Barclay's life belongs to the sad list of bright biographies as it seems to us too soon cut short by death. He died in his prime, when every year seemed to bring increased usefulness and influence for good. He was but eighteen when he was converted, but nineteen when he began to preach; his first controversial work was written when he was twenty-two, and almost the whole of his writings were produced during the next nine years, and yet they fill nine hundred folio pages!
The little band of Scottish Friends contained several remarkable men, with whom he had close and continued intercourse. For several years after his conversion, until 1673, Alexander Jaffray (see pp. [83] & [93]) survived, infirm in the body, but bright and happy in soul. His long unrest was ended; he had found amongst the Friends the close walk, the pure life, and the godly and loving brotherhood that he had long sought. The only thorns in his dying pillow were the persecuting spirit of the churches, and the non-conversion of his beloved wife. She, however, was so impressed by his death-bed experiences and testimony that she soon afterwards joined the Society. George Keith, a graduate of Aberdeen University, was a zealous advocate of Quakerism by tongue and pen, doing and suffering with a loving zeal, on which he looked back with regretful glances after his decline and perversion. He became a Friend in 1663, and for thirty years was a pillar amongst the brotherhood. His treatises on "Immediate Revelation" and on the "Universal Light, or the Free Grace of God asserted" were highly valued by Friends. He settled in Pennsylvania; but changing his social and religious opinions, he quarreled with his brethren and with the authorities there; and after an attempt to form a new sect of "Christian Friends," he came to England and joined the established church. He was put forward as a resolute opponent of his old allies. But Gough in his History of Friends gives reasons for believing that he was conscious at the last that he had declined in grace at this time. To a Friend who visited him on his dying bed, he is reported to have said, "I wish I had died when I was a Quaker, for then I am sure it would have been well with my soul." John Swintoune, already mentioned, was a frequent visitor at Ury, at Monthly Meetings and other special times. Sir Walter Scott claims him as one of his ancestors. He, like Jaffray, turned from a life of political activity and honours, to a life of hearty devotion to Quakerism. He was of very good family, baron of Swintoune, and at one time one of the Lords of Sessions. He had been so mixed up with the affairs of the commonwealth, that at the Restoration he was thrown into prison, and was in great peril. But in the meantime the light of divine truth shone into his heart, and when brought to trial, he was more ready to condemn himself than his judges could be, and only anxious to tell of the goodness of God to his soul. Bishop Burnet says "He was then become a Quaker, and did with a sort of eloquence that moved the whole house, lay out his own errors, and the ill-spirit he was in, when he did the things that were charged on him, with so tender a sense, that he seemed as one indifferent what they should do with him; and without so much as moving for mercy, or even for a delay, he did so effectually prevail on them, that they recommended him to the king as a fit object for his mercy." His estates, however, seem not to have been restored to him, for in 1682 we find Robert Barclay opening his liberal purse to assist him. We have seen how useful he was to David Barclay and again to Robert Barclay at the time of their convincement; for besides his religious experience, he had, says the Biographia Brittanica, "as good an education as almost any man in Scotland, which, gained to very strong natural parts, rendered him a most accomplished person."
Amongst the pious if not prominent members of the little church at Aberdeen were Bailie Molleson and his wife. The latter died young, but her death-bed was surrounded by a halo of glory through her triumphant faith. Her daughter, Christian, had joined the Friends in her sixteenth year. She won the favourable regard and then the warm affection of the young laird of Ury, and he addressed to her the following religious love-letter.
28th of 1st month, 1669.
"Dear Friend,
Having for some time past had it several times upon my mind to have saluted thee in this manner of writing, and to enter into a literal correspondence with thee so far as thy freedom could allow, I am glad that this small occasion hath made way for the beginning of it.
The love of thy converse, the desire of thy friendship, the sympathy of thy way, and meekness of thy spirit, has often, as thou mayst have observed, occasioned me to take frequent opportunity to have the benefit of thy company; in which I can truly say I have often been refreshed, and the life in me touched with a sweet unity which flowed from the same in thee, tender flames of pure love have been kindled in my bosom towards thee, and praises have sprung up in me to the God of our salvation, for what he hath done for thee! Many things in the natural will occur to strengthen and encourage my affection toward thee, and make thee acceptable unto me; but that which is before all and beyond all is, that I can say in the fear of the Lord that I have received a charge from him to love thee, and for that I know his love is much towards thee; and his blessing and goodness is and shall be unto thee so long as thou abidest in a true sense of it."
After speaking of Christian contentment, "from which there is safety which cannot be hurt, and peace which cannot be broken," he warns her against the dangers to which they were both exposed from their easy circumstances, and concludes—"I am sure it will be our great gain so to be kept, that all of us may abide in the pure love of God, in the sense and drawings whereof we can only discern and know how to love one another. In the present flowings thereof I have truly solicited thee, desiring and expecting that in the same thou mayst feel and judge.
Robert Barclay."
The reader accustomed to modern Quaker phraseology, will be astonished to find it so purely spoken by so young a convert at this early date of the Society's history. But he must remember what is too often overlooked in studying the writings of the early Friends, that the Friends simply adopted in many things the religious phraseology of the times (See Barclay's Inner Life, p. 214). But he cannot fail also to be charmed with the blending of love and piety in this epistle. Within a few months of the mother's death, the young couple were married in the simple Quaker fashion. This was the first wedding of the kind in Aberdeen, and it roused in the minds of many ministers and others much unnecessary alarm and irritation. The Bishop of Aberdeen was stirred up to procure letters summoning Robert Barclay before the Privy Council for an unlawful marriage; but, says the Ury record, "the matter was so overruled of the Lord that they never had power to put their summons into execution, so as to do us any prejudice."
The conversion of the Barclays to Quakerism seems to have fanned into a flame the fires of persecution both amongst Presbyterians and Episcopalians. The Presbyterians, though suffering persecution themselves, zealously preached against the heretics, and were resolute in excommunicating all who joined them. There is a sad story of one minister who, against his own conscience, was being compelled to excommunicate his own daughter, but fell dead in the pulpit whilst pronouncing the sentence. But the clergy was especially bitter. The Bishop of Aberdeen, Patrick Scougal, and his primate, Archbishop Sharpe, were bent on extirpating the sect, and carried out the system of fine and imprisonment with the utmost vigour. Scougal (father of Henry Scougal, professor of Divinity in Aberdeen University, and whose "Life of God in the soul of man" ranks high amongst our religious classics) was too good for such dirty work. Burnet says of him, contrasting them with his scandalous brother bishops: "There was indeed one Scougal, Bishop of Aberdeen, that was a man of rare temper, great piety, and prudence, but I thought he was too much under Sharpe's conduct, and was at least too easy to him." Sharpe was just in his element in the work. A pervert from Presbyterianism for no other reason than interest, he was a suitable tool for thrusting Episcopacy on those who hated it. The wanton insults and high-handed violence which he practiced, roused the bitterest hatred on the part of the populace, and led to his murder. But from the Quakers he had no violence to fear. They would only reason, protest, and pray for him; and on a coarse spirit like his their noble Christian conduct was thrown away. At last in 1672 the declaration of indulgence cut the claws of these persecutors and gave their victims relief.
In England the Quakers had a grand service to perform for the nation, in bearing the brunt of the fierce assault made on liberty of conscience. Whilst other dissenters temporised and resorted to stratagems to conceal the fact that they still continued to meet to worship God, the Quakers openly dared the wrath of the authorities, and took gladly the penalties of their faithfulness. In Scotland this faithful service was somewhat varied. In 1662 Episcopacy was established by law, and Presbyterianism put down. But the Covenanters were not easily coerced. They took up arms in defence of their religious liberties. They met to worship God with pistols in their belts, to defend themselves from the troopers sent to break up their meetings and to arrest their preachers. The consequences were conflict and bloodshed. Loyalty to God was confounded with disloyalty to the crown. The Quakers were not slow to condemn this mode of asserting the rights of conscience. Besides complicating the issue, they deemed it inconsistent with faith in God, who was quite competent to vindicate his own cause without appeal to the sword. They set the example of passive endurance of persecution, using only spiritual and peaceful means in resisting interference with the conscience. They appealed to the consciences of their judges; they petitioned the king's council, asserting their loyalty to the throne. But whilst these assertions of loyalty and condemnations of arms won clemency from the Council, they exasperated the Presbyterians; so that in spite of the fact that they had a common foe to fight, they wasted their strength in persecuting their stoutest allies, the Quakers. In 1661 the "drunken parliament" had met in Edinbro, and vested all executive authority in the king; so that the power of the Council was unlimited. We see, then, the profligate ministers of a dissolute monarch, with Lauderdale at their head, extending protection to the Quakers whom they despised and ridiculed; and checking the rage of exasperated Covenanters, and the violence of domineering clergy.
Soon after his marriage, Robert Barclay narrowly missed a first taste of prison life. The "monthly meeting" at Aberdeen (the gathering of the local congregations for denominational business, always preceded by worship) was entered by officers sent by the magistrates to disperse the assembly. They violently dragged to the Council House all the men who were present. There the magistrates endeavoured by fair words to induce them to give up their meeting, and then let them go. If they had had more experience of Friends they would have anticipated what followed. In spite of their recent arrest, the released Friends simply returned to the meeting, and resumed their worship. Soon the officers "appeared again, and with greater fury than before dragged them back to the Council House, where the provost and council reprimanded them for contumacious resistance of civil authority, using much threatening language. But Friends were preserved in a tranquil and innocent boldness, so that 'neither the big words nor yet the barbarous deeds' of their opponents could make them flinch from an honest confession of the true reasons for their conduct." They were all sent to prison, except Patrick Livingstone, and the young laird of Ury. To the eager martyr spirit of the latter, this exemption was quite disappointing. Young as he was, and so recently married, he would gladly have shared the hardships of his brethren.
Christian Barclay became a minister of the Society of Friends, but how early we are not told. She was an admirable wife, and an exemplary mother to her seven children, all of whom not only survived their father, but by a remarkable longevity were alive fifty years after his death. She was a noted nurse, and the poor for many miles round sought her advice in sickness. No doubt she used these occasions like a true medical missionary to minister to both body and soul. She lived to be seventy-five years of age, and was greatly lamented, not only by her numerous descendants, but by the poor to whom she had been such a friend, and by the Society to which she belonged, and in whose spiritual welfare she took a deep and life-long interest.
Robert Barclay was now fairly settled with his young wife at Ury under his father's roof. His life seems to have been one of retirement and scholarly research. The fathers and theologians engaged his attention, as well as the study of the Holy Scriptures in the original tongues, so that when in 1670 he was drawn into controversy, we find him furnished with a wealth of material with which to illustrate and enforce his arguments. There has been found a MS. volume, dated 1670, consisting of controversial letters addressed by him to one of his uncles, Charles Gordon, and going over the whole ground of the Quaker controversy. This correspondence would form a valuable stepping-stone to his future work. Though his uncle died before the series of letters was complete, Barclay carried out his plan to the end, and preserved the letters on both sides as a memorial of his deceased relative.