Here is a picture of an ideal missionary’s day. It is the steady, persistent, loved and reverent talk of one whose very life is the service of his God. What fresh interest there is in these simple records of his journal and how little he thought that thousands would find, in the years he would never see, inspiration and help by their perusal!
ST. MARY’S CHURCH, FORT ST. GEORGE
“October 22nd. I went out early to the river. Near the river was a pagoda, where grew a beautiful and shady tree. I seated myself beneath it and asked the heathens who came near, what the pagoda was for and to whose glory it was erected? Who the idol was, what he had accomplished, and what his wife was called. When they had quietly replied to all, I said to them: ‘All you have now said relative to the idol, clearly shows that he was a poor, dying and withal very vicious man, and therefore you grievously sin against yourselves in appropriating the glory which pertains to the true God to a sinful creature. After this the supremacy of God, as well as the deep corruption of men, the unutterable love of God in sending a Saviour, and the way to obtain a participation of this wonderful grace of God, were pointed out. One of them said: ‘It is our fate to be heathens and therefore a favourable reason must come before we can get free from it.’ ‘Can you call that fate,’ I said, ‘which you yourselves acknowledge to be evil and yet persist therein, against better knowledge and against conscience? Will God, to whom you and I must render an account, accept that as a suitable reason or excuse? Will you not bewail it for ever that you waste the period of grace? It is the fear of men which holds you all in bondage.’ To the last assertion they assented. In the afternoon I had a conference with many people adjoining the fort. They all listened attentively. An animated young heathen said, ‘Show me God so that I may behold Him and I will be your disciple.’ I said: ‘You talk like a sick person who desires health without a physician. There is a way, true and revealed by God Himself, by which man arrives at a vision of God. That way is denominated true poverty of spirit, patience, meekness, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, etc.’ This was all explained and afterwards the young man was questioned, whether this deterred him. But the way seemed to him to be too difficult.
“As evening approached and I was about to depart, a man of respectability sent to me out of the fort, requesting me to wait a little as he was desirous of speaking with me. He came rather late and then we discoursed about the Christian doctrines, as well as heathenism and its soul destroying nature. He heard in silence. The Lord’s Prayer, which I paraphrastically explained to him, pleased him.”
At this period, September, 1770, some of his letters are full of self revelation. In those which he sent to his intimate friend, Mr. Chambers, with whom he had so much real and personal fellowship, he seems to lay bare his heart and we see the inner workings of a noble, loving and lowly spirit. Such confessions, aspirations and meditations are too precious to pass into obscurity. He is still speaking to us in our later age, and we seem to know and love him better for such words.
“I thank you for your tender (I might almost say too tender) regard for me, poor sinner. I wish, nay, pray heartily that you may always appear clothed with the righteousness of your Divine Redeemer. Just now we considered to our mutual edification in our evening prayer, that excellent chapter, Romans v.: ‘Being therefore justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, rejoice in the hope of glory, rejoice even in tribulation.’ What inestimable blessings are these! And all purchased by Christ and given freely to all hungry and thirsty souls! O that we might open our mouths wide and be filled! As I read you once that passage in the garden, so I could not help reflecting on it, nay I shall remember you as often as I read it. May the Spirit of God be poured out in our hearts, and may He display to us the incomparable wonders of the grace of God towards us!”
He had been reading in the Revelation about the Epistle sent to the angel of Ephesus, whose first love had been deserted and now while still cold and indifferent many things were being performed more from custom than love. The thought of a soul in that condition deeply touched him. He writes:
“I cannot say how that tender and mournful complaint moved me. It was as if Jesus stood before me, telling me ‘I have that against thee.’ My heart was quite melted down. Yes, no doubt too many things, otherwise good in themselves, are done without that noble spirit of love. O that my heart might bleed for that unaccountable coldness with respect to the love I owe to my blessed Redeemer! I repent of it sincerely, though not so as I wish, remembering how great the fall is. But how cheering is the promise which that beloved Redeemer gives to all those who overcome that coldness and strive to be fervent in love. They shall ‘eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God, they shall enjoy the sweet favour and love of God, they shall see and taste how good the Lord is.’ May this inestimable promise keep up a fire of love in our heart! May we condemn all coldness and mere formality in religious exercises! I hope your heart is burning with the love of Christ, as the heart of the disciple on the road to Emmaus. Indeed, materials to kindle that fire within us are not wanting, provided we take care and be vigilant. Let us then mutually excite one another as long as we have opportunity, and let not the multiplicity of business damp that holy flame, which ought to be burning continually. My heart wishes you may be always a shining light!”
Later on he is writing again, full of good wishes for his friend in the New Year:—