A Generous Soul - Part 8

John Watson (3 November 1850 – 6 May 1907), was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He is remembered as an author of fiction, known by his pen name Ian Maclaren. I'm currently reading his short story collection "St Jude", but am also fascinated by his life. Here was a man who stood out against a narrowness in his creed, and who was indeed "a generous soul".

The Life of The Rev. John Watson, D.D. "Ian Maclaren"
A Generous Soul
By W. Robertson Nicoll

Watson said of the Minister:

“One thing he cannot do: criticise his people or make distinctions among them, Others, with no shepherd heart, may miss the hidden goodness: he searches for it as for fine gold. Others may judge people for faults and sins; he takes them for his own. Others may make people's foibles the subject of their raillery; the pastor cannot because he loves. “

“Does this interest on the part of one not related by blood or long friendship seem an impertinence? It ought to be pardoned, for it is the only one of the kind that is likely to be offered. Is it a sentiment? Assuredly, the same sublime devotion which has made Jesus the Good Shepherd of the soul. “

“If the pastoral instinct be crushed out of existence between the upper and lower millstones of raging sensationalism and ecclesiastical worldliness, then the Christian Church will sink into a theological club or a society for social reform: if it had full play we might see a revival of religion more spiritual and lasting than any since the Reformation.”

He divided his work as pastor into the departments of visitation and consultation, and this is how he spoke of them:

“With the true pastor, visitation is a spiritual labour, intense and arduous, beside which reading and study are light and easy. When he has been with ten families, and done his best by each, he comes home trembling in his very limbs and worn-out in soul. Consider what he has come through, what he has attempted, what, so far as it can be said of a frail human creature, this man has done."

"He has tasted joy in one home, where the husband has been restored to his wife from the dust of death; he has shared sorrow with another family where pet Marjorie has died; he has consulted with a mother about a son in some far country, whose letters till the anxious heart with dread; he has heard a letter of twelve pages of good news and over-flowing love which another son has sent to his mother; he has carried God's comfort to Darby and Joan reduced suddenly to poverty, and God's invitation to two young people beginning life together in great prosperity. He has to adjust himself to a new situation in each house, and to cast himself with utter abandonment into another experience of life."

"Before evening he has been a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a child, a friend; he has been young, middle-aged, old, lifted up, cast down, a sinner, a saint, all sorts and conditions of life. ... It is exhausting to rejoice or to sorrow, but to taste both sensations in succession is disabling; yet this man has passed through ten moods since midday, and each with all his strength. His experiences have not all been wiped out as a child's exercise from a slate; they have become strata in his soul. “

This labour of visitation was conducted in a most careful and methodical fashion. Whenever a family came to his church he obtained from them the names of the household, and the ages of all below sixteen, and also particulars about those who were communicants and had done church work. All these he wrote into a large book in which he had his congregation before him at any moment. From it he reminded himself who ought to become communicants, who ought to take part in the church work, where recruits could be found for the guilds and classes. He also made careful secret notes on the spiritual history and character of his people.

Thus his yearly visitation was no formality. The visits were brief, generally fifteen minutes. Gossip was left out, and it was understood that business had to be done. When conversation moved onward till it reached the brink of prayer, the visit culminated and completed itself in a few earnest petitions.

Whenever a message came from a house of sickness no time was lost on the way. He read to all in trouble the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. It was his experience that every man and woman wanted to hear it in great sorrow or when the shadow was falling. 

With every reading he noticed that it yielded some new revelation of the Divine Love and the Kingdom of Heaven. " If one is sinking into consciousness, and you read, * In My Father's house are many mansions,' he will come back and whisper ' mansions,' and he will wait till you finish : * where I am ye may be also,' before he dies in peace."