By Frank W. Boreham
I
It is an old-fashioned Scottish kirk--and the Communion Sabbath. Everybody knows of the hush that brooded over a Scottish community a century ago whenever the Communion season came round. The entire population gave itself up to a period of holy awe and solemn gladness. As the day drew near, nothing else was thought about or spoken of. At the kirk itself, day after day was given up to preparatory exercises, fast-time sermons and the fencing of tables. In this old kirk, in which we this morning find ourselves, all these preliminaries are past. The young people who are presenting themselves for the first time have been duly examined by the grave and somber elders, and, having survived that fiery and searching ordeal, have received their tokens. And now everything is ready. The great day has actually come. The snowy cloths drape the pews; everything is in readiness for the solemn festival; the people come from far and near. But I am not concerned with those who, on this impressive and memorable occasion, throng around the table and partake of the sacred mysteries. For, at the back of the kirk, high up, is a cavernous and apparently empty old gallery, dark and dismal. Is it empty? What is that patch of paleness that I see up in the corner? Is it a face? It is! It is the grave and eager face of a small boy; a face overspread with awe and wonder as he gazes upon the affecting and impressive scene that is being enacted below. 'As a child,' said Dr. Bonar, many years afterwards, when addressing the little people of his own congregation, 'as a child I used to love to creep up into that old gallery on Communion Sabbaths. How I trembled as I climbed up the stairs! And how I shuddered when the minister entered and began the service! When I saw young people of my own acquaintance take the holy emblems for the first time, I wondered if, one great and beautiful day, I should myself be found among the communicants. But the thought always died in the moment of its birth. For I found in my heart so much that must keep me from the love of Christ. I thought, as I sat in the deep recesses of that gloomy old gallery, that I must purge my soul of all defilement, and cultivate all the graces of the faith, before I could hope for a place in the Kingdom of Christ or venture as a humble guest to His table. But oh, how I longed one day to be numbered among that happy company! I thought no privilege on earth could compare with that.'
II
A couple of entries in his diary will complete our preparation for the record of the day that changed his life. He is a youth of nineteen, staid and thoughtful, but full of life and merriment, and the popular center of a group of student friends.
May 3, 1829.--Great sorrow, because I am still out of Christ.
May 31, 1829.--My birthday is past and I am not born again.
Not every day, I fancy, do such entries find their way into the confidential journals of young people of nineteen.
III
God's flowers are all everlastings. The night may enfold them; the grass may conceal them; the snows may entomb them; but they are always there. They do not perish or fade. See how the principle works out in history! There is no more remarkable revival of religion in our national story than that represented by the Rise of the Puritans. The face of England was changed; everything was made anew. Then came the Restoration. Paradise was lost. Puritanism vanished as suddenly as it had arisen. But was it dead? Professor James Stalker, in a Centennial Lecture on Robert Murray McCheyne--a name that stands imperishably associated with that of Andrew Bonar--says most emphatically that it was not. He shows how, like a forest fire, the movement swept across Europe, returning at last to the land in which it rose. When, with the Restoration, England relapsed into folly, it passed over into Holland, preparing for us, among other things, a new and better line of English kings. From Holland it passed into Germany, and, by means of the Moravian Brethren, produced the most amazing missionary movement of all time. From Germany it returned to England, giving us the Methodist Revival of the eighteenth century, a revival which, according to Lecky, alone saved England from the horrors of an industrial revolution. And from England it swept into Scotland, and kindled there such a revival of religion as has left an indelible impression upon Scottish life and character. It was in the sweep of that historic movement that the soul of Andrew Bonar was born.
IV
'It was in 1830,' he says, in a letter to his brother, written in his eighty-third year, 'it was in 1830 that I found the Saviour, or rather, that He found me, and laid me on His shoulders rejoicing.' And how did it all come about? It was a tranquil evening in the early autumn, and a Sabbath. There is always something conducive to contemplation about an autumn evening. When, one of these days, one of our philosophers gives us a Psychology of the Seasons, I shall confidently expect to find that the great majority of conversions take place in the autumn. At any rate, Andrew Bonar's did. As he looked out upon the world in the early morning, he saw the shrubs in the garden below him, and the furze on the moorland beyond, twinkling with the dew-drenched webs of innumerable spiders. In his walk to the church, and in a stroll across the fields in the afternoon, the hush of the earth, broken only by the lowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep and the rustle of the leaves that had already fallen, saturated his spirit. The world, he thought, had never looked so beautiful. The forest was a riot of russet and gold. The hedge-rows were bronze and purple and saffron. The soft and misty sunlight only accentuated the amber tints that marked the dying fern. In the evening, unable to shake off the pensive mood into which the day had thrown him, he reached down Guthrie's Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ, and gave himself to serious thought. Was it in the pages of Guthrie's searching volume that he came upon the text, or did he, later on, lay down the book and take up his New Testament instead? I do not know. But, however that may have been, one great and glowing thought took complete possession of his soul. As the tide will sometimes rush suddenly up the sands, filling up every hollow and bearing away all the seaweed and driftwood that has been lying there so long, so one surging and overmastering word poured itself suddenly in upon his mind, bearing away with it the doubts and apprehensions that had tormented him for years. 'Of His fullness have we all received, and grace for grace.' Then and there, he says, he began to have a secret joyful hope that he did really believe on the Lord Jesus. 'The fullness and freeness of the divine grace filled my heart; I did nothing but receive!'
'Of His fullness have all we received!'
'His fullness filled my heart!'
'I did nothing but receive!'
Forty-two years afterwards, at the age of sixty-two, he revisited that room and tried to recapture the holy ecstasy with which, so many years earlier, he had 'first realized a found Saviour.'
'Grace for grace!'
V
'Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace!'
I know a fair Australian city that nestles serenely at the foot of a tall and massive mountain. Half way up the slopes is the city's reservoir. In a glorious and evergreen valley it has been hollowed out of the rugged mountain-side. The virgin bush surrounds it on every hand; at its western extremity a graceful waterfall comes pouring down from the heights, mingling its silvery music with the songs of the birds around. It is the favorite haunt of gaily-colored kingfishers. Swallows skim hither and thither over its crystalline and placid surface; and, as if kissing their own reflections in the glass, they just touch the water as they flit across, creating circles that grow and grow until they reach the utmost edge. Like a giant who, conscious of his grandeur, loves to see his image in the mirror, the scarped and weather-beaten summit gazes sternly down from above and sees his splendors reproduced, and even enhanced, in the limpid depths below. Often, on a hot day, have I resorted to this sylvan retreat. At this altitude, how deliciously cool is the air; how icy cold the water! It has come pouring down the cataract from the melting snows above! For, strangely enough, the winter rains and the summer suns conspire to keep it always full. Far down the mountain-side I see the city, shimmering in the noonday heat. I think of its population, hot, tired and thirsty. And then it pleases me to reflect that every house down there at the mountain's foot is in direct communication with this vast basin of shining water. The people have but to stretch forth their hands and replenish their vessels again and again. This crystal reservoir far up the slopes is really a part of the furniture of each of those homes. Have not I myself been down there in the dust and heat on such a day as this? Have not I myself been parched and thirsty? And have I not thought wistfully of the reservoir far up the slopes? And have I not taken my glass and filled it and quaffed with relish the sweet and sparkling water? And have I not said to myself, as I thought of the familiar scene among the hills: 'Of its fullness have all we received, and water for water.'
'His fullness filled my heart!'
'I did nothing but receive!'
'Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace!'
VI
Yes, grace for grace! Grace for manhood following upon grace for youth! Grace for sickness following upon grace for health! Grace for sorrow following upon grace for joy! Grace for age following upon grace for maturity! Grace to die following upon grace to live! Of that fullness of which he first drank on that lovely autumn evening, he drank again and again and again, always with fresh delight and satisfaction.
Twenty-five years later, I find him saying that, 'if there is one thing for which I praise the Lord more than another it is this: that He opened my eyes to see that Christ pleases the Father to the full, and that this is the ground of my acceptance.'
Five years later still, he says that 'I have been many, many times unhappy for awhile, but have never seriously doubted my interest in the Lord Jesus.'
When he was fifty-four, his wife died, leaving him to bring up his young family as best he could. But 'grace for grace.' A year or two later, I find him rejoicing that 'to-night both Isabella and Marjory came home speaking of their having been enabled to rest on Christ. What a joyful time it has been! I think, too, the young servant has found Christ. Blessed Lord, I have asked Thee often to remember Thy promise, and "when mother leaves thee, the Lord will take thee up." I have asked Thee to be a mother to my motherless children, and now, indeed, Thou hast given me my prayer. Praise, praise for evermore!'
On the fiftieth anniversary of that never-to-be-forgotten autumn evening, he records with gratitude the fact that, 'for fifty years the Lord has kept me within sight of the Cross.'
Ten years later still, now an old man of eighty, he declares that his Saviour has never once left him in the darkness all these years.
And, two years later, just before his death, he writes, 'it was sixty-two years ago that I found the Saviour, or, rather, that He found me; and I have never parted company with Him all these years. Christ the Saviour has been to me my true portion, my heaven begun; and my earnest prayer and desire for you and Mary and little Marjory will always be, that you may each find, not only all I ever found in Christ, but a hundredfold more, every year!'
Grace for grace!
Grace for the father and grace for the children!
Grace for the old man just about to die, and grace for the little child just learning how to live!
'Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace!'
VII
Yes, grace for grace! Grace for the pulpit and grace for the pew!' For, through all these years, Andrew Bonar was a minister, and the text was the keynote of all his utterances.
Fullness! Fullness! Fullness!
Receive! Receive! Receive!
Grace for grace! Grace for grace!
'Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace!'
In his study there hung a text of two words. He had had it specially printed, for those two words expressed the abiding fullness on which he loved to dwell. 'Thou remainest!' One day, we are told, a lady in great sorrow called to see him. But nothing that he said could comfort her. Then, suddenly, he saw a light come into her face. 'Say no more,' she said, 'I have found what I need!' and she pointed to the text: 'Thou remainest!'
That was it! Come what will, He abides! Go who may, He remains! Amidst all the chances and changes of life, He perennially satisfies. Like the thirsty toilers in the city, I draw and draw again, and am each time refreshed and revived.
'His fullness fills my heart!'
'I do nothing but receive!'
'Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace!'
