ENGLAND'S OPEN BOOK.
THE time now arrived for my attempting something amongst the
Presbyterians of England. But my heart sank within me; I was a stranger
to all except Dr. Dykes, and the New Hebrides Mission had no special
claims on them. Casting myself upon the Lord, I wrote to all the
Presbyterian Ministers in and around London, enclosing my "Statement and
Appeal," and asking a Service, with a retiring collection, or the
surplus above the usual collection, on behalf of our Mission Ship. All
declined, except two. I learned afterwards that the London Presbytery
had resolved that no claim beyond their own Church was to be admitted
into any of its pulpits for a period of months, under some special
financial emergency. My dear friend, Dr. J. Hood Wilson, kindly wrote
also to a number of them, on my behalf, but with a similar result;
though at last other two Services were arranged for with a collection,
and one without. Being required at London, in any case, in connection
with the threatened Annexation of the New Hebrides by the French, I
resolved to take these five Services by the way, and immediately return
to Scotland, where engagements and opportunities were now pressed upon
me, far more than I could overtake. But the Lord Himself opened before
me a larger door, and more effectual, than any that I had tried in vain
to open up for myself.
The Churches to which I had access did nobly indeed, and the Ministers
treated me as a very brother. Dr. Dykes most affectionately supported my
Appeal, and made himself recipient of donations that might be sent for
our Mission Ship. Dr. Donald Fraser, and Messrs. Taylor and Mathieson,
with their Congregations, generously contributed to the Fund. And so did
the Mission Church in Drury Lane--the excellent and consecrated Rev. W.
B. Alexander, the pastor thereof, and his wife, becoming my devoted
personal friends and continuing to remember in their work-parties ever
since the needs of the Natives on the New Hebrides. Others also, whom I
cannot wait to specify, showed a warm interest in us and in our
department of the Lord's work. But my heart had been foolishly set upon
adding a large sum to the fund for the Mission Ship, and when only about
£150 came from all the Churches in London to which I could get access,
no doubt I was sensible of cherishing a little guilty disappointment.
That was very unworthy in me, considering all my previous experiences;
and God deserved to be trusted by me far differently, as the sequel will
immediately show.
That widely-known and deeply-beloved servant of God, Mr. J. E.
Mathieson, of the Mildmay Conference Hall, had invited me to address one
of their annual meetings on behalf of Foreign Missions, and also to be
his guest while the Conference lasted. Thereby I met and heard many
godly and noble disciples of the Lord, whom I could not otherwise have
reached though every Church I had asked in London had been freely opened
to me. These devout and faithful and generous people, belonging to every
branch of the Church of Christ, and drawn from every rank and class in
society, from the humblest to the highest, were certainly amongst the
most open-hearted and the most responsive of all whom I ever had the
privilege to address. One felt there, in a higher degree than almost
anywhere else, that every soul was on fire with love to Jesus and with
genuine devotion to His Cause in every corner of the Earth. There it was
a privilege and a gladness to speak; and though no collection was asked,
or could be expected, my heart was uplifted and strengthened by these
happy meetings, and by all that Heavenly intercourse.
But see how the Lord leads us by a way we know not! Next morning after
my address, a gentleman who had heard me, the Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer,
handed me a cheque from his father-in-law for £300, by far the largest
single donation at that time towards our Mission Ship; and immediately
thereafter I received from one of the Mildmay lady Missionaries £50,
from a venerable friend of the founder £20, from "Friends at Mildmay"
£30; and through my dear friend and brother, Mr. Mathieson, many other
donations were in due course forwarded to me.
My introduction, however, to the Conference at Mildmay did far more for
me than even this; it opened up a series of drawing-room meetings in and
around London, where I told the story of our Mission and preached, the
Gospel to many in the higher walks of life, and received most liberal
support for the Mission Ship. It also brought me invitations from many
quarters of England, to Churches, to Halls, and to County Houses and
Mansions.
Lord Radstock got up a special meeting, inviting by private card a large
number of his most influential friends; and there I met for the first
time one whom I have since learned to regard as a very precious personal
friend. Rev. Sholto D. C. Douglas, clergyman, of the Church of England,
who then, and afterwards at Douglas-Support in Scotland, not only most
liberally supported our fund, but took me by the hand as a brother, and
promoted my work by every means in his power.
The Earl and Countess of Tankerville also invited me to Chillingham
Castle, and gave me an opportunity of addressing a great assembly there,
then gathered together from all parts of the County. The British and
Foreign Bible Society received me in a special meeting of the Directors;
and I was able to tell them how all we, the Missionaries of these
Islands whose language had never before been reduced to writing, looked
to them, and leant upon them, and prayed for them and their
work--without whom our Native Bibles never could have been published.
After the meeting the Chairman gave me £5, and one of the Directors a
check for £25 for our Mission Ship.
I was also invited to Leicester, and made the acquaintanceship of a
godly and gifted servant of the Lord Jesus, the Rev. F. B. Meyer, B. A.
(now of London), whose books and booklets on the higher aspects of the
Christian Life are read by tens of thousands, and have been fruitful of
blessing. There I addressed great meetings of devoted workers in the
Lord's vineyard; and the dear friend who was my host on that occasion, a
Christian merchant, has since contributed £10 per annum for the support
of a Native Teacher on the New Hebrides.
It was my privilege also to visit and address the Müller Orphanages at
Bristol, and to see that saintly man of faith and prayer moving about as
a wise and loving father amongst the hundreds, even thousands, that look
to him for their daily bread and for the bread of Life Eternal. At the
close of my address, the venerable founder thanked me warmly and said,
"Here are £50, which God has sent to me for your Mission." I replied
saying, "Dear friend, how can I take it? I would rather give you £500
for your Orphans if I could, for I am sure you need it all!"
He replied, with sweetness and great dignity, "God provides for His own
Orphans. This money cannot be used for them. I must send it after you by
letter. It is the Lord's gift."
Often, as I have looked at the doings of men and Churches, and tried to
bring all to the test as if in Christ's very presence, it has appeared
to me that such work as Müller's and Barnardo's, and that of my own
fellow-countryman, William Quarrier, must be peculiarly dear to the
heart of our blessed Lord. And were He to visit this world again, and
seek a place where His very Spirit had most fully wrought itself out
into deeds, I fear that many of our so-called Churches would deserve to
be passed by, and that His holy, tender, helpful, divinely-human love
would find its most perfect reflex in these Orphan Homes. Still and
forever, amidst all changes of creed and of climate, this, this is "pure
and undefiled Religion" before God and the Father!
But in this connection I must not omit to mention that the noble and
world-famous servant of God, the Minister of the Tabernacle, invited me
to a garden-party at his home, and asked me to address his students and
other Christian workers. When I arrived I found a goodly company
assembled under the shade of lovely trees, and felt the touch of that
genial humor, so mighty a gift when sanctified, which has so often given
wings to C. H. Spurgeon's words, when he saluted me as "The King of the
Cannibals!" On my leaving, Mrs. Spurgeon presented me with her husband's
_Treasury of David_, and also "£5 from the Lord's cows"--which I
afterwards learned was part of the profits from certain cows kept by the
good lady, and that everything produced thereby was dedicated to the
work of the Lord. I praised God that He had privileged me to meet this
extraordinarily endowed man, to whom the whole Christian World had been
so specially indebted, and who had consecrated all his gifts and
opportunities to the proclamation of the pure and precious Gospel.
Of all my London associations, however, the deepest and the most
imperishable is that which weaves itself around the Honorable Ion
Keith-Falconer, who has already passed to what may truly be called a
Martyr's crown. At that time I met him at his father-in-law's house at
Trent; and on another occasion spent a whole day with him at the house
of his noble mother, the Countess-Dowager of Kintore. His soul was then
full of his projected Mission to the Arabs, being himself one of the
most distinguished Orientalists of the day; and as we talked together,
and exchanged experiences, I felt that never before had I visibly marked
the fire of God, the holy passion to seek and to save the lost, burning
more steadily or brightly on the altar of any human heart. The heroic
founding of the Mission at Aden is already one of the precious annals of
the Church of Christ. His young and devoted wife survives, to mourn
indeed, but also to cherish his noble memory; and, with the aid of
others, and the banner of the Free Church of Scotland, to see the
"Keith-Falconer Mission" rising up amidst the darkness of blood-stained
Africa, as at once a harbor of refuge for the slave, and a beacon-light
to those who are without God and without hope The servant does his day's
work, and passes on through the gates of sleep to the Happy Dawn; but
the Divine Master lives and works and reigns, and by our death, as
surely as by our life, His holy purposes shall be fulfilled.