_CHURCH--MARRIAGE._
The year 1843 is a memorable one in Scottish history. The controversy
between the two parties into which the National Church was divided had
been concentrated for years on the old question of patronage, or the
right of the people to the free choice of their clergymen. Under the
leadership of Dr. Chalmers, in co-operation with an able body of clergy
and laymen, enactments were passed by the Church courts restoring to the
people their rights in the choice of pastors. Influential patrons
acquiesced in its operation, and the sanguine hope was entertained that
a peaceful solution of the grievance which had long been a source of
bitterness had at length been arrived at. But in the famous Auchterarder
case the civil courts were appealed to; the action of the General
Assembly, the supreme court of the Church, was overruled; and on the
18th of May 1843 four hundred and seventy-four ministers of the Church
of Scotland voluntarily resigned their livings, and cast themselves on
the liberality of their people. Ten years of conflict, marked with an
ever-increasing intensity of feeling, and with all the inevitable fruits
of embittered controversy, had ended in the disruption of the National
Church. It was an event without a parallel since the ejection from their
benefices of upwards of two thousand ministers of the English National
Church in 1662 by the Act of Uniformity.
It is difficult for the present generation to fully estimate the feeling
which the Disruption called forth, or the bitter antagonism which in
many cases it engendered. The early training and all the strong personal
convictions of William Nelson alike determined his sympathy with what
claimed to be “The Free Church of Scotland.” The movement which led to
this result had appeared to him, as to others, to furnish a practical
solution of the difficulties which held his Covenanting fathers aloof
from the National Church. The financial question was an important one,
and long continued to be so; for not only churches but colleges had to
be built, theological professorships to be endowed, poor congregations
to be sustained, and the foreign mission field provided for. In all this
work William Nelson was a generous co-operator; and to the close of his
life he continued to respond with unstinted liberality to all the claims
which it involved. His brother John, who became the esteemed pastor of
the Free West Church of Greenock, was referred to after his premature
death, in an eloquent tribute by Professor Blaikie, as “one whose
natural gifts were of a high order, and whose early position as a
student was most distinguished. He was known to be of far too
independent a nature to fall into any line merely because it was
traditional or conventionally proper. He had courage and capacity to
strike out for himself; and he had spent much time in study in Germany
at a time when few students went thither, and when such a course was
regarded as somewhat suspicious.” The old Covenanting blood was in his
veins; but he had hoped that the National Church was resuming its
fidelity to the faith of his fathers, when the Disruption came, and he
cast in his lot with the champions of freedom. Personal sympathy,
therefore, as well as strong convictions, enlisted William Nelson on the
side of the Free Church; but he never was a partisan. No trace of
bitterness sullied the earnest zeal with which he promoted the cause
that he had at heart. His convictions were clear, and his devotion to
the Church unwavering; but this was never allowed to interfere with his
personal relations to those who adhered to the Established Church, nor
with his response to appeals made by them to his liberality. The
testimony to this effect was freely given when his death recalled the
incidents of earlier years. Among memoranda furnished to me by Mr. John
Miller of Glasgow is the following note: “My sole companion in the
railway carriage on my return to Glasgow, after attending Mr. Nelson’s
funeral, was a stranger, a clergyman of the Established Church, who had
travelled to Edinburgh on the same melancholy errand. In conversation I
learned that Mr. Nelson and another to whom he referred had been friends
of his from their earliest years. But at the Disruption they both became
members of the Free Church. Thereupon, as the clergyman said, his
unnamed friend took umbrage at him for remaining in the Established
Church, and their friendship ceased. It is not easy now to understand
the bitterness of feeling that existed at that time between those who
took different views on the question of the relation between Church and
State; but as regards Mr. Nelson, such was his breadth of mind and
catholic spirit, it never made the slightest change on their friendship
through all the intervening years, and he spoke of him ‘as the best of
all good men he had known.’”
But his broad-minded charity was in no degree traceable to
latitudinarian indifference. His convictions were strong, and when
occasion required it, were maintained with firmness, and defended with
incisive keenness of argument. And here it may be well to note a
characteristic trait. Few men were ever more notably marked by
transparent sincerity and truthfulness. If a truth told against his
cause, it never occurred to him to withhold it. There was indeed an
amusing simplicity in the manner in which he would disclose a fact
seeming to reflect on his own party or on himself; or, when in company
with persons disposed to arrogate to themselves rank or social position,
he would recall some homely incident or experience of his own early
life. But the same instinctive love of truth made him intolerant of
cant, or of any evasion in reference to matters of faith. If he were
perplexed with doubts, as he often was, in reference to the modern
conflict between science and revelation, he would give abrupt utterance
to them in the most orthodox circles; and if any attempt were made to
evade or gloss over the difficulty, his blunt reassertion of the point
at issue, in all its literal nakedness, was at times misunderstood and
even bitterly resented. Sanctimonious hypocrisy, or anything savouring
of insincerity in religion, was abhorrent to his nature, and provoked
his keenest ridicule. For his sense of humour was great, and he would
expose pretentious inconsistencies in their most ludicrous aspect,
giving no little offence at times to clerical offenders. To this habit
of giving expression of his convictions with all unguarded sincerity is,
no doubt, to be ascribed the remark in a letter of one of his oldest
Christian friends, when bearing testimony to the earnestness with which
in his last illness “he gave proof that he had attained by God’s help
to true faith in the Son of God, and was conscious of having definitely
accepted him as his personal Saviour, and given himself over to him on
the warrant of God’s own word of invitation.” The writer, a devoted
clergyman of the Free Church, adds: “There was an entire absence of the
old levity, which you will remember used sometimes almost to shock and
sadden even his best friends.”
It was perhaps a want of tact,--a diplomatic element apt at times to
verge on insincerity in which he was certainly deficient,--that led to
his being so misjudged. But the same unconscious indifference to the
prejudices of others could be seen when, among strangers at a public
hotel or on the ocean, he would ask a blessing before dinner with the
same earnest reverence as at his own table. The impression which his
manner of saying grace produced on a stranger is thus expressed in a
letter from an English lady, who, after his death, recalled the memories
of more than one sojourn under his hospitable roof: “One always felt
cheered in his presence by the glow of his great heart and that sweet
genial kindness to all which was like sunshine in the room. I also
greatly admired that dislike of any praise of himself which one always
saw in him, and which is so rare.... I so well remember in the
Philiphaugh drawing-room before dinner his kindly talk to us all, and
his almost boyish fun: so interested in every one, and saying playful
things to me about palmistry, etc. But when we went in to dinner, I was
always struck with his unusual way of saying grace: the reverence that
came over him, as if he were actually speaking to God, and as though
from his heart he was simply grateful day by day for each gift of the
heavenly Father. I can almost hear again as I write the rich deep tones
of his voice as he asked the blessing, and prayed that God would
graciously take away all our sins. I have never heard a clergyman, or
any other person, who so impressed me with reverence and reality in
saying grace as he did.” This feeling was by no means singular. In a
letter from Professor T. Grainger Stewart, a similar reference occurs to
“his mode of asking a blessing.” Alluding to his wife, Professor Stewart
says: “We were both greatly impressed with the earnestness and reverence
with which he spoke, and on our way home talked of it to one another.”
To one in whom the influences of early training had thus been confirmed
by the personal convictions of later years, the responsibilities of his
influence as a publisher were keenly realized. The system which he
developed was based on the anticipated sale of large editions at low
prices. Hence an important class of works issued by some eminent
publishing houses in costly editions of from eight to twelve hundred
copies lay entirely beyond the range of his publications. But the
imprint of Thomas Nelson and Sons became ere long the guarantee for a
pure, high-toned literature, admirably adapted for the special
requirements of the school library and the home circle; and as success
crowned the system of large and cheap editions, works of more permanent
value were issued on the same plan.
The uniformity of the testimony to his integrity and business capacity
borne by many whose relations with him were widely dissimilar removes
all idea of exaggeration; while the terms in which they write of him are
so diverse from the ordinary commendations of the mart or the exchange,
as to show in a striking manner the influence exercised by an altogether
exceptional character in the ordinary relations of business. Mr.
Robertson, who was long his manager in New York, thus writes: “During
the many years I had the privilege of knowing Mr. Nelson, I was
increasingly drawn towards him by his strict integrity, his kindliness,
his splendid energy, his intellectual activity, and his unostentatious
piety. There was no duty so humble that he would not stoop to perform
it; there was no amount of hard work or fatigue that ever turned him
away from his purpose. There was no appeal ever made to him by the
suffering or poverty-stricken that did not meet with a kindly and
sympathetic response. There was in him a fine appreciation of merit,
regardless of the social status of its possessor; and although he would
have been unwilling to admit it, there was in him a Christ-like going
about continually doing good which was simply beautiful.” This
affectionate respect which he awakened in all who were brought into
intimate relations with him as his trusted agents is constantly
apparent. His confidence when once secured was implicit; and any breach
of trust or neglect of duty was a source of intense pain to him, wholly
apart from any idea of personal loss.
The following characteristic reminiscences are derived from notes
furnished by Mr. John Miller, whose business transactions with Mr.
Nelson, as a large paper manufacturer, brought them into frequent
intercourse: “Mr. Nelson had an immense aptitude for the despatch of
business, and great promptness of decision, never wasting any time
talking over bargains. When a paper-maker called and showed him a
sample, if it was not to his mind, or the price too high, he would in
the most courteous manner thank him for the sample, but he would in no
way depreciate the paper. If the paper was right, he would say, ‘Well,
it is just the price we are paying;’ or if the price were better, he
would frankly say, ‘It is a little better than the price we are buying
at. I shall give you an order; and if you can maintain the quality at
the price, we shall continue to order from you.’ There was never any
second bargain at settlement. If the paper sent was not according to
sample, it would be paid for without remark, and no further orders
given. Mr. Nelson had no time and no disposition to haggle over a
bargain, and no man could better appreciate value. He was in every
respect a very capable man of business. After his marriage he began to
take business a little more leisurely; at all events, he seemed to take
more time for the little courtesies of life, which were so greatly
developed in his after years.”
He had proved himself a true captain of industry; organized his
extensive business on the most systematic basis; gathered around him a
body of skilled and trusty workmen, on whose loyal co-operation he could
rely; and having thus, with prudent foresight, surmounted the many
impediments that had inevitably beset his way, he turned aside from the
anxieties of business to make for himself a home, in which all the
congenial elements of a singularly emotional and sensitive nature should
thenceforth find free scope for development. He retained to the close of
his life his interest in the multitudinous details of the printing and
publishing works; but he found time for the gratification of many
refined tastes, and for a practical sympathy in public questions, as
well as in the exercise of an open-handed beneficence, the full extent
of which has only been revealed since his death.
The new life of which marriage is the source began for William Nelson
when he was in his thirty-sixth year. On the 24th of July 1851,
Catherine Inglis, the daughter of Robert Inglis, Esquire of Kirkmay,
Fifeshire, a descendant of Sir James Inglis, Bart., of Cramond, gave her
hand, with her heart in it, to William Nelson. The marriage took place
at the old mansion of Kirkmay, acquired by her father, with the estates
of Sypsis and Kirkmay, on his return from a highly successful career in
India. The maternal grandfather of the bride had seen long service
there; and letters preserved by the family show that he was held in high
esteem by Lord Cornwallis, and was the trusted and confidential friend
of Warren Hastings. One of them, addressed to him while he was Resident
at the Court of Scindia, is an amusing example of epistolary conciseness
in preferring an unusual request; and as such was peculiarly germane to
William Nelson’s tastes, as well as to his sense of humour. His fondness
for animals manifested itself at times in odd ways, and had he received
any encouragement the pleasure grounds at Salisbury Green would have
been apt to assume the character of a zoological garden. When travelling
in California in 1870, along with Mrs. Nelson, he was reluctantly
dissuaded from bringing off with him as a novel pet a “gofer,” or
beautifully striped species of lizard, which an Indian offered for sale.
Here was a still more unmanageable pet in request by the old Indian
viceroy in his letter to the grandfather of the bride:--
BENARES, _14th March, 1784_.
“DEAR SIR,--If you can possibly contrive to procure for me a young
lion of a size which may be carried over rocky and mountainous
roads, I shall be much obliged to you. I want to gratify the eager
desire which has been expressed by the ruler of Tibet to have one
in his possession; the people of this country having a religious
veneration for a lion, of which they know nothing but in the
doubtful and fabulous relations of their own books.--I am, dear
sir, yours affectionately,
“WARREN HASTINGS.
“To Lieutenant James Anderson.”
But this ancestral reminiscence carries us far afield from the
wedding-party at Kirkmay House, where the bride was given away by her
brother, who had then succeeded to the estate; and so the old home was
exchanged for one which she gladdened through all the happy years till
that inevitable parting which every wedded union involves. Thenceforth
life had for William Nelson a deeper meaning, and was passed in the
quiet centre of a sunlight all his own, till he reached beyond the limit
of the threescore years and ten.
The biographer must ever feel that he executes a delicate trust in
drawing aside the curtain that veils the sanctities of home life. But
here there was nothing to conceal. A friend who met Mr. and Mrs. Nelson
at a German spa twenty years later thus writes: “I was greatly
interested in watching him as he, with all the attention and devotion of
a lover, refilled and carried the glass of water to his wife, and tended
on her, then an invalid, with untiring care.” And so it continued to be
to the close. Thirty-six years of happy wedded union glided by.
Daughters in time followed their mother’s example, and left the old home
to make new centres of happiness. Eveline, the eldest, was married in
1874 to Professor Annandale, Professor of Surgery in the University of
Edinburgh; and in 1886 her sister Florence became the wife of S. Fraser
MacLeod, Esquire, barrister, London, a friend of the family from early
boyhood. By-and-by the little grandchildren presented themselves to
claim their mothers’ places in the hearts of those who had found it hard
to reconcile themselves to the blanks round the old hearth, where Meta
and Alice still remained, with their brother Frederick, to play the new
_rôle_ of uncle and aunts. The home of the Nelsons at Salisbury Green
was familiar to many through all those years as a rare centre of genial
hospitality, with some unique features of its own worthy of further
note.