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ART. V.-DR. JOHN DUNCAN.

Memoir of John Duncan. By David Brown, D.D.

WE

E do not know a better book than this to place in the hands of those who are tainted with the modern spirit of unbelief; for though not directly treating of the Christian evidences, it affords a practical illustration of the utter inadequacy of unbelief to satisfy the intellect or purify the heart; and the all-sufficiency of the Gospel of Christ to meet our utmost spiritual requirements. It contains the story of a man endowed with extraordinary intellectual powers, and well versed in all the wisdom of philosophy, falling from the faith of Jesus Christ to the lowest depths of Atheism, and then realising his desolation and misery, struggling upward stage by stage, until with adoring wonder and child-like faith, he falls at the cross of Christ, counting all things else as dung and dross; and we are confident that if the wavering and doubting only read it, it will do more to steady their steps and strengthen their faith than the closest and most convincing argument. The whole Christian Church is under obligation to the author for the manner in which he has performed his task, and we doubt not but the suffering and sorrow of Duncan will act as a warning and a help to many. In the brief sketch we purpose giving of this great man, we shall confine ourselves principally to his religious experience, for though there is sufficient in his outer life to teach us useful lessons, his spiritual experience we consider as of the greatest value at the present time.

Dr. John Duncan was born in the city of Aberdeen in the year 1796. His parents were in humble circumstances, his father being an ordinary working shoemaker; but quality of nature is not the result of outward things; it is the gift of God. A king of men may be born in a stable, and a fool in a palace. People are not coupled in this world by chance, neither are they left wholly to their own choice. "There is a divinity that shapes our ends." God is more actively present in society than the most devout recognize. In Him we live, and move, and have our being. To attempt to show or explain how God acts in society might involve us in contradictions and point to conclusions we would not be willing to accept; but that arises from the limited nature of our faculties, and ought not in the least to hinder us from believing the fact. We do not hold that all marriages are made in heaven; but in many instances the hand of God may be seen bringing persons together. If this is not allowed, how is it possible to explain the strange accidents by which matrimonial alliances are often brought about, the overruling of personal choice and purpose in such alliances, and the wonderful complementary qualities so

observable in married couples? John Duncan, the father of the subject of this article, was a narrow-minded, violent-tempered, hard-natured man. He had a considerable amount of intellectual activity, and a rude phillistine sense of righteousness; but to all the grace of goodness and the ways of kindness he was a stranger. Ann Mutch, his first wife, and the mother of Dr. Duncan, was the opposite of her husband. She was tender in her nature, quick in her sensibilities, and gentle in all her ways. She seemed just fitted to soften the severity of his nature, and to unite sweetness and light with his rude strength, They met by one of those happy accidents of which we have just spoken. Being on a visit to Aberdeen, she attended, by invitation, a service in the Secession Kirk, and there experienced that blessed change by which we become children of God. Up to this time she had attended the " Auld Kirk,” but she now felt it to be her duty to join the Secession, and from that time forward, though she had to walk twelve miles to the service on the Sabbath, she worshipped publicly nowhere else. John Duncan was a member of the Secession congregation, and probably at one of the district prayer meetings the acquaintance was formed which ripened into marriage.

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Mr. and Mrs. Duncan had several children, none of whom, except John, the eldest, survived the period of childhood, and he was a very delicate child. Before he had reached his sixth year he suffered his first and great loss in the death of his mother. Knowing the nature of her husband, she earnestly sought the interest of her brother and sister, whom she had been instrumental in leading to the knowledge of God, on behalf of her delicate child; nor were they forgetful of their charge. A short time after her decease, Mr. Duncan married Sophia Sutherland, a woman with more than usual endowment, and who acquitted herself so well in the difficult part she was called to sustain, that between her and her step-son there existed the strongest attachment until she died. After the death of Mr. Duncan she was married again; yet he still continued to regard her and her husband as his parents.

His first teacher was Saunders Munro, a beadle of the secession kirk, a rigid, precise, orthodox man. On the Sabbath-day, as he carried the Bible and psalm-book up the pulpit steps, dressed in his neat fitting black clothes, spotless white tie, creaking shoon, and solemn face, he would have struck terror into the heart of the most daring scapegrace. He was a model beadle, but an indifferent schoolmaster. However, if the teacher was poor, the method then in operation in Scotland was good. After mastering the alphabet and a few short syllables printed on the fly leaf of the Catechism, the pupils were introduced to that grand, easy reading book, "The Proverbs of Solomon," and thus they were not only taught to read,

but their minds were stored with those high principles and grand maxims for which this book is so famous, and which have, no doubt, contributed to the development of that patience, prudence, foresight, and economy with which the Scotch are credited, and by which they have been able to rise in almost every department in life. From his earliest years Duncan showed a passion for learning, and having exhausted Saunders Munro, at the age of nine he entered the Grammar School, where he soon gave evidence of great capacity. Dr. Brown says, before he was more than twelve years of age the twin passions of his mental life-metaphysics and languages-had begun to manifest themselves, and, unfortunately, many of those eccentricities which so marred his after life also began to crop up. His father was anxious to bring him up to his own trade, and because he waxed the threads badly, spoiled the soles, and botched the patches, he flogged him, until the highspirited boy cried out, "Kill me, father; kill me at once." At length his stepmother interfered; she declared the lad was intended for a scholar, and he should receive a proper education, if she had to work her fingers off to secure it, and thus, through her intervention, he was rescued from abuse and obscurity, and the opportunity afforded for the development of his genius. At the age of fourteen he gained a bursary, and so was enabled to enter the University. In a youth of such promise, so passionately fond of learning, so ready in acquiring languages, and so entirely devoted to study, it was to be expected that he would soon gain distinction in the University. However, this was not the case. In the mathematical and natural science classes he held no place, and those who knew him were not surprised at this, for he wanted that exactness of mind which is necessary to excellence in this department; but in the matters for which he had peculiar aptitude-philosophy and languages-he did not take the place that might have been expected. Many reasons might be assigned for this reasons in himself and in the methods of examination. However, at the close of the session 1813-14 he took his M.A., and passed on to the divinity hall.

From his childhood he had been instructed in the hard Calvinistic creed of the Presbyterian Church. The body to which his parents belonged was the most rigidly orthodox in Scotland, and gave particular prominence to the harshest features of Calvinism. In 1806 a rupture took place in the secession body on that most fruitful subject of differences, "the province of the civil magistrate in matters of religion," which led to the formation of "The Constitutional Associate Presbytery." The Duncan family joined with the latter, and so John was first enrolled as a divinity student in this body. They were, as small communities generally are, severely orthodox and very pious. Though Duncan had not yet experienced

any spiritual change, it is certain he intellectually assented to the orthodox faith until about the year 1815. The speculative turn of his mind, no doubt, often brought him upon verges of that dark and dreary territory which encircles the region of faith; but it was not until about the before-mentioned date, while attending the divinity classes of the Associate Presbytery, that he wakened up to find the ground entirely cut from under his feet, and the yawning gulph of unbelief opening to swallow him.

There comes a period in the history of most active-minded men when they pass from mere traditional to realising faith, or to permanent and harrowing doubt. Such a time is the most important in their life, and the process is the most solemn and trying. One wrong step then may send them wandering through endless mazes and complications, from which they may never emerge into the light, and from which, if they do escape and realise the true significance and value of those verbal signs by which we express our faith, they bear bitter memories, and possibly many scars. In the case of men constituted like Duncan, a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ is only possible through suffering and sorrow, and lonely watching. There may be some of the same type of mind who do not experience this process, but it is because the depth of their nature is not quickened. Whoever tries to know, to reach, and solve the mystery, must pass through the fire and the agony. Increase of knowledge brings the cloud and the sorrow, and he who would know must be willing to suffer. If, after the struggle, the old faith is accepted, it is then personal. Its true value is known, and the hold of it is firm and sure; at least, we shall find it so in the case of Duncan. The speculations in which he had been indulging, and towards which his nature irresistibly carried him, were incompatible with the faith he held, and he wakened up to find himself an Atheist. He was, as we have said, at this time attending the divinity classes of the Associate Presbytery; but he soon found his position there too irksome to bear. The atmosphere was too spiritual, and the religious requirements too exacting, and so he forsook them and enrolled himself as a divinity student of the auld kirk.

It was not possible for his biographer to trace fully the decline. of his faith; the causes were so subtle and numerous, and the process so gradual and hidden. Who is there that could give an exhaustive exposition of the processes of any part of his own mental life? and how much more difficult is it to trace the operations of another's mind, when all you have to depend upon is a few scattered outward signs. He has done all that was practicable in the circumstances, and in the upward progress from Atheism to personal faith in Christ, the narrative is exceedingly interesting. The Atheism of Duncan was not of the hard,

dogmatic kind; still it was blank and dreary enough, for, as he afterwards confessed, seeing a horse passing, he said to himself, "There is no difference between that horse and me." Atheism is a cold, repulsive creed; there is nothing in it to touch the heart, to excite the sympathies, or to afford play for the imagination. Its one universal negation has nothing in it subtle or profound; it requires no effort to grasp it, and the reception of it crushes out all earnest life. It was altogether too coarse and chilling to enslave Duncan long, and consequently he soon passed over into the higher region of Pantheism. Pantheism is at once a religion and a philosophy. It professes to obviate the metaphysical and moral difficulties associated with the conception of a personal God; to enshroud everything in a religious atmosphere; to evolve the beautiful, and minister to the sublimest piety. It has a peculiar fascination for speculative and poetical minds, and the difficulty for such is to think of the connection of man with universal life, without running into it. Pantheism is a confession that there is a secret in the universe unfathomed, and unfathomable by man; it is more, it is an acknowledgment of the soul's need of God, and not the God of the Deist only, but the God of the Christian revealed in Jesus Christ; for, as Duncan has so well put it-"without an Eternal Logos, you must have an Eternal Kosmos, therefore, a mono-personal Theism is impotent against the Pantheist. Deism cannot withstand Pantheism; Pantheism, or Christ, must rule the minds of men; but, at best, Pantheism is only a shade higher than Atheism; the light in it is darkness, but Christ is the light of the world, and the light is the life of men. Pantheism is at bottom a deceit; it does not remove the difficulties attaching to the doctrine of a personal God, it increases them; it cannot satisfy the heart; it cannot render assistance to the endeavouring, the sorrowing, and the penitent; and it raises hopes which it miserably disappoints. Pantheism is overthrown by conscience. There is sin in the world-in the heart of the individual, conscience being judge. Conscience must therefore lie, and there is no distinction between good and evil, or Pantheism is false." The forth-flow of the one life of the universe must contain no ultimately and irreconcileably jarring elements; now sin and holiness are anti-thetic, and you cannot connect them by tracing them back to a common fountain. Therefore the universe has not been evolved, and Pantheism is not true." It was as a Pantheist that Duncan began to attend the lectures of Dr. Meams, the divinity professor of the auld kirk. The professor was the leader of the Moderates, the Broad Church party in the Scotch establishment. He was a very able scholar, but a colourless theologian; yet, in the providence of God he was instrumental in forcing Duncan to the realisation of a

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