he was a most distinguished student, and was universally regarded as a
young man of excellent promise--Dr. Ker was licensed as a minister of
the United Presbyterian Church. He was ordained in the year 1845, his
first charge being in Alnwick, Northumberland, where he continued to
minister until the year 1851. During the interval he received several
calls from Glasgow and elsewhere. Twice he was called to preside over
the United Presbyterian Church in East Campbell Street of this city. The
first call he decidedly refused; but upon representations being made to
him that the church was in anything but a satisfactory condition, so far
as its pastorate was concerned--both Dr. Kidston and Dr. Brash, who then
presided over it, being in infirm health and disqualified for the active
discharge of ministerial duties--Dr. Ker, foreseeing no doubt that there
was a large and ample field in Glasgow for the exercise of his energy
and talents, at last agreed to accept the call. His ultimate consent was
given, we believe, mainly through the importunity of the Rev. Dr.
Taylor, who has for many years been his most attached and intimate
friend. Dr. Taylor went to Alnwick with the view of seeing and arranging
personally with Dr. Ker; and it is a notable fact that although Dr. Ker
had determined to treat the second call as he had treated the first--by
returning a distinct and unqualified refusal--Dr. Taylor's entreaties
had the effect of inducing him to alter his decision. So far, indeed,
had Dr. Ker's mind been made up that he had actually written a letter
negativing the call, and the letter was on its way to Glasgow while Dr.
Taylor was _en route_ to Alnwick, the two having thus crossed each
other. We do not, however, believe that Dr. Ker has had any reason to
regret his decision. The field that was open for his efforts in Glasgow
was much more extensive if not more congenial than that presented by a
remote country town like Alnwick, and Dr. Ker has been instrumental in
raising up a congregation second to none in Glasgow as regards numbers
and influence. Shortly after he removed to Glasgow an effort was made to
secure a more eligible church for his large and increasing congregation,
which was at length removed from East Campbell Street to Sidney Place.
The new church cost upwards of L8000, and the opening services were
conducted by Dr. Edmond and Dr. Cairns of Berwick, the respected pastor
being himself absent at the time from ill health. At the present hour
there are upwards of 800 members in connection with Sidney Place Church,
and it is seldom indeed that the membership of a church covers so wide
a radius, some coming four and six miles every Sunday.
During the first few years of his residence in Glasgow, and even prior
to that date, Dr. Ker was most zealous and indefatigable in the promotion
of every good word and work. No one was more frequently before the
public during the years 1854-55-56 as the upholder of truth, as the
advocate of justice, as the bitter and uncompromising foe of error and
ignorance, as the alleviator of misery and distress. The amount of
physical and mental work which he undertook during these years was more
than any ordinary mortal could stand; but it was to him a labour of
love, and he did not stay his hand until an enfeebled and broken-down
constitution warned him that the laws of nature had been transgressed.
Dryden has described Shaftesbury as
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the puny body to decay,
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay;
and it has all along been Dr. Ker's misfortune that his body would not
bear the strain imposed upon it by his active and vigorous mind. As
might be supposed, he was at this time a prominent speaker in the Church
Courts, where his sage counsel and kindly disposition made him a
favourite and a power. In 1857 he was requested by the Synod of his own
Church to accept the office of Home Mission Secretary. The whole Synod
stood up in token of their approval and esteem when the appointment was
moved; and Dr. Andrew Thomson of Edinburgh, in supporting the nomination
of Dr. Ker, remarked of him that "his very presence was a benediction."
To the infinite disappointment of the Synod, however, Dr. Ker declined,
for private and no doubt weighty reasons, to undertake the appointment.
The choice of the Synod then fell on Dr. M'Gill, who continued to
discharge the functions of Home Mission Secretary with zeal and
efficiency until he was changed to the "Foreign Office." The result of
too close attention to his ministerial duties led Dr. Ker into a
dangerous illness, from which he suffered severely for a period of three
years. During that time he visited many places both at home and abroad,
travelling in Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, and America. In the
course of these journeys Dr. Ker cultivated his _penchant_ for
antiquarian lore and old traditions. He also improved his very extensive
knowledge of the Continental languages; and there are few men so
thoroughly conversant with German, French, and Italian, who have not
made these languages a special study. In addition to modern languages,
however, Dr. Ker is a master of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.
At the time of the Irish revivals several years ago, Dr. Ker took a deep
interest in the spiritual awakening, and he travelled over the country
with the view of assisting its promotion, preaching very frequently
every day in the week. Nothing is more remarkable in Dr. Ker's character
than the immense power of mental and physical endurance he has displayed
as a preacher. He has not unfrequently delivered four sermons or
homilies in one Sunday, besides preaching more or less frequently during
the week. These sermons are not thrown off on the spur of the moment.
Every pulpit effort is thoughtfully and carefully prepared beforehand.
His readiness to preach and assist in every good work has been largely
taken advantage of by the numerous charitable and religious societies in
Glasgow, which have, perhaps, rather ungenerously taxed his good nature
and anxiety to make himself useful.
Although Dr. Ker has seldom been prominently before the public in
connection with political or social agitations, he has all along taken
an active part in the establishment and advancement of Sunday and day
schools and missionary schemes. At the same time he has been ready to
assist in any movement of a political kind that presented itself to his
view as one worthy of support and encouragement. While he is always
earnest and conscientious in his pulpit and platform labours, he can
out-Spurgeon Spurgeon in his gift of pointing a moral, with an amusing
illustration. His alternations between grave and gay are always in
season; he takes good heed to Solomon's admonition that "there is a
time for everything." But while he sometimes condescends to tickle the
midriff of his hearers, consciously or unconsciously--for his quaint yet
pungent remarks are not unfrequently the inspirations of the moment--he
can afford to indulge his relish for humour without let or hindrance at
a select party or by his own fireside. In either of these situations his
solid and volatile qualities appear to vie with each other for the
mastery. With quips and jokes, apposite and sparkling, he "is wont to
set the table in a roar." Hence his society is much courted.
As a preacher, Dr. Ker has few if any superiors in Glasgow. His
imagination is very fine and subtle, although not so exuberant and
flowery as many other speakers who have an equally ready flow of
language. He is apt in illustration, and he generally contrives to set
forth his arguments in the most intelligible and convincing form; but he
does not introduce illustrations for the mere sake of rhetorical effect.
He rather makes every figure of speech to arise as it were by a natural
sequence in the course of his reasoning, and few men have a greater
facility for making "crooked paths straight, and rough places plain."
The most abstruse and knotty points he makes so obvious and clear that
his hearers are inclined to wonder why they did not think of them in
that light before--giving to themselves, or to the merits of the
question in hand, a credit that is only due to the preacher whose
discernment has removed the lions of doubt and difficulty from the path
of the reader or hearer. As a _litterateur_ his taste is highly
cultivated, and his discriminating judgment enables him to compose
sermons the diction of which is as beautiful as the argument is sound.
By all who know him, and especially by his congregation, he is very much
esteemed for his literary gifts and graces, and the public appreciation
of his sermons is attested by the fact that a volume which he published
several years since, has gone through eight large editions, the last
edition having been issued only a few months ago. It is perhaps a pity
that Dr. Ker has not been constrained to adopt Mr. Spurgeon's plan of
publishing his sermons regularly as they are delivered. They would
certainly form a serial literature that the people of Glasgow would not
be slow to appreciate.
REV. DR. JOHN EADIE.
The Rev. Dr. Eadie was born in 1813, at Alva, in Stirlingshire, where
his parents occupied a comparatively humble rank in life. After
receiving the rudiments of his education at the school of Tillicoultry,
in which he afterwards became assistant to the Rev. Mr. Browning, a man
of uncommon ability both as a preacher and as a thinker, Dr. Eadie
entered the University of Glasgow, where he pursued his studies on a
more extended scale. From the University he went to the United Secession
Divinity Hall, with the view of qualifying himself for a place in the
ministry of that Church. At the University he was a most successful
student, and distinguished himself more especially by his knowledge of
Latin and Greek. This is all the more noteworthy when it is remembered
that during his University career he had the private tuition of many
students to undertake. Dr. Eadie's first charge was Cambridge Street
U.P. Church. At the time he entered upon that charge he was only over 21
years' of age, and it is a fact worth recording that, within three
months of being licensed, he was called to and bold enough to accept a
city charge. Cambridge Street Church was built about nine months before
Dr. Eadie became its pastor. Commencing with a membership of only 60, he
raised his church during his pastorate of over 25 years to a membership
of 1100, many of his adherents being the foremost men in connection with
the U.P. body in Glasgow, of which the rev. gentleman himself soon
became a distinguished ornament. Before leaving Cambridge Street to
enter upon his new church in Great Western Road, Dr. Eadie, on his
semi-jubilee, was presented by his congregation with a purse containing
300 guineas and a silver salver, and he then informed his congregation
that "they had changed his wages five times, every change representing a
substantial advance." Many of his West-End members found Cambridge
Street too great a distance to come to worship on the Sabbath day, and
Dr. Eadie removed with them to Lansdowne U.P. Church, where he has
gathered a large and aristocratic congregation. We believe that Dr.
Eadie is the only U.P. minister in Glasgow who has been the first pastor
of two new churches, the only parallel case within our knowledge being
that of Dr. M'Ewen, who first founded a new church at Helensburgh, and
afterwards in Claremont Street, Glasgow. From the Great Western Road Dr.
Eadie's church has a commanding appearance. It is built in accordance
with the strictest Gothic principles, and has one of the finest spires
in the city. Its cost was about L12,000, and of this sum upwards of
L1200 was raised on the occasion of its opening.
In the month of May, 1843, Dr. Eadie was chosen Professor of Biblical
Literature in the Divinity Hall of the U.P. Church. He delivered his
first lecture in the month of August following. By his students the rev.
gentleman is greatly esteemed and beloved, none the less so that he
imposes upon them mental discipline of the strictest and most severe
description. It is perhaps even more owing to his _entente cordiale_
with his students, than because of his eminence as a preacher and
author, that Dr. Eadie has been so often selected to open new churches
all over the country. Certain it is that no minister in the U.P. Church
has been more frequently called into requisition for "special services"
both at home and abroad. One of the last new churches he opened was in
Dundee, when the collections taken on a single Sunday amounted to L1090.
He also opened the church of Dr. Macfarlane, of London; and along with
Dr. Alexander, of Edinburgh, he took part in the inauguration services
of Springhill College, Birmingham. We may here mention the well-known
fact that Dr. Eadie has been appointed to the Moderator's Chair in the
U.P. Synod--the highest office in the power of the Church to confer;
and, although he has never taken a very prominent part in the Church
Courts, his speeches are invariably full of weighty matter and sound
argument. He spoke strongly in the Synod for toleration as to the use of
organs in public worship. In the negotiations for Union with the Free
Church he has taken a peculiar interest. Although he has received calls
from other churches, Dr. Eadie has steadfastly maintained his attachment
to Glasgow. In the year 1846 he was twice called to Rose Street U.P.
Church, Edinburgh--Dr. Finlayson's--but the call was met each time with
a firm refusal.
Dr. Eadie first brought himself into prominent notice as an author by
the publication of a manual of Cruden, intended for popular use, about
the year 1841. This abridged concordance has had an enormous sale among
all classes, both at home and abroad. Up to the year 1850 it had gone
through no fewer than fourteen different editions, and we believe that
the latest edition issued is either the twenty-first or the
twenty-third. The preface to Dr. Eadie's "Cruden" was furnished by Dr.
King, and is a masterly performance of its kind. It is worth while
noticing that no other copy of "Cruden" is used or recognised by the
Tract Society, who have at different times issued it on their own
account. In 1848 Dr. Eadie published his Biblical Cyclopaedia, of which
in 1868 twenty-four thousand copies had been sold, being upwards of one
thousand every year. Of the merits of this work we need not here speak,
as to all of our readers it must be known more or less familiarly. It is
essentially what it professes to be--a dictionary of history,
antiquities, geography, natural history, sacred analysis, biography, and
Biblical literature generally, illustrative of the Old and New
Testaments. He has also compiled from Henry and Scott a Bible which has
gone through many editions, and has commanded a sale of not fewer than
60,000 or 70,000 copies. First published in folio form, it had been sold
within seven years to the tune of 36,000 copies, and thousands of
working men were enabled from the cheapness with which it was issued,
to possess themselves of this Bible who might otherwise never have had a
Family Bible in their houses. The first edition was issued in 1851, and
in Sept., 1858, another and still larger edition was put through the
press. Dr. Eadie published in 1856 a work entitled "An Analytical
Concordance of the Holy Scriptures, or the Bible presented under
distinct and classified heads and topics," published by Richard Griffin
& Co., London. In 1862 he published an "Ecclesiastical Cyclopaedia of
antiquities, architecture, controversies, denominations, doctrines,
governments, heresies, history, liturgies, rights, monastic orders, and
modern Judaism." As the biographer of the well-known and esteemed Dr.
Kitto, Dr. Eadie has also achieved a considerable reputation. Collected
from papers furnished by Dr. Kitto's personal friends, this biography is
perhaps one of the best and most interesting in the English literature,
and it deservedly met with a very large circulation. In a surprisingly
short space of time it went through several editions, and even at the
present day it is referred to and quoted as an authority on
ecclesiastical matters of a particular kind. Dr. Kitto was one of the
best Biblical scholars of his day. Like Dr. Eadie himself, he was
possessed of an extraordinary memory, and highly cultivated lingual
powers; and after he returned from the East he was frequently employed
to do literary work for Mr. Charles Knight, for whom also Dr. Eadie
contributed occasional papers. In short, the one man was eminently
qualified, both by his acquirements, by his disposition, and by the
exceptional facilities which he enjoyed, to become the biographer of the
other, and Dr. Eadie has approached his task with such a spirit of love,
and with so genuine and well-founded an esteem of the man whose Boswell
he aspired to be, that the biography will rank in some respects almost
equal with that of Dr. Johnson. Some years later, Dr. Eadie published
through the Messrs. Oliphant, of Edinburgh, a series of lectures on the
Bible for the young, which met with a very large sale. He has also
written and published a well known work entitled "Divine Life," being a
series of discourses, most of which were preached from time to time to
his own congregation, and all of them breathing a spirit of true
orthodoxy and Christian feeling. In 1859 he issued another book called
"Paul the Preacher; or a popular and practical exposition of his
discourses and speeches as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles," a work
which is treated in the author's best style, and displays much evidence
of high literary attainments. In addition to works already quoted, and
comprising many years of arduous toil and research, Dr. Eadie has
published a series of Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul,
commencing in 1853 with that of the Ephesians. This was followed in 1856
by his Commentary to the Colossians; in 1859 by his Commentary to the
Phillipians; and in 1869 by his Commentary to the Galatians. Upon these
Commentaries, and upon his popular handbooks to sacred literature,
namely, his Cruden's Concordance, his Biblical Cyclopaedia, and his
Ecclesiastical Cyclopaedia--Dr. Eadie's well-earned fame as a biblical
scholar and author will securely last for generations. Next to the
profound knowledge displayed in his works, we are struck with Dr.
Eadie's surpassing fertility as a writer. Very few men, indeed, have
published so many works within so short a compass of time; and it is a
marked characteristic of all books bearing his sign-manual, that they
are masterly both in style and in matter, that they have been well and
carefully thought out, and that they display great learning and
extraordinary research. We must not forget that while thus copiously
contributing to ecclesiastical literature, Dr. Eadie gave unremitting
attention to his pulpit duties. He never had a coadjutor or assistant,
and he has occupied his own and other pulpits every Sunday since the
date of his ordination. And even the long list we have enumerated does
not complete Dr. Eadie's literary efforts, for we find him contributing
now to Dr. Kitto's and Principal Fairbairn's Biblical Cyclopaedia
(published by Blackie, Glasgow), then to the "North British Review," and
again to the "Journal of Sacred Literature." Several of his works are
now out of print, but all of them are of untold value in their way, and
are highly esteemed by those best qualified to form a just estimate of
their merits. Dr. Eadie is a member of the Committee for the Revision of
the New Testament; a post which he holds conjointly with Professor Brown
and Professor Milligan, of Aberdeen, the only other Presbyterian members
of the New Testament Revision Committee who belong to Scotland. The
Committee, we may here explain, commenced its sittings in June of 1870.
Once a month it is accustomed to meet in the Jerusalem Chamber,
Westminster Abbey--a room fraught with the most interesting historical
recollections, for it was here that the Commissioners met who drew up
the Scottish Confession of Faith, and here also the Lower House of
Convocation is accustomed to hold its sittings. After deliberating for
two years, the Committee have only as yet reached the end of Saint
Luke's Gospel. The labour incumbent upon the Committee may be estimated
to some extent by the fact that for four days in every month it sits,
without any interval, from eleven o'clock forenoon till six o'clock in
the evening.
Dr. Eadie's literary and scientific attainments have been recognised and
rewarded by the degree of LL.D. from Glasgow University, while the
University of St. Andrews has conferred upon him the degree of D.D. He
is a member of several learned bodies, and is also chaplain of the 19th
Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers.
MR. DANIEL MACNEE, R.S.A.
Among Scotch artists Mr. Daniel Macnee occupies a conspicuous place,
while in Glasgow, his adopted city, he stands at the head of his
profession. Born in Fintry, in Stirlingshire, he was destined originally
for mercantile pursuits, but from an early age he showed an
unmistakeable bent for the profession of an artist, and even while at
school receiving the rudiments of his education, he used to while away
his leisure hours by drawing different subjects, especially portraits,
for which he showed a considerable aptitude. About 1820 he was
apprenticed to Mr. John Knox, a teacher of drawing, in Glasgow, who was
celebrated as a landscape painter, and than whom no one was ever better
qualified to teach the principles and practice of art. Associated with
Mr. Macnee at this time were Mr. Horatio M'Culloch and other young men
who subsequently became artists of eminence, and the lessons imparted by
Mr. Knox laid the foundations of the correct taste and careful attention
to detail which distinguished all of his more illustrious pupils. After
attending Mr. Knox's classes for a period of four years, Mr. Macnee
proceeded to Edinburgh and entered himself as a pupil under Sir William
Allan, who was at that time head of an institution termed the Honourable
Board of Trustees for Manufactures in Scotland, which was established in
terms of an Act of Parliament passed at the time of the Union, towards
"encouraging and promoting the fisheries and such other manufactures and
improvements in Scotland as may conduce to the general good of the
United Kingdom." The funds set apart for the maintainance of this
Institution amounted to L2000 a year, and in carrying out the purposes
of the Act, the Trustees, originally twenty-one in number, offered
premiums for the best designs or drawings of patterns for the
improvement of manufactures. In 1760 a master was permanently appointed
to instruct the youth of both sexes in drawing, thus laying the
foundation of the School of Design, which existed and prospered under
the management of the Board for more than a century afterwards. The main
reason for the establishment of this Board was a fear on the part of the
promoters that by the Act of Union the manufactures and arts of Scotland
would be transferred to England, and thus be prejudiced to a very
considerable extent. Sir William Allan was an artist of great power and
varied experience. Mr. Thomas Duncan, who afterwards became an Associate
of the Royal Academy, and produced a number of high-class pictures, with
which all lovers of art are familiar, was one of Sir W. Allan's pupils,
contemporaneously with Mr. Macnee, and from this coincidence, a
friendship, which was life-long and intimate, sprang up between them,
but it was unhappily severed by the early death of Duncan. Sir David
Wilkie, Sir William Allan, Sir John Watson Gordon, Burnet, the engraver
and painter, Lizars, the Lauders, the Faeds, and other painters of note,
were students in the Trustees' Academy. It may be remarked in passing,
that this Board is still in existence, but instead of being controlled,
as originally intended, by a certain number of trustees, it is under the
management of the Department of Science and Arts at South Kensington.
Mr. Macnee's studies at this time were various, but they principally
took the shape of drawings from the antique statues. When he first went
to Edinburgh, Mr. Macnee became connected with Mr. Lizars, the eminent
engraver, by whom he was employed in executing anatomical drawings,
colouring engravings, and other cognate works, which greatly tended to
amplify his experience, and through Mr. Lizars he obtained numerous
commissions from lithographers in Edinburgh, which brought him in
emoluments of considerable value. Having completed his studies under Sir
W. Allan, Mr. Macnee set up in Edinburgh as a professional artist on
his own account, and for several years he continued to paint portraits
and finished sketches from ordinary life. He returned to Glasgow in the
year 1832, since which he has resided, except at rare intervals, in the
Metropolis of the West. For a number of years subsequent to his taking
up his residence here, he was largely employed in executing crayon
portraits, and he was a large exhibitor at most of the Art Exhibitions
in Edinburgh, London, Glasgow, and elsewhere. Indeed, it is perhaps not
too much to say that Mr. Macnee has exhibited more pictures in the Royal
Scottish Academy than any other living artist.