Some time in the year 1732, a pious Scottish clergyman who resided in England—a Mr. Davidson of Denham, in Essex, visited some of his friends who lived in Cromarty. He was crossing the Firth at this time on a Sabbath morning, to attend the celebration of the Supper in a neighbouring church, when a person pointed out to him a thoughtful-looking little boy, who sat at the other end of the boat. “It is Andrew Lindsay,” said the person, “a poor young thing seeking anxiously after the truth.” “I had no opportunity of conversing with him,” says Mr. Davidson in his printed tract, “but I could not observe without thankfulness a poor child, on a cold morning, crossing the sea to hear the Word, without shoe or stocking, or anything to cover his head from the inclemency of the weather.” He saw him again when in church—his eyes fixed steadfastly on the preacher, and the expression of his countenance varying with the tone of the discourse. Feeling much interested in him, he had no sooner returned to Cromarty than he waited upon him at his mother’s, and succeeded in engaging him in a long and interesting conversation, which he has recorded at considerable length.
“How did it happen, my little fellow,” said he, “that you went so far from home last week to hear sermon, when the season was so cold, and you had neither shoes nor stockings?” The boy replied in a bashful, unassuming manner, that he was in that state of nature which is contrasted by our Saviour with that better state of grace, the denizens of which can alone inherit the kingdom of heaven. But, though conscious that such was the case, he was quite unaffected, he said, by a sense of his danger. He was anxious, therefore, to pursue those means by which such a sense might be awakened in him; and the Word preached was one of these. For how, he continued, unless I be oppressed by the weight of the evil which rests upon me, and the woe and misery which it must necessarily entail in the future, how can I value or seek after the only Saviour? “But what,” said Mr. Davidson, “if God himself has engaged to work this affecting sense of sin in the heart?”—“Has he so promised?” eagerly inquired the boy. The clergyman took out his Bible, and read to him the remarkable text in John, in which our Saviour intimates the coming of the Spirit to convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Andrew’s countenance brightened as he listened, and, losing his timidity in the excitement of the moment, he took the book out of Mr. Davidson’s hand, and, for several minutes, contemplated the passage in silence.
“Do you ever pray?” inquired Mr. Davidson; Andrew shut the book, and, hanging down his head, timidly replied in the negative. “What! not pray! Do you go so far from home to attend sermons, and yet not bow the knee to God in prayer?”—“Ah!” he answered, “I do bow the knee perhaps six or seven times a day, but I cannot call that praying to God—I want the spirit of prayer; I often ask I hardly know what, and with scarce any desire to receive; and often, when a half sense of my condition has compelled me to kneel, a vicious wandering imagination carries me away, and I rise again, not knowing what I have said.”—“Oh!” rejoined the clergyman, “only persist. But tell me, was it your ordinary practice, in past years, to attend sermons as you do now?” “No, sir, quite the reverse; once or twice in a season, perhaps, I went to church, but I used to quit it through weariness ere the service was half completed.”—“And how do you account for the change?” “I cannot account for it; I only know, that formerly I had no heart to go and hear of God at any time, and that now I dare not keep away.” Mr. Davidson then inquired whether he had ever conversed on these matters with Mr. Gordon, the minister of the parish; but was asked with much simplicity, in return, what Mr. Gordon would think of a poor boy like him presuming to call on him? “I have many doubts and uncertainties,” said he, “but I am afraid to ask any one to solve them. Once, indeed, but only once, I plucked up resolution enough to inquire of a friend how I might glorify God. He bade me obey God’s commandments, for that was the way to glorify Him, and I now see the value of the advice; but I see, also, that only through faith in Jesus Christ can fallen man acquire an ability to profit by it.”
“This last answer, so much above his years,” says Mr. Davidson, “occasioned my asking him how he had become so intimately acquainted with these truths? He modestly answered, ‘I hear Mr. Gordon preach,’ as if he had said, My knowledge bears no proportion to the advantages I enjoy.” And thus ended the conference; for, after exhorting him to be much in secret prayer, and to testify to the world the excellence of what he sought after, by being a diligent scholar and a dutiful son, Mr. Davidson bade him farewell. The poor little fellow was wandering, at this period, over that middle space which lies between the devoted city and the wicket gate; struggling at times in the deep mire of the slough, at times journeying beside the hanging hill. He had received, however, the roll from Evangelist, and saw the shining light of the wicket becoming clearer and brighter as he advanced.
About half a year from the time of this conversation, Mr. Davidson had again occasion to visit Cromarty; he called on Andrew, and was struck, in the moment he saw him, by a remarkable change in his appearance. Formerly, the expression of his countenance, though interesting, was profoundly melancholy; it was now lighted up by a quiet tranquil joy; and, though modest and unassuming as before, he was less timid. He had passed the wicket. He felt he had become one of the family of God; and found a new principle implanted within him, which so operated on his affections, that he now hated the evil he had previously loved, and was enamoured of the good he had formerly rejected. Standing, as Bacon has beautifully expressed it, on the “vantage ground of truth,” he could overlook the windings of the track on which he had lately journeyed, not knowing whither he went. “I see,” said he to Mr. Davidson, “that the very bent of my mind was contrary to God—especially to the way of salvation by Christ—and that I could no more get rid of this disposition through any effort of my own, than I could pull the sun out of the heavens. I see, too, that not only were all my ordinary actions tainted by sin, but that even my religious duties were sins also. And yet, out of these actions and duties, was I accumulating to myself a righteousness which I meant to barter for the favour of God; and, though he was at much pains with me in scattering the hoard in which I trusted, yet, after every fresh dispersal, would I set myself to gather anew.”—When passing the wicket, he had been shot at from the castle. He was conscious that a power, detached from his mind, had been operating upon it; for, as it fluctuated on its natural balance between gaiety and depression, he had felt this power weighing it into despair as it sunk towards the lower extreme, and urging it into presumption as it ascended towards the upper. He had seen, also, the rarities at the house of the Interpreter. Religion had communicated to him the art of thinking. It first inspired him with a belief in God, and an anxious desire to know what was his character; and, as he read his Bible, and heard sermons, his mental faculties, like the wheels of a newly-completed engine, felt for the first time the impulse of a moving power, and began to revolve. It next stirred him up to stand sentinel over the various workings of his mind, and, as he stood and pondered, he became a skilful metaphysician, without so much as knowing the name of the science. As a last step in the process, it brought him acquainted with those countless analogies by which the natural world is rendered the best of all commentaries on the moral. “I am unable,” said he to his friend the clergyman, “to describe the state of my soul as I see it, but I am somewhat helped to conceive of it by the springs which rise by the wayside, as I pass westward from the town, along the edge of the bay. They contain only a scanty supply of water, and are matted over with grass and weeds; but even now in August, when the fierce heat has dried up all the larger pools, that scanty supply does not fail them. On disentangling the weeds I see the water sparkling beneath. It is thus, I trust, with my heart. The life of God is often veiled in it by the rank luxuriance of evil thoughts, but, when a new manifestation draws these aside, I can catch a glimpse of what they conceal. I can hope, too, that as the love of Christ is unchangeable, this element of life will continue to spring up in my soul, however dry and arid the atmosphere which surrounds it.”
Bunyan has described a green pleasant valley, besprinkled with lilies, which lies between the palace of the virgins and the valley of the shadow of death. “It is blessed,” says he, “with an exceedingly fertile soil, and there have been many labouring men who have been fortunate enough to get estates in it.” Andrew was one of these. He was humble and unobtrusive, and but little confident in himself—a true freeman of the valley of humiliation. Though no longer the leader of his schoolfellows—for he had now so little influence among them, that he could not prevail on so much as one of them to follow him—he was much happier than before. Leaving them at their wild games, he would retire to his solitudes, and there hold converse with the Deity in prayer, or seek out in meditation some of the countless parallelisms of the two great works which had been spread out before him—Creation and the Bible. He was no longer a leader even to himself. “I have been taught,” said he, “by experience, that my heart is too stubborn a thing for my own management, and so have given it up to the management of Christ.” Mr. Davidson saw him, for the last time, about the beginning of the year 1740, when he complained to him of being exposed to many sore temptations. He had met with wild beasts, and had to contend with giants—he had been astonished amid the gloom of the dark valley, and bewildered in the mists of the enchanted ground. The interesting little tract from which I have drawn nearly all the materials of my memoir, and which at the time of its first appearance passed through several editions, and was printed more recently at Edinburgh by the publishers for the Sabbath-schools, concludes with a brief notice of this conference. The rest of Andrew’s story may be told in a few words. He lived virtuously and happily, supporting himself by the labour of his hands, without either seeking after wealth or attaining to it; he bore a good name, though not a celebrated one, and lived respected, and died regretted. It is recorded on his tombstone, in an epitaph whose only merit is its truth, that “he was truly pious from a child—his whole life and conversation agreeable thereto;” and that his death took place in 1769, in the fiftieth year of his age.
I am aware that, in thus tracing the course of my townsman, I lay myself open to a charge of fanaticism. I shall venture, however, on committing myself still further.
One night, towards the close of last autumn, I visited the old chapel of St. Regulus. The moon, nearly at full, was riding high overhead in a troubled sky, pouring its light by fits, as the clouds passed, on the grey ruins, and the mossy, tilt-like hillocks, which had been raised ages before over the beds of the sleepers. The deep, dark shadows of the tombs seemed stamped upon the sward, forming, as one might imagine, a kind of general epitaph on the dead, but inscribed, like the handwriting on the wall, in the characters of a strange tongue. A low breeze was creeping through the long withered grass at my feet; a shower of yellow leaves came rustling, from time to time, from an old gnarled elm that shot out its branches over the burying-ground—and, after twinkling for a few seconds in their descent, silently took up their places among the rest of the departed; the rush of the stream sounded hoarse and mournful from the bottom of the ravine, like a voice from the depths of the sepulchre; there was a low, monotonous murmur, the mingled utterance of a thousand sounds of earth, air, and water, each one inaudible in itself; and, at intervals, the deep, hollow roar of waves came echoing from the caves of the distant promontory, a certain presage of coming tempest. I was much impressed by the melancholy of the scene. I reckoned the tombs one by one. I pronounced the names of the tenants. I called to remembrance the various narratives of their loves and their animosities, their joys and their sorrows. I felt, and there was a painful intensity in the feeling, that the gates of death had indeed closed over them, and shut them out from the world for ever. I contrasted the many centuries which had rolled away ere they had been called into existence, and the ages which had passed since their departure, with the little brief space between—that space in which the Jordan of their hopes and fears had leaped from its source, and after winding through the cares, and toils, and disappointments of life, had fallen into the Dead Sea of the grave; and as I mused and pondered—as the flood of thought came rushing over me—my heart seemed dying within me, for I felt that, as one of this hapless race, vanity of vanity was written on all my pursuits and all my enjoyments, and that death, as a curse, was denounced against me. But there was one tomb which I had not reckoned, one name which I had not pronounced, one story which I had not remembered. I had not thought of the tomb, the name, the story of that sleeper of hope, who had lived in the world as if he were not of the world, and had died in the full belief that because God was his friend, death could not be his enemy. My eye at length rested on the burial-ground of the Lindsays, and the feeling of deep despondency which had weighed on my spirits was dissipated as if by a charm. I saw time as the dark vestibule of eternity;—the gate of death which separates the porch from the main building, seemed to revolve on its hinges, and light broke in as it opened; for the hall beyond was not a place of gloom and horror, nor strewed, as I had imagined, with the bones of dead men. I felt that the sleeper below had, indeed, lived well; the world had passed from him as from the others, but he had wisely fixed his affections, not on the transitory things of the world, but on objects as immortal as his own soul; and as I mused on his life and his death, on the quiet and comfort of the one, and the high joy of the other, I wondered how it was that men could deem it wisdom to pursue an opposite course.—I could not, at that time, regard Lindsay as a fanatic, nor am I ashamed to confess that I have not since changed my opinion.
CHAPTER XIV.
“Around swells mony a grassy heap,