Herald, April 75, 1871.
Sometimes jubilee services simply represent length
of days ; in the case of Dr. Anderson, whose jubilee
was so recently celebrated, they recall not merely
vanished years, but remarkable work done. The half-
century during which he has laboured in Glasgow has
been no ordinary epoch. Dr. Anderson entered upon
his sacred office as the shadow feared by man was
falling on the couch of the mighty Captain for whom
St. Helena wiped out Brumaire.
William Anderson had then just turned twenty-three.
" Raw and inexperienced" he has pronounced himself;
but if the youthful preacher lacked experience he
possessed power, together with that originality of
manner and independence of thought for which he
has been through life distinguished. In some of his
early sermons the Doctor quoted Shakspeare : and
though Paul had utilised a heathen poet in discoursing
at Athens, the idea of a Scottish minister illustrating
the sacred text by a passage from a playwright was
not to be endured. Moreover, William Anderson was
in the habit of taking his manuscript to the pulpit, an
iniquity intolerable in those days. It was the opinion
of the Presbytery that one so self-willed must be dealt
with ; and deal with him accordingly it did — with what
success the world knows. The attempt to transform
the incumbent of John Street into a mere conduit of
theological common-place proved a thorough failure.
William Anderson would neither abandon his manu
script nor ignore Shakspeare. The courser of the sun
cannot be put into the harness of a dray horse ; but it
DR. ANDERSON'S JUBILEE. 325
was nearly a year before the Presbytery could be got
to recognise that fact. Church Courts have much to
answer for in this way. Drivelling inanity, if it only
wears the form of "sound words," escapes without
censure, while talent is treated in a style offensively
suspicious. The mischief thus wrought can often with
difficulty be computed; but happily, in the case of
Dr. Anderson, no damage was done. He indeed
speaks of having scarcely yet escaped from the malign
influence which early insinuations of want of serious
ness and want of soundness exerted ; but who that
knew the Doctor could have harboured any doubt on
either point?
His published works exhibit a profound acquaint
ance with the entire range of theological speculation,
and his contributions to the illustration of semi-
theological, semi-metaphysical problems are the pro
duct of a highly-trained intelligence. In sheer force
and weight of brain, dialectic subtlety, and genuine
oratorical power, Dr. Anderson has long stood without
a rival among Glasgow preachers. If occasionally
angular, he is ever racy, lucid, graphic. Beyond most
men he possesses the power of making a subject plain.
A bold and vigorous thinker, he has assiduously
sought to brace his people for the appreciation of those
studies which are his own solace and delight. John
Wesley said the Scotch possessed the faculty of
listening to intensely impassioned appeals, but it were
impossible for the most unsusceptible of mortals to
come within the spell of Dr. Anderson's voice and
eye without being touched thereby. In his grandest
326 THE PRESS AND
moments, and with a theme which absorbs intellect,
heart, and conscience, William Anderson looks and
speaks a man inspired.
Those who have heard the Doctor at his best can
easily recall examples of his electric fervour. The
reception of Kossuth by Glasgow was one of these.
William Anderson was invited to talk on that occa
sion. The illustrious Magyar, it may be remembered,
had sought a passage to England through France, but
Louis Napoleon refused the favour. That fact served
the intrepid orator as the basis of perhaps the most
withering denunciation of French Imperialism ever
uttered on a British platform. In tones of deep
solemnity, Dr. Anderson said — " I have no antipathy
to Frenchmen; on the contrary, so deep, so ardent is
my attachment to the people of France, that although
my lot as a Presbyterian minister has been favoured
above many mine equals, at one period of my life I
had all but formed the resolution to leave my native
land and spend the remainder of my days preaching
the gospel of Christ to the simple-hearted peasantry
of the communes of France. But, Mr. Chairman, I
have nothing save execration and abhorrence for the
blood-smeared tyrant who now reigns there." It was
becoming fashionable then to look upon Napoleon as
a saviour of society, and the unceremonious treatment
of this crowned usurper startled even Kossuth from
his propriety.
There are orators whose eloquence is a calm,
smooth, silvery stream. Dr. Anderson's is a mountain
torrent, overleaping every barrier, and bearing down
DR. ANDERSON'S JUBILEE. 327
all opposition. When first he won renown his con
temporaries were — Dr. Wardlaw, Dr. Heugh, Dr.
King, Dr. Marshall. No man could state a case
more luminously than Wardlaw, or advocate it with
more suavity than Heugh, or invest it with greater
moral elevation than King, or defend it with purer
intellectual vigour than Marshall, but Anderson's
oratory possessed something of the special excellence
of each of these distinguished men. Dr. Heugh's
forte, suavity, was perhaps not over cultivated ; but
Wardlaw's luminosity, King's elevation, and Marshall's
vigour were. With the solitary exception of Dr. King
these compeers have all passed from this mortal
scene, but during many a day they were the life and
soul of movements among the crowning glories of our
age and nation.
It was the memory of these triumphs of humanity
that in his jubilee celebration constrained Anderson
to apostrophize the City Hall of Glasgow. The
Doctor does not believe in priestly consecration ; but
he is thoroughly imbued with Thomas Campbell's con
ception of " hallowed ground." To William Anderson
the City Hall furnished an arena for the discussion of
topics which could not be so advantageously treated
within the more circumscribed sphere of the pulpit.
There are many ministers, worthy enough in their way,
who do not realise their citizenship with sufficient dis
tinctness. With this type of Christian William Ander
son has little sympathy. His connection with the
Church purified and ennobled, but could not oblite
rate his relations to the State. When Mary Stuart
328 THE PRESS AND DR. ANDERSON.
petulantly asked Knox — " What have you to do with
this commonwealth?" — "A subject within the same,
Madam!" was the intrepid Reformer's reply. Like John
Knox, William Anderson has a vivid conception of his
duty to civil society, and in aught done for its weal he
has shared the burden.
It was never a question with the minister of John
Street — Will the movement I am asked to aid be
popular ? Was it right ? If so, that was enough to
secure his prompt approbation. What wonder if, after
so long a day, this valiant worker for God and for
humanity should feel the shadows of that night in
which no man can work descending on his path ! But
somehow it seems incongruous to think of Anderson
as growing old. True, he has already reached the
span of life which the Psalmist describes as the sum of
existence, but the Doctor is among those children of
genius who preserve a young lamb's heart among the
full-grown flock. William Anderson is one among a
thousand. It is impossible either to meet or listen to
him without feeling we are in the presence of a leader
of that small but consecrated band whom the world
cannot tame. T. N. B.
SELECTIONS,
CHIEFLY UNPUBLISHED,
FROM DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS.
IT has been deemed advisable to append a number of
selections from Dr. Anderson's writings, published and
unpublished. The latter of these labour, of course,
under the disadvantage of not having received the
author's final polish, and of not having been selected
by himself. They must, therefore, have a certain frag
mentary character — still they will be found interesting,
characteristic, and useful.
GOD'S OMNIPRESENCE PRACTICALLY CONTEMPLATED.
"Thou God seest me." — Gen. xvi. 13.
That God is everywhere present — that in the bound
less immensity of his nature He pervades the universe,
sustaining and regulating all things which He has
made — is a doctrine which, how incomprehensible
soever by our limited faculties, is yet so much of the
nature of a first principle, that he who doubts its truth
cannot with propriety be regarded as believing in the
divine existence. And yet how few have their hearts
impressed with it ! The great majority feel towards
330 SELECTIONS FROM
the Lord as if He were a God afar off — afar off, so that
He cannot see them nor hear them — afar off, so that
He cannot punish nor help them : or, as if there were
only certain places and times when and where his
Godhead is present. Observe, therefore, brethren, in
what the seeking of God will primarily consist It
will consist in gaining impressions of his presence —
in having the spiritual senses quickened, so that with
the eye of faith we may see him, with the ear of faith
hear him, and with the sensibility of faith feel the
touch of his hand and the breathing of his spirit.
Moses had so disciplined his mind as to have this
abiding conviction of God being present with him ;
"he endured as seeing Him who is invisible;" and
David's impressions were equally vivid when, as if
with a tremulous sensation of what he describes, he
thus expresses himself — " Thou hast beset me behind
and before, and laid thine hand on me."
I observe, particularly, that when the belief in
God's continual presence has taken possession of
a man's heart, it is the best of safe-guards against
the commission of sin. It is of great advantage that
we frequent the company of pious and venerable men,
before whom we may not speak a light or foolish
word, and, much less, do anything which has even
the appearance of evil. But how shall the control of
the presence of a mortal like ourselves be compared in
its efficacy with a sense of the presence of the
Almighty! In proportion as they, into whose com
pany we are admitted, rise in respectability, does our
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 331
care increase in conducting ourselves inoffensively;
how infinitely, then, does not God transcend in rever
ence the most venerable of men ! That which we
might say and do without offence or reproof before
them may appear polluted and perverse in the light
of the presence of the Holy One of Israel.
And when we are cautious of giving offence in
proportion to the manner in which we have been
befriended — and need to be befriended yet more —
whom of our benefactors shall we compare with the
Lord ? On the favour of which of them are we so
dependent for future blessings ? When we think of
the presence of God, it is to meet with Him who has
done all for us that ever has been done, and must do
all that ever shall be done, if our destiny be one of
happiness — so that such wariness of offending as might
afford good evidence of gratitude towards a fellow-
creature, and of prudence in securing his goodwill,
may, on account of its negligence, be indicative of
ingratitude towards the Father of Mercies, and of
reckless folly in not cultivating with greater care the
favour of Him whose smile is Life and whose frown is
Death. — But what, I ask again, is any presence of
man ? Can he witness our thoughts ? All the time
that our conduct is externally fair and commendable
our hearts are free to indulge in all darkness and
wickedness of imagination and device without his
presence reaching them with rebuke. It is only when
we have realised — when faith has made visible and
palpable the presence of the Searcher of hearts, who,
through the veil of this flesh, can look as through the
332 SELECTIONS FROM
clearest crystal, and see the movement and working
of every inclination and desire, that our morals are
brought to the test. Yea, He needs not look through:
He is present in every chamber of the soul. Oh, it is
an easy judgment to stand before man ; but to stand
before God ! — to be scrutinised by that eye which
seeth where man's cannot penetrate — to have our
thoughts seen as the features of our faces are seen—
this is our trial. And what avails it though man
should acquit, if God condemn ?
I reiterate the question, What is the presence of
man ? Even although our hearts were open to his
view equally with our countenances, how small a
portion of life it is which passes under his observation ?
The public, as it is called, sees little of us — even of
those who are its prominent characters : and many
are they, applauded of the public, who are condemned
of their acquaintance, who see a little more of them :
and many are they, applauded of their general acquaint
ance, who are condemned of their own households,
who see a little more of them still. But though they
had passed through all these trials successfully, is not
half the life of the majority of men yet unaccounted
for ? Has not the private conduct of thousands, when
accident or the confession of an awakened conscience
afterwards revealed it, astounded their most intimate
friends for its enormous wickedness ? How many
must there be equally wicked who escape undetected !
What knows man oftentimes of the vile books which
his friend reads, of the vile letters which he writes, of his
vile intrigues, of his wild wanderings by night, and of
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 333
his practices when travelling from home — not to speak
of the wild passions which he cherishes in his heart ?
What a day that Judgment-day will be — to make
friends, who at present impose so dexterously on one
another, recoil from one another in astonishment and
mutual abhorrence, when every secret thing is brought
to light ! It is a wretched rule — it is the hypocrite's,
whose hope perisheth, when the only object of a man
is to appear faultless in the sight of his fellow-mortals.
And it is not till, in the exercise of that faith which
feels and lives " as seeing Him who is invisible," you
have realised above, and around, and within you, the
presence of Him whose bright eyes are on you, not
only, as at present, when in this house set apart for
his worship, and in the market-place, and in the social
meeting with acquaintance, and in the domestic circle,
but in the most retired secrecy ; — who, when the door
has been softly shut and securely barred, and all the
rest are hushed asleep, is still by your side to see what
you will do, what book you will read, what kind of a
letter you will write, or, if you have a companion, who
that companion is, what is your whispered conversa
tion, what are your plottings, what all your unlawful
deeds: "yea, the darkness hideth not from Him, but
the night shineth as the day :" when the candle has
been extinguished, and you have stretched yourself on
your bed, there you lie prostrate before Him, all the
meditations, and devices, and longings — the envyings,
the revenge, the lust of your heart, exposed and patent
to his sight, as is the countenance of a man to his
neighbour under the shining of the sun ; — it is not, I
334 SELECTIONS FROM
say, till you have made the fear of this all-present,
all-seeing, all-searching God the rule of your life, that
you have any rule which shall avail you for Eternity ;
yea, which, even for the present world, will secure your
respectability. . ,'.....
I hasten to observe further, what is perhaps of
much greater importance, that the doctrine of God's
Omnipresence, when properly improved, is a sove
reign remedy for the heart under all the ills and
dangers of life. Does it thunder on land ? Does the
tempest rage at sea? Do the winds breathe pestilence?
Is the night robber said to be on watch ? — How com
posed is the saint who knows that God is by his side,
to shield him from the thunder-bolt, to pilot the ship,
to be his physician when sick, and his guardian against
the attack of the assassin — all, if it be for his advantage
that his life be prolonged on this earth ! When the
tongue of detraction has poisoned his character, and
his former friends avoid him on the street as some
unclean and infectious thing, wherein can it much
affect him, since he is not deserted of God, who
knows his innocence, associates with him by day,
and accompanies him home to converse with him by
night?
Your child has crossed the seas, and sojourns in a
far and inhospitable land, out of sight, and beyond the
reach of your kindness ; but why so anxious and dis
consolate ? Is not that God who is present with your
self, at the same moment present with him ; and being
both present with God, are you not in a very satis
factory sense present with one another, having a com-
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 335
mon all-powerful Friend to whom you may commend
one another for guidance and protection ? When an
hour for prayer has been arranged at which both may
meet at the same throne, the Omnipresence of God is
the sweetest of consolations for separated friends.
But your child, you say, has died : if this make the
case different, it differs for the better. That God who
is present with yourself is present with the spirit of
your child in heaven, and with the dust of his body in
the grave, preserving all in security. You were weep
ing as if your child had been lost to you: faithless one!
feel how the doctrine of the divine omnipresence has
recovered him, and brought him near to you. You
must not, you need not, pray for your deceased child,
that that God who is equally present with him, as with
you, may bless him ; unless it be for the hastening of
his resurrection, and the transformation and resurrec
tion of us all, saying, " Lord Jesus, come quickly:"
but this you can do — when you are communing with
God on earth, you can express to Him, in what con
fidence you rest satisfied, that in heaven, in the
bosom of his Son, He cherishes the spirit of one whom
you loved, yea whom you still love, with such warmth
and tenderness.
When the time of your own death shall arrive, and
you must bid farewell, at that otherwise grim and
dreadful gate, to all those kind friends who have
hitherto helped you on your pilgrimage, and these
endeared ones who have been so affectionately helped
by you — O, consolation ! to think that the presence
of God will enter with you, and accompany you
336" l.< TIONS FI"
through the gloomy passage, without leaving those
friends from whom you have been separated — accom
panying yo;i, without deserting them!
<;<>[> A sex.
"God is a Sun." — Psalm Ixxxiv. 11.
If there was any case of ancient idolatry, for the folly
guilt of which we might be allowed to make ex
tenuating apologies, it was that of the worship of the
Sun. How resplendent is its glory, and how munificent
are the blessings which it dispenses !
Modern science has demonstrated that its grandeur
and Importance arc now much greater than they were
supposed to be when the words of our text were indited.
That circumstance, in respect of which, perhaps, above
all others, the sun displays an emblem of God, was
unknown to the Psalmist. It was the notion of his
age that, instead of the earth revolving round the sun,
it was the sun which revolved round the earth. Even
from this erroneous conception, diminishing as it did
1 1 "i n the glory of the sun, he drew for himself and
h i' nd , an impressive lesson of devotion, as we find him,
in admiration of the excellency and bounty of the
Creat'-i ' , work, as displayed in the heavenly firmament,
thus exclaim and sing, "In them hath he set a taber-
n, H le lor the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming
out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to
run a i,i'«. Ih. ;;<>ing forth is from the end of the
heaven, and his < iiruit unto the ends of it : and there
is not h in;; hid from the heat thereof."
DR. ANDERSON'S \YRITIN - 337
The office of the Spirit of inspiration is not to rectify
men's science, but, dealing with them according to their
own - to rectify their moral affections. And if, on
the foundation of an erroneous physical philosophy,
David yet sung so rapturously the praises of the Creator
and Governor of the sun, how enhanced with admira
tion he would have been had he known of the sun what
xiiow : that, more than a million of times larger in
immensity than this earth, he sits in the midst of the
planet. i :y -vstem, controlling y.l the <ub:0v:t worlds
with his imperial power, so that they circle round his
throne and do him obeisance — even the impetuous
comet — with the most submissive reverence ; and yet
controlling them thus to do him homage, as if it were
only for their own advantage that they should keep
within the light and gladdening warmth of his coun
tenance, and not wander away into regions of darkness
and wintry desolation.
How like the blessed God ! — like Him in immen
sity, like Him in sovereign power, like Him in the
exercise of that power for the advantage of those
who are subject to Him, like Him in that it is
only those who revolve within the sphere of his
influence that can enjoy happiness. Glorious and
beneficent sun ! But the sun is no God of ours. The
object of our adoration and confidence is the God of
the sun — that Eternal One to whom the sun is but as
a sunbeam, and from the glance of whose eye it sparkled
into being — that God who made our souls, made them
so much more glorious than the sun, after the image
of his own Godhead. O, degradation of man ! that so
338 SELECTIONS FROM
many of the human family should have prostrated
themselves in worship before the inanimate mass of
matter, when each of them has within himself a spirit
whose glories immeasurably outshine those of the
natural luminary. And yet there was some grandeur
in the idolatry of the sun-worshippers of Persia and
Peru, compared with the debasement of thousands
among ourselves, whose god is the paper rag of the
mammonist or the bottle of the drunkard. Who are
they with gods so mean as these — and there are others
whose worship is yet more impure — that they should
affect to pity and scorn the worshippers of the radiant,
glorious sun ?
Brethren, what or who is your God ? What is his
name, and what is his memorial ? Is it Jehovah the
living God, to whom your souls gravitate, and around
whom they circle as the planets gravitate towards the
sun and circle around him, obeying his empire, sub
mitting to his impulses, and finding all their order,
their joy, their preservation within the sphere of his
attraction ? There is nothing in the physical universe
which can be compared to the man who lives without
the acknowledgment of God. The most eccentric
comet still confesses the sun's dominion, and is saved
from being lost in the regions of darkness and deso
lation. But the soul which has withdrawn itself from
being under the control and influence of its Creator is
like some fabled star which has quitted its orbit, and,
as it wanders through dreary space, is ever in danger
of collision with others which have forsaken allegiance
like i tself, or which shoots away, and falls and sinks
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 339
down the bottomless abyss of the darkness for ever
and for ever.
Such once were all of us. But, blessed be God,
he sent his Son to save that which was lost. He
hath recovered some of us already, and is willing and
anxious to recover all, so that they may revolve in the
original orbit of dependence on Himself as the source
and centre of all-sustaining and joyful influences.
O ye of astronomical genius, behold the Son of God,
as the repairer of the moral firmament, laying hold of
one wandering star after another, and replacing it in
its orbit to circle in harmony around the Sun of the
Throne of the Eternal Father! Thought of wretched
ness — the case of those who, as outcasts from the
moral system of the universe, are whirling, whirling,
deeper and deeper and onward, into the abyss of un
godliness! O sinner, into what a region of chaotic
darkness thou hast fallen, every day more dark and
cold and desolate, the farther thy remove from God
—depend on it, it will be the gulf of fire at last. In
proportion, how full of gladness the thought of the
condition of those who, recovered by Christ, are
coursing in harmony, in safety, and sunshine round
God as their Sun — the Centre of all their attraction, the
Regulator of all their movements!
As already indicated, such reflections, however, had
no place in the mind of the Psalmist. He was not so far
advanced in physical science as to be acquainted with
the earth being dependent to such an extent on the
central sun, and it must have been other and subor
dinate considerations in which he found the aptness of
34O SELECTIONS FROM
his similitude. These, no doubt, were the sun's
enlivening and directing light, and its cherishing,
fructifying heat; and it is still, in meditating on these
two qualities, and likening them to the bounty of God,
that we will obtain our best lessons of devotion. The
other requires more abstraction of mind ; is altogether
lost on the unlearned; and, even by those who are
scientifically instructed, is not so vividly apprehended.
Even Newton, I am persuaded, would have relished a
discourse on the sun as an emblem of God in its light-
giving and heat-giving properties, more than one on
its gravitation and attractive property. Dr. Chalmers
has remarked that Natural Theology has not gained
so much as might be supposed by the discoveries of
philosophy. Not only has no attribute of the Deity
been discovered which was formerly unknown, but the
lessons of nature were taught of old with nearly as
much impressiveness as at the present day.
First, then, the Sun is both philosophically and
popularly characterised for his light-giving property.
Reflect how cheerless a habitation this world would be
without the light of the sun. Imagine a condition of
perpetual night. Grant that we had the twinkling of
the stars and such lamp-light as the moon fitfully
affords — the latter of which, however, entirely, and
the former of which, to a considerable extent, we
could not have without the sun's reflected bounty, —
and grant, further, that we enjoyed the benefit of all
these minor sources of light with which civilisation and
the arts have favoured us — to which civilisation and
accomplishments in the arts, however, it is equally
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 341
evident, as in the former case, that we could not have
attained without that light of the sun under which
the cultivation has proceeded ; — but grant that, inde
pendently of that beneficent luminary, we might have
been possessed of them all — still, how gloomy this
world would have been without his irradiation ! Even
one year without the sun — what a weariness and
heartlessness it would be ! And you whose eyes are
sealed in perpetual blindness, be ye also thankful ; for
it is the cheerful sun which enables us to be merry
and make sport for you.
The sun extinguished ! Imagine our melancholy
lot. The daisied meadow, the primrose bank, the
branching oak, the waving corn field, the plumage
of birds, the mountain surveyed from the plain, the
plain surveyed from the mountain, the wide sea
and the heaving of its billows, the architecture
of the palace, the evening sky of summer, and
the sports of children on the green, all either not
existing or never seen. How dungeon-like, how
sepulchral! The sun extinguished! How, then,
could the husbandman plough his field, or the archi
tect build his house, or the traveller prosecute his
journey, or the mariner his voyage? Amid the dark
ness, what universal fear ! Every sound would have
an alarm in it of some imagined danger ; nor would a
benighted people know where they should flee. "More
than they that watch for the morning " was the com
parison by which a sacred writer would signify the
intenseness of his waiting expectation. When the
sun has risen, what beauty he discloses all around to
342 SELECTIONS FROM
the traveller who was ignorant that he was in the
midst of such scenes of grandeur and loveliness, when
he plodded wearily along during the darkness ; and
though the storm should continue to rage, yet the
seaman will feel as if all were safe under the light of
the rising sun.
Secondly, it is perhaps his life-giving; cherishing,
fructifying heat by which the sun is principally en
deared to the world. Without him, all would be the
desolation and death of perpetual frost. Much, even
now this wintry season, are we indebted to the manner
in which he mitigates the cold ; but we could not
think patiently of our earthly lot were this partial
bestowment of his favour all that we should enjoy.
We bear with winter only in expectation of a change
of season, when he will revisit us with a warmer smile.
As he approaches in spring, think how animated nature
will be quickened out of its torpor ; how greenly the
grass will spring up ; how the naked trees will bud and
spread out their foliage ; and as in summer he draws
nearer, how the roses will blow and exhale their
fragrance ; how the corn fields will wave with their
crops and the orchards display their fruits. All
nature will revive and sing under the inspiration of
his warmth ; and the sick man, too, will leave his
weary bed, to which winter confined him, and walk
forth over the green fields to unite in the universal
gladness. Beneficent Sun ! What a friend thou art !
Who does not love thee ? And tell them, O Sun,
how much thou art astonished and grieved that there
should be men who neglect — yea, hold in aversion — the
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 343
God that made thee, and sent thee forth on thy
mission of love to our world ; that it is enough to
provoke thee to turn thy face away, but that the
command of the Lord is sovereign. Shine on, and try
them if haply they may repent.
This introduces me to the contemplation of God as
the Sun of his people in respect of their enlighten
ment. Here I observe, that there is nothing beautiful —
nothing great and sublime — to be seen in the world,
except when it is contemplated in the light of God's
creative power and providential goodness. There is
the lily ! What truly beautiful can that man see in it,
how philosophically soever he may descant on its
structure and habits, who sees no evidence in it of a
designing and bountiful cause ? and, after all his vain
botanizing, concludes with degrading it as a thing of
the merest chance, conceiving of the lovely flower as
if it were some bastard foundling, nobody knowing
whence it came ? No ; it is not till you have admitted
the light of the Godhead to shine upon it and surveyed
it as His flower — decked by His hand, with an attire
richer than Solomon's — that you can ever appreciate the
lily's beauty. So of all the other objects of nature :
your taste must be rude and inadequate to the appre
ciation of the grandeur of the mountain, till you have
surveyed it as the architecture of God, or of the glory
of the gleaming lightnings — still you have marked
them as the arrows of his power, and the stars as
the gems of his diadem.
Especially, brethren, what a sight of degradation
and wretchedness is the human family, from which
344 SELECTIONS FROM
otherwise a reflective and sensitive mind might turn
away sickened and disgusted, at one time weeping
in hopelessness of the relief of its miseries, and at
another, misanthropically enraged at the sight or
rehearsal of its abominations and crimes. But place
the family in the light of God's throne; call it
His family, for which He has paternal purposes of
mercy, and immediately human nature shines forth in
dignity and grandeur, and you bless your species, and
rejoice for yourself. For a man who does not acknow
ledge God, it is impossible to be heartily philanthropic.
Such a one does not see what man is. He has no
conception of his worth and importance. It is not a
sufficient illustration of his ignorance to say that he
knows as little of him as an artist would learn were
he to enter a sculpture gallery at midnight and only
feel over the statue of Apollo. He knows less than
this, and will form a less adequate idea of him. But
let in the light ! Again, I say, let the light of the
Godhead shine on man. Survey him in the light of
his Father's countenance : think of him as divinely
born ; then you will see dignity in him, importance in
him, and hope for him, and find reasons wherefore
you should love him and work for him. What need
there is, brethren, in these distressing days, of a
vision of mankind under this cheering light? That
amid this groaning of creation, we may be saved
from pronouncing on men that he is all a lie * — that
* Psalm cxvi. 1 1. — / said, in my haste, all humanity is a deception. In
the midst of his afflictions he was tempted to condemn man as a piece
of vain workmanship.
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 345
his case is hopeless, and that it is useless to care
about him ; let us look on ourselves, let us look on
one another, let us look on our neighbours, let us
look abroad over all humanity in the light of their
being God's offspring — it will prevent our despair and
our cruel negligence, and animate us in labours of
beneficence.
This leads me further to observe, that God is
the Sun of his people in respect of the practical
direction which the light He sheds gives them
for the conduct of their lives. That man for
whom the Divine countenance does not irradiate
creation can understand neither his own constitution
and its wants nor the constitution and claims of his
neighbours, and must, consequently, be ignorant of
the whole of his duty, giving neither himself nor
others the treatment which is requisite for their
happiness. Now, there are two degrees of illumina
tion with which the disclosure of God irradiates his
works, in the lowest of which there is some guidance
for the man's conduct. Even such disclosures as
nature and reason make of his existence almost
uniformly produce the conviction of accountability to
his government for a life of justice and benevolence.
Any guidance, however, which is thus obtained is like
that of a foggy day. It is through the Bible alone
that we enjoy anything like sunlight. Tha tBook is
a transcript of the mind of God. There He has set
His image as in a tabernacle ; there He shines, and in
the light of his character as displayed there, we have
a clear revelation what are his designs and desires ;
346 SELECTIONS FROM
what destiny He has appointed us ; and what are the
requisite qualifications for its enjoyment.
Who or what, then, O man, is that Sun, in the light of
which thou pursuest thy life-journey? Thou art a be
nighted being, if the God of the Bible shine not on thy
soul. And what darkness will be too gloomy for thy
punishment in the day of retribution, if in contempt
of that light, because thy heart is so worldly, or in
hatred of it, because thy heart is so unclean, thou
shouldst shut the Book, or refuse to open it, lest the
glory of the Lord should shine on thee and expose
thy vileness! Blessed they who rejoice in the
sacred illumination, and who, going forth with the
Book open, and flashing its light all around, make
choice of the objects of their pursuits only as they
appear valuable in the light of God's countenance.
THE LORD A SHEPHERD.
"The Lord is my Shepherd." — Psalm xxiii. I.
There is one other relation at least, viz., that of a
Father, which God is represented as bearing to his
people, more interesting and abundant in happy
influence than is that of a Shepherd. Nevertheless,
to a pastoral people — such as the Jews, to a great
extent, were — the image must have been one of very
warm endearment. David's conception of it must
have been peculiarly lively : " And David said unto
Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there
came a lion and a bear, and took a lamb out of the
flock ; and I went out after him, and smote him, and
delivered it out of his mouth." Here was a shepherd,
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 347
type of the Good Shepherd as he was, who ventured
his life in defence of his sheep ; and great must have
been his own Shepherd's care and affection when he
himself came to be numbered as one of a flock.
As inhabitants of a city, and chiefly conversant
with affairs of manufacture and merchandise, we are
incapable of apprehending to the full extent the
beauty and force of the similitude, but, by a little
reflection, we may all appreciate it in a considerable
measure.
Imagine, then, a human being, lonely and solitary
in respect of intercourse with man the live-long day,
and day after day in succession, wandering on the
hillside with none but his sheep to keep him com
pany, with no other occupation but to guide and
protect them — how strong must be the affection with
which his heart comes to be attached to them ! He
distinguishes them individually by their forms, their
countenances, their bleatings, and other peculiarities;
he knows the histories of them all ; he knows such of
them as are diseased, and ministers to their cares; he
is specially careful with those that are with young,
and tender in the cherishing of their lambs —
particularly the deserted. He wards them off from
the precipice, the morass, and from where serpents
lurk and poisons grow; he lifts them out of pits into
which they may fall, and extricates them from the
thorn-brake; and far he will journey o'er the hills in
quest of the wanderer. He selects for them the
richest pasture; at the sultry noon he guides them to
refreshing brooks; when the wind blows chill he
348 SELECTIONS FROM
guides them to the shelter of the vale, and at night
secures them in the fold. Fearlessly he braves the
dangers of the snow-storm that he may place them in
safety; all his ingenuity is exerted in scaring the fox
which would make them its prey, and he endangers
his life in repelling the wolf. And deep is the affec
tion of the kind shepherd's heart when these nurslings
of his care may die, or when, being sold to the
stranger, they are driven away bleating from the
superintendence of his affection.
If such be the solicitude and tenderness of a human
shepherd, what must be the strength in which they
subsist in the bosom of the Shepherd of Israel, whose
memorial is love ? And of this love the resources for
the blessing of his flock are inexhaustible. His are
the grass and streams of a thousand hills, and by the
word of his power He could create and replenish a
thousand more ; His the command of the showers to
refresh the pastures ; His the government of the sun
to restrain its sultry heat ; His the control of the wind
to temper its blast ; and His the direction of the snow
to regulate its falling. The fox, by its artifice, may
elude the vigilance of an earthly shepherd, or a troop
of wolves may destroy himself, leaving the flock all
scattered and a prey, but what guile shall surprise
Him who slumbers not nor sleeps, or what violence
prevail against Him whose arrows are the lightnings ?
Well might David say that, since Jehovah was his
Shepherd, he would not want. As one of the sheep of
his fold he was warranted to calculate that all the
wisdom and power of his Shepherd would be employed
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 349
and exerted for his advantage ; and that Shepherd was
the all-sufficient God — the Lord of Hosts.
David's Shepherd is our Shepherd — David's God is
our God — let David's confidence be ours also. To
trust in God — to have fears prevented or dispelled by
reliance on his care and mercy — is a principal com
mandment. Happiness is our duty ; misery is our sin,
inasmuch as it must proceed from dishonouring views
of the divine character and unbelieving discredit of the
assurances of his word. Ah ! my hearers, were I to
inquire if your consciences are ever disturbed by a
sense of sin, it would be but a slight trial — no trial,
indeed, at all : the test is, if, when overtaken by adver
sity, or when the clouds have gathered threateningly
around you, your sorrows be soothed, and your appre
hensions allayed, by confiding meditations on the
guardian care and overruling providence of God.
Many of the most depraved and profligate can tell
us of the manner in which they have trembled under
a consciousness of guiltiness ; but how few are they
who honour the Lord by rejoicing in Him as their
gracious Shepherd ! And yet, can less than this be
required as a test of the genuineness of his professions
of piety ? Is there no sin — no insulting of God, when
the heart yields Him nothing but its suspicions and
terrors ? Be done with this dark unbelief ; it at once
robs yourselves of comfort and God of his praise. We
have other duties, it is true, besides that one of being
of a cheerful heart, through reliance on the Divine
care ; but unless such cheerfulness be entertained no
other duty can be well performed. It is only from
350 SELECTIONS FROM
a heart which has some persuasion of God's friendship
for it that any acceptable service can ever proceed.
The gods of heathenism are pictured as delighting in
the terror of their worshippers; but our God rejects the
services of slaves, and will accept of the obedience
only of sons and daughters. We love Him because
we know and are persuaded that He loves us, is the
master-principle of all Christian obedience. Review
those Psalms, and you will see that trust in God is
the chief characteristic of David's morality. Con
venient ethics! some may mockingly exclaim, when
their own cheerless bosoms evince that to feel joyously
towards the God that made them is of all virtues the
most difficult of acquisition. How easy it is to say,
with a benevolent heart, " Be ye warmed and filled,"
compared with saying, with a devout heart, " The Lord
is my Shepherd, I shall not want." Our faith says
both; and it says the former with more humanity
from being inspired by the piety of the latter.
ON LOVING GOD.
" I love the Lord." — Psalm cxvi. I.
In what does the saint's love of God positively con
sist ? I reply, in the first place, that, in its purest
form, it consists in an admiration and esteem of his
excellence — that which we formerly met with, in
treating of the Love of Christ, under the name of the
Love of Moral Approbation : when, independently
of any thought of the relation which He bears to our
selves, we disinterestedly rejoice in the perfection of his
character. Even when his natural and intellectual
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 351
attributes, as they are theologically distinguished, are
viewed apart from his moral excellences, there is a
satisfaction experienced in the survey which is akin to
love. When the heart grows sick at the sight of the
misery and mortality which blight and desolate the
happiest scenes of which this earth can boast, how
refreshing it is to rise to the contemplation of that
Immortal, Eternal One, shining in the undisturbed and
serene glory of his infinite felicity ! The happiness of
God ! The vision of it might assuage the beholder's
own sorrows. And when disappointed and mortified
at seeing the failure of the schemes and enterprises of
weak and impoverished men, how soul-satisfying it is
to turn to the survey of the might and prowess of Him
whose will no difficulties can obstruct, and whose
resources no expenditure exhausts ! Nor less, when
baffled philosophy gives up the investigation with
humbled confessions of ignorance, is there much solac
ing influence, for a thoughtful and inquiring mind, in
the reflection, that the mystery is not inscrutable, that
it is not a matter of utter and absolute darkness, but
that there is One whose wisdom comprehends it per
fectly. From the manner in which these attributes
gratify what, I suppose, should be characterised as
the taste of the mind, we feel a pleasedness in survey
ing them which is nearly allied to love. But the
producing of that affection in its genuine spirit is
claimed as the prerogative of those perfections which
are contradistinguished as moral. To their considera
tion, therefore, let us now address ourselves.
All God's moral perfections make him an object of
352 SELECTIONS FROM
love. Even an unconverted man might, for a time at
least, forget how he himself is endangered by the
attribute, and bless God for his Justice, both on account
of the relief which it affords, when viewed in contrast
with the iniquity of men, and the assurance which it
gives, that that iniquity shall be fully avenged.
What a scene of cruelty and wrong this broad earth
exhibits! perpetrated by kings and nobles, and legis
lators, and judges — with their soldiers, their attorneys,
their bailiffs, their jailors and executioners; perpetrated
by priests abetting the wrongs which others inflict, and
adding a multitude themselves ; perpetrated by mer
chants when they buy, and again when they sell; perpe
trated by professed friends, as well as by avowed foes ;
by those of your own religious sect or political faction, as
well as by those of the opposing one ; by masters, and,
not seldom, by servants ; by husbands, and, not seldom,
by wives ; by children, and, not seldom, by parents ;
mutually by brothers, and, not less, mutually by spite
ful sisters ; perpetrated by those who say they fear
God, as well as by those who blaspheme him: — these
the perpetrators, inflicting the .wrongs — of bruises and
wounds ; of lacerated feelings ; of insult and shame ;
of cold suspicion and cruel jealousy ; of broken vows
for breaking the heart ; of connubial unfaithfulness ;
of perjured violation of maiden honour ; of a parent
mocked, or neglected in old age ; of one child sent
forth into the world with the bastard's brand, and of
another crushed in spirit by a father's severity or
avarice ; wrongs of the preference of the unworthy
for place and honours ; of slander and reproach ; of
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 353
excommunication from the church ; of envious and
malicious criticism; of oppressive labour and dimi
nished hire; of unfaithful service and betraying of
trust ; of bankruptcy, whether fraudulent, or produced
by reckless speculation, or personal or domestic prodi
gality ; of evasions and violated engagements ; of
advantages taken of promises made in ignorance or
mistake, or over-excited generosity ; of deceitful bar
gains ; of swindling and theft ; of extortion ; of exor
bitant fees ; of advantage taken of necessity ; of
grinding usury; of advantage taken of the forms of
law to delay or defeat justice, whether by the principal
or his agent ; of advantage taken of iniquitous laws ;
of the enacting of such laws ; of the refusal to abrogate
them ; of the refusal to enact righteous laws ; of the
consequent poverty, hunger, nakedness, ignorance,
slavery, expatriation, imprisonment and death.
ON PLEASING GOD.*
" He pleased God." — Hebrews xi. 5.
What, brethren, about ourselves, about ourselves
individually ? Each of us by himself, how does he feel
when, withdrawing to meditate on his own character
and conduct, he thus inquires, " Can my Creator be
deriving any pleasure from me ? He made me that
he might obtain delight in me. Am I answering his
design ? Is there anything about me — if anything,
how much — which will yield him complacency, when,
looking at me, he says, " How well the work of my
hands move ! how beautifully it feels ! how beautifully
* Preached in John Street Church, Glasgow, in May, 1871.
Z
354 SELECTIONS FROM
it speaks ! how beautiful are its actions ! It is a
beautiful creation; I am its God; my divinity is
glorified in it?" You walk forth at night and reflect
how the stedfast stars, and the circling planets, and the
faithful moon must all be affording gratification to
their Creator. Can He be deriving any gratification
from you ? And when in summer you roam through
the fields, amid the blooming flowers and warbling
birds and sportive lambs, all a gratification to their
God when he beholds them, do you increase the
gratification when you present yourself among them ?
Ah me, there are many bad men who, when they
betake themselves to these fields, it is enough to make
the Creator turn away from looking at his own sweet
flowers, because they are there with their loathsomeness
polluting the scene. And methinks when some ungodly
astronomer is engaged in his survey, it is enough to
make the Creator turn away from looking at his own
bright star, that he may have no communion with the
reprobate. Brethren, is each of us such a person that
God may take delight in looking at him, when He
communes with Himself complacently, and says " I
am that man's Creator?"
I have already vindicated the claims of the flesh to
a portion of respect, but it must be content with its
subordinate place and not usurp the dominion. It
is mental beauty in the observation of which the
Creator especially delights. Observe here, first, that
He has properly no sympathy with material beauty.
He himself is purely spiritual — all thought; and He
waits for the delight of seeing his children thinking
DR. ANDERSONS WRITINGS. 355
like Himself. Observe, secondly, that He gains delight
and glory for Himself in material beauty out of other
objects — out of the stars and the flowers — and He
turns to man for a display of beauty of mind. Think,
thirdly, with what disappointment, yea, disgust and
anger, He must be affected when, in turning from
the contemplation of his stars and flowers for the
enjoyment of this higher delight, He beholds those
powers of intellect with which he had endowed the
soul of man either submerged in the sensualities of
the flesh or all-engrossed by schemings and calcula
tions for securing bits of metal or paper rags. My
God ! What a revulsion of mind it must occasion the
Eternal One when — turning from the contemplation of
His shining and circling stars, that He maybe gratified
with the sight of a still higher order of beauty in the
shining and circling of thought in the intelligent soul
of man — his eye lights upon a worlding with his whole
mind engrossed in scraping among dust for the bits
of metal, or turning up dunghills in quest of the rags !
Can any more favourable representation than this be
given of the character of multitudes who yet claim
that we should treat them with deference and respect,
just because they have been successful in securing a
few hundreds or thousands of the metal-bits and rags,
when they are utterly destitute of all mental accomplish
ment? It is difficult enough for men of ingenuous
mind to bear it; but what must it be in the sight of
that God who made the men with the design that He
should find delight in them, and be glorified in them
by a display of mental beauty? Ah! worldling, who
356 SELECTIONS FROM
hast so materialised thy soul into a bit of dull copper,
when the Creator made it for a display of ethereal
thought, how nigh thou must be to cursing!
"WHY STAND YE HERE ALL THE DAY IDLE?"
Matthew xx. 6.
I advance to press the remonstrance of our text
on the unconverted : " Why stand ye here idle ? "
I must assist you to answer the question ; for in the
present state of your mind you have not sufficient self-
discernment and knowledge of your interests for the
task. I begin with negatives. First of all, then, your
idleness does not arise from your having no need of
that wealth which spiritual industry secures. Besotted
as you are with the intoxication of worldliness, carnality
and sin of various names, we who have been restored
to our senses see you to be a most pitiable object, blind
and naked and famishing and haggard, as you stagger
on through this world into the gulf of a woful eter
nity. But besides our seeing it, you yourself are not
entirely unconscious of your misery. You do not feel
at ease. It is impossible you can. So has the Creator
formed your heart that nothing but a sense of his
friendship can fill it ; and notwithstanding all the
manner in which your sensibilities are benumbed, so
long as you are a living rational man you must have
a degree of sensation of the awful craving void of a
heart without God, and occasional presentiments —
the less defined perhaps the more distressing — of a
wretched futurity, since it is every day getting worse
with you. O, what need there is, miserable man,
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 357
miserable though you were a king, that you should be
aroused out of your slothfulness to work for your life,
and to have yourself clothed with raiment in which you
may present yourself before the King of Eternity, to
dwell in his courts ! Otherwise your exclusion is cer
tain into that outer darkness. Where else can it be ?
Your own common sense must tell you that with such
a heart you cannot go heavenward — where, then, oh
where ?
Second, the reason of your idleness cannot be,
either that you have no opportunity to work, or that
it would be vain for you to begin now, since the day
has declined so far, and the night is so near. Not
withstanding all your past provocations in slighting
his calls and invitations, the voice of God's mercy is
as importunate as ever that you haste and enter
his vineyard, with the assurance that, entering even
at the eleventh hour, you will receive the heavenly
hire.
Third, the reason of your idleness cannot rationally
be, that there is yet plenty of time — that you need not
be in a hurry — that you are young, with many hours
for amusing yourself before the eleventh, which we
have just allowed to be sufficiently timous for sub
mitting to the labour for salvation. Yet many hours
for amusing yourself ! Who assures you of that, young
man ? The eleventh hour may have struck, and the
hand may be nearing the twelfth on that dial which
God set up at your birth for the measurement of your
appointed time : this hour thy soul may be required of
thee. Say not, that in resistance of many such appeals
358 SELECTIONS FROM
addressed to you heretofore you have taken your chance
scathlessly, and will take it again. Your chance of
what ? — of being shut out for ever from the kingdom
of God, and doomed to the everlasting darkness !
Though the chances were ten millions to one in your
favour that you shall escape to-day and be in time
for work to-morrow, who that is sane would put
his hand into the lottery bag, at the risk of drawing
the blank, yea the black one. There's the bag, young
man. You are fond of gambling : try your fortune.
O God ! he has drawn the black.
Fourth, you who have better luck and are spared,
your excuse for persistent reckless idleness would
not be reasonable, should you plead that you are
not qualified, and, through inveterate habits, in
sin and companionship unescapable, which you
cannot shake off, and various circumstances, are
disabled for such spiritual work. That I not
only admit but contend you are in your own
unaided strength, and I wish you were more sen
sible of your moral imbecility. But equally I main
tain that help waits your application for it. It is
a first principle of the Gospel that the effectual aid
of the Holy Spirit is provided for every humble
petitioner : " Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek,
and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto
you." Inquire among your Christian friends, and they
will assure you that there is no other promise of
the faithfulness of which they have had more ample
experience.
Seeing, then, that it is not because you have no
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 359
need to work, nor because you have no opportunity
for working1, nor because it is too late to begin, nor
because it is too soon, nor because you are unable,
that you are found so idle in respect of spiritual
husbandry, there remain only the two following
positive reasons for it: — first, that you are so busy
with other work that you have no time for this. Well,
what other work, I ask, may that be? It cannot be
merely the providing of your daily bread in com
petence, for that leaves abundance of time for the
spiritual industry; yea, both of the works may to a
considerable extent be conducted simultaneously.
He that weaves the woollen web may, by pious
reflections, be adorning the robe of righteousness; he
that ploughs the clayey field may be sowing seed
which will bear fruit in the heavenly Paradise; and
he who, deep down in the darkness, digs for iron,
may be excavating gold from the mine of heavenly
wisdom.
What, then, I persist in asking, is that other
work which leaves you no time for the spiritual work?
It must be working in the foul lust of covetous-
ness for more wealth than you need; or engaging
yourself with amusements to excess; or engrossing
your attentions with literature and science; or bur
dening yourself with office — whether from vanity and
ambition or genuine public spirit makes little dif
ference in this question, since the disproportionate
care excludes attention to the one thing needful. O,
would you but think of it seriously for one minute —
would you but express it in words, so that your own
360 SELECTIONS FROM
cars should hear it — would you but write it down
on a sheet of paper, so that your own eyes might
see it — that your money-gathering ; that your police
board, missionary, and Sabbath-school committee
attendance; that your study of Latin, and French,
and practising music; that your writing of sermons
and your scientific investigations; that your visiting,
and feasting, and dancing, and all your other merry
making leave you no time for making any preparation
for Eternity — would you but thus deal honestly, and
wisely, and mercifully by yourself, in informing your
self of your life-conduct, would you not feel as if you
were a maniac? Yea, you are a maniac, suffering
from a frightful moral derangement! The Scripture
says of the repentant prodigal, "When he came to
himself," signifying that heretofore he had been out
of his judgment.
The second positive reason for your idleness is,
that you do not relish the work but have a strong
dislike of it. Although all those other occupations
left you time for it, you would not take advantage of
the opportunity. The Bible is a book which sets you
a yawning whenever you begin to read it — prayer, if the
habit of it, learned at your father or mother's knee, be
not quite given up, is the most grievous of penances,
in its strictest observance — the Sabbath is a slavish
imposition on your liberty — the church is a prison;
those pleadings for contributions to the poor, and
missions, and Sabbath classes are a great nuisance;
Christ ! cannot ministers study science, and tell you
something about geology ? and as for that prospect
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 361
of a holy heaven with which they so idly attempt to
allure you, you deprecate nothing more except the
prospect of a fiery hell.
Sir, when you say there is only one prospect which
you deprecate more than to be locked in, to be tasked
with the psalm-singing of a holy heaven, viz., to be
locked up, to suffer the woes of that prison of anguish
and despair, your argument halts, and is belied by your
conduct. You should represent the heavenly prospect
as the worse of the two, since you have plainly made
election of the other. Ah! why will you die? What
more of the happiness of this world are you getting
than the heaven-lovers and heaven-seekers of your
own class ? Many of you are getting far less. All of
you are getting less. Many of a lower class are getting
much more. It is only they who have first sought and
made themselves sure of the heavenly kingdom as an
inheritance that enjoy the comforts of this world
heartily, as the enjoyments of a pilgrimage on their
way to the celestial city. O, if you would think of it
seriously for but one half minute — that would suffice,
and then say you must change your life. Say it ; you
will not feel the change so difficult as you think. God
will help you, his Son will help you, his Spirit will help
you. It is He who is pleading within your conscience
even now to say it. Say it, then, and he will give you
ample grace to keep that saying which He himself has
influenced.
362 SELECTIONS FROM
QUEEN VICTORIA'S VISIT TO GLASGOW IN 1849.*
" Worthy is the Lamb." — Revelation v. 12.
"And Samuel said to all the people, See ye him whom the Lord
hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people ? And all
the people shouted, and said, God save the king." — I Sam. x. 24.
This day, brethren, the Cross of Christ is to be
erected among us with special prominence and solem
nity ; but although any discourse which was not cha
racterised by a magnifying of that Cross's excellence
would be culpably deficient, yet is there no virtue
which it would be incongruous to introduce into the
scene pointing to the Cross as its inspiration ? Again,
when our text is the loyal shout of the multitude of
the redeemed celebrating the praise of the King of
kings, it would not be unsuitable for our sacramental
solemnity, held in whatever circumstances, to refer
either by way of parallel or contrast to the loyalty
which is due to an earthly sovereign ; but especially
at present, when we anticipate so nearly the visit of
Her Majesty, not only will it not be inappropriate that
I should make a few observations on the state of
mind with which we should receive her, but it would
indicate a want of faithfulness and seasonableness of
teaching did I not embrace the opportunity. Never
theless, I admit that it would be somewhat profane
did I engage a large proportion of our time with this
subject, and I shall therefore make little more of it
than an introduction to the main subject of discourse.
My general admonition, then, is that we evince the
* The sermon of which this is an extract was preached in John Street
Church, Glasgow, on August 12, 1849.
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 363
piety of our loyalty and its superiority to that of the
promiscuous multitude by raising our shout of salu
tation with thanksgiving in our hearts to God for the
gift of a sovereign so noble and gracious.
There are two respects in which it is our duty to
have our hearts occupied with such pious thanksgiving.
First, when we regard her as being the Head of our
civil government, and the type or genius, as it were, of
British justice. It is but small thanks, indeed, which
we owe to men, and especially to those who at present
hold the administration of power, pertinaciously retain
ing as they do a thousand demonstrated abuses and
corruptions — lavishing the wealth of an impoverished
people so profusely on the sons and dependants of an
idle, luxurious, and, in many cases, profligate aristo
cracy ; conspiring, as I have frequently denounced
them and denounce them again, traitorously conspiring
to sell over the faith and liberties of this country into
the power of the heaven-doomed apostacy of the Man
of Sin ; still more, especially, we owe them but small
thanks in our character of conscientious Dissenters, not
only perpetuating as they do, but extending the power
of our malicious adversaries ; small thanks to them, I
say. They greatly mar our loyalty, and cool that
ardour with which we salute Her Majesty, since they
prevent her being the type of a much purer justice than
that which she symbolises, and present her with a step
mother's aspect to tens of thousands of the holiest of
her subjects.
And yet thanks be to God for her. When from
the contention with man who refuses us our rights,
364 SELECTIONS FROM
and towards whom it is not only lawful but duti
ful we should feel indignation, we turn our faces to the
throne of God, on whom we have claim for nothing,
from whom we had reason to expect avenging judg
ment on account of our sins, but yet from whom we
have received such abundance of mercy, what a stilling
it is of the angry emotions of the spirit ! Let us look
round on all the world beside, brethren, and learn to
be thankful for our British lot. Not to speak of the
misery of the savage tribes of Africa, or the down
trodden nations of Asia, where despotism holds riot ;
look round on what they call Christendom — on all the
other nations of Europe, without exception ; look at
France, look at Portugal and Spain, look at Austria,
Prussia, and Russia ; think of the policy of their govern
ments, and what is the state of the liberty of their
peoples ; and then think of home ; think of that justice
of which the Queen of Britain is the emblem.
See that jewel in her crown which Knox of Scotland
and Cranmer of England were commissioned of God to
place there, when they wrought our emancipation from
Popish darkness and thraldom — that emblazons her
most beautifully of all. O that she may preserve it,
notwithstanding all the treachery with which she is
surrounded to rob her crown of it, and replace it with
the adder's stone of the man of sin ! Next, behold the
jewel which Cromwell was divinely commissioned to
place there — the long abused, but now at length vin
dicated Cromwell — vindicated as being at once the
noblest and wisest of patriots, and one of the sincerest
and most sanctified of saints. It was not George of
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 365
Brunswick, though thank God for him ; neither was it
William of Orange, though God be thanked for him
fervidly ; it was Oliver Cromwell who founded the
dynasty of Victoria. O that there were honest men to
tell her who are the foregoing nobles and princes to
whom under God she is indebted for that crown which
makes her so beloved at home, and so renowned and
powerful throughout the whole earth, that it is Knox,
and Cranmer, and Cromwell — that they are the master-
fashioners of its glory ! But whether she knows it or
not, whether she respects their memory or not, there she
is with that crown — with all that is just and free in the
legislation of Scotland and England gathered up into
it ; and, contemplating her as the personification of this
justice, next to God I render her the loyalty of my
heart, and bless God devoutly for the munificent gift.
You will observe, brethren, that on these principles,
whoever he may be that wears the British crown,
provided he observe its law, is entitled to our loyal
respect, even although his personal character should
be disreputable. In that event, however, the pulse
of loyalty must beat languidly at the best, and is in
danger of an entire cessation. It requires more dis
crimination and sense of duty than the majority
possess to preserve respect for the official character,
when the personal is offensive.
I therefore observe, in the second place, that our
thanksgivings are due to God, that in our Queen we
have an object which strongly attracts our moral
esteem by her personal virtues. Though it be much
when considered by itself, yet comparatively it is little
366 SELECTIONS FROM
that her own sentiments are known to be liberal, and
that it has been with a free and unconstrained heart
she has given her legislative voice for the many
measures in the progress of liberty by which her reign
has been characterised. This, I say, is a small matter
compared with that private and domestic purity and
propriety of conduct by which she is characterised.
Who doubts that the peace of our land is, under God,
to be ascribed largely to that reverence and respect
which the Queen's virtue has always commanded for
her name, even in the heat of rudest and wildest
agitation? And who shall estimate that amount of
salutary influence which her example has breathed
into the morals of the aristocracy ? Let us bless God
that our duty is now so easy — that it is more a
pleasure than a task. And here I would be wanting
in the discharge of my vocation did I omit to summon
you to thanksgiving for the character of him with
whom God has blessed Her Majesty as her Consort.
It is not the least of our national blessings. Let
us, therefore, be prepared to shout their welcome,
with hearts confessing the munificence of the gift of
God.
Brethren, a great one is at hand, to delight our
hearts with the vision of her royal dignity and grace ;
but a greater is already here. Lord Jesus, show
Thyself to us by faith ! We do not despise the pomp
of our earthly Sovereign, but we desire to behold
Thee, more glorious far — our Queen's Master, for
Thou art King of kings — yea, as anointed of Thy
Father, the Bestower on us of our Queen, in all her
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 367
excellence; for "by Thee kings reign, and princes
decree justice."
Whatever questioning there may have been with
some of the propriety of the foregoing remarks for our
sacramental solemnity, we are surely all right now.
" Surely all right now ! " Ah, me ! I had rather that
there should be a greater number of us either of an
ill-instructed or affected spirituality, complaining of
what they call the politics of our discourse hitherto,
than that there should be so great a number who
would relish proceeding in such a strain, and feel
coldly when we make the change of proceeding to
celebrate the praise of the Lamb of God. How
nauseous to the worldling, and not less to the formalist,
that phrase — the Lamb of God ! O how bold you
are ! how manly ! how sick of such soft and effeminate
sentimentalism ! Well, you shall have your wish :
our faith has in reserve the Lion of the tribe of Judah
for all despisers of the Lamb that has been slain.
THE DEATH OF DR. CHALMERS.*
" I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living." — Psalm xxvii. 13.
How great reason I have for felicitating myself, that
though the circumstances were sometimes tempting
in the course of the controversy which raged on the
subject of Church and State alliance, I never uttered
a sentiment of disrespect against his honoured name
which I have this day cause to regret. And you are
my witnesses, brethren, that, next to that of Matthew
* Preached in John Street Church, Glasgow, in May, 1847.
368 SELECTIONS FROM
Henry, the name of Chalmers has been that which
this pulpit has most delighted to honour.
Little do many of our religious youth know how
much, under God, they are indebted to him. When he
first made his appearance in Glasgow, it was as if an
angel had visited it. Some of us recollect what was the
general state of preaching before that time— solid, and
Scriptural, and argumentative enough ; but cold, and
dry, and formal, with little application to the every-day
life and feelings of men, and still less accommodation
to the advanced literature and science of the age. All
this was rectified by his sanctified genius: the mocking
of infidelity was quashed, and Christianity lifted up its
head in triumph, and with heart greatly enlarged for
her evangelical enterprise. The students of Theology
were of all others those who profited most. What a
liberalising and evangelising of our views we under
went ! I speak not theologically— I trust many of us
were converted to God before that time, ^^profession
ally it was a signal regeneration. In this sense I, for one,
became as changed a person as if I had been created
anew. I neither say nor think that I am possessed of
any great excellence, but whatever good is in me is
mainly ascribable to the awakening of my powers
in these memorable days. Hundreds of us were so
awakened, and the influence has been transmitted to
many hundreds more, till all Scotland has participated
in the benefit.
In his death there is no mystery of providence ; the
mystery lies in those being cut down who have done
but a little of their work. He had wrought long, and
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 369
wrought well, and finished his work, and it was time
that the Lord should give his servant rest. For these
two things I rejoice, that he was not left to impair our
veneration for him by any of the weaknesses or the
foolish sayings and doings of senility and dotage, and
that he died suddenly. A sudden death to a well-
prepared saint is one of the greatest of mercies. And
his was like the translation of Enoch or Elias.
"ALL THINGS."
Romans viii. 32.
SJiah He not freely give us all things ? The Apostle's
inference is large, but the premises fully sanction it ;
the* superstructure is magnificent, but the foundation
will bear that all thirds be built on it. Yea, brethren,
he might have drawn the conclusion from premises
stated less forcibly, and built the superstructure on a
foundation neither so deep nor so broad. And I call
your special attention to this point. God's fatherly,
unpurchased, unsolicited, spontaneous love waits for
opportunities to bless his children. Let that paternal
love of God be a first principle of our faith — his waiting
for opportunities to bless his children, i.e., ourselves —
all of us — each of us — you and me. Our sin and
rebellion against his government closed the oppor
tunity. It made it unfit for him as a holy Governor
to manifest his love ; but still his paternal mercy
waited for the opportunity being re-opened. Well,
suppose it had been some other one who had provided
for us the Ransom, so that the legal obstacle was
removed, his paternal love would have hastened to
2 A
3/0 SELECTIONS FROM
take advantage of the opportunity to lavish its affec
tions on his children ; and even in that case the
Apostle could have argued, since matters are adjusted
in respect of the government, we may well calculate
on all requisite blessings being freely bestowed by
fatherly affection and beneficence. How much stronger
is the argument as he has placed and enforced it ! He
refers to the Ransom, by which the government was
vindicated in bestowing pardon on the rebel, as being
of the Father's providing, and then appeals if, after
that, we can doubt his willingness to bestow anything
that is good.
There are especially two principles involved in this
appeal : the first is, that God having shown his love
by giving us the greatest possible gift, we would act
most unreasonably in suspecting that He might grudge
the bestowment of any other. Behold, then, brethren,
that Gift ! It was his own Son, in whom from eternity
he delighted as the brightness of his glory — in whom
he beheld the image of himself— with whom he held
communion when there was as yet no created intelli
gence — without whom the universe would have been
a solitude for his Godhead. " In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God." It was this
Son whom God spared not when our exigency of
misery needed the gift, and there was no other help —
spared Him not, but gave him forth from his bosom,
and down from his throne, unto this world encompassed
with the conditions of our wretched humanity in its
most wretched form of indigence and sorrow — spared
him not, but delivered him up to that death of agony
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 371
and shame that through his sacrifice for sin the sinful
might be saved.
That Cross of the Son of God ! What affliction is
there of which you may not well say that it must be a
mercy since it comes from the same hand which gave
me that Cross ? What benefit is there which you
need of which you can say that it is greater than the
Cross, and that therefore the bounty is possibly not
so generous as to bestow it ? Rather let the argument
with thy doubting heart be, " Everything is little
compared with the Cross, and having received the
greatest gift, I cannot question the willingness to
confer on me the smaller. That Cross I shall make
my master-demonstration to suppress the rising doubts
occasioned by all unfavourable appearances, and to
strengthen my heart in confidence that all things good
for me shall be freely vouchsafed."
Such is the first principle involved in the Apostle's
appeal — arguing that the bounty which gave the
greater gift must be willing to give the smaller. But
the other principle involved is perhaps still stronger
and more persuasive — it is the principle of the Divine
consistency. God gave the gift of his Son just that
he might have the opportunity of bestowing other
gifts. So long as our rebellion was unexpiated, good
government forbade that we should be treated with
tenderness. The gift of Christ was designed to remove
the obstacle, so that the paternal bounty of God might
have free egress in flowing forth, as at first, on his
children ; and he who doubts the outflowing of that
paternal loving-kindness virtually imputes to the Lord
372 SELECTIONS FROM
the greatest inconsistency of having, at unspeakable
cost, humanly speaking, yea, Divinely speaking — the
Scripture contains the spared not — imputes, I say, unto
the Lord the great inconsistency of having, at unspeak
able cost, opened up for himself a way by which he
might come forth with the bestowment of his bounty,
yet taking no advantage of it, and so making the
death of his Son a vain expenditure of humiliation
and suffering. Brethren, when the Apostle accuses a
certain party, who endeavour to gain salvation by
their own works, as guilty of representing Christ as
having died in vain, let us beware lest we fall into the
same condemnation, though in a different way — viz.,
by refusing to draw from that death consolation and
hope. Self-confidence, when Christ is presented of his
Father as the only confidence, is bad; but there is
worse — despair of mercy. Despair of mercy! doubting
of God's fatherly loving-kindness, when that Cross is so
closely pressed upon thine eye to assure thee of love !
THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.
"Jesus loved Martha, and her sister and Lazarus." — John xi. 5.
Mark that here is the evil to be guarded against —
that though no believer can question or doubt the
mercy which at present occupies the heart of the
Redeemer, yet is there a danger that the more we con
template the splendour of his crown, our confidence
should become weaker in the familiarity of his atten
tions : not because we think so unworthily of him as
to fear that in his exaltation he will despise the com
panions of his lowliness ; but because we are ready to
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 373
conceive of him as if his nature were somehow changed
— that is the exact idea — as if his nature were some
how changed ; as if he had lost his human feelings,
so as to make it impossible for him to sympathise
with men as he once sympathised, and that we can
only expect from him a kind of stately, king-like
' favour, much to be prized, no doubt, but rather
of a general nature, and wanting in those special
attentions and sympathising tendernesses which all
sensitive hearts so much require. Such is the evil
and misconception which it is my present object to
prevent or remedy.
Observe, therefore, that Christ is the same to-day
that he was yesterday; the same in heaven that he
was on earth — the unchanged and unchangeable. If
.we wish to know how Christ feels at present, let us
review how he felt eighteen hundred years ago. He
sits on his throne, frowning on all Pharisees of the
present day with the same feeling of indignation
with which his soul was moved against the heartless
pretenders of the generation of old. " That fox,"
was his denunciation of Herod ; and think ye that
Christ is partial, or that he has lost his moral sensi
bility, and that he can contemplate with coolness and
indifference the blood-shedding perpetrated by certain
Continental monarchs which the demon of despotism
has let loose on the world.* " That fox !" There is
a rich sound of gospel, brethren, in these words of
our Lord. They contain assurances for us, that there
is indignation in heaven, burning hot against injustice
* Preached in John Street Church, Glasgow, in 1851.
3/4 SELECTIONS FROM
and oppression, and waiting its time for avenging the
cause of liberty, and redressing the wrongs of an abused
and injured world.
Our more pleasant study, however, is to review the
merciful acting of Christ when he was here in his
humiliation state, that we may learn what he now is
on high in his state of glory. Let the widowed and
childless mother, therefore, reflect that Christ has not
changed from what he was when he took compassion
on the widow of Nain ; let the bereaved father reflect
that he continues possessed of the same heart with
which he entered the house of Jairus ; let those who
are pained with disease reflect that, though in the
altered circumstances his wisdom does not lead him
to act in the same manner in which he showed mercy
to the palsied, and fevered, and leprous, and impotent
of former times, yet is his sympathy for affliction
unabated from what it was when virtue went forth from
him to staunch the bloody issue ; or when he rebuked
the fever, and it was quenched; or when he said to the
sick of the palsy, " Take up thy bed and walk ;" or
said to the leper, " Go, shew thyself to the priest, that
thou art clean." Let the blind, who dwell in darkness,
reflect that they have in him who now reigns in the
land of light a friend, if possible more sympathetic
than he was when he summoned Bartimeus to his
presence to have his eyes gladdened with the shining
of the sun. Let the poor reflect that no change has
passed over the heart of him who had compassion
on the hungry multitude, and spread a table for
them of such abundance in the desert. He has
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 375
not yet forgotten, even after two thousand years of
celestial glory have rolled over him, what were his
own sensations when he was tried with hunger in
the wilderness. The raptures of Paradise have not
effaced the remembrance of it so as to make him
cease to be a High Priest who may sympathise with
poverty.
But O, especially, let the distressed conscience reflect
that at this hour he is as easily moved by the tears of
penitence as when he pronounced his blessing on the
Magdalene. And you who are distressed about a
perverse son or naughty daughter, whence this faltering
of heart in prayer for your child's reformation ? as if
Christ had changed, and could no longer sympathise,
as he did of old, with a parent's sorrow, when he
ejected the demon and gave the father back his son,
sound and in a right mind.
THE MISSIONARY PLEA, ONE OF JUSTICE.
After arguing that Justice demands our labours and
contributions for the Missionary Cause (i) on behalf
of GOD, and (2) on behalf of CHRIST, Dr. Anderson
proceeds to show that it demands also our co-opera
tion on behalf of the HOLY GHOST. He says :—
When some may say that this is very formal pleading,
by the rule of systematic theology, my reply is, that I
would it were also common-place, instead of its sound
ing so strangely in the ears of many when they are
called on to be just in acknowledging the claims of the
Church's Great Advocate. What benefactor is treated
so unjustly as he ? What has he not done for us ? Is
376 SELECTIONS FROM
there any sense of pardon, any sense of acceptance
with God, any peace of conscience, any nobleness of
spirit, any warmth of charity, any fortitude in pros
pect of death, any hope in prospect of eternity, any
joy for the recovery of a prodigal child, any consola
tion over the death of a friend, which has not been
communicated by the Comforter ?
And communicated how? Christ's was the work
of Humiliation and Suffering, and is now the work of
active Superintendence ; in either case, under the com
mission and bestowment of the mercy of his Father.
All this demands our warmest acknowledgment, in
faithful service rendered to both. But, without insti
tuting profane comparisons, I appeal, if the work of the
Holy Ghost be not one of wondrous, merciful self-
denial? By what other term shall any one adequately
characterize it ? Condescension falls far short of the
requirements of the case.
When in eternity He took part in the counsel,
and entered into the mutual covenant of the sacred
Three, for the Redemption of Man — when by His
overshadowing power He effected the incarnation of
the Redeemer (Luke i. 35) — when He inspired with wis
dom, endowed with miraculous power, and sustained
in purity His human nature, communing with it so
intimately and so sympathetically (Isaiah xlii. I ;
John iii. 34; Acts x. 38; Heb. ix. 14) — when He reani
mated Him, and raised Him from the dead (Rom viii.
n) — when He inspired the apostles with the wisdom
which qualified them to be their Master's Heralds
in proclaiming his law to the world (John xx. 22, 23)
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 377
—when, on Pentecost-day, He poured out his gifts
with such profusion, and so largely for an age after
wards, for the establishment and consolidation of
the Church — all this, and more of a like kind, was
work for which, undoubtedly, our acknowledgments
of justice as well as gratitude are due. Neverthe
less, it was work in which He not only beneficently
engaged, but complacently delighted, and, more
especially, that part of it in which He communed
with the mind and heart of our Lord's humanity.
But think of his work now, on oitr hearts — hearts so
ignorant, for enlightening them ; hearts so dull, for
quickening them ; hearts so unclean, for purifying
them ; hearts so perverse, for rectifying them ; hearts
so carnal, for spiritualising them ; hearts so sour and
bitter, for sweetening them with charity; hearts so
fretful, for soothing them with contentment; and hearts
so desponding, for animating them with hope ; and,
notwithstanding all our provocation in neglecting,
quenching, and resisting his admonitions, incitements,
and strivings, ever renewing, unweariedly, his labour
of love. What is self-denial if this be not it in its
highest degree of manifestation, in union with that of
Him who gave forth his Son from his bosom and
down from his throne into the midst of the misery of
this world, that the rebellious might be saved, and
that of Him who having received the commission of
mercy, hastened to execute it ? (Heb. x. 7.)
How, then, shall a quickened, comforted, ennobled —
once debased and despairing — sinner evince that he is
animated by a sense of justice towards the Holy
378 SELECTIONS FROM
Ghost, in making Him a return for his great salvation?
How, but by pleasing him ? And how that, but by
delivering himself up to Him to be employed and
used as an agent, in the cleansing out of this polluted
earth, that it may be made a Temple in which he may
complacently dwell ? (i Cor. vi. 19.) What an offen
sive scene this world, with its mass of abominations of
impiety and immorality, must present to the sight of
the Holy Ghost, when yet it was originally assigned
to Him as a Temple of peculiarly favourite abode !
And after all he has done for yourself, how expectantly
He must wait for an acknowledgment of his benefits
by your helping him to recover it — yes, helping him,
according to the expression of his own word (Judges
v. 23), in the way I have already indicated — delivering
yourself up to Him as an agent, whom He may
employ for the world's regeneration; or, if you cannot
be a missionary yourself, equipping a substitute, or,
in concert with Christian brethren, equipping many
such — a great army of them, whom He may conduct
to the conquest.
Dr. Anderson next enforces with great earnestness
the claims of missions on the Church of Christ ; and
after showing that justice demands our contributions in
the name of the missionaries, and in the name of the
heathen themselves, concludes as follows : —
I have been looking forward with some solicitude to
the manner in which I should conclude this protracted
argument. I hoped I might do it with a felicitation
of the churches. But I find that faithfulness will not
permit me. I commenced with an accusation of the
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 379
unfaithful, the majority yet of professors, and with an
appeal to them I must close. What would the state
of the world have been, had we all acted like you ?
Sixty years ago there were " dark places of the earth,
full of the habitations of cruelty," on which the Sun
of Righteousness now shines with enlivening and
humanizing light; and whence thousands of immortal
spirits have been exhaled by Him up to his empyrean
glory. Nothing, not an iota of it, would have been
effected, had all of us done like you. Oh, You!
sacramentalized communicants, as you are, I would
not like to be one of you. I am sure I would not die
hopefully.
Nay : I may not conclude thus. I turn to you,
brethren, who are faithful. Instead of making the
want, on the part of others, of doing their propor
tion of the work, an apology for relaxing our efforts,
let us, on the contrary, draw from it an argument for
increasing them, that the cause may have some com
pensation for their unfaithfulness, in our augmented
zeal. Let the Divine gratification be our first and
chief concern, and the happiness and salvation of
men the next. But we cannot afford to dispense
with the encouragement of any motive with which
God's word would have us animated. Let us, there
fore, study the promised Reward of Grace — the
principality of ten cities — till our ambition be inflamed.
Yea, there is the superadded eleventh. None of us
envies his neighbour's proffered honours ; but if he
disdainfully reject them, let us eagerly appropriate
them to ourselves.
380 SELECTIONS FROM
CHRIST A MASTER.
Christ, as our Master, is entitled to, and demands of
us, absolute, universal obedience — such as is com
mensurate with our entire being, and the whole
economy of our lives. Subjection to Him in the works
of the hands, the words of the lips, and the cherished
meditations of the heart ; subjection to Him, not
only this Sabbath-day, but to-morrow, and all the
days of the week ; subjection to Him, not only at the
stated hours of devotion, but when you go forth to the
employments of the day; subjection to Him, in the
management of your business as a merchant, or in the
management of your estate as a landlord, or the
management of your farm as a husbandman, or in
your visits as a physician, or your consultations as a
lawyer, or as a citizen in your voting, and all your
political conduct; subjection to Him, in your love;
consulting Him whom you may woo, or whose wooing
you may encourage — His law is very express on the
subject (2 Cor. vi. 14) ; subjection to Him, as a husband
or wife, for which relation he has legislated with most
especial concern (Ephes. v. 22-33; Coloss. iii. 18, 19);
subjection to Him, as a child, in the treatment of
your parent, man or woman though you may be with
a family of your own ; and, not less, subjection to
Him, as a parent, in treating your child with tender
ness, even though a prodigal (Ephes. vi. 1-4; Coloss.
iii. 20, 21 ; Luke xv. 20); subjection to Him, in your
conduct as a servant, and equally as a master (Ephes.
v. 5-9; Coloss. iii. 22-25, arjd iv. i) ; subjection to
Him, in your studies, and reading, and amusements,
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 381
in your eating and drinking (i Cor. x. 31) and dressing
of yourself (i Tim. ii. 9); in one sentence, subjection
to Him, as being commanded by Him, or as having
asked and received his permission, in " whatsoever ye
do in word or deed" (Coloss. iii. 17).
CHRISTIAN HOPE.
The Christian is eminently a man of Hope. In him
the principles of our constitution have full play. Un
believers have no scope for the exercise and gratifi
cation of this noblest faculty of our nature ; but the
field of the Christian is boundless. If he is happy now,
he hopes to be happier ; if rich now, that he will yet be
richer ; if honoured now, that he will yet be advanced
to higher place. And no adversity, howsoever heavy,
howsoever protracted, howsoever remediless, according
to the calculations of other men, can quench this man's,
assurance. Like the father of the faithful, whose son
he is, he hopes against hope. The tyranny of kings,
the rage of the mob, the inclemency of the seasons,
dismay not nor perplex him. Still he hopes : nothing,
but his own sin darkens him ; but he throws off its
incubus by a renewed faith in his Master and again it
is sunshine for him. And at no time is his hope
brighter than when he is just dying, when the perse
cutor's flames are enshrouding him, or when pestilence
freezes his blood.
Come, worldling, and look at thine own death
bed. Come, see thyself dying. The occurrence
is so certain, and must be so near, that it can be
no difficulty for thine imagination, which so easily
382 SELECTIONS FROM
fancies so many vanities, to realise the scene. Spare
us a minute of its imaginings for what so nearly
concerns thee. Well, it is that dark and stormy night,
and we are assembled in the chamber of death — of
thine own death, remember — there is the bed, and it is
thyself who liest on it. Come and see ; it is thyself
dying. There is the termination of all thy hopes —
hopes of wealth, hopes of pleasure, hopes of love,
hopes of honour — that is the end of them all for ever.
Art thou not ashamed of thyself for having managed
matters so wretchedly that this is the result ? and
especially, when turning to that other bed where lies
that Christian neighbour once so despised for his
weakness of mind, but now rejoicing in hope more
triumphantly than ever. O, what thou wouldest give
to be transferred from thine own bed to his ! Well, it
is within thy power. There are a few days yet, I trust,
for thee, before thou shalt die, for learning the
Christian's Hope. Haste thee, and save thyself from
the shame of having managed so ill as to die a hopeles
man.
The believer is not only a man of lively hopes, but
his hope is venerable on account of the greatness and
worth of the objects which it contemplates. For what
does he hope ? All that the worldling hopes for,
which is truly valuable, he hopes for too, and, as we
shall presently see, with a far better foundation for
what he expects. But he has a thousand hopes
additional in which his neighbour has no part. He
hopes that though he die he shall live again. He
hopes for the immediate translation of his spirit at
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 383
death into the bosom of his Redeemer. He hopes
for the resurrection of his body in beauty, power, and
glory. He hopes for the inheritance of a heavenly
country, and for reunion there with his deceased chil
dren and Christian friends, when he and they, close by
the throne of the Eternal Father, shall together con
template his glory, enjoy his smile, and celebrate his
praise. Here there is something to the purpose.
It is not worth while to live with no other hope but
that of the worldling. Think of it calmly — to toil
and sweat for 70 years like a beast of burden, through
such a world as this, and at last to be buried in a
grave without a hope beyond ! Is such an existence
worth having ? I wonder how some of you can con
trive to live. Had I no other hope than yours, I think
I would fling myself down and die for very vexation,
complaining that I had been born in vain. Besides
its unsatisfactoriness, is not such a life the vainest and
most contemptible thing which it is possible to
imagine? But a believer's life, with its hopes and
aims — there is dignity, there is something to be
admired ! It is the embryo of an existence, which
is to be developed amid the glory of that land
where the Godhead shines in the full manifestation
of his love.
\
"EVERY ONE OF YOU."
Mark carefully, brethren, that it follows from the
preceding illustration that no man can attain to the
love of God who does not appropriate the tidings of
the Gospel to himself. It is astonishing that any
384 SELECTIONS FROM
person should be found disputing this, and arguing
that the faith which generates love consists, in the first
instance at least, merely in believing that God is
mercifully disposed to mankind generally — yea not so
much as that, but only to a small proportion of them ;
so that it is only a peradventure that he is mercifully
disposed to yoiirself; yea, a likelihood — if the pro
portion which those who ultimately perish bears to
those who are saved be the rule of calculation — a
strong likelihood (your chance of salvation being so
small) that he has resolved to leave you to the frightful
consequences of your guilt, unpitied and unprovided
for with means of deliverance. Did any man ever
acquire love for God on such principles ? Not one
throughout the whole history of the Church.
All converted men, whatever might be their pro
fessed dogmatical creed, proceeded, at the hour of their
conversion, in the faith that the merciful invitations and
assurances of the gospel were addressed to themselves
with as much individuality of application — each man
being persuaded of it for himself — as if they had in
their own persons constituted the whole of that world
which was saluted with mercy. The fact of the case
is as plain as its metaphysics, or rather, I should say,
its common sense — that though you were to assure me
that God was willing to save unnumbered thousands,
it would not move me to love Him, if you left me to
suspect that he might entertain no goodwill towards
myself ; and I would not be satisfied — indeed I would
not — with your telling me that it was possible He had
provided means of salvation for me among the rest.
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 385
Whatever may be the idiosyncrasy of your heart, mine
is not of such a structure that its love could be evoked
by such a perhaps. No; nor even would a gospel
which went the length of preaching a probability of
merciful intention, if it stopt short at this, leaving such
a dreadful possibility of unpitying anger, satisfy my
demand.
You behoved to give me absolute certainty. You !
Who are a Council of ten thousand of you, either
to give it or refuse it ? Whatever use I may
make of it, I have received it from the Lord ; and
such as he gave it to myself I proclaim it to my
brethren : God, having- raised up his Son Jesus, sent
him to bless you, in turning away EVERY ONE OF
YOU from his iniquities. (Acts iii. 26.) Every one of
you ! was the soul-winning proclamation of Pentecost.
(Acts ii. 38.) And catching its strain, that heaven-
commissioned guide of Pilgrims went on his way pro
claiming Every one of you ! and was blest with
apostolical success. " I shut out never a one of you,"
he cried, " for I am commanded by my Lord to deal
with you one by one, by this word of his salvation."*
SEEING JESUS.
Stand aside, O man, for a little, and if it be
possible for any one to act the part of a disinter
ested spectator, behold yet another work of Him who
is wondrous in mercy. See, One has arrived amid
the desolation, on a mission of recovery! Through
* Banyan's Sermon to Jerusalem Sinners — his favourite and, accord
ing to his own testimony, his most fruitful discourse.
2 B
386 SELECTIONS FROM
his pilgrimage of poverty and persecution, see the
incarnate Redeemer wend his weary way, burdened
with the world's guilt, till, having arrived at the Cross,
he expires under its load ! Watch, and see him rise
from the grave, and ascend to a seat of royal power, by
the right hand of the Majesty of heaven ! See what
gifts he dispenses abroad, which he has gained for the
rebellious ; and how he employs these afflictions, which
you lately deplored, for securing the most salutary
ends in the moral improvement of his saints ! And
hear with what words of encouragement he salutes
them, promising that he will speedily return for
the complete redress of all their grievances ; when,
in that kingdom which he is preparing for them,
he will advance them to a condition even more
glorious than that which, by their rebellion, they had
forfeited !
Whose gift, I ask, is that Lamb of Sacrifice ? And
of whose anointing is this king, so mighty to save ?
Glory be to th£ SON of God ! But the more that his
salvation is displayed, the higher let our admiration
rise of his Father, who gave him. Greater love for
the befriended objects of a merciful enterprise might
be shown by a Father who surrenders his Son than that
which is shown on the part of a Son who endures the
suffering for them, inasmuch as the Son might be
influenced more by filial respect to his Father's will
than by compassion for those whom he delivers ; but,
in the present instance, let there be no invidious com
parison, in order to any profane preference. Let both
be praised with equal fervour.
DE. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 387
THE CLAIMS OF CHILDREN.
" Suffer little children to come unto Me.'' — Luke xviii. 16.
In this sermon on children Dr. Anderson remarks
that, The education of children is both more agreeable
and profitable to the teacher himself. Passing over a
number of considerations illustrative of this point, which
will immediately present themselves to every reflective
mind, I fix on one which, though not so obvious at
first view as some others, is yet the most important of
all. Not only is there usually much of the bitterness
of debate and controversy in dealing with aged sinners,
marring your enjoyment of the truth, but there is a
temptation to compromise the faith by reducing the
grandeur of its miracles and mysteries in accommoda
tion to their prejudices and scepticism, a process
which cannot fail of impairing your own belief,
whereas among children you can breathe freely of all
the wonders of Revelation. The more you display
and magnify these wonders, the more are they
charmed ; and your own faith is cherished in the
midst of their admiring sympathy.
And then, speak as affectionately and rapturously
as you may of the love of the Redeemer — give
the freest utterance to your admiration of Him —
there is no danger to be apprehended from them
that they will either suspect you of hypocrisy or
mock at you for the weakness and effeminacy of
your heart. Let the ministers of the gospel bear
witness how the injury which not only their feelings
but their faith sustains in debating points of doctrine
before the congregation of full-grown men is all
3$8 SELECTIONS FROM
repaired at the children's class — that happy asylum
of warm devotion, and ingenuous unsophisticated
belief. So important is this, that, independently of
all other considerations of duty, it is the counsel of
wisdom to that father whose sons and daughters have
grown so tall that they think they have a right to
doubt and be critical, to collect around him a Sabbath
evening's little company of the children of others, and
renew the feelings of those happy days when, his own
children being infants, he roamed through Paradise
with them — built for them the Ark — led them through
the Red Sea — smote with his rod the rock at Horeb,
and refreshed them with its water — disclosed to them
the Holy Child in the manger — placed them in the
arms of the Saviour of infants, when He cried " Suffer
the little children to come unto Me" — took them to
see the sight at the grave of Lazarus — conducted them
to the Cross to weep with him for the Lamb of God —
caused them to watch with him at the Sepulchre till
the First day should dawn, to hail the Resurrection
of the Conquerer of Death — and then led them out as
far as Bethany to see his Ascension, and receive his
benediction.
Let that man say who, he thinks, was the party that
received the benediction most richly, in strengthened
faith, and in a delighted and sanctified mind — the
teacher, or the taught — the father, or the children.
Yea, let there be no invidious comparison : felicitate,
in a group, the Holy Family; though I had nearly
preferred the parents to the richer profiting — the
parents, I say ; for the mother was always there ;
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 389
not critical she, nor feared by her husband lest she
should mock at his ardour, but rather increasing the
excitement by her own fervent remark.
AN APPEAL FOR INSTANT DECISION.
" Lord, I believe ; help them mine unbelief." — Mark ix. 24.
There are those who are entirely devoid of the
religious principle; who are living without God ; who,
through the force of educational habits, or respect
to the feelings of friends, or prudent regard to cha
racter and success in business, perhaps observe some
of the forms of religion, attend the church, have their
children baptised, and take seats at the communion
table, but who all the time have not one serious
thought of God, much less an affectionate one of Jesus
Christ. In the whole management of their lives there
is not one thing they ever do, just because God requires
it, or because they are possessed of immortal souls, for
whose well-being it is necessary to make provision.
The existence of God, his government and law, a future
state of rewards and punishments, salvation, eternity,
furnish them with no motives of action. Their conduct
would have been precisely what it is though they had
never heard of such things. Or if they have been
restrained from perpetrating certain crimes from some
thought of God rising up in their minds, it has only
been as when a child is alarmed in the dark by the
fancies of a nursery tale. Regard to character, wealth,
office, the feelings of a parent, the interests of children
or of a political party, are motives which they can com
prehend, and to which they are in some instances
390 SELECTIONS FROM
sensitively alive ; but to regard God — to act because
He commands and approves, to refrain because He
prohibits and threatens, to be thankful to Him in the
day of prosperity, or to have recourse to Him for help
in the day of adversity — this is a state of mind of which
they have no experience or even conception, and they
wonder if it be true that there is any sensible man who
takes thoughts of a God so seriously to heart as to be
either controlled by his fear or animated by his love.
If there are any of this class present (and I wish it
were uncharitable to suppose there are), I seriously
ask them, What do they mean ? This I know with
certainty, that if they have no design to change their
manner of life, it cannot be because they are sufficiently
happy already : for so has the Creator formed the
capacity of the soul of man, that nothing but a sense
of his own favour will fill it ; and without God there
must be a craving void of the heart which makes it
at least an uneasy, restless, dissatisfied life. Besides,
so does God administer his providence, that He will
not permit any man to be happy who lives in neglect
of Him and despitefulness of his glory. What, then,
do they mean ? It surely cannot be that there is any
one present reduced intellectually and morally so low
as to question the existence of a personal "living"
God, or that his government makes a distinction be
twixt virtue and vice, or that there is either any
accountability or immortality for man.
Well, what do they mean ? It can only be be
cause they are deluding themselves with fool's day
that they do not presently change their mode of
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 391
living — calculating on to-morrow which they may
never see, or which, should they see it, will pro
bably bring with it stronger apologies than ever for
remaining a little longer the slaves of the world,
and deferring the great work of salvation for eter
nity. Even though it were assured of a prolonged
life, and of gaining repentance, faith, and acceptance
at its close, how base it is that a soul made and sus
tained by God should reason after this manner : that
to reverence and worship Him is a task so irksome and
oppressive, and that it finds so many other objects for
engaging it more pleasantly, that it will defer to as
great a distance as possible the performance of the
disagreeable duty — that it will not torment itself with
religion before the time. O ! think of that : to have
a heart within thy bosom which feels towards its
Creator that the worship of Him is a bondage. How
near thou art to eternal ruin! What if thy soul be
required of thee this night in such a state of despiteful-
ness against thy Judge ? Could any charity of friends
imagine else of thee than that thou wert for ever lost ?
Haste thee, and repent ! Even now lift up thy heart
in holy resolution, that thou shalt be done with all this
mad ungodliness. To delay even till the shades of
evening have closed around, when you will have oppor
tunity to take your resolution with greater deliberation,
would be dangerous tampering with the claims of the
divine law. As a general rule, deliberation is wise and
dutiful; but it needs no deliberation for a man to resolve
that he shall cease to defy and dishonour God. To
deliberate here is another act of despite and defiance.
392 SELECTIONS FROM
Is it possible there can be any one present saying to
himself, " I must beware of rashness, and I will take
time to think about it, before I commit myself and
avow myself a servant of God." O, even now, re
nounce the servitude of the wicked one, and declare
for God. Whatever may be the particulars of the
creed which you will afterwards adopt, let this at least
be presently fixed and determined, that henceforth you
will be a religious man, fearing God and serving Him
with a devout heart. What ? Take time to deliberate
till eleven or twelve of this night whether or not you
will put an end to this rebellious controversy with your
Creator and Judge ! O, the long-suffering of God,
that He should not presently avenge Himself on thee
for thy halting ! That long-suffering may be nearly
exhausted. Say it at once to thyself, with the whole
energy of thy heart, that henceforth God will have thee
for a servant. Say it just now, and remind thyself
when thou hast gone home, that thou hast vowed with
a resolution so deep and strong that it can never be
revoked ; and instead of grudging that you should be
pressed to do it so soon and so precipitately, let it be
with a grateful heart you bless God that, after having
provoked Him so long, He gives you an opportunity of
being reconciled to Him. . . . Well, is it done ? Is
there one heart left which has not submitted to God ?
If there is, what a process of hardening that heart must
at this moment be undergoing, as it refuses to confess
the Lord, when all the rest of us around acknowledges
Him adoringly. O that God may have mercy on
that heart, and soften it too !
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 393
But I may not stop with my demand here. Besides
at once giving up the controversy and submitting to
God in a general way, who of you will crave time to
deliberate whether or not you will surrender yourself to
his Son ? Crave time, if you feel you need it, for
deciding on such questions as the proper mode of
church government — the mode and subjects of baptism
— the absolute or conditional nature of the Divine
decrees — and the terms and nature of the millennial
kingdom. Ask hours — yea, years — for determining on
such matters, and they will not be refused you. But
O, who dare give an hour's time to deliberate whether
a man shall confess and receive the Anointed of the
Father ? Who of you wishes time to deliberate
whether he shall answer for his sins himself or com
mend his cause to the Advocacy of the Church's High
Priest ? Not less promptly than thou confessest God,
confess his Son, and, in dependence on the strengthen
ing grace of God's Spirit, consecrate thyself to Them
even now in the seat whereon thou sittest. Say it
within thy heart — say it with energy — " God and his
Son take the power of me for ever!" and for ever thou
shalt be saved. You may go home and die to-night
now, if the Lord will ; and if it be his will, that death
will be a favour, for He who wills it is now your
Friend.
Christian brethren, whatever others may do, let us
take advantage of this appeal to those who have
hitherto been careless and unbelieving, for the renew
ing of our own covenant as we thus express ourselves,
" Lord Jesus, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the
394 SELECTIONS FROM
words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure
that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."
DR. ANDERSON'S ADDRESS AT THE LAST COMMUNION
IN OLD JOHN STREET CHURCH, IN 1858.
After reading Psalm cxxxvii., and referring to the
Jewish theocracy, to the devout Jew, and to Jerusalem
as the metropolis of the kingdom, Dr. Anderson said —
Though the second coming of our Lord shall restore
this state of matters as the universal rule, when all the
kingdoms of the world shall be made one, and that
one administered by Himself, when he appears with
his many crowns, yet, at his first coming, the Jewish
theocracy, by which even the spiritual kingdom of God
was limited to one nation, was removed and abolished
in order to the extension of that spiritual kingdom
among all the nationalities of the world. Under the
present dispensation there is no earthly territory which
is peculiarly his kingdom — no earthly nation which
is peculiarly his people — no earthly city which is
peculiarly the capital of his empire, and no edifice of
wood or stone which is peculiarly his palace, as was
the temple of Jerusalem. His subjects are at present
scattered among all the nations of the earth, under the
domination of earthly princes ; and the seat of his
government is in the Heavens — that new Jerusalem
which, when the kingdom comes, will descend from
heaven ; but until the descent of which there shall be
no visible temple of God on earth — no place — no
building more sacred than another.
There may be much, however, that is sacred
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 395,
connected with a building which makes the leaving of it
or the destroying of it a sad and solemn event, though
there be no sacredness in itself. And when this
pulpit has been used these seven and thirty years, never
for an end of self-glorification, you will excuse me,
brethren, I am sure, as I am about to bid it farewell for
ever, when I make my first reflection one on my own
history. Very few ngw remain to remember the events,,
and the rest of you can have had them reported
but imperfectly. How sorely tried my youth was (I am
not saying persecuted) by ecclesiastical power ! But
these walls furnished me with an asylum from the
storm ; and after the storm had blown over, they
proved a home in which I was indulged, and cherished
in a freedom of thought and a freedom of speech
which would not have been tolerated, I am well per
suaded, anywhere in all Scotland besides. How can
I bid farewell to such hospitable walls without strong
emotion — and yet, why speak of the walls ? It has
been your hearts, brethren, and the hearts of your
fathers and mothers, and not less your mothers, who
have gone before, that furnished the hospitality. My
warmest thanks to you, and yet it has not been all
generosity on your part. Towards our Lord I have
much to confess of lack of zeal and ill-discharged
duty. But towards you, brethren, in the case as
between man and man, I call these walls to witness,
and I have many witnesses besides, that in good pro
portion to the warmth of your love has been the
abundance of my labours, and that we are at quits
through the balancing of mutual obligations.
396 SELECTIONS FROM
The important question now presses, what has been
our profiting by all this long course of the bounty of
a peculiarly gracious providence. My profiting intel
lectually has been great. Through the scope which
your indulgence — yea, your cherishing — gave to that
freedom of thought to which I have already referred,
anything which I had of native constitutional power
grew up in vigour, instead of being dwarfed, as I know
it to have been in the cases of many brethren, by the
fear of offending the prejudices, or the positive restric
tions of narrow-minded sessions and churches. Spi
ritually my profiting has been greater. With a mind
constituted for independency of thought, had there
been any temptation to scepticism, or swerving from
evangelical faith, it would have been restrained and
checked by the piety of this church; but there was no
s uch tendency, and my love for the Gospel and con
fidence in its power were cherished by witnessing its
power as manifested among you.
Your profiting, brethren, has also been great. My
review of these seven-and-thirty years rebukes me
this day for the unqualified manner in which I have
frequently taken up the lamentation, "Who hath
believed our report ? " — rebukes me at once for the
discredit thereby done to the Spirit of God and the
faithfulness of Christian brethren. No, indeed, it was
not in vain that these walls were erected — not in vain
for contributing a large quota to the assembly of the
redeemed. When I think of the multitude of letters
I have received, the innumerable conversations and
death-bed testimonies to the advantages derived from
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 397
the services of this House of Prayer, and the exercises
of that sanctuary of our church — the vestry; and when
I read the memoirs of some eminent men containing
their diaries of cases of conversion under their ministry,
and triumphant death-beds as the result, I sometimes
exclaim to myself, " Is that the whole or the best ? "
Had I kept a diary too, what a book it would have
made !
Brethren, that roof is to be stripped off — these walls
are to be overturned — these pillars are to be cast down
— these pews are to be broken up — the vestry is to-
be desolated — this pulpit and that communion table
are at least to be removed out of public view, but
throughout Scotland — in England and Ireland — in
America widely — in Australia also widely — in various
parts of the Continent of Europe — in one heart — at
least in Caffreland — Tiyo Soga's — their pictures will
continue clear in memory, to be contemplated at once
with thankfulness to God and sadness because of their
distance from their dear Jerusalem. But that is
nothing compared with the multitude of those who
will assemble under the Tree of Life on the banks of
its river to glorify these old walls and the adjoining
vestry as being the scene of their nativity, and the
nursery of their spiritual training — when many of you,
brethren, will be taken up with the new Love ; and
to that I will have no objections. She will be the
daughter, in honouring whom you will be honouring
the mother.
Brethren, reflect that our sorrow is caused by our
prosperity. But for the prosperity of the old we would
398 SELECTIONS FROM
not have been able to supplant it with the new. Let
me therefore change the key for a song of hope.
More comfortable accommodation for Sabbath! and
0, these nursery rooms for youth, satisfying the
greediest desire of the heart ! A harmonised church !
An active, intelligent, public-spirited management!
A rarely-equalled overseership of Elders, and the
two brother-colleagues in the Pastorship — the older
fit for some work yet, the younger now fully approved
to be able for it all himself. Was there ever a case more
hopeful ? And yet, " Except the Lord do build the
house, the builders lose their pain." But for His
blessing all our expectations will be frustrated. When
it is therefore with devout thanksgiving for the course
of long experienced mercy that we depart from our
Old Tabernacle, let it be with as devout a committing
of our hope for its fulfilment to the Lord, that we
wait for returning joyfully to the old site with the
improved edifice.
THE LATE MR. JAMES ROBERTON, ELDER.*
At the close of a sermon preached in John Street
Church, in November, 1868, from the words in John
1. 47 — "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no
guile !" — on the occasion of the death of Mr. James
Roberton, Dr. Anderson spoke as follows : —
I proceed to use the illustration of Nathanael's
character for a commemorative illustration of the
* It may be mentioned that Mr. Roberton was the oldest member
of John Street Session, and that this was the last funeral sermon
preached by Dr. Anderson.
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 399
excellences of our friend, but I must do so with brevity.
In the first instance, however, I remark, I have no
knowledge of what were Nathanael's constitutional or
natural properties, with which I may compare those of
our friend. These constitutional properties, or those
which are innate, those with which we are born, are of
great consequence; and in this respect Mr. Roberton
was highly gifted. Intellectually he was sharply per
ceptive of the state of any matter on which he was
called to judge, and cautious in forming his opinion.
In temperament he was ardent but not impulsive, not
easily excited, seldom what you could call passionate ;
in sentiment he was warmly compassionate, largely
charitable, and as devoid of selfishness as any one I
ever knew. Though he was forward and firm in
expressing his opinion, there was not in his character
a shade of vanity. I finally observe here that he was
warmly companionative ; and though solid in his cha
racter, with nothing frivolous in his intercourse with his
friends, he was not pretentiously grave, but enjoyed the
innocent jokes of others, and was at times felicitous in
making a humorous one himself.
Such he was constitutionally by nature, but it was
all sanctified, and confirmed, and improved, and ele
vated by grace. This induces the comparison with
Nathanael. So far as the matter of Israelitish prayer-
fulness is concerned, I have no opportunity for making
the comparison very particular. But from what I
know, not only from our friend's love of the house of
prayer and its ordinances, but from his solemnly
uttered sentiments in private conversation, I am well
400 SELECTIONS FROM
persuaded that there must have been many scenes in
his life of which the Lord might say the like of that
which he said of Nathanael, " When thou wast under
the fig-tree." And this I know for a certainty, that
there are few men indeed whose religious opinions were
so little taken up and professionally put on according
to the common mode and popular course of Christian
belief. He was very decidedly a Protestant in the
exercise of private judgment. All he professed to
believe he had studied and pondered, and was, from
personal examination, convinced of its being the truth
of God.
As for his guilelessness in social life, his integrity, his
truthfulness, his universal honourableness of character,
were I to begin to sketch it, I could not well proceed
without just repeating what I have said of Nathanael —
with the addition, however, remember, of that com
passion and liberal charity in his attentions to the
poor for which I did not find an opportunity, from
anything the Scripture records, for celebrating the
memory of Nathanael.
In evidence that I have rather underrated than
over-estimated the excellences of the deceased, I might
appeal, were they present, to all those who had dealings
with him in business, to all whom he employed as
workmen, to all with whom he was conjoined in muni
cipal office, to all with whom he was associated in
committees of various institutions of benevolence and
education : as it is, I appeal to those who are pre
sent — to the brethren of the Session especially ; but
also to all who were accustomed to attend our church
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 401
meetings. What a confidence he was for his patriotic
interest in its welfare and honour, the wisdom of his
counsel, and his peace-making and peace-preserving
brotherliness.
In conclusion, brethren, though for his children and
more intimate acquaintance it is a time of pain, from
the wrenching of the ties of a long-established friend
ship, yet is it less a time for sorrowing than for thanks
giving ; there is little in it comparatively of the pain
of hopes ctit off, which in many cases are the chief im-
bitterment of death. From failing strength and the
increasing burden of old age, we had little more to expect
from him. We have reaped the harvest of his excel
lence. He had long and faithfully served his generation.
So that our principal feeling should be thanksgiving for
the great profit and advantage which we have gained
from him as an agent of the Lord for our help and bless
ing; at the same time thankful that we have been spared
the affliction of witnessing those scenes of the imbecility
of dotage which it is so painful to witness in one whom
we once admired and respected. Nor is our reason for
thanksgiving little, that we were saved the pain of
witnessing in him the protracted troubles of a death
bed, when he so gently fell asleep, and entered into
that rest which remaineth for the people of God — ta
wait in secure and happy repose for the Resurrection
of the Just.
2 C
402 SELECTIONS FROM
DR. ANDERSON ON THE DEATH OF HIS
SECOND SON "WILLIE."
The following are two brief extracts from the
Pastoral Letter of Dr. Anderson, addressed to John
Street Church, on the death of his only surviving son,
dated July 25, 1868:—
If my pastoral life, both public and private, has
been pre-eminently characterised by one feature, it
has been the manner in which I have endeavoured,
with the help of the Great Comforter, to assuage the
grief of bereaved parents. And nothing can be more
legitimate than your expectation, if not your demand,
that I give you some information of the manner in
which my own experience may be bearing the test of
my exhortation of others, or rather the manner in
which my exhortation of others may be bearing the
test of my own experience — if I feel, now that I
myself am tried, that these exhortations were a
suitable and effective medicine or cordial. Observe,
then, that I never attempted to cure any of you of
shedding of tears copiously, and sighing deeply, and
uttering expressions of lamentation, provided they
were not violent. On the contrary, I have not seldom
rebuked the attempt to suppress such natural relief
of the heart, when some might foolishly make the
attempt, in fear of being thought weak-minded or
deficient of faith. How foolish, indeed, when Jesus
wept, not only in sympathy with others, but under the
pressure of his own sorrows ! It is not, therefore, with
any feeling of making a humble confession, as if I
were not following my own prescriptions, that I tell
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 403
my friends that I am deeply afflicted — always sad,
and at times overwhelmed with great gushes of grief.
As for death-bed evidence, what could any one
expect from a death-bed like his ? Had it been one
of ordinary pain and declining strength, I am per
suaded we would have had from him a rich flow of
Christian sentiment. But his disease was cerebral,
after an attack of measles. There were seven days of
it. The last four he was insensible and unconscious.
The first two were a season of excruciating pain, when
such exclamations as " Lord Jesus, have mercy on
me!" were nearly as much as the short intervals of
respite permitted. On the third there was an abate
ment of the agony, and we took advantage of the
opportunity to signify to him that we thought he was
dying, and that the Lord was about to take him to
Himself. "Will He accept of me?" he said. The
shade of doubt was immediately dispelled by the
remonstrance, " William, can you doubt your brother
Jesus ? " To such questions as, " Will you not cry
out joyfully, 'Worthy is the Lamb,' when you see
Christ in his glory ? " he answered yes, with emphasis.
The farewell kiss of each of us, till we should meet
again in heaven, he returned with as much impress
ment as his weakness could afford. But nature and
his honesty must have their expression. In bidding
his mother farewell, " I am sorry, sorry for you,
mamma," he said ; and then with great importunacy
he exclaimed, " Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, and
spare me to mamma, and make me good !"
404 SELECTIONS FROM
Not long after the farewell scene he sunk into the
comatose state of insensibility, out of which there were
for the first day only a few momentary glimpses of
consciousness, then he gradually declined, till he gently
expired. But our assurance of his salvation rests but
little on such evidence: it rests on the whole course of
his life. If we are not permitted, without the misgiving
of a doubt, to trust that his emancipated spirit has
ascended to repose in peace and security, in the
keeping of that Jesus whose name he cherished with
affection, till the day of the manifestation of the sons
of God — of whose salvation shall we be certain ? I
know not the other, either old or young.
RE-UNION OF CHRISTIAN FRIENDS IN THE
HEAVENLY KINGDOM.
" I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them
which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others who have no
hope." — I Thess. iv. 13.
There are a number of special intimations of the
mutual recognition and renewal of friendly intercourse
for which we contend. On the Mount of Transfigura
tion, where a representation was made in miniature of
the heavenly kingdom, the disciples were taught to
distinguish Moses and Elias. (Matt. xvii. 3). — The
Apostle Paul expressed his hope that he would receive
those who had been converted by his instrumentality
as a "crown of rejoicing" at the coming of Christ,
which necessarily implies that he and they shall
recognise one another in that day. (i Thess. ii. 19.)
The passage quoted at the commencement of this
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 405
discourse appears to be insufficiently interpreted, when
it is understood as containing merely a remonstrance
against any fear, on the part of the saints at Thessa-
lonica, that their deceased friends had perished ; the
full meaning of it is, that they were to beware of
sorrowing as if those friends were for ever lost to them,
which virtually they would have been, if saints who
have been mutual friends on earth shall be unable to
distinguish one another in the host of the redeemed.
Even the rigid Dr. Macknight takes this view of the
passage. And another, who is as little liable to the
imputation of fancifulness, Dr. Paley, remarks on the
parallel passage, Coloss. i. 28 — " By this I understand
St. Paul to express his hope and prayer that, at the
general judgment of the world, he might present the
fruits of his ministry, the converts whom he had made
to his faith and religion, and might present them
perfect in every good work ; and if this be rightly
interpreted, then it affords a manifest and necessary
inference, that the saints in a future life will meet and
be known again to each other ; for how, without know
ing his converts in their new and glorified state, could
St. Paul desire or expect to present them at the last
day ?" — There are a number of other passages which
it is customary to adduce for the establishment of this
point ;* but the truth is, that, without insisting on it
with much speciality, the Scriptures assume it as one
which all will naturally and necessarily infer, who re
ceive the doctrines of Immortality and the Resurrection.
* See Matt. viii. II, Luke xiii. 28, Luke xvi. 9, 2 Sam. xii. 23,
Matt. xxv. 40.
/J06 SELECTIONS FROM
Though there were nothing else, the saints could
not communicate together on their earthly histories
without being revealed to one another, as having been
fellow-actors in the same scenes, or cognisant of one
another's conduct and secrets. I therefore dismiss the
subject as one which will not admit of a doubt.
We are now prepared for the few details of the
fellowship in Immortality of which I recently spoke.
I remark, first of all, that to a great extent it shall
be of z. family nature. At least, I hope it will. It is
at home the pleasures are sweetest by which we are
attracted to one another, and the dangers most threat
ening which make us press to one another's sides. Its
loves descend deepest into our natures, and take the
widest possession of them. I speak, of course, of the
home of piety, for the inmates of it alone are concerned
in the communion of the Paradise of God. And I
again appeal, brethren, to the best feelings of your
hearts, if you will patiently endure any man when,
affecting airs of philosophy, he will begin to say that
all this peculiar interest in home is a feature of our
present infant-like and imperfect condition, which will
disappear when we have attained to the manhood of
our nature. How abhorrent it is to a well-ordered
mind to suppose that there shall ever come a time
when a man shall be so divested of some of the
principal ornaments of earthly virtue that he shall
look on the person who, in the first scenes of his exis
tence, was his father or mother, his brother or sister, his
spouse or his child, with no feeling warmer than that
with which he looks on any one who was entirely a
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 407
stranger ! No, brethren, the Fifth commandment, with
all the domestic virtues in its train, shall follow us into
the kingdom, and continue a part of its holy and lovely
administration.
I would willingly indulge my imagination here, but
must content myself with selecting a very few cases
for contemplation. 'How many parents there are who
have almost entirely forgotten those of their children
who died in infancy, and who, being inquired at
about the number of their family, will, so unlike that
sweet faithful child who so resolutely maintained "we
are seven,"* give account only of those who live
— the least worthy of being reckoned ! Faithless
father and mother that you are ! Amid all your
rapture, how ashamed you will be of your forgetful-
ness, when those neglected ones are restored to you,
so beautiful and glorious ; and especially when, under
that angel-guidance, they hasten with such excitement
to meet with those of whom they are told that, under
the Creator, they were the authors of their existence !
Nor will it be with little excitement that they hasten to
meet you, their brothers and sisters, with whom they
may associate and worship, as being more of their own
nature than any others to be found in all the king
dom. The whole of you — brothers and sisters, as well
as parents — meditate on them; the thought is most
sanctifying ; it endears the Redeemer with peculiar
* " But they are dead ; those two are dead !
Their spirits are in heaven !"
'Twas throwing words away ; for still
The little maid would have her will,
And said — " Nay, we are seven." — Wordsworth.
408 SELECTIONS FROM
attraction to a tender heart ; and, remember, there are
no hearts great which are not tender.
But I invite meditation especially to the meeting
with that member of the family who was withdrawn
from the circle in adult years, eager to learn how it
afterwards fared with the rest. What a tale of interest
the widow will have for her husband, when she presents
him with their children, whom at his departure he
committed so anxiously to her care — all safe through
fears, and difficulties, and dangers ! Will there be
many scenes, I wonder, of such entire salvation ?
I cannot surely be regarded by any one as enlarging
illegitimately the scope of discourse, when, in en
deavouring to communicate some conception of our
fellowship in the kingdom of immortality with those
who were formerly our friends, I notice the Patriarchs,
the Prophets, and Apostles, whose memory is
enshrined so sacredly in the hearts of all who love
the Word of God. Our primogenitors, though the first
to sin, were equally, we have reason for trusting, the
first to believe. With what filial reverence they will
be regarded as they walk forth amid their redeemed
race ! and with what interest we will listen to their
account of the original Paradise, of the particulars of
the Temptation, and of all the circumstances of the
first revelation of the Great Redeemer ! Abel will be
there, most surely ; not in his blood claiming the
sympathy of our tears, but with a crown of peculiar
splendour, to be hailed with our congratulations.
When the two opposed hosts expected, with so much
concern, who should gain the first spirit as an earnest
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 409
of future victory, Abel decided it for heaven. Loud
was the shout of angels then ; and through all the ages
of immortality, as the first-fruits of the Redeemer's
conquest, he will continue an object of special interest
to the saints. The Righteous Abel will be their title
for his nobility. Seth and Enoch will supply our lack
of traditions, and histories, and monuments of the
Antediluvian age ; and Noah will continue an impres
sive preacher of righteousness when he details the
circumstances of the Deluge, and how securely he and
his were preserved amid its desolation, as a seed for
the renewal of our race, and in whom, as another
Adam, our own ancestry is to be found.
Abraham, the father of the faithful ! See how they
crowd around him ! And Isaac, the heir of promise !
And patriarchal Jacob! — those old friends of the
Christian's spirit, with whom we all feel as if we had
been once acquainted. To see them ! To converse
with them ! To be acknowledged by them as their
children in the faith ! To enjoy their hospitality, in
whatever it may consist ; for that there is hospitality
there we may not question. (Luke xvi. 9.) And
fraternal Joseph ! Who of us does not feel as if he
himself has a brother to meet with in Joseph ! And
Moses ! the venerable lawgiver of Israel ; his face now
shining unveiled with increased splendour; yet with
all his glory still so " meek," and free with his com
panionship for the lowliest among us. And Samuel !
that favourite of our childhood. And Elijah ! his holy
countenance no more discomposed with the sight of
idolatry, but so satisfied with us all for the fervour of
410 SELECTIONS FROM
our worship. Lo ! David, with his crown and harp !
Sweet and triumphant are the Psalms which he has
furnished the Church for her song as she advances
through the wilderness ; but it will be an instrument
of richer string with which he will then lead the choir
of the redeemed.
The Voice of one crying throughout Paradise ! Re
joice, for the kingdom of God has come — its glory
shines ! And his raiment is of fine linen, and his food
of the Tree of Life. And we shall sometimes be away
with our friends to enjoy the eloquence of Peter, no
longer, as on Pentecost-day, inculcating repentance, but
exciting gratitude for the abounding felicity. And
sometimes we shall be away to enjoy the divine philo
sophy of Paul, as he discourses on the attributes and
ways of the Eternal One, who shall never, indeed, be
fully comprehended, even in that land of light ; but we
shall always be progressing in the knowledge of his
perfections. And not less shall we frequently visit at
yonder beaming watch-tower, on the highest eminence
of the new Jerusalem, where sit Isaiah, and Jeremiah,
and Ezekiel, and Daniel, and John, with all, the rest of
their brethren the Prophets, prophesying still, not any
longer of captivities, and earthquakes, and bloody
revolutions, and thrones set for judgment, but of
advancing dispensations of glory for the saints.
Time fails me, brethren, to make mention of many
of our old friends whom the Scriptures have intro
duced to us; but who are these so peculiarly fair,
and especially she, who walks so queen-like at their
head ? It is the mother of our Lord ! And these two
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 411
on each side, exulting in their daughter's honour, are
our first mother and Sarah ; and those that follow are
Elizabeth, and Hannah, and Mary Magdalene, and
the mother of David, and Rebecca, and Salome, and
Ruth, and Rachel and Leah, and Mary Cleophas, and
Mary the mother of Mark, and Joanna, and Susannah,
and Priscilla, and Lydia, and Miriam, and Eunice and
Lois, and she who is addressed in the Gospel as the
Elect Lady. Holy and beautiful ! They are on their
way to visit the sisters at yonder bower, which has
been erected in Paradise as a memorial of the cottage
of Bethany. Thither the King often resorts. Let us
join the company : all faithful ones are welcome.
Now, mocker ! you who sneer at these sentimental
fancies — let us hear what kind of Immortality your
wisdom calculates on, and whom you expect for your
companions. Let us hear. I knew it : you have no-
hope at all. Your dastardly wish is, that death may
annihilate you ; and it was a mere hypocritical affecta
tion of feeling when, for the display of a little scholar
ship, you were lately telling us how touchingly Cicero
discoursed about the Elder Cato's expectation of
meeting with his son ; and how beautifully Socrates,
with the poison-bowl in his hand, expressed his hope of
meeting with Homer and Ulysses. Or, is it because the
prospect of meeting with heathens has not the disgust
in it for you which is in the prospect of meeting with the
saints of God ? O, man ! if I could tell you with what
feelings of pity and scorn commingled I regard you !
Christian brethren, having attempted by these illus
trations to put your reflections in a proper train, I must
412 SELECTIONS FROM
leave you to pursue for yourselves the imagination of
the felicity which we shall enjoy in fellowship with the
noble company of martyrs — with the apostolic Reform
ers — with the authors of books which have edified us
— with our missionary brethren who have died in savage
lands when engaged in our work — with their converts
of whom we have read, and whom we know by name,
and in whom we feel the interest which parents ieel for
their children — with saints whose memoirs have made
us familiar with them as if we had lived with them —
with our fellow-church members — with all those fellow-
christians with whom we personally associate in con
tending for the common faith, or with whom we
correspond, or of whom we hear, so that we reckon
them among our friends, when we are assured that they
zealously maintain our principles. Face to face we
shall yet see them all in the kingdom of God, and it
is perhaps as well, both for them and us, that we do
not personally meet till our characters be purified and
perfected.
So extensive, brethren, does the heavenly com
munion grow as we meditate on it, that, even though
no new friendships were contracted, the cultivation
and cherishing of the old might appear sufficient to
engross all our time for social intercourse — when
yet, as made kings and priests to God, our other
exercises, and duties, and enjoyments shall be so
numerous. But, independently of many of these
duties and exercises falling to be socially discharged,
eternity is long, and will afford ample scope for every
employment and every gratification.
DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS. 413
In conclusion, I remark that consolatory, and, if
properly conducted, very profitable though such medi
tations be, on the present happiness of departed friends,
and re-union with them in the heavenly kingdom, yet
is there some danger in indulging the prospect, against
which there is need for warning. Are there not many
for whom the principal, if not only, attraction of that
kingdom is the company of their restored friends, and
especially of their children ? so that their meditations
cherish rather a kind of idolatry than genuine piety.
The psalmist said of God, " There is none upon earth
that I desire beside Thee," speaking, evidently, com
paratively. This is a subject of familiar illustration.
But Asaph said something before that, " Whom have
I in heaven but Thee ? " Ah, let the bereaved mother
be admonished. If the vision of the child in heaven
be more frequent, and more endeared to her heart than
the vision of the child's Saviour — and much more, if
the vision of the former so engross her heart as to
exclude the vision of the latter altogether — I must
assure her that such heavenly-mindedness will not
promote that re-union on which her hope is fixed.
Her first object of admiring contemplation in heaven
must be her own Saviour ; and her great hope must
be meeting with Him, and seeing Him as he is,
before any meditation on her deceased child's state
and prospects be of a sanctifying character. I would
speak tenderly when it is a bereaved mother's heart
which is being dealt with ; but would it be genuine
tenderness if it wanted faithfulness? Hope first in
Christ for yourself, to pardon and sanctify you; and
4I4 DR. ANDERSON'S WRITINGS.
then hope, not for your child's salvation— whoever
and whatever you are, that is secure — but that you
will enjoy companionship with him in glory.
Now to the Son of God — who has made conquest of
the kingdom for us, and who, by his presence and
Spirit, unites and consummates its friendship — be
ascribed the joyful praise of all the Redeemed Family,
to the glory of the Everlasting Father ! Amen !
AIRD AND COGH1LL, PRINTERS, 263 ARGYLE STREET, GLASGOW.
DR. ANDERSON'S WORKS.
FILIAL HONOUR OF ODD,
BY
CONFIDENCE, OBEDIENCE, AND EESIGNATION,
With Appendices on the Reward of Grace, and the Nature of
the Cup of Gethsemane. — Published in 1870.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
LONDON.
The Daily Telegraph. —Under the title, "Filial Honour of God," Dr.
Anderson, an eminent dissenting minister, has published a series of Dis
courses, which will commend themselves by the force of their thought and
clearness of their reasoning to many for whom similar works of the same
author have already proved highly attractive.
The Athenaeum. — The author is a vigorous and earnest writer.
The Spectator. — Dr. Anderson's courage is most praiseworthy, and he
certainly makes out a point against the theologians whom he attacks.
Nonconformist,— Dr. William Anderson is well known as a vigorous, keen
witted, original preacher. His sermons are powerful, sparkling, and never
dull. Yet we were pleasantly surprised to find this volume is not composed
of sermons, as the title had led us to suppose. The whole " descant," as he
terms it, is cleverly conceived, and points are keenly taken. We cordially
recommend the volume.
The Watchman. — A remarkable book, and certainly a sign of the times.
Students of theology will find this volume highly interesting.
The Freeman. — Dr. Anderson is a preacher of great vigour and freshness.
The volume is very stimulating and suggestive.
The Weekly Review, London. — "Filial Honour of God" is worthy of the
name and fame of the doughty and eloquent author. We particularly
recommend that portion of his book which is devoted to '' Resignation under
Afflictive Dispensations of Providence."
The Literary World. — Dr. Anderson is a giant in theology. Every page
of this book brings you into contact not only with a powerful intellect, but
with a large and tender heart. We heartily commend this book to ministers
and students ; and, if we mistake not, it will prove widely acceptable amongst
thoughtful and devout laymen.
The English Presbyterian Messenger. — The book will shake the most sluggish
into thought, and quieken many to the hearty doing of good work.
London Quarterly Review. — Dr. Anderson is, without question, an inde
pendent and vigorous thinker.
The Evangelical Magazine- — We have here a valuable contribution to New
Testament theology, which, for the sake of what it says and of what it
suggests, ought to be carefully studied by all Christian ministers and intelli
gent and thoughtful Christian people.
The Christian Witness. — Dr. William Anderson is better known in the
North than in the South, but there is no man among us who is better entitled
to be heard on any question which involves controversy, because there is no
man who combines more eminently the strength of the man with the tender
ness of the woman or the child. If his blows sometimes make you wince, you
feel quite disposed to smile and to kiss the rod. The book is one which
deserves & permanent place in the minister's library.
DR. ANDERSON'S WORKS.
Liverpool Albion. — Those who have read the former volume of discourses
by this author, and especially his admirable treatise on "Regeneration, will
expect a rich treat in the work before us, and they will not be disappointed.
We have greatly enjoyed the book as a whole.
Bradford Observer.— Dr. Anderson's admirers will be glad to learn that in
the book before \is there is all that singular force of style, that masterly
handling of an argument, that direct and pointed application, and that
practical common sense that have attracted them to his former works.
SCOTLAND.
Glasgow Daily Herald. — The work before us needs no further recommenda
tion than the simple statement that it is Dr. William Anderson's, and that
it displays all the characteristic excellencies of his former volumes.
The Glasgou' N. B- Daily Mail. — The volume contains a vivid and attractive
exhibition of its author's most striking characteristics. Its language has at
once edge and weight. It unites massive force with keen precision. The
glow of passionnte fervour irradiates the demonstration of a rigorous logic.
The Daily Review. — Dr. William Anderson has long stood in the front ranks
in brave contendings for civil and religious liberty in Scotland. This volume
bears all the marks of the author's mind and manner in his best days— the
same love of truth, the &ame vigour of argument, the same wealth of illus-
Iration, the same fearlessness in the utterance of his honest convictions.
United Presbyterian Magazine. — We hail this admirable work as a fresh
service to truth, rendered by a venerable standard-bearer in the camp of
Israel. We greatly admire his fearless, forcible advocacy of the reward of
grace, and trust it may do much to recall the thought and heart of the
Church in these days to this too much neglected portion of her purchased
inheritance. The treatise on the cup in Gethsemane is a valuable contribu
tion to the elucidation of a dark and diffiult subject. Altogether, this volume
has our warmest commendation.
Evangelical depository.— We conclude by expressing our conviction that
the author's already great repute will be decidedly increased by the publi
cation of this handsome and valuable volume.
Dundee Advertiser.— "We would point especially to the part which treats of
Resignation, and of the uses of affliction, which it divides into Corrective,
Preventive, Probative, and Vicarious, and illustrates with a wealth of original
thought and of Scriptural lore which is wonderful.
The People's Journal. — "Filial Honour" is distinguished by all those
qualities of originality, fervour, force, and manly eloquence which for half a
century have been connected with the name of William Anderson.
Dumfries Courier.— The present volume has all the characteristics of his
former ones. We recommend the whole volume as the eminent production
of an eminent divine.
Kelso Chronicle. — There is but one William Anderson in Scotland, and for
forty years he has been known over the land, and especially in Glasgow, as a
noble Christian philanthropist, and one of our honestest, most sagacious, and
most eloquent divines. The volume throughout is marked by the writer's
well-known independence, warm-heartedness, logical force, eloquent, homely
wisdom, and combination of sarcastic humour and pathos. Written at three
score and ten — if we age correctly — it betrays no dimming of the eye nor
abatement of the natural force.
Isondonderry Standard.— The volume deserves to be deeply pondered
ministers belonging to every section of evangelical Christianity.
DR. ANDERSON'S WORKS.
(At present out of Print.)
DISCOURSES (First Series), pp. 350.
CONTENTS.
I. The Doctrine of Good Works.— II. The Incarnation, and.
the Secret of Believing it.— III. Christ a Friend.— IV. On
Loving Christ.— V. The Christian Life not Melancholic —
VI. The Decalogue, the Law of the Gospel. — VII. God's
Omnipresence, Pratieally Contemplated.— VIII On
Loving God.— IX. The Sinfulness of Sin.— X. The Claims
of Children.— XI. Evils of Ignorance.— XII. Re-Union of
Christian Friends in Eternity.
Evangelical Magazine. — "We have unusual satisfaction in recommending
his very instructive and original volume of sermons to the notice of our
readers. "We must confess, what is very uncommon with us about volumes
of sermons, that we have read all the twelve discourses with delight.
There is this striking feature in them, that some of them are tender and
pathetic throughout ; while others, again, are powerfully argumentative,
and strietly theological.
Christian Witness. — William Anderson is not an ordinary man, neither
are these ordinary discourses. We regret that a first impression, at least,
was not issued in octavo. Few sermons in the present century so well
deserve such a mode of presentation to the public.
Dundee Courier. — There are in all his sermons flashes of genius and bursts
of oratory, but their main quality is a vein of robust and original sense.
London Sunday School Magazine.— In this volume, one of the best of men
has said many of his best things, on the best of subjects. The sermon on
the claims of children is capital.
DISCOURSES (Second Series), pp. 330.
LORD BROUGHAM. — His Lordship, after having read the Discourse —
"Uncharitable Judgments Judged" — thus writes, in a letter dated Dec. 31,
1859 :— " It is worthy of all acceptation."
The Standard, London. — Eloquent, argumentative, evangelical. Where-
ever Dr. Anderson is known he will become a favourite.
Nonconformist — Amongst living preachers there are few more original and
vigorous than Dr. William Anderson. One may go the round of a hundred
pulpits, or take in hand a hundred of the most widely circulated modern
works in divinity, and not find the refreshment and delight that our author
affords. We received with something of personal gratitude a "Second
Series" of Discourses from an author we had so much reason to admire.
... Of the sermon, "The Missionary Plea, one of Justice," we must
express our opinion that it is the best, loftiest, and most convincing piece of
sdvocacy of the missionary cause that has appeared in recent years.
The Globe, London. — Among the sons of thunder Dr. Anderson is dis
tinguished by the grandeur and solemnity as well as by the loudness of his
cry.
The Examiner, London. — A directness of expression often reaching to the
height of the most finished eloquence.
DR. ANDERSON'S WORKS.
TREATISE ON REGENERATION:
pp. 332.
British Quarterly Review. — There is in this volume, on this apparently
exhausted topic, an amount of force, of originality, and withal of Scriptural-
ness, which justifies us in most earnestly commending it to our readers.
British and Foreign Quarterly Review. — There is much in this volume that
we most heartily commend.
Westminster Review. — The views enounced are very clearly and logically
expressed.
United Presbyterian Magazine.— -It is rich in thought, rich in illustration,
rich in the fruits of spiritual experience and observation.
Scottish Christian Journal. — Dr. Anderson is not only a sound divine and
original thinker, but possesses a metaphysical genius of no mean order.
The late Dr. John Campbell^ in the British Banner. — The book, taken as a
whole, is by far the best exhibition of the subject that has yet been presented
in the English language.
The late Dr. John Brown, Edinburgh, in the Scottish Press. — This is a
remarkable book. That minister must stand very high, or very low, intel
lectually and spiritually, who is not made by it, both personally and pro
fessionally, wiser and better.
George Gilfillan in Hofjffs Instructor. — William Anderson's book on
Regeneration is every way worthy of his peculiar and powerful mind.
RE-UNION
OF CHRISTIAN FRIENDS AND THEIR INFANT CHILDREN IN
THE HEAVENLY KINGDOM; to which is prefixed a PASTORAL
LETTER, on the occasion of the death of his young, and latterly,
only remaining Son, in July, 1868. Pp. 102.
THE MASS, pp. 180.
British Quarterly. — Those who have any acquaintance with the author,
or with his previous publications, will easily believe us when we pronounce
his discussion of the Mass to be one of the most vigorous, well-directed and
irresistible assaults ever made on the citadel of the Apostacy.
Evangelical Magazine. — "We know of no such exposure of the Mass in the
English language. Dr. Anderson has done his work with the hand of a
master.
PENANGE, pp. 220.
Gilfillan, George
Life of the Rev. William
A54G5 Anderson
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11