A Generous Soul - Part 10

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 considered that it was the duty of a minister, unless in exceptional circumstances, to maintain neutrality in politics in so far as his public actions were concerned. He also disliked the habit of discussing political questions in ecclesiastical courts.

But no one had more of the civic conscience, and few equalled him in the energy of patriotism. One of his great ambitions and it was largely realised was to train young men in his church to care for the life of the community, and to take, when the opportunity came, an active part in municipal affairs. He never ceased to glorify municipal work. It was his deliberate conviction that the worth of such work was seriously and dangerously underrated in our country.

He sometimes incurred censure for the vehemence with which he expressed himself on this subject. He held that among the various influences which make for the good of the common life, none ought to be more carefully fostered than the pride in the city local patriotism as distinguished from the Imperial patriotism into which the other flows as a river into the ocean. He held that no honour was too generous to be paid to men who with every qualification of intelligence and integrity, with every private reason to safeguard their leisure and to gratify their honourable tastes, have entered the City Council and worked to make the city more like the City of God.

He dreaded the passing of local politics into the hands of professional managers manipulating affairs for their own aggrandisement, and the shadow of the calamity which has fallen largely on American municipal life often oppressed and grieved him. While deprecating the idea that the Church as an organisation should take a direct part in politics or interfere directly in trade disputes, he pleaded that she should use her whole influence through her children in working for the happiness of the people.

He believed that the Church could help the Kingdom best in this way, and he hoped that long before the twentieth century ended, every man would have a home of some kind where he lived in peace and decency with his wife and his children, that the gross temptations of the city the public-houses at every corner, and the scenes in Piccadilly Circus at night would be brought to an end, and that every man would be willing to work, and work honestly, and receive a fair wage to keep himself and his family.

He longed to see an end of the alienation between the people and the Church, and he believed that the time was coming when the poor and miserable would know that Christ by His Body the Church was their best friend.

He also frankly expressed his desire for the day when every young man in the country in ordinary circumstances would be invited in an extremely pressing manner to become a member of one of the armed forces of the country, whether military or naval. When that day came, not only would the country be impregnable against foreign attack, but a very great benefit would be conferred on the young men. They would get bodies erect instead of slouching, and they would be taught obedience and subordination as well as courage and loyalty.

From his pulpit he constantly stimulated the civic conscience, and taught a large view of the State. He repudiated wholly the notion that the State was nothing but a night-watchman to protect the property and person of the lieges. The business of the State was so to regulate the corporate life that every member of the commonwealth should come to his full height, and have his full opportunity of living. That was a happy State which maintained a just balance between justice and benevolence.

Few things were more disheartening to him than to see the very different attitudes of obligation which the ordinary man had to his family and to the State. He would sink himself in the interests of the family, but he was indifferent or neutral to the State. Especially he was cold to the municipal State, and had never come within a thousand miles of believing that the government of the State was a divine ordinance, or that the local State was the nurse of character, ,and the sphere where citizens could rise to the stature of moral independence. Whatever might be the benefits of the party system, party should never be served at the expense of the community.