A Generous Soul - Part 13

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

First Tour In America

Watson's whole heart went out to America. I question whether any visitor from the old country ever took more kindly to the great nation of the West. There was something in the atmosphere of America that was eminently congenial to him. He made some of his best friends among Americans; he looked with unbounded hope to the future of the country; he would have been more than content to spend his days there as a private individual, though he thought himself too old to take public office and begin a new career. He had two more visits to pay to America, and it was in America that he died.

To the problems of civilisation and Christianity in the West he gave close and continued study. He considered that there was an American type of character - a native-born American representative of a great, a coming, a fruitful, and a successful race. The most wonderful thing about the American nation seemed to him its almost miraculous power of assimilation.

If amongst those stirring and bustling people an Irishman, a Scandinavian, a Polish Jew, or an Italian was drafted in, there would be the beginning of a change in him, and in one half of those cases the child would be an American, while in the case of the other half the grandchild would be an actual American. This stock drew in, changed, and made its own that enormous mass of population that from year to year was flung upon its shores. The American influence was in general reforming and deodorising. People went over to America often very low in the social scale, and by and by they were fairly good citizens, while their children were excellent citizens.

There was the power of the salt of the sea in the nation which would take into it the refuse of a city, and purify it, and leave the sea as fresh as ever. Then again the Americans were a patriotic people. The Republic was twice baptised in the blood of its best citizens. He thought that the victory of McKinley over Bryan was decided by a genuine feeling of patriotism that rose throughout the American nation. While the election seemed to be fought on bi-metallism there was another question behind it, and that was : Could a State maintain its honourable position that proposed to pay its debts with 57 cents for a dollar? When the country realised that the victory of Mr. Bryan's party would mean the affirmation of a principle that would end in the repudiation of duty, there was no doubt about the result of the election. Over the whole country men forsook their party, and men who had no party gave themselves immense trouble in order to vindicate the honour of the nation, and in that they proved their patriotism.

Another danger he saw in the marked abstinence from politics, general and municipal, of the leisured and cultured classes in the State. They would bestir themselves and take part in any great crisis, but in ordinary circumstances they looked out on the public life through the loopholes of retreat. They refused to touch public service with their finger-tips, and so left it too largely to place-hunters, wire-pullers, and professional politicians, with results that might not be corrupt as some candid critics alleged, but were at least less than ideal.

"The patriotic spirit in America, and far too much in other places also, seems to exercise itself over great crises, foreign or domestic, and to be indifferent to the conduct of ordinary affairs. The worst feature in American politics is the ' boss,' who is the power behind the throne, and of whom no one says any good thing."