A HOLIDAY WITHOUT REST.
When it became known in Scotland that Dr. Duff declined going home
to become Divinity Professor, he was urged at least to return for a
limited time. There was so much work to be done in Britain; so much
good, it was truly said, might result to the Missionary cause by Dr.
Duff's pleading for it again, as he had pleaded before. It is doubtful
whether Dr. Duff would have consented even to this, had he had health,
after ten years of hard labour in this second visit to India, to remain
without a change. But the doctor urged him to go home for a while after
work which had "evidently shattered his constitution," and Dr. Duff
submitted to what he felt to be the Will of the Lord. He gathered all
the information which he could regarding missions in various parts of
India to make use of in his addresses at home, and in May 1850 found
himself in his native land, and in the bosom of his family once more.
Again what might have been called the Missionary's holiday was employed
in the most earnest labours. In hurrying from place to place, from
meeting to meeting, the Missionary perhaps endured as much fatigue as
from the heavy work in India. Thus he wrote in the bitterly cold month
of November, when on one of his numerous journeys.
"Since I left the pulpit on Sunday I have scarcely yet got into
anything like warmth, either by night or day. I have felt as if the
cold were oozing through my whole body from head to foot . . . And what
with unseasoned rooms and unseasoned beds and frosty air, and chills
after full meetings, I feel as if it were a kind of living martyrdom
to be encountering all this . . . But most gladly would I bear all,
and a great deal more, if possible, for the sake of Him who so loved
us as to lay down His very life for us, were I to behold substantial
fruit to His praise and glory. I must however leave all to Him. My own
shortcomings are ever before me . . .
"Nothing sustains me but the divine assurance that the blood of Jesus
cleanseth from all sin. Blessed Saviour! Who would not cheerfully toil
and suffer for Thee!"
Dr. Duff, exhausted, yet struggling on still, thus wrote to his wife
when he was engaged on one of his preaching tours.
"It is some relief to the mind to get disburdened, and to whom can I
disburden it if not to you, the partner of my joys and sorrows for
nearly a quarter of a century. No one can over fully know how much I
often suffer both in mind and body in the midst of these frequent,
prolonged, and violent exertions: and to none but yourself can I ever
moot the subject except in the vaguest and most general terms. In the
excitement of speaking, the spirit forgets the fragility of the body,
and therefore people think me strong. Oh! if they could see me in my
solitary chamber all alone . . . the whole frame feverish, the whole
nervous system from the brain downwards in a state of total unrest. The
very tendency to sleep gone. Going to bed, as this morning, at half
past one, not from sleepiness but from inability to sit up longer from
exhaustion. Turning and tossing from side to side, and longing for
sleep . . . Getting up, disquieted and unrefreshed, to meet a company
at breakfast, with aching head besides and sorish throat . . . Yet,
the Lord be praised; in the midst of all this I have intervals of real
spiritual enjoyment, indeed, when most weak and pained often is that
enjoyment proportionally increased. And then the favour which the Lord
shows me in the sight of His people, and the good so often unexpectedly
achieved, all this makes me feel that what I suffer is the discipline
of a Father's rod to keep me humble in walking before him."
Exhausted as the Missionary was, he could not refuse what he felt to be
a call from God to visit America, as he was earnestly entreated to do.
"We want to be stirred up there; there is plenty of material there, we
need only to be stirred up," was the appeal which Dr. Duff could not
resist.
He knew that in two mighty countries of the West, the United States and
Canada, embers, as it were, of Christian love were smouldering that
might be stirred up into a glorious blaze to illumine half the world.
Duff's own heart was glowing with zeal, he must go, by God's grace,
to infuse his own warmth into others. The Missionary embarked on the
twenty-eighth January, 1854, for the United States of America.
Again was Dr. Duff to meet with tempest and tribulation, though not
this time with shipwreck. Such a gale came that, in the Missionary's
own words,—
"It looked at one time as if the vessel could not possibly survive
it . . . On Thursday morning the spectacle presented by the vessel was
most extraordinary. Though it still blew hard, the sky cleared with
intense frosty air, exhibiting the ship as if one huge mass of ice. The
deck was covered with it, several inches thick, the ropes, spars, and
rigging; the masts up to their sails, all well encrusted in ice from
two to six inches thick."
[Illustration: NEW YORK, UNITED STATES.]
It was doubtless a wondrous and beautiful sight that of a large ship
turned, as it seemed, into ice. But not only must the great cold have
destroyed anything like comfort, but the weight of the quantities of
ice sank the ship nine inches deeper in the water. Of course the hard
crust had to be knocked away, all hands were set to work to break off
the glittering masses; and we may hope that the violent exercise served
to warm the chilled crew of the ice-mantled ship.
When the vessel had almost reached the harbour, Dr. Duff thus wrote to
his wife.
"To the Lord do I give thanks. He hath brought us at last over the
stormy billows into a quiet haven. Nor has all this trial been in
vain. When downright ill, the mind was utterly incapable of thought,
but there were intervals when, in spite of the sick sensations, the
mind could variously exert itself. The whole of the past came up in
review before me, all the way in which the Lord hath led me. And Oh!
how humbling the retrospection as regards myself! The loving-kindnesses
of the Lord how manifold; my own shortcomings in every way how
manifold . . . In the end I had no consolation whatever but in clinging
as with a death grasp to the precious assurance that the blood of Jesus
Christ cleanseth from all sin . . . I thought that if never heard of
any more, and our vessel founder amid the stormy Atlantic waves, the
Lord might, in one way or other, overrule my death to the good of the
souls of the members of my family and raise up friends to them, and
ensure the furtherance of His own cause. On these points I came at
times to a serene feeling of resignation to His holy will. But, if
spared, Oh! how I longed to be a new burnished instrument in His hands.
I wait for guidance, I wait for light in the path of duty. Oh! for
simple single-heartedness, and self-denying devotion to Him that loveth
us!"
I will not attempt to give a detailed account of Dr. Duff's very
interesting visit to that grand country, the United States. He was
welcomed with a warmth and enthusiasm which quite astonished the
Missionary.
"Each one (in a large meeting) shook hands with me," he wrote, "as if I
were an old familiar friend, as if he knew all about me, and hailed me
as a brother in the Lord . . . I was lost in wonder, adoring gratitude,
and love. I approached these shores with much anxiety, in much fear and
trembling. I felt an oppressive uneasiness of spirit which I could not
shake off. My only relief was in casting myself entirely on the Lord,
and in praying His will might be done, and His only . . . Surely, I
felt, this unparalleled reception must be a first smile of Jehovah."
Indeed the loving kindness, the generous enthusiasm which Dr. Duff met
as he passed from city to city, and held crowded meeting after meeting
in the United States and the Dominion of Canada, was marvellous to
behold. If ever a man was half killed with kindness, that man was Dr.
Duff. Every one was so eager to hear him, so impatient to see him, that
his small remaining stock of strength was utterly overtaxed. He wrote,—
"I am driven in spite of myself, to do more than I know I can well
stand . . . If I could multiply myself into a hundred bodies, each with
the strength of a Hercules, and the mental and moral energy of a Paul,
I could not overtake the calls and demands made on me here, and from
many other quarters since my arrival . . . All very delightful, if I
had the needful strength. But no strength of any man that ever lived
would stand out all this . . . As regards this place I have abundant
satisfaction in already knowing that I have not come here in vain."
No, indeed, Dr. Duff had not come to the West in vain, his labours bore
rich and varied fruit. When he embarked again for home, a letter was
put into his hand containing £3000, or at least 30,000 rupees for the
missionary cause from New York and Philadelphia. Canada also gave her
cheerful aid, and this though Dr. Duff "had nowhere pleaded for money,"
and had only spoken of his own special work in India when pressed to
do so at social meetings. Nor were large subscriptions from various
quarters all the results of that memorable visit; American love for
missions had been stirred up to a blaze which has never since died out.
The United States still give some of their noblest sons and daughters
to work for the Lord in India, side by side with their brethren and
sisters from England and Scotland.
On the morning of his embarkation, Dr. Duff preached for the last time
in America to multitudes assembled to see him depart. With a loving
grateful heart he gave the people his solemn blessing, and all the
congregation rose to receive it. Then leaving the pulpit, and making
his way through crowds who pressed forward to have one more grasp of
his hand, the Missionary passed on to the steamer.
"There," wrote an eye-witness, "the scene defied description. The wharf
and the noble 'Pacific' were crowded with Christians assembled to bid
him farewell. Many could only take him by the hand, weep and pass
on. Never did any man leave our shores so encompassed with Christian
sympathy and affection."
Dr. Duff's visit to America had been a glorious success, but a heavy
price was to be paid for it by the exhausted Missionary. After his
return home, Dr. Duff became fearfully ill. Congestion of the brain,
followed by utter prostration of the over-worked mind, made the once
powerful and talented man helpless as a little child. It was a cause
of deep thankfulness, after a long space of time had elapsed, to find
that the grand mind was not permanently impaired, that the brain was
recovering its power.
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