THE CHRISTIAN AMBASSADOR THREE ART. I.-DR. GUTHRIE. HREE notable Scotch ministers-Drs. Norman McLeod, R. S. Candlish, and T. Guthrie-have recently passed away to join the great assembly, whose loss will be very much felt in Scotland, and in some measure throughout the whole kingdom. It is true in general of ministers as of other good things— "That what we have we prize not to the worth And now that these good men are gone, and their places are vacant, they may be more highly prized than when they were living. They were not, however, without some appreciation and honour in their day. They each held prominent places in their respective churches, had many friends and admirers in other communions, and accomplished something in the cause of truth and righteousness. Norman McLeod, the eloquent preacher of the Barony, the editor of "Good Words," and one of Her Majesty's chaplains in Scotland, will be much missed in the busy city of Glasgow, and in the courts and councils of the Auld Kirk; while the readers of "Good Words "will look in vain for those grand, humorous stories, and graphic descriptions of travel, with which he delighted and instructed them so often. As a man, a preacher, and a writer, he was a person of some note, and fairly represented a certain section of the Scotch ministers and people, who, through intercommunication with the English, and other more general causes, are consciously, or unconsciously, modifying certain traits of the national character. All the people north of the Tweed are undergoing a slow but certain and extensive change in their manner of life and thought. Whether this is to be regarded as a misfortune, is a matter of opinion. There is no doubt about the fact, of which VOL. XI.-NEW SERIES. H sufficient evidence could easily be produced, and, as intercommunication becomes more general, the process becomes more rapid, so that in no great distant future the peculiarities which distinguished the Scotch and English of "Lang Syne," may be entirely obliterated, and the nation become in fact, what it has been in name, ever since the Union-one people. It must not be inferred from what we say, that the English are absorbing and assimilating the Scotch; they are mutually influencing each other, and by their joint action are producing the British people. During the process of fusion, it would be difficult to analyse the forming national character, and point out exactly each country's contribution to it, but there is no doubt the main characteristics of the Scotch mind are prominently asserting themselves, and that the contribution of North Britain is neither the least marked nor important. Now, while this process is slowly affecting all classes and persons, there are some who, from the constitution of their nature, or the peculiarity of their circumstances, are very susceptible to it, and in whom it has already produced an observable change, and of such in Scotland Dr. McLeod might be regarded as a fair representative. By birth and early training he was a Scot of the Scots, but his travels abroad, and close intimacy with Dean Stanley and other distinguished Englishmen, made him more a cosmopolite than “a stubborn patriot," and gave a breadth to his thought and sympathies that was at one time considered dangerous in Scotland. It is not, however, in this aspect that we now regard him, but rather in his intellectual relation to the other two ministers that we have named. The Scotch mind manifests itself in two distinct forms, which, though differing very greatly, have a common national characteristic at the root. The one is that profound metaphysical disposition which engages in abstract speculations and in the pursuit of first principles, and which has gained for the Scotch the name of being hardheaded. The other is of quite a different nature, dealing more with the surface of things, and having relation to the sentiments and feelings more than to the intellect. The first is the logical and philosophical type; the second the poetical and popular. Whether this difference can be accounted for, we will not venture to say. We have thought that the first was peculiar to the Lowlanders, and the second to the Highlanders, but we have not sufficient evidence to form a positive judgment, and even if we had, we would still leave the cause of the difference unexplained. Though the difference is very marked, there is, however, a common characteristic, as we have said, which, for want of a better name, we call fervency, or intensity. It is generally thought by English people that the Scotch are a cool, calculating race; that they are sluggish in the blood, and accustomed to restraint; but the truth is they are the reverse of this. They are quick, fiery, and impulsive almost to rashness. They throw anamount of feeling and enthusiasm into whatever they take in hand that would astonish English people. Their nature is full of passion, and what Englishmen count trifles, they invest with such importance that difference of opinion concerning them has often kindled a flame threatening the whole fabric of the state. Their intellectual life glows like fire, and whether it manifests itself in the one form or the other, this characteristic is equally distinguishable, and indicates the true Scotch mind. The church in Scotland is far more representative of the people than the church in England. The ministry is within the reach of all, because the means of qualification for it are open to all. The ploughman's son stands almost equally as good a chance of entering it as the squire's; the consequence is, that in the ministers of the church there are found representatives, of all the diversities of the national mind and character. Thus, in Drs. Candlish and Guthrie, we find illustrations of the two-fold tendency of which we have just spoken. The first was a philosophical thinker, a scientific theologian, and a rigid ecclesiastical disciplinarian. The ten years' struggle that preceded the disruption and the establishment and organisation of the Free Kirk afforded an opportunity for the development of his extraordinary powers, and never, from the day when he raised his voice against lay patronage, until the day when he was called to his rest in the heavens "did Scotland miss his grasp on her heart and brain." Cast in the heroic mould, endowed with massive, intellectual power and indomitable courage, he fought in the General Assembly with Chalmers, Cunningham, and the other heroes of that eventful period, and as they were one by one borne from the field, he filled up the ranks, and almost in his own person sustained their various parts. He was an epoch man, and has left behind him-bearing prominently his impress-the most perfect ecclesiastical organisation in Scotland, besides a number of works on Polemical Theology. As a preacher he was, perhaps, a little too abstract to be popular. His congregation was composed principally of intelligent tradesmen, city gentry, and students of the University. Dr. Guthrie was the very opposite of this. Equally active in the disruption movement, and equally helpful in its glorious consummation, the part he played and the powers he developed were altogether different from those of his colleague. He was not a philosopher. He was not even a student, in the technical sense. He knew little about books and the discussions of the schools. He dealt with positive and accepted truths, but the use he could make of them was such as no other man in broad Scotland could. In mind and character he was altogether unlike Candlish. He was genial, open, and trustful. He won the heart with a look, and having made a friend he held him locked for ever in the strong bonds of affection. As a public speaker he was pre-eminently "pictorial." His grand appearance, fine voice, and lively fancy, made him popular with the common people, while his humour, pathos, and fervour secured him admirers amongst the most intelligent. Candlish was a philosopher, Guthrie was an orator, and Dr. McLeod held a middle place between them, combining their gifts. We do not say that he was as able a thinker as Candlish, or as popular an orator as Guthrie, but that, without being great in either, he happily combined the philosophical and popular. As a man he was buoyant and kindly. He had great capacity for enjoyment, and the power of awakening enjoyment in others. He was not quite the stuff that martyrs are made of; he had great firmness, which he could manifest on occasion, but he preferred to live peaceably and enjoy life. He was the friend of royalty and of the humblest. He was a great lover of children, and had a rare fund of humour by which he could entertain them, while the tenderness of his heart fitted him to render help to all in the distressing trials of life. As an author we are inclined to rank him high, though he did not make much pretension to literature. All he did was done in snatches, and hurriedly; still, we are inclined to consider the author of "Wee Davie," "The Starling," &c., &c., as worthy of a place in the long list of Scotland's literary worthies. His eloquence was of a high order, dashed with poetry, lit up with imagination, and delivered with great fervour; every word he uttered seemed to tell. There was no man in Glasgow, with the exception of the great and good Dr. James Morrison, that could draw and satisfy more perfectly a Glasgow audience. Having now indicated what we consider the relative intellectual position of these three men, we turn to relate more particularly the life of Guthrie. On the 12th of July, 1803, in the quiet old town of Brechin, Forfarshire, Thomas Guthrie was born. The place of his birth occupies a more prominent position in the ecclesiastical than in the civil history of Scotland. In this old city there are more perfect monuments of the rise, decay, and revival of the religious life of the nation than in any other part of Scotland. Here, contiguous to each other, are evidences of the Culdee, Popish, and Protestant forms of faith and worship; and to the ecclesiastical student, or the antiquarian, Brechin is a place of interest, but to others it is almost without interest. Seventy years ago, Brechin was a model burgh town; the only sound heard in its streets, the live-long day, was the click-clack, click-clack of the weaver's shuttle, or the hurry scurry and merry laughing of the "callants" leaving school; and the only news that reached it from the great world without was brought by the famous four-horsed coach that rattled ་ through the front street on its way to and from Aberdeen. Thomas was the twelfth child in a family of thirteen. He claimed to be the "seed of the righteous," and was anxious to prove himself the descendant of the famous James Guthrie, who died as a martyr in the cause of the "Covenant," and in the struggle for civil and religious freedom. There was, however, no natural relationship between them, but surely there was a bond of kinship, deeper, purer, and more potential, because spiritual. But though he failed to establish a relation with the martyrs, his claim to be the "seed of the righteous" was well founded. His father, David Guthrie, inherited from the hardy yeomen of the "braes of Angus," not only a healthy frame and vigorous mind, but also high moral principles, and deep religious devotion. His mother, also, came from a good stock, and was noted, from her youth, for fervent piety. "Pure lives were they all, austere and grave, It proved of some consequence to him that his parents were in comfortable circumstances. His father was the leading merchant and banker in Brechin, was bailie at the time of his birth, and afterwards held the office of Provost, or chief magistrate; but it was of more importance, seeing the part he was called to sustain, that they were pious and God-fearing. The home influences are always the most potent in the formation of those first principles which act so powerfully-though often unconsciously-in moulding our character and after life, and the worth of pious parents and a religious home can never be over estimated. Guthrie, like many more of the good and great, owed much to the influence of his mother. He says: "It was at my mother's knees that I first learned to pray; that I learned to form a reverence for the Bible as the inspired Word of God; that I learned to hold the sanctity of the Sabbath; that I learned the peculiarities of the Scottish religion; that I learned my regard to the principles of civil and religious liberty, which have made me hate oppression, and whether it be a pope, or a prelate, or a patron, or an ecclesiastical demagogue, resist the oppressor." Though trained in the Establishment, and now the wife of the chief magistrate, and though her husband and nearly all the other members of her family attended the parish Kirk, this good woman, feeling that she received more spiritual edification at the service of the Seceders, regularly worshipped with them. On the Sabbath morning, Provost Guthrie, escorted by the town officers in their quaint costumes, would march to his place in the "Magistrate's Loft" in the Auld Kirk, while his resolute and pious wife, with her eldest son and |