CHAPTER IV.
HIS MISSION TO PALESTINE AND THE JEWS.
"Here am I; send me"—Isaiah 6:8.
Though engaged night and day with his flock in St. Peter's, Mr. M'Cheyne ever cherished a missionary spirit. "This place hardens me for a foreign land," was his remark on one occasion. This spirit he sought to kindle yet more by reading missionary intelligence for his own use, and often to his people at his weekly prayer-meeting. The necessities both of his own parish, and of the world at large, lay heavy on his soul; and when an opportunity of evangelizing occurred, there was none in Scotland more ready to embrace it. He seemed one who stood with his loins girt: "Here am I; send me."
Another motive to incessant activity, was the decided impression on his mind that his career would be short. From the very first days of his ministry he had a strong feeling of this nature; and his friends remember how his letters used to be sealed with this seal, "The night cometh" At a time when he was apparently in his usual health, we were talking together on the subject of the Pre-millennial Advent. We had begun to speak of the practical influence which the belief of that doctrine might have. At length he said, "That he saw no force in the arguments generally urged against it, though he had difficulties of his own in regard to it. And perhaps (he added) it is well for you, who enjoy constant health, to be so firmly persuaded that Christ is thus to come; but my sickly frame makes me feel every day that my time may be very short."
He was therefore in some measure prepared, when, in the midst of his laborious duties, he was compelled to stand still and see what the Lord would do.
In the close of 1838, some symptoms appeared that alarmed his friends. His constitution, never robust, began to feel the effects of unremitting labor; for occasionally he would spend six hours in visiting, and then the same evening preach in some room to all the families whom he had that day visited. Very generally, too, on Sabbath, after preaching twice to his own flock, he was engaged in ministering somewhere else in the evening. But now, after any great exertion, he was attacked by violent palpitation of heart. It soon increased, affecting him in his hours of study; and at last it became almost constant. Upon this, his medical advisers insisted on a total cessation of his public work; for though as yet there was no organic change on his lungs, there was every reason to apprehend that that might be the result. Accordingly, with deep regret, he left Dundee to seek rest and change of occupation, hoping it would be only for a week or two.
A few days after leaving Dundee, he writes from Edinburgh, in reply to the anxious inquiries of his friend Mr. Grierson: "The beating of the heart is not now so constant as it was before. The pitcher draws more quietly at the cistern; so that, by the kind providence of our heavenly Father, I may be spared a little longer before the silver cord be loosed, and the golden bowl be broken."
It was found that his complaints were such as would be likely to give way under careful treatment, and a temporary cessation from all exertion. Under his father's roof, therefore, in Edinburgh, he resigned himself to the will of his Father in heaven. But deeply did he feel the trial of being laid aside from his loved employment, though he learned of Him who was meek and lowly, to make the burden light in his own way, by saying, "Even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight." He wrote to Mr. Grierson again, January 5, 1839: "I hope this affliction will be blessed to me. I always feel much need of God's afflicting hand. In the whirl of active labor there is so little time for watching, and for bewailing, and seeking grace to oppose the sins of our ministry, that I always feel it a blessed thing when the Saviour takes me aside from the crowd, as He took the blind man out of the town, and removes the veil, and clears away obscuring mists, and by his word and Spirit leads to deeper peace and a holier walk. Ah! there is nothing like a calm look into the eternal world to teach us the emptiness of human praise, the sinfulness of self-seeking and vainglory, to teach us the preciousness of Christ, who is called 'The Tried Stone.' I have been able to be twice at college to hear a lecture from Dr. Chalmers. I have also been privileged to smooth down the dying pillow of an old school-companion, leading him to a fuller joy and peace in believing. A poor heavy-laden soul, too, from Larbert, I have had the joy of leading toward the Saviour. So that even when absent from my work, and when exiled, as it were, God allows me to do some little things for his name."