WALLACE GREEN
All the time occupied by the events described in the last two
chapters, Dr. Cairns was carrying on his ministry in Berwick with
unflagging diligence. True to his principle, he steadily devoted to
his pulpit and pastoral work the best of his strength, and always let
them have the chief place in his thoughts. He gave to other things
what he could spare, but he never forgot that he had determined to be
a minister first of all. His congregation had prospered greatly under
his care, and in 1859 the old-fashioned meeting-house in Golden Square
was abandoned for a stately and spacious Gothic church with a handsome
spire which had been erected in Wallace Green, with a frontage to the
principal open square of the town. A few years earlier a new manse had
been secured for the minister. This manse is the end house of a row of
three called Wellington Terrace. These stand just within the old town
walls, which are here pierced by wide embrasures. They are separated
from the walls by a broad walk and a row of grass-plots, alternating
with paved spaces opposite the embrasures, on which cannon were once
planted. The manse faces south, and is roomy and commodious. When Dr.
Cairns moved into it, he had an elderly servant as his housekeeper, of
whom he is said to have been not a little afraid; but, after a couple
of years or so, his sister Janet was installed as mistress of his
house; and during the remaining thirty-six years of his life she
attended to his wants, looked after his health, and in a hundred
prudent and quiet ways helped him in his work.
The study at Wellington Terrace is upstairs, and is a large room
lighted by two windows. One of these looks across the river, which
at this point washes the base of the town walls, to the dingy village
of Tweedmouth, rising towards the sidings and sheds of a busy
railway-station and the Northumberland uplands beyond. The other looks
right out to sea, and when it is open, and sometimes when it is shut,
"the rush and thunder of the surge" on Berwick bar or Spittal sands
can be distinctly heard. In front, the Tweed pours its waters into the
North Sea under the lee of the long pier, which acts as a breakwater
and shelters the entrance to the harbour. Far away to the right, Holy
Island, with the castle-crowned rock of Bamborough beyond it, are
prominent objects; and at night, the Longstone light on the Outer
Farne recalls the heroic rescue by Grace Darling of the shipwrecked
crew of the _Forfarshire_.
Opposite this window stood the large bookcase in which Dr. Cairns's
library was housed. The books composing the library were neither
very numerous, very select, nor in very good condition. Although he
was a voracious reader, it must be admitted that Dr. Cairns took
little pride in his books. It was a matter of utter indifference to
him whether he read a favourite author in a good edition or in a cheap
one. The volumes of German philosophy and theology, of which he had a
fair stock, remained unbound in their original sober livery, and when
any of them threatened to fall to pieces he was content to tie them
together with string or to get his sister to fasten them with paste.
One or two treasures he had, such as a first edition of Bacon's
_Instauratio Magna_, a first edition of Butler's _Analogy_, and a
Stephens Greek Testament; also a complete set of the Delphin Classics,
handsomely bound, and some College prizes. These, with the Benedictine
edition of Augustine, folio editions of Athanasius, Chrysostom, and
other Fathers, some odd volumes of Migne, and a considerable number
of books on Reformation and Secession theology, formed the most
noteworthy elements in his collection. He added later a very complete
set of the writings of the English Deists, and the works of Voltaire,
Rousseau, and Renan. Side by side with these was what came to be a
vast accumulation of rubbish, consisting of presentation copies of
books on all subjects which his anxious conscience persuaded him that
he was bound to keep on his shelves, since publishers and authors
had been kind enough to send them to him. Nearly all the books that
belonged to his real library he had read with care. Most of them
were copiously annotated, and his annotations were, as a rule,
characterised by a refreshing trenchancy,--in the case of some,
as of Gibbon, tempered with respect; in the case of others, as of
F.W. Newman and W.R. Greg, bordering on truculence. The only other
noteworthy objects in the study were two splendid engravings of
Raphael's "Transfiguration" and "Spasimo" (the former bearing the
signature of Raphael Morghen), which had been a gift to him from Mrs.
Balmer.
The greater part of each day was spent in this room. He could get
along with less sleep than most men; and however late he might have
sat over his books at night, he was frequently in his study again long
before breakfast. After breakfast came family worship, each item of
which was noteworthy. Although passionately fond of sacred music, he
had a wild, uncontrollable kind of voice in singing. He seemed to have
always a perfectly definite conception of what the tune ought to be,
but he was seldom able to give this idea an accurate, much less a
melodious, expression. Yet he never omitted the customary portion of
psalm or hymn, but tackled it with the utmost gallantry, fervour, and
enthusiasm, although he scarcely ever got through a verse without
going off the tune.
His reading of Scripture had no elocutionary pretensions about it;
it was quiet, and to a large extent gone through in a monotone; but
two things about it made it very impressive. One of these was the deep
reverence that characterised it, and the other was a note of subdued
enthusiasm that ran all through it. It was clear to the listener that
behind every passage read, whether it was history, psalm, or prophecy,
or even the driest detail of ritual, there was visible to him a great
world-process going on that appealed to his imagination and influenced
even the tones of his voice. And his prayers, quite unstudied as they
of course were, brought the whole company right into the presence of
the Unseen. They were usually full of detail,--he seemed to remember
everybody and everything,--but each petition was absolutely
appropriate to the special case with which it dealt, and all were
fused into a unity by the spirit of devotion that welled up through
all. After prayers he went back to his study, and nothing was heard or
seen of him for some hours, except when his heavy tread was heard
upstairs as he walked backwards and forwards, or when the strains of
what was meant to be a German choral were wafted down from above.
The afternoon he usually spent in visiting, and, so long as he
remained in Berwick, there was no more familiar figure in its streets
than his. The tall, stalwart form, already a little bent,--but bent,
one thought, not so much by the weight of advancing years as by way
of making an apology for its height,--the hair already white, the
mild and kindly blue eye, the tall hat worn well back on the head,
the swallow-tail coat, the swathes within swathes of broad white
neckcloth, the umbrella carried, even in the finest weather, under the
arm with the handle downward, the gloves in the hands but never on
them, the rapid eager stride,--all these come back vividly to those
who can remember Berwick in the Sixties and early Seventies of last
century. His visitations were still carried out with the method and
punctuality which had characterised them in the early days of his
ministry, and he usually arranged to make a brief pause for tea with
one of the families visited. On these occasions he would frequently be
in high spirits, and his hearty and resounding laughter would break
out on the smallest provocation. That laugh of his was eminently
characteristic of the man. There was nothing smothered or furtive
about it; there was not even the vestige of a chuckle in it. Its deep
"Ah! hah! hah!" came with a staccato, quacking sound from somewhere
low down in the chest, and set his huge shoulders moving in unison
with its peals. The whole closed with a long breath of purest
enjoyment--a kind of final licking of the lips after the feast
was over.
Returning to his house, he always entered it by the back door,
apparently because he did not wish to put the servant to the trouble
of going upstairs to open the front door for him. It does not seem
to have occurred to him to use a latch-key. In the evening there was
generally some meeting to go to, but after his return, when evening
worship and the invariable supper of porridge and milk were over, he
always went back to his study, and its lights were seldom put out
until long past midnight.
Although his reading in these solitary hours was of course mainly
theological, he always kept fresh his interest in the classical
studies of his youth. He did not depend on his communings with Origen
and Eusebius for keeping up his Greek, but went back as often as he
could find time to Plato and to the Tragedians. Macaulay has defined a
Greek scholar as one who can read Plato with his feet on the fender.
Dr. Cairns could fully satisfy this condition; indeed he went beyond
it, for when he went from home he was in the habit of taking a volume
of Plato or Aeschylus with him to read in the train. One of his
nephews, at that time a schoolboy, remembers reading with him, when
on a holiday visit to Berwick, through the _Alcestis_ of Euripides.
It may have been because he found it necessary to frighten his young
relative into habits of accuracy, or possibly because an outrage
committed against a Greek poet was to him the most horrid of all
outrages; but anyhow, during these studies, he altogether laid aside
that restraint which he was usually so jealous to maintain over his
powers of sarcasm and invective. He lay on the study sofa while the
lesson was going on, with a Tauchnitz Euripides in his hand; but
sometimes, when a false quantity or a more than usually stupid
grammatical blunder was made, he would spring to his feet and fairly
shout with wrath. Only once had he to consult a Greek lexicon for the
meaning of a word; and then it turned out that the meaning he had
assigned to it provisionally was the right one. A Latin lexicon he
did not possess.
On Sunday, Wallace Green Church was a goodly sight. Forenoon and
afternoon, streams of worshippers came pouring by Ravensdowne, Church
Street, and Walkergate Lane across the square and into the large
building, which was soon filled to overflowing. Then "the Books" were
brought in by the stately beadle, and last of all "the Doctor" came
hurriedly in, scrambled awkwardly up the pulpit stair, and covered his
face with his black gloved hands.[15] Then he rose, and in slow
monotone gave out the opening psalm, during the singing of which his
strong but wandering voice could now and again be distinctly heard
above the more artistic strains of the choir and congregation
rendering its tribute of praise. The Scripture lessons were read in
the same subdued but reverent tones, and the prayers were simple and
direct in their language, the emotion that throbbed through them being
kept under due restraint. The opening periods of the sermon were
pitched in the same note, but when the preacher got fairly into his
subject he broke loose from such restraints, and his argument was
unfolded, and then massed, and finally pressed home with all the
strength of his intellect, reinforced at every stage by the play of
his imagination and the glow of a passionate conviction. His "manner"
in the pulpit was, it is true, far from graceful. His principal
gesture was a jerking of the right arm towards the left shoulder,
accompanied sometimes by a bending forward of the upper part of the
body; and when he came to his peroration, which he usually delivered
with his eyes closed and in lowered tones, he would clasp his hands
and move them up and down in front of him. But all these things seemed
to fit in naturally to his style of oratory; there was not the
faintest trace of affectation in any of them, and, as a matter of
fact, they added to the effectiveness of his preaching.
[Footnote 15: In accordance with the old Scottish custom, Dr. Cairns
wore gloves during the "preliminary exercises," but took them off
before beginning the sermon. On the Sunday after a funeral he
discarded his Geneva gown in the forenoon, and, as a mark of respect
to the deceased, wore over his swallow-tail coat the huge black silk
sash which it was then customary in Berwick to send to the minister
on such occasions.]
In Wallace Green Dr. Cairns was surrounded by a devoted band of
office-bearers and others, who carried on very successful Home
Mission work in the town, and kept the various organisations of the
church in a vigorous and flourishing state. He had himself no faculty
for business details, and he left these mostly to others; but his
influence was felt at every point, and operated in a remarkable degree
towards the keeping up of the spiritual tone of the church's work.
With his elders, who were not merely in regard to ecclesiastical
rank, but also in regard to character and ability, the leaders of the
congregation, he was always on the most cordial and intimate terms. In
numerical strength they usually approximated to the apostolic figure
of twelve, and Dr. Cairns used to remark that their Christian names
included a surprisingly large number of apostolic pairs. Thus there
were amongst them not merely James and John, Matthew and Thomas, but
even Philip and Bartholomew.
The Philip here referred to was Dr. Philip Whiteside Maclagan, a
brother of the present Archbishop of York and of the late Professor
Sir Douglas Maclagan. Dr. Maclagan had been originally an army
surgeon, but had been long settled in general practice in Berwick in
succession to his father-in-law, the eminent naturalist, Dr. George
Johnstone. It was truly said of him that he combined in himself the
labours and the graces of Luke the beloved physician and Philip the
evangelist. When occasion offered, he would not only diagnose and
prescribe but pray at the bedsides of his patients, and his influence
was exerted in behalf of everything that was pure and lovely and of
good report in the town of Berwick. His delicately chiselled features
and fine expression were the true index of a devout and beautiful soul
within. Dr. Cairns and he were warmly attached to one another, and he
was his minister's right-hand man in everything that concerned the
good of the congregation.
It will readily be believed that Dr. Cairns had not been suffered to
remain in Berwick during all these years without strong efforts being
made to induce him to remove to larger spheres of labour. As a matter
of fact, he received in all some half-dozen calls during the course of
his ministry from congregations in Edinburgh and Glasgow; while at one
period of his life scarcely a year passed without private overtures
being made to him which, if he had given any encouragement to them,
would have issued in calls. These overtures he in every case declined
at once; but when congregations, in spite of him or without having
previously consulted him, took the responsibility of proceeding
to a formal call, he never intervened to arrest their action.
He had a curious respect for the somewhat cumbrous and slow-moving
Presbyterian procedure, and when it had been set in motion he felt
that it was his duty to let it take its course.
Once when a call to him was in process which he had in its initial
stages discouraged, and which he knew that he could not accept, his
sister, who had set her heart on furnishing an empty bedroom in the
manse at Berwick, was peremptorily bidden to stay her hand lest he
might thereby seem to be prejudging that which was not yet before him.
Two of the calls he received deserve separate mention. One was in 1855
from Greyfriars Church, Glasgow, at that time the principal United
Presbyterian congregation in the city. All sorts of influences were
brought to bear upon him to accept it, and for a time he was in
grave doubt as to whether it might not be his duty to do so. But two
considerations especially decided him to remain in Berwick. One was
the state of his health, which was not at that time very good; and the
other was the pathetic one, that he wanted to write that book which
was never to be written.
Nine years later, in 1864, a yet more determined attempt was made
to secure him for Edinburgh. A new congregation had been formed at
Morningside, one of the southern suburbs of the city, and it was
thought that this would offer a sphere of work and of influence worthy
of his powers. A call was accordingly addressed to him, and it was
backed up by representations of an almost unique character and weight.
The Free Church leaders, with whom he was then brought into close
touch by the Union negotiations, urged him to come to Edinburgh. A
memorial, signed by one hundred and sixty-seven United Presbyterian
elders in the city, told him that, in the interests of their
Church, it was of the utmost importance that he should do so. Another
memorial, signed by several hundred students at the University, put
the matter from their point of view. A still more remarkable document
was the following:--
"The subscribers, understanding that the Rev. Dr. Cairns has received
a call to the congregation of Morningside, desire to express their
earnest and strong conviction that his removal to Edinburgh would
be a signal benefit to vital religion throughout Scotland, and more
especially in the metropolis, where his great intellectual powers, his
deep and wide scholarship, his mastery of the literature of modern
unbelief, and the commanding simplicity and godly sincerity of his
personal character and public teaching, would find an ample field
for their full and immediate exercise."
This was signed (amongst others) by three Judges of the Court of
Session, by the Lord Advocate, by the Principal and seven of the
Professors of the University, and by such distinguished ministers
and citizens as Dr. Candlish, Dr. Hanna, Dr. Lindsay Alexander, Adam
Black, Dr. John Brown, and Charles Cowan. It was a remarkable tribute
(Adam Black in giving his name said, "This is more than ever was done
for Dr. Chalmers"), and it made a deep impression on Dr. Cairns. The
Wallace Green congregation, however, sought to counteract it by an
argument which amusingly shows how well they knew their man. They
appealed to that strain of anxious conscientiousness in him which he
had inherited from his father, by urging that all these memorials were
"irregular," and that therefore he had no right to consider them in
coming to his decision. They also undertook to furnish him with the
means of devoting more time to theological study than had hitherto
been at his disposal. After a period of hesitation, more painful and
prolonged than he had ever passed through on any similar occasion, he
decided to remain in Berwick. He was moved to this decision, partly by
his attachment to his congregation; partly by a feeling that he could
do more for the cause of Union by remaining its minister than would
be possible amid the labours of a new city charge; and partly by the
hope, which was becoming perceptibly fainter and more wistful, that
he might at last find leisure in Berwick to write his book.
But, although he did not become a city minister, he preached very
frequently in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and indeed all over the country.
His services were in constant request for the opening of churches and
on anniversary occasions. He records that in the course of a single
year he preached or spoke away from home (of course mostly on week
days) some forty or fifty times. Wherever he went he attracted
large crowds, on whom his rugged natural eloquence produced a deep
impression. It has been recorded that on one occasion, while a vast
audience to which he had been preaching in an Edinburgh church was
dispersing, a man was overheard expressing his admiration to his
neighbour in language more enthusiastic than proper: "He's a deevil
o' a preacher!"
With all this burden of work pressing on him, it was a relief when the
annual holiday came round and he could get away from it. But this
holiday, too, was usually of a more or less strenuous character, and
embraced large tracts of country either at home or, more frequently,
on the Continent. On these tours his keen human interest asserted
itself. He loved to visit places associated with great historic
events, or that suggested to him reminiscences of famous men and
women. And the actual condition of the people, how they lived, and
what they were thinking about, interested him deeply. He spoke to
everybody he met, in the train, in the steamboat, or in hotels, in
fluent if rather "bookish" German, in correct but somewhat halting
French, or, if it was a Roman Catholic priest he had to deal with,
in sonorous Latin. And, without anything approaching cant or
officiousness, he always tried to bring the conversation round to
the subject of religion--to the state of religion in the country in
which he was travelling, about which he was always anxious to gain
first-hand information, and, if possible and he could do it without
offence, to the personal views and experiences of those with whom he
conversed. He rarely or never did give offence in this respect, for
there was never anything aggressive or clamorous or prying in his
treatment of the subject.
On his return to Berwick his congregation usually expected him to give
them a lecture on what he had seen, and the MSS. of several of these
lectures, abounding in graphic description and in shrewd and often
humorous observation of men and things, have been preserved. It must
suffice here to give an extract from one of them on a tour in the West
of Ireland in 1864, illustrating as it does a curious phase of Irish
social life at that time. Dr. Cairns and a small party of friends had
embarked in a little steamer on one of the Irish lakes, and were
taking note of the gentlemen's seats, varied with occasional ruins,
which were coming in view on both sides.
"A fine ancient castle," he goes on to say, "surrounded by trees
and almost overhanging the lough, attracted our gaze for some time ere
we passed it. The owner's name and character were naturally brought
under review. 'Is not Sir ---- a Sunday man?' says one of the company
to another. 'He is.' The distinction was new to me, and I inferred
something good, perhaps some unusual zeal for Sabbath observance
or similar virtue. But, alas! for the vanity of human judgments.
A 'Sunday man' in the West of Ireland is one who only appears on the
Sunday outside his own dwelling, because on any other day he would be
arrested for debt. Even on a week day he is safe if he keeps to his
own house, where in Ireland, as in England, no writ can force its way.
Sir ---- was also invulnerable while sitting on the grand jury, where
quite lately he had protracted the business to an inordinate length in
order to extend his own liberty. As the boat passed close beside his
castle, a handsome elderly gentleman appeared at an open window, and
with hat in hand and a charming smile on his face made us a most
profound and graceful salutation. We could not be insensible to so
much courtesy--since it was Sir ---- himself who thus welcomed us; but
as we waved our hats in reply, one of our party, who had actually a
writ out against the fine old Irish gentleman at the very time, with
very little prospect of execution, muttered something between his
teeth and pressed his hat firmer down on his head than usual. Such
landlordism is still not uncommon. The same friend is familiar with
writs against other gentlemen whose house is their castle, and to whom
Sunday is 'the light of the week.'"
The closing period of Dr. Cairns's ministry at Berwick was made
memorable by a remarkable religious revival in the town. Following on
a brief visit in January 1874 from Messrs. Moody and Sankey, who had
then just closed their first mission in Edinburgh, a movement began
which lasted nearly two years. With some help from outside it was
carried on during that time mostly by the ministers of the town,
assisted by laymen from the various churches, among whom Dr. Maclagan
occupied a foremost place. Dr. Cairns threw himself into this movement
with ardour, and although he did not intend it, and probably was not
aware of it, he was its real leader, giving it at once the impetus and
the guidance which it needed. Besides being present, and taking some
part whenever he was at home in the crowded evangelistic meetings that
for a while were held nightly, and in the prayer-meeting, attended by
from one hundred and fifty to two hundred, which met every day at
noon, he must have conversed with hundreds of people seeking direction
on religious matters during the early months of 1874. And, knowing
that many would shrink from the publicity of an Inquiry Meeting, he
made a complete canvass of his own congregation, in the course of
which by gentle and tactful means he found out those who really
desired to be spoken to, and spoke to them. The results of the
movement proved to be lasting, and were, in his opinion, wholly good.
His own congregation profited greatly by it, and on the Sunday before
one of the Wallace Green Communions, in 1874, a great company of young
men and women were received into the fellowship of the Church. The
catechumens filled several rows of pews in the front of the spacious
area of the building, and, when they rose in a body to make profession
of their faith, the scene is described as having been most impressive.
Specially impressive also must have sounded the words which he always
used on such occasions: "You have to-day fulfilled your baptism vow by
taking upon yourselves the responsibilities hitherto discharged by
your parents. It is an act second only in importance to the private
surrender of your souls to God, and not inferior in result to your
final enrolment among the saints.... Nothing must separate you from
the Church militant till you reach the Church triumphant."