"Sad Death of a Student.
"On the afternoon of Friday last, two divinity students, Harker and Johnstone, set out from St Andrews for a walk in the country. As they passed through Strathkinness, they stopped for refreshment at a small inn. After a time they seemed to have grown reckless, and to have set in for serious drinking; and in rapid succession they ordered tumbler after tumbler of whisky toddy; and when the landlord, becoming alarmed, refused to supply them with any more, they left and went to another public-house, where they had several glasses of brandy. When they started to go home, they were both unsteady, especially Johnstone. Some of the villagers saw them staggering down the street, and overheard Harker abusing his companion for being drunk. Next morning, Johnstone was found lying dead by the roadside near Denbrae, between Strathkinness and St Andrews; and when Harker, who had arrived at his lodgings late on the previous night, was asked what had become of his companion, he grew confused, and could only say that he could not get him to come along, and had been obliged to leave him. On Monday, the Senatus Academicus summoned Harker before them, and, after due deliberation, passed upon him the extreme sentence of expulsion. This is a severe punishment, blighting as it does his whole future career: but a still more terrible punishment must be the reflection, that he took a poor unsophisticated youth into a public-house, deliberately set to work to make him tipsy, and then in the end left him to perish by the wayside."
As Blair read this passage, he fell back again into the Slough of Despond, and all the delight of life vanished once more. He knew that the siren, whom he now loathed and had hoped to get rid of, would fall back upon him and again cling to him; and, just as he had foreboded, in a few days came the well-known hateful scrawl, appealing in a vulgar manner to his affections. What, she went on to say, had come over him? Had he fallen in love with some milkmaid and forgotten his poor little Gracie. She had been breaking her heart, waiting for a letter from him; and all the neighbours had been noticing that she had fallen away from her clothes. Was not that a dreadful scrape Harker had got into? She was not surprised at it, knowing what a bad character he was. Though she had been obliged to be civil to him, she had always hated him. Thank goodness she would now get rid of his attentions! With a whole lot of kisses, and waiting for a letter from him, she was his own Grace.
After reading this, he gnashed his teeth with vexation and disgust, tore the letter to pieces, and threw it in the fire. He did not answer it; and he vowed that from that time he would treat her with the silent contempt she deserved.
At the end of another year, Blair was licensed to preach, and became what is called a probationer. He had looked forward to this as the great epoch of his life, the turning-point of his career, when he was to become the accredited legate of heaven, to bear the message of salvation to his perishing fellow-creatures. Could anyone have a nobler work? But, unfortunately, this sacred office was hampered by preliminary conditions which he felt to be exceedingly humiliating. He had first to get a church; and in order to get a church, he had to please that very uncertain thing called the popular taste. In this perplexing task, the great stores of learning which he had been piling up for so many years gave him little or no assistance. He sat down doggedly and constructed his sermon after the most approved conventional method. By persistent reiteration he committed it to memory, word for word. With fluttering heart and trembling knees he went up to the pulpit on Sunday and began to give it off. During this unwinding process, he did not see the congregation before him; but he was looking at the image of his manuscript; and his mind's eye was running over line after line and page after page. It was a recitation exercise, and not a living speech coming warm from the heart of the speaker and going direct to the heart of the hearers. And all the while, he did not feel that he was pleading with his fellow-creatures to accept the Word of God. He felt that he was really begging them to notice how ably he was treating the subject, how effectively he was delivering it, and what a promising young creature he was. He was, in fact, a sort of itinerant theological hawker, hawking his spiritual wares from town to town.
And as time went on, he found himself beaten in the bid for popularity by fellow-students who were far inferior to him in ability and scholarship. Sim, who could not for the life of him construe a Latin sentence, and Macfarlane Macdonald, who was never known to have a single idea in his head on any subject whatever, found no difficulty in tickling the ear of the many-headed beast, and became ordained ministers while he continued to wander about, an uncalled probationer. It soon became evident that Malcolm Blair, the most distinguished student of his time, was in danger of becoming "a stickit minister."
But this universe is constructed on the grand principle of compensation. Providence seldom inflicts a wound without supplying a soothing plaster. That want of success, which lands us in poverty and hardship, scares away our false friends. Miss Grace Bourhill thought herself too good to be a stickit minister's wife; and while Blair's fate hung in the balance, ceased altogether to correspond with him; and at length, to his infinite relief, he heard that she was married to a cousin of her own, a prosperous brewer in St Andrews. Freedom at last! and brought about in an unexpected way! He now gloried exceedingly in his failure as a preacher. What was the want of manse and stipend compared with the escape from that incubus which had pressed the very spirit out of him! The world now lay bright before him, and he was free to go his own way by himself. As the church did not want him, he would adopt some other calling; and he was actually preparing himself to undertake either literary or scholastic work, when he received an invitation to engage in one of the most striking enterprises of the day.
Those that knew Fife more than fifty years ago must remember Miss Singleton, who worked such wonders in the way of evangelising the mining village of Coaltown. She belonged to that strongly-marked and combative class of female social reformers; and certainly she was one of the best specimens of the class. She was not, like some of her sisterhood, conceited, arrogant, and masculine. Though she was strong-minded, she was also strong-hearted. If she was bold and aggressive, it was in urging the claims of the oppressed, and not in exhibiting her own cleverness. Her plan for raising the sunken masses was direct and drastic. "Get rid," she said to the missionary, "of all that priestly parade and formality which have concealed so long the true living face of religion. Return to Christ's sublimely simple plan, which is founded on the two everlasting facts of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man. Imitate Him as far as the circumstances of the time will allow. Go down among the lapsed masses, not with man-millinery, patronising airs, and doles of blankets and soup, but with wisdom in your head and real love in your heart. Live amongst them, become one of themselves, and help them in their difficulties and sorrows." Such was the method which Miss Singleton herself had carried out; and the results were said to be marvellous.
This was the lady who now wrote to Malcolm Blair. "She had listened to his preaching," she said, "and had heard of him from some other friends, and she thought that he might be able to assist her in her labours. She could not give him very much in the form of money, but he might be able to find some of his reward in the work itself. Should he think favourably of this proposal, would he kindly call upon her?"
After considering this matter long and carefully, Blair came to the conclusion that he could not do better than wait upon Miss Singleton. And when he had once seen her and talked with her, he could not refuse her offer. Miss Singleton's whole personality was like a pleasing revelation to him. Instead of the bold-featured, masculine-looking woman that he expected to see, he beheld a gentle and beautiful young lady, the secret of whose power lay in her feminine tact and sympathy. And when he saw her moving about among the poor, she seemed to him the very embodiment of the spirit of Christianity. Wherever there was sickness or sorrow—that was her chosen abode. There was comfort in the sound of her voice; there was healing in her very touch. Her smile was the highest reward, and her look of painful disapproval was the heaviest punishment. In her presence the coarsest miner felt ashamed of his conduct, and silently vowed to give up swearing and drinking.