I first came across this short story back in the early 1980s and made a photocopy of it, as I liked it so much.That was of course, was when I was at University, and there were, I am sorry to say, Christians very like the elders in this story, although there were also ones who displayed much more generosity of spirit. This is very much a story about a hard line Scots Calvinism, and it was written by the Reverend John Watson (3 November 1850 – 6 May 1907), known by his pen name Ian Maclaren.
Maclaren's first stories of rural Scottish life, Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush (1894), achieved extraordinary popularity, selling more than 700 thousand copies, and were succeeded by other successful books, The Days of Auld Lang Syne (1895), Kate Carnegie and those Ministers (1896), and Afterwards and other Stories (1898). By his own name Watson published several volumes of sermons, among them being The Upper Room (1895), The Mind of the Master (1896) and The Potter's Wheel (1897).
A Local Inquisition
Ian Maclaren.
His first service in St. Jude's
Church was over and Carmichael had broken upon his modest dinner with such
appetite as high excitement had left; for it is a fact in the physiology of a
minister that if he preaches coldly he eats voraciously, but if his soul has
been at a white heat his body is lifted above food. It had been a great change
from the little Kirk of Drumtochty, with its congregation of a hundred country people,
to the crowd which filled every corner of the floor below and the galleries
above in the city church. While the light would that Sunday be streaming into
the Highland Kirk and lighting up the honest, healthy faces of the hearers, the
gas had been lighted in St. Jude's, for the Glasgow atmosphere was gloomy
outside, and when it filtered through painted windows was as darkness inside.
There is no loneliness like that
of a solitary man in a crowd, and Carmichael missed the company and sympathy of
his friends. This mass of city people, with their eager expression, white faces
and suggestion of wealth, who turned their eyes upon him when he began to preach,
and seemed to be one huge court of judgment, shadowed his imagination. They
were partly his new congregation and partly a Glasgow audience, but there were
only two men in the whole church he knew, and even those he had only known for
a few months.
When he rose to preach, with the
heavy pall of the city's smoke and the city fog encompassing the church, and
the glare of the evil-smelling gas lighting up its Gothic recesses, his heart sank
and for the moment he lost courage. Was it for this dreary gloom and packed
mass of strange people that he had left the sunlight of the glen and the warm
atmosphere of true hearts? There were reasons why he had judged it his duty to
accept the charge of this West End Glasgow church, and selfish ambition had certainly
not been one, for Carmichael was a man rather of foolish impulses than of
far-seeing prudence. He had done many things suddenly which he had regretted
continually, and for an instant, as he faced his new environment and before he
gave out his text, he wished that by some touch of that fairy wand which we are
ever desiring to set our mistakes right or to give us our impossible desires,
he could be spirited away from, the city which as a countryman he always hated,
back to the glen which he would ever carry in his heart.
While vain regret is threatening
to disable him the people are singing with a great volume of melody :
Jerusalem as a city is compactly
built together;
Unto that place the tribes go up,
the tribes of God go thither:
and his mood changes. After all,
the ocean is greater than any river, however picturesque and romantic it be,
and no one with a susceptible soul can be indifferent to the unspoken appeal of
a multitude of human beings. Old and young of all kinds and conditions, from
the captains of industry whose names were famous throughout the world to the young
men who had come up from remote villages to push their fortune, together with
all kinds of professional men administering justice, relieving suffering,
teaching knowledge, were gathered together to hear what the preacher had to say
in the name of God.
His message would be quickly
caught by the keen city intellect and would pass into the most varied homes and
into the widest lives, and there was an opportunity of spiritual power in this city
pulpit which the green wilderness could not give.
As he looked upon the sea of
faces the depths of Carmichael’s nature were stirred, and when his lips were
opened he had forgotten everything except the drama of humanity in its tragedy
and in its comedy, and the evangel of Jesus committed into his hands. He spoke
with power as one touched by the very spirit of his Master, and in the vestry
the rulers of the church referred to his sermon with a gracious and encouraging
note. He walked home through the gloomy street with a high head, and in his own
room, and in a way the public might not see, he received the congratulation he
valued more
than anything else on earth. For
Kate was proud that day of her man, and she was not slow either in praise or
blame as occasion required, being through all circumstances, both dark and
bright, a woman of the ancient Highland spirit. She was not to be many years by
his side, and their married life was not to be without its shadows, but through
the days they were together his wife stood loyally at Carmichael's right hand,
and when she was taken he missed many things in his home and heart, but most of
all her words of cheer, when in her honest judgment, not otherwise, he had
carried himself right knightly in the lists of life.
His nerves were on edge, and
although it mattered little that he was interrupted at dinner, for he knew not
what he was eating, he was not anxious to see a visitor. If it were another elder
come to say kind things, he must receive him courteously, but Carmichael had
had enough of praise that day; and if it were a reporter desiring an interview
he would assure him that he had nothing to say, and as a consolation hand him
his manuscript to make up a quarter column.
But it was neither a city
merchant nor a newspaper reporter who was waiting in the study; indeed, one
could not have found in the city a more arresting and instructive contrast.
In the centre of the room,
detached from the bookcase and the writing table, refusing the use of a chair,
and despising the very sight of a couch, stood isolated and self-contained the most
austere man Carmichael had ever seen, or was ever to meet in his life. He had
met Calvinism in its glory among Celts, but he had only known sweet-blooded
mystics like Donald Menzies or Pharisees converted into saints, like Lachlan
Campbell, the two Highland elders of Drumtochty. It was another story to be
face to face with the inflexible and impenetrable subject of Lowland Calvinism.
Whether Calvinism or Catholicism be the more congenial creed for Celtic nature
may be a subject of debate, but when Calvinism takes hold of a Lowland Scot of
humble birth and moderate education and intense mind there is no system which
can produce so uncompromising and unrelenting a partisan.
Carmichael always carried in
mental photograph the appearance of Simeon MacQuittrick as he faced him that
day his tall, gaunt figure, in which the bones of his body, like those of his
creed, were scarcely concealed, his erect and uncompromising attitude, his
carefully-brushed, well-worn clothes, his clean-shaven, hard-lined face, his
iron gray hair smoothed down across his forehead, and, above all, his keen,
searching, merciless gray eyes. Before Simeon spoke Carmichael knew that he was
anti-pathetic, and had come to censure, and his very presence, as from the iron
dungeon of his creed Simeon looked out on the young, light-hearted, optimistic
minister of St. Jude's, was like a sudden withering frost upon the gay and
generous blossom of spring.
"My name is Simeon MacQuittrick,"
began the visitor, "and I'm a hearer at St. Jude's, although I use that
name under protest, considering that the calling of kirks after saints is a rag
of popery, and judging that the McBriar Memorial, after a faithful Covenanter,
would have been more in keeping with the principles of the pure Kirk of
Scotland. But we can discuss that matter another day, and I am merely
protecting my rights." As Carmichael only indicated that he had received
the protest, and was willing to hear anything else he had to say, Simeon continued:
"Whether I be one of the
true Israel of God or only a man who is following the chosen people like a
hanger-on from the land of Egypt is known to God alone, and belongs to his
secret things ; but I have been a professor of religion, and a member of the Kirk
for six-and-forty years, since the fast day at Ecclefechan when that faithful
servant of God, Dr. Ebenezer Howison, preached for more than two hours on the
words, 'Many be called, but few are chosen/ " And Carmichael waited in
silence for the burden of Simeon's message.
"It was my first
intention," proceeded Simeon, as he fixed Carmichael with his severe gaze,
"to deal wi' the sermon to which we have been listening, and which I will
say plainly has not been savoury to the spiritual and understanding souls in
the congregation, although I make no doubt it has pleasantly tickled the ears
of the worldly. But I will pretermit the subject for the present first, because
time would fail us to go into it thoroughly, and second because I am come to offer
a better opportunity." Carmichael indicated without speech that Simeon
should go on to the end.
"Ye will understand, Mr.
Carmichael, that the congregation gathering in your Kirk is a mixed multitude,
and the maist part are taken up wi' worldly gear and carnal pleasures like
dinners, dancing, concerts and games ; they know neither the difference between
sound doctrine and unsound, nor between the secret signs of saving faith and
the outward forms of ordinary religion; as for the sovereignty of the Almighty,
whereby one is elected unto light and another left unto damnation, whilk is the
very heart o' religion, they know and care nothing.”
"Gin the Lord has indeed
given ye a true commission and ye have been ordained not by the layin' on o'
hands, whilk I judge to be a matter of Kirk order and not needful for the
imparting of grace, as the Prelatists contend, but by the inward call of God,
it will be your business to pull down every stronghold of lies, and to awaken
them that be at ease in Zion with the terrors of the Lord. And ye might begin
with the elders who are rich and increased in goods, and who think they have
need of nothing. But I have my doubts." And the doubts seemed a certainty,
but whether they were chiefly about the elders' unspiritual condition or
Carmichael’s need of a true call Simeon did not plainly indicate.
"I am very sorry, Mr.
MacQuittrick" and Carmichael spoke for the first time "that you consider
the congregation to be in such a discouraging condition, especially after the
faithful ministry of my honoured predecessor, but I trust out of such a large
number of people that there must be a number of sincere and intelligent Christians."
Which was a bait Simeon could not resist.
"Ye speak according to the
Scriptures, Mr. Carmichael, for in the darkest days when Elijah testified
against the priests of Baal and he is sorely needed to-day, for there be many
kinds of Baal there were seven thousand faithful people. Yea, there has always
been a remnant, and even in those days when the multitude that call themselves
by the name of the Lord are hankering after organs and hymns and soirees and
Arminian doctrine, there be a few who have kept their garments unspotted, and
who mourn over the backslidings of Zion."
"Well, I hope, Mr.
MacQuittrick, that some of the remnant can be found in St. Jude's." And Carmichael
began to enter into the spirit of the situation.
"It doesna' become me to
boast, for indeed there are times when I see myself in the court of the
Gentiles, aye, and maybe in the outer darkness, but ye will be pleased to know
that there are seven men who meet ae night every week to protest against false
doctrine, and to search into the experiences o' the soul. Myself and another
belong to the faithful remnant of the Scots Kirk, whilk the world calls the
Cameronians ; two have been members wi' the original secession ; ane came from
the black darkness o' the Established Kirk; and two were brought up in the Free
Kirk, and I'll not deny, had a glimmerin' o' light. , When the godly minister who
has gone to his reward, as we will hope, but the day alone will declare, lifted
up his voice in the pulpit of St. Jude's against Sunday cars, opening the
girdens on the Lord's Day, singing paraphrases at public worship, the worldly
proposals for union with the Voluntaries, the preaching of teetotalism, and the
blasphemy of the Higher Critics, we came to this Kirk and foregathered here as
in a haven of refuge.”
"It came to our mind, Mr.
Carmichael' and the representative of the remnant concluded his message
"that it would strengthen your hands to know that ye have some discernin'
professors in your Kirk, with whom ye could search into the deep things of God
which might be beyond the depths of youth, and who will try the doctrine which
ye may deliver from Sabbath to Sabbath. And we will be gathered together on Thursday
night at 272 Water Street, by eight o'clock, to confer with you on the things
of the kingdom."
When Carmichael arrived at the
meeting-place of the remnant he had a sense of a spiritual adventure, and when
he looked at the seven gray and austere faces, he imagined himself before the
Inquisition. His host the brand plucked from the burning of the Establishment
shook hands with gravity, and gave him a vacant chair at the table, where
before him and on either side sat the elect. After a prayer by an original seceder,
in which the history of the Scots Kirk from the Reformation and her defections in
the present day were treated at considerable length and with great firmness of
touch, and some very frank petitions were offered for his own enlightenment,
the court was, so to say, constituted, and he was placed at the bar. If Carmichael
imagined, which indeed he did not, that this was to be a friendly conference between
a few experienced Christians and their young minister, he was very soon
undeceived, for the president of the court called upon Simeon's
fellow-covenanter to state the first question.
"It is one, Mr. Carmichael,
which goes to the root of things, for he that is right here will be right
everywhere; he that goes astray here will end in the bottomless pit of false
doctrine.”
“Whether would ye say that Christ
died upon the cross for the salvation of the whole world, and that therefore a
proveesion was made for the pardon of all men gin they should repent and believe,
or that he died only for the sins of them whom God hath chosen unto everlasting
life, and who therefore shall verily be saved according to the will of
God." And there was a silence that might be heard while the seven waited for
the minister's answer.
When Carmichael boldly declared
that the divine love embraced the human race which God had called into being,
and that Christ as the Incarnate Saviour of the world had laid down his life
not for a few but for the race, and that therefore there was freeness of pardon
and fullness of grace for all men, and when finally he called God by the name
of Father, the inquisitors sighed in unison. They looked like men who had
feared the worst, and were not disappointed.
"Arminianism pure and
simple," said one of the favoured children of the Free Kirk, "contrary
to the Scriptures and the standards of the Kirk. Jacob have I loved, Esau have
I hated; a strait gate and a narrow way, and few there be that find it. And the
end of this deceiving error which pleases the silly heart is Universalism nae
difference between the elect and the multitude. But there were ither questions,
and our brother Mr. MacCosh will maybe put the second." Although it was
evident hope was dying out both for Carmichael and for the inquisitors.
"Do ye believe, Mr.
Carmichael, and will ye preach that the offer of the gospel should be made to
all men in the congregation, and that any man who accepts that offer, as he
considers, will see the salvation of God ; or will ye teach that while the
offer is made in general terms to everybody with words such as, 'Come unto me all
ye that labour’, ’it is only intended for certain who are already within the
covenant of redemption, and that they alone will be enabled by effectual grace
to accept it, and that for them alone there is a place at the marriage feast? “
"And I am asking this question
because there are so-called evangelists going up and down the land offering the
invitation of the kingdom unto all and sundry, and forgetting to tell the
people, if indeed they know it themselves, that it matters not how freely
Christ be offered, and how anxious they may be to take him, none of them can
lift a little finger in his direction unless by the power of the Spirit, and
the Spirit is only given to them who have been in the covenant from all
eternity."
Carmichael felt as if he were
again making his vows before ordination, and any sense of the ludicrous which
was a snare unto him and had tempted him when he came into the room, was burned
out. He was face to face with a conscientious and thoroughgoing theology,
against whose inhumanity and ungraciousness both his reason and his soul
revolted.
"May I in turn put a
question to you, sir, and the other brethren, and if you will answer mine I will
answer yours. Would you consider it honest, I will not say kindly, to invite
twelve men to come to dinner at your house, all the more if they were poor and
starving, and to beseech them to accept your invitation in the most tender terms,
while you only intended to have six guests, or shall I say three out of the
twelve, and had been careful to make provision for only three? You would
despise such a host, and, Mr. MacCosh, will you seriously consider God to be
more treacherous and dishonourable than we frail mortals?"
"Very superfeecial,"
burst in Simeon; "there is no question to be answered. Human analogies are
deceiving, for nae man can argue from the ways of man to the ways of God, or
else ye would soon be expectin' that the Almighty would deal wi' us the same as
a father maun deal wi' his bairns, which is the spring o' that soul-destroying
heresy, the so-called Fatherhood of God. Na, na" and MacQuittrick's face glowed
with dogmatic enthusiasm, in which the thought of his own destiny and that of
his fellow-humans was lost "he is the potter and we are the clay. Gin he
makes one vessel for glory and another for shame aye, and even gin he dashes it
to pieces, it is within his just richts. Wha are we to complain or to question?
Ane oot o' twelve saved would be wonderful mercy, and the eleven would be to
the praise of his justice." And a low hum of assent passed round the room.
"After what has passed, I'm
not judging that it will serve any useful purpose to pit the third question,
Mr. MacCosh," said the brand from the Establishment, "but it might be
as well to complete the investigation. It's a sore trial to think that the man
whom we called to be our minister, and who is set over the congregation in
spiritual affairs knows so little of the pure truth, and has fallen into sae many
soul-enticing errors. Oh ! this evil day ; we have heard wi' our ain ears in
this very room, and this very nicht, first Arminianism, and then Morisonianism,
the heresy of a universal atonement and of a free offer. I'll do Mr. Carmichael
justice in believin' that he is no as yet at any rate a Socinian, but I'm
expecting that he's a Pelagian. Oor last question will settle the point.
"Is it your judgment, Mr.
Carmichael" and there was a tone of despair in the voice of the president
"that a natural man, and by that I mean a man acting without an experience
of effectual and saving grace given only to the elect, can perform any work
whatever which would be acceptable to God, or whether it be not true that
everything he does is altogether sinful, and that although he be bound to
attempt good works in the various duties of life they will all be condemned and
be the cause of his greater damnation?" And when, at the close of this carefully-worded
piece of furious logic, Carmichael looked round and saw approval on the seven
faces, as if their position had been finally stated, his patience gave way.
"Have you" and he
leaned forward and brought his hand down upon the table "have you any
common reason in your minds; I do not mean the pedantic arguments of theology, but
the common sense of human beings? Have you any blood in your hearts, the blood
of men who have been sons, and who are fathers, the feelings of ordinary
humanity? Will you say that a mother's love to her son, lasting through the
sacrifices of life to the tender farewell on her deathbed is not altogether
good? That a man toiling and striving to build a home for his wife and children
and to keep them in peace and plenty, safe from the storms of life, is not acceptable
unto God? That a man giving his life to save a little child from drowning, or
to protect his country from her enemies, is not beautiful in the sight of
heaven? That even a heretic, standing by what he believes to be true, and losing
all his earthly goods for conscience's sake, has done a holy thing tell me that
?" And Carmichael stretched out his hands to them in the fervour of his
youth.
No man answered, and it was not
needful, for the minister's human emotion had beaten upon their iron creed like
spray upon the high sea cliffs. But one of them said, "That completes the
list, downright Pelagianism," and he added gloomily, "I doubt
Socianism is not far off."
The court was then dissolved, but
before he left the room like a criminal sent to execution, a sudden thought
struck Carmichael, and in his turn he asked a question.
"It is quite plain to me,
brethren" for so he called them in Christian courtesy, although if was
doubtful if they would have so called him "that you have suspected me of
unsoundness in the faith, and that you have not been altogether unprepared for
my answers; I want to ask you something, and I am curious to hear your answer.
There are many names attached to the call given to me by the congregation of St.
Jude's, and I do not know them all as yet, but I hope soon to have them written
in my heart. The people who signed that call declared that they were assured by
good information of my piety, prudence and ministerial qualifications, and they
promised me all dutiful respect, encouragement, support and obedience in the
Lord. I have those words ever in my memory, for they are a strength to me as I
undertake my high work. May I ask, are your names, brethren, upon that call,
and if so, why did you sign it?"
As he was speaking, Carmichael
noticed that the composure of the seven was shaken, and that a look of
uneasiness and even of confusion had come over their faces. He was sure that they
had signed and he also guessed that they had already repented the deed. It
seemed to him as if there was some secret to be told, and that they were
challenging one another to tell it. And at last, under the weight of his responsibility
as president of the court, MacCosh made their confession.
"Ye must understand, Mr.
Carmichael, that when your name was put before the congregation we, who have
been called more than others to discern the spirits, had no sure word given us
either for or against you, and we were in perplexity of heart. It was not
according to our conscience to sign lightly and in ignorance as many do, and we
might not forbear signing unless we were prepared to lay our protests with
reasons upon the table of the presbytery. We gathered together in this room and
wrestled for light, and it seemed to come to us through a word of our brother
Simeon MacQuittrick, and I will ask him to mention the sign that we judged that
day to be of the Lord, but it may be it came from elsewhere."
"That very morning,"
explained Simeon, with the first shade of diffidence in his manner, "I was
reading in my chamber the Acts of the Apostles, and when I came to the words
'send men to Joppa’ I was hindered and I could go no further. The passage was
laid upon my soul and I was convinced that it was the message of God, but
concerning whom and concerning what I knew not. But it was ever all the hours
of the day, 'send men to Joppa.'
"That very afternoon I met
one of the elders who is liberal in his gifts and full of outward works, but I
judge a mere Gallic, and he asked me whether I was ready to sign the call. I answered
that I was waiting for the sign, and I told him of the words said to me that
day. 'Well’ he said to me in his worldly fashion, 'if you will not call a man
unless he be at Joppa you may have to wait some time, MacQuittrick ; but, by
the way, I hear that Mr. Carmichael is staying near Edinburgh just now, and
there is a Joppa on the coast next to Portobello.'
"He may have been
jesting," sadly continued MacQuittrick, "and he is a man whose ear
has never been opened, but the Almighty chooses whom he will as his messengers,
and spake once by Balaam's ass, so I mentioned the matter to the brethren. And
when we considered both the word of Acts and the saying of this Gallic, we accepted
it as a sign. So it came to pass that we all signed your call. But it pleases
God to allow even the elect to be deceived ; behold are there not false
prophets and lying signs? And it may be ye were not at Joppa." And when
Carmichael declared with joyful emphasis that he had never been at Joppa in his
life, MacCosh summed up the moral of the call and the conference. "It was
a sign, but it was from Satan."
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