In Edinburgh when they were celebrating the life of Dr. George
Matheson, the blind preacher, Robertson Nicoll said that he
was the greatest Scotsman since Thomas Chalmers. Divide that
statement in two in the middle, and you still have a great man.
At twenty the youth left a surgeon’s office, with these words
echoing in the porches of the ear, “Better see your friends
quickly, for soon the darkness will settle, and you will see
them no more forever.” Then his biographer tells us that the
youth went on with his studies, by listening while others read
or recited. Had Matheson been able to read early church history,
he would have been a great scholar. Had he been able to read
the story of the thinkers and system-builders, he would have
been a great philosopher. But the greatest thing he ever did, it
seems, was in life. We are told that there came a day when his
visions dissolved, and he realized that he must go alone across
the years. The storm tore down the perfumed vines that were
climbing about the doorway of man’s soul. And the vine suffered
grievously. But the youth coerced his lips to silence, went
apart and hid himself for a day. When he came out it was with
suffering turned to song. What will they celebrate as the blind
preacher’s greatest achievement, in that memorial service in
Edinburgh? Listen to the exploit of a faith-man, singing in the
hour when love dwells amidst her ruins:
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
--N. D. HILLIS.
(3101)