Then Knibb came along with his fiery eloquence, which swept over and warmed the hearts of the people with indignation at the dishonour done religion in the martyrdom of the missionary Smith; and then the grand scene in the British emancipation drama, the overthrow of Bothwick by George Thompson, and the monster petitions and the reluctant assent of the ministry and the passage of the bill.
Those were stirring times in Glasgow, and it did one’s heart good to see John Murray in their midst. The arrangements for nearly all those movements originated with, and were carried out by him; he never made a speech of one minute long, yet he most effectively arranged all the speaking, drew up all resolutions and reports and addresses; and most of the movements in England, the pressure upon the ministry, and the advocacy in Parliament were the result of his wide and laborious correspondence. He used more than one ream of paper for manuscripts upon the great cause which he seemed born to carry out successfully. In addition to his other correspondence, nearly every issue of two of the Glasgow tri-weekly papers contained able articles from his pen in reply to the elaborate defence of slavery carried on in the Glasgow Courier by Mr. M‘Queen. And yet this man, doing this mighty work, was so entirely unobtrusive, so quiet in his labours, that few beyond the committee knew him other than the silent secretary of the Glasgow Emancipation Society. And I shall not soon forget the perfect consternation with which he heard a vote of thanks tendered him by resolution at an annual meeting of the society.
In 1835 or 1836, Mr. Murray was promoted to the office of collector at Bowling Bay, for the company he had so long and faithfully served. And many an anti-slavery wayfarer can testify to the warm welcome and genial hospitality of the snug little stone building so beautifully packed on the Clyde entrance of the Forth and Clyde canal. A charming family, consisting of a devoted wife, two most promising boys, and a retiring, sweet tempered girl, made happy the declining years of this great friend of the slave, and earnest pioneer in many reforms. Freedom for Ireland, the Peace Question, Radical Reform, a Free Church, and Total Abstinence, were questions to all of which Mr. Murray devoted his pen and his purse. His soul received and advocated whatever looked towards human progress.
In person, Mr. Murray was tall and gaunt, and would strongly remind one of Henry Clay. About a mile from Bowling Bay, within the enclosure that surrounds the Relief Church, in a sweet quiet spot, the green turf now covers what remains of the once active frame of John Murray; and as, with moistened cheek, I fling this pebble upon his cairn, I cannot help thinking how much more has been done for the cause of human progress by this faithful servant to his own convictions of the truth, than by the nation-wept sage of Ashland.
New York, Sept. 25, 1852.
POWER OF AMERICAN EXAMPLE.
At the last anniversary of the American Home Missionary Society, Rev. John P. Gulliver made an eloquent address on the duty of bringing the American people under the full influence of Christian principle, in an argument drawn from the bearings of our national example on the people of other lands. Christianity, he said, alone can make the nations free. We fully believe in this sentiment. In answer to the question, How is Christianity to effect this result?—Mr. Gulliver’s answer was: America is to be the agent.
Other nations, he thought, might do much in working out this great result; but the chief hopes of the friends of freedom, he suggested, are centered upon this country. The world needs an example; and he pointed to what the example of this nation has already done, imperfect as it is. “It is doing, at this moment, more to change the political condition of man than all the armies and navies,—than all the diplomacy and kingcraft of the world.” If it be so, if as the speaker declared, “the battle of the world’s freedom is to be fought on our own soil,” it would be interesting to look at the obstacles in the way. The United States must present a very different example from that exhibited the last twenty-five years, and now exhibited, before this country will be the agent of Christianity in evangelising the world. Think of three millions of our countrymen in chains! Think of the large numbers held by ministers of the Gospel and members of churches! Think of the countenance given to slave-holders by our ecclesiastical assemblies, by Northern preachers, by Christian lawyers, merchants, and mechanics! Think of the platforms, adopted by the two leading political parties of the country, composed partly of religious men! Think of the dumbness of those that minister at the altar, in view of the great national iniquity, and then consider the effects of such an example upon other nations, Christian and Heathen!
Dr. Hawes is stated to have said at the last annual meeting of the A. B. C. F. M., that Dr. John H. Rice said, in his hearing, more than twenty years ago: “I do not believe the Lord will suffer the existing type or character of the Christian world to be impressed on the heathen.” We also heard the remark, and believe that Dr. Rice, in alluding to the state of religion in this country, said, “It was so far short of what Christianity required, that sanguine as many were that the United States was speedily to be the agent of the world’s conversion, he did not believe, for one, that God would suffer the Christianity of this country, as it then was, to be impressed upon the heathen world.” If the character of our religion was thus twenty years ago, what is it now? As a religious people we have been boastful. We have acted as if we thought God could not convert the world without the instrumentality of this country. It is far more probable that the converted heathen will send missionaries to the United States to teach us the first rudiments of Christianity, than that this country, at the present low ebb of religion, will be the agent of converting heathen nations to God.