GEORGE WISHART.
In the summer of 1544, shortly after the events of which we have just spoken, a pious man, George Wishart, returned from England to Scotland. He was a brother of the laird of Pittarow, in the county of Mearns. While at Montrose, in 1538, he had read the Greek New Testament with several youths whom he was educating, and had been cited by the bishop of Brechin to appear before him. Wishart had then retired to Cambridge, and there he devoted himself to study for six years. In 1544, the Scottish commissioners who came into England respecting the treaty with Henry VIII. took him back with them, to Scotland. He went first to Montrose, his old abode, and thence to Dundee, where he wished to preach the Word of God. His personal appearance was entirely prepossessing. He was amiable, unassuming, polite. His chief delight was to learn and to teach. He was tall; his black hair was cut short, his beard was long. His physiognomy was indicative of a somewhat melancholy temperament. He wore a French cap of the best material, a gown which fell to his heels, and a black doublet. There was about his whole person an air of decorum and grace. He spoke with modesty and with great seriousness. He slept on straw, and his charity had no end, night nor day. He loved all men. He gave gifts, consolation, assistance: he was studious of all means of doing good to all and hurt to none. He distributed periodically among the poor various articles of clothing, always ‘saving his French cap, which he kept the whole year of my being with him,’ says the Cambridge student who drew this portrait of Wishart just before the latter set out for Scotland.[327]
Wishart’s reputation having preceded him, a multitude of hearers gathered about him at Dundee. He expounded in a connected series of discourses the doctrine of salvation, according to the Epistle to the Romans, and his knowledge and eloquence excited general admiration. But the priests declared everywhere that if he were allowed to go on, the Roman system must inevitably fall to the ground. They therefore sought the assistance of an influential layman, Robert Mill, who had once professed the truth, but had since forsaken it. One day, just as Wishart was finishing his discourse, Mill rose in the church and forbade him in the queen’s name and the regent’s to trouble them any more. Wishart was silent for awhile, with his eyes turned heavenward, and then looking sorrowfully on the assembly he said—‘God is witness that I never minded [intended] your trouble, but your comfort. But I am assured that to refuse God’s Word and to chase from you his messenger shall not preserve you from trouble, but shall bring you into it. I have offered unto you the word of salvation, and with the hazard of my life I have remained among you. But and [if] trouble unlooked for apprehend you, turn to God, for He is merciful. But if ye turn not at the first he will visit you with fire and sword.’ When he had thus spoken, he came down from the pulpit and went away at once into the western part of Scotland.[328]
HIS PREACHING.
Having arrived at Ayr, he preached there to large numbers of people who gladly received his words. Dunbar, bishop of Glasgow, as soon as he was informed of it, hastened to the town with a body of men and took possession of the church in order to prevent Wishart from preaching. The reformer’s friends were indignant at this step. The earl of Glencairn, the laird of Loch Norris,[329] and several gentlemen of Kyle went to Wishart and offered to get possession of the church and to place him in the pulpit. ‘No,’ said the evangelist, wisely, ‘the bishop’s sermon will not much hurt: let us go to the market-cross.’ They did so, and he there preached with so much energy and animation that some of his hearers, who were enemies of the truth till that day, received it gladly. Meanwhile the bishop was in the church with a very small audience. There was hardly anyone to hear him but some vestry attendants and some poor dependents. They were expecting a sermon, but he had forgotten to put one in his pocket. He made them the best excuse he could. ‘Hold us still for your bishop,’ he said, ‘and we shall provide better the next time.’ He then with haste departed from the town, not a little ashamed of his enterprise.[330]
Wishart persevered in his work, and his reputation spread all around. The men of Mauchlin came and asked him to preach the Gospel to them on the following Sunday. But the sheriff of Ayr heard of it, and sent a body of men in the night to post themselves about the church. ‘We will enter by force,’ said Hugh Campbell to Wishart. ‘Brother,’ replied the evangelist, ‘it is the word of peace which God sends by me; the blood of no man shall be shed this day for the preaching of it. I find that Christ Jesus oftener preached in the desert, at the seaside, and other places judged profane, than he did in the temple of Jerusalem.’ He then withdrew to the country, saying to the people who followed him that the Saviour was ‘as potent upon the fields as in the kirk.’ He climbed up a dike raised on the edge of the moorland, and there, in the fair warm day, preached for more than three hours. One man present, Lawrence Ranken, laird of Shield, who had previously led a wicked life, was impressed by what he heard. ‘The tears ran from his eyes in such abundance that all men wondered.’[331] Converted by that discourse, the laird of Shield gave evidence in his whole after-life that his conversion was genuine. Wishart preached with like success in the whole district. The harvest was great, says one historian.
The reformer heard on a sudden that the plague had broken out at Dundee four days after he left the town, and that it was raging cruelly. He resolved instantly to go there. ‘They are now in trouble and they need comfort,’ he said to those who would fain hold him back: ‘perchance this hand of God will make them now to magnify and reverence that word which before, for the fear of men, they set at light part.’
He reached Dundee in August, 1544, and announced the same morning that he would preach. It was necessary to keep apart the plague-stricken from those who were in health, and for that purpose he took his station at the east gate of the town. Those who were in health had their place within the city, and those who were sick remained without. Such a distribution of an audience was surely never seen before! Wishart opened the Bible and read these words—‘He sent his word and healed them.’ (Ps. cvii. 20.) ‘The mercy of God,’ said he, ‘is prompt to fall on all such as truly turn to Him, and the malice of men can neither eik nor pair [add to nor diminish] his gentle visitation.’[332]—‘We do not fear death,’ said some of his hearers; ‘nay, we judge them more happy that should depart, than such as should remain behind.’ That east gate of Dundee (Cowgate) was left standing in memory of Wishart when the town walls were taken down at the close of the eighteenth century, and it is still carefully preserved.
Wishart was not satisfied with speech alone, he personally visited the sick, fearlessly exposing himself to infection in the most extreme cases. He took care that the sick should have what they needed, and the poor were as well provided for as the rich.
The town was in great distress lest the mouth from which so much sweetness flowed should be closed.