LABOURS AT ABERDEEN - Burns, William Chalmers
Chapter vii
1840
The details which have been given in the three last chapters from Mr. Burns’ own journals, of the nature of his labours, and the scenes amongst which he mingled, at kilsyth, Dundee, and perth, will render it unnecessary to give such extended extracts with reference to his evangelistic work at Aberdeen. The spirit in which he laboured, and the results which followed, were here in all essential respects identical with what we have just described elsewhere, and might be said to be simply the continuation of what was there begun. The same interesting activity, intense earnestness, and vivid realization of the unseen world on the part of the preacher the same mighty and gradually swelling tide of interest, inquiry, irrepressible emotion, on the part of the throngs that waited on his ministry and hung upon his lips were here as there the salient features of a movement which was the subject of solemn joy to one part of the community, and of wonder, consternation, scorn, or anxious misgiving to the other. Sermons to densely crowded audiences in three several churches on each lord’s-day; prayer-meetings in the morning and afternoon, and a public address in the evening of each week-day, with generally an additional hour of counsel, instruction, and prayer, for those whose intense anxiety still detained them after the long service was over, with words by the wayside and conferences with inquirers and young disciples at all other available hours, constituted the daily history of his work, so far as it can be written by man, for weeks together. An occasional sermon, too, in the open air in castle street, or at the foot of the barrack hill startled and scandalized a christian community, which has since seen the same self-denying service done, with no other feeling than that of admiration, by so many others. Even his brethren in the ministry, who in all other respects approved and furthered his work, with one single exception deprecated a course which all the existing conventions condemned, but which, by its remarkable results, in sounding the depths of a class of society which no other agency had reached, more than justified itself:
In the evening, ” says he, “i (April 26) preached in castle street to an immense audience, chiefly men, on the willingness of Jesus to save the chief of sinners, from the ‘ thief on the cross, i felt more of the divine presence than on any former no occasion in Aberdeen, and laboured to pull sinners out of the fire. The impression was very deep; many weeping, some screaming, and one or two quite overpowered. At eight o’clock we adjourned to the north church, where Mr. Wilson from Belfast was preaching, and when he had concluded we remained with a crowded audience for another hour in exhortation, prayer, and praise. After this we dismissed the people; but a great many were so deeply moved that we could not get away, and accordingly i returned with Mr. Murray, who addressed along with me about four hundred, from the receptor’s desk. After prayer and singing, we dismissed about ten o’clock. Getting with difficulty out of the crowd, i went down to Albion street, and addressed in a school-room about seventy of the poorest and vilest of the people in that degraded district. They were very solemn and interested to all appearance. We separated about eleven. Though this was a day of uncommon toil, yet, praise to the lord! I was not worn out, but felt strong as ever on my way home. … I may here record that none of the ministers were in favor of the street-preaching but Mr. Parker. He and his session all went to castle street; though i felt that i did not need human countenance, having so clear a conviction of the duty, and being so conscious of the divine support in this effort to advance the glory of jesus.
Other tokens besides the immediate sense of the “divine support, ” and the access opened to him to “the poorest and vilest of the people, ” soon appeared to confirm his conviction that he was in this matter in the right line of action. “when walking on the links, ” says he in his journal of next day, “in the afternoon i met some poor lads, with whom i prayed among the sand-banks. They were very serious for the time, and one of them said he had been in Albion street school the night before. He said that many were praying for the first time, and he among the rest, after i went away. ” we are not surprised, accordingly, to find him soon again on the same battle-ground, renewing the charge from the same point at which he had already effected so wide a breach. The scruples of his brethren, too, soon gave way, as they witnessed and gladly hailed the good results of the bolder course from which at first they had shrunk :
Tuesday, April 28 Th in the evening i preached to an immense audience at the foot of the barrack hill, including multitudes of the worst people in the town. I was hoarse, and the situation was very unfavorable, owing to its vicinity to the public road; yet with all these disadvantages the audience were most fixed and solemn in their attention, and i was encouraged to intimate a similar meeting in the same vicinity for Thursday night, though i had previously proposed to leave Aberdeen on the afternoon of that day. This afternoon i had also at half-past five a meeting in the barracks with about thirty of the soldiers. They seemed much impressed, and some of them shed tears when i came away. . . . “Thursday, April 30 Th i was again at the barracks in the afternoon; appearances just such as on the former day. I preached thereafter at the foot of the barrack hill to an immense audience. I had been thinking on the subject of conversion, but i was led in the time of the opening prayer to think of Matthew 11:28 and i preached on it with perhaps more of the divine assistance than i had done at any time before. Towards the end especially, many were screaming and in tears. … I felt as if i could pull men out of the fire; indeed, i never had more of this feeling than this evening, and on sabbath evening in castle street. In order to escape the crowd i slipped into the barracks, and after walking up and down in concealment a little, i went up to some of the men and spoke to them of Jesus and salvation. I got a good many of them to come and have a last prayer-meeting before our parting, which we had accordingly. When going up to the room i met dear j. C. (an interesting convert mentioned in the journal before several times. ) standing with streaming eyes alone. He had run up union street, thinking to overtake me, but not seeing me, and being obliged to be me by nine o’clock, he returned disconsolate, thinking that he might never see me again, the regiment being to leave Aberdeen for paisley on Tuesday first. Our meeting was sweet indeed, and our parting affecting, but full of the hope of meeting in the presence of the lamb. Glory to his matchless name! Of the after-history of individual souls amongst those neglected multitudes in Albion street and barrack hill, to whom the gates of the eternal kingdom were thus opened for once at least, so widely, but few and broken fragments can be gathered from the records of earth. The names of some of them occur in connection with the labours of a committee of inquiry soon after appointed by the presbytery of the bounds, and the cases of others are doubtless well known to individual ministers of the city, under whose ministry the seeds of life then sown were cherished and ripened to holy fruitfulness. With his friends amongst the soldiers, however, he was destined to meet again in other and deeply interesting circumstances, when, five years afterwards, they rallied round him, and acted as his gallant body-guard amid the rude assaults of the ruffian mob at Montreal. Throughout these manifold and arduous labours Mr. Burns had enjoyed, as ever afterwards in Aberdeen, the valuable countenance and co-operation of several of the ministers of the city, and particularly of Dr. Murray of the north parish, Mr. Parker of bon accord church, and Mr. Mitchell of holborn, in one or other of whose churches most of his meetings both on sabbaths and on week-days were held. The two former have since died leaving behind them the rich savour of a revered and blessed memory. Mr. Parker was a man of deep, thoughtful, and even severe piety, with peculiarly profound and solemn views of the holy law and sovereign grace of god who had been recently translated to his present charge from a chapel in Dundee, where he had laboured for several years with remarkable acceptance and success. Dr. Murray was a ripe scholar, a sound divine, a brave and godly man, and, especially during his earlier ministry in trinity chapel, a stirring and successful preacher. He lived to a good old age, and passed away amid the universal respect of a community that had for long years honored him as one of its most worthy and true hearted citizens. Both loved and befriended the young evangelist with that peculiar and beautiful affection which one sometimes sees in those of more advanced years towards the young.
On Tuesday, may 1, he left Aberdeen for a season, in order to fulfill some other pressing engagements thus briefly summing up the result of his labours there during the past month:
I am now come to the end of my sojourn in Aberdeen, and must notice a few general features in what met my eye and ear. We had meetings every morning to the end, in bon accord church, which were very sweet and solemn, and increased in size towards the end. I also continued to meet almost every afternoon, from one to three, with anxious inquirers. Many that came to these meetings, as well as many that called at the house, seemed in a most promising state, and altogether, upon a review of all i saw of this kind in Aberdeen, there seemed to be very hopeful symptoms of an extensive awakening. And now, lord Jesus, grant me and all thy people there, the holy ghost as a spirit of praise for all the tokens of thy glorious and gracious presence there; and may those who were impressed by thy power not be left to fall back into their former security beneath the abiding wrath of god, but be brought to wash in thy blood, and put on the glorious wedding-garment of thy righteousness, and adorn the doctrine of god their savior by a life and conversation becoming the gospel; and to thee be all the glory! Amen. his retirement from Aberdeen, however, was only temporary. Neither in his own judgment nor in that of the brethren who had laboured with him, had he yet made full proof of his ministry there; and accordingly, after an absence of five months, we find him again in the field, prosecuting with equal devoutness and zeal, and with even still more remarkable results, the work which he had before begun. For two months together, on week-days and sabbath-days, the attendance at the meetings continued unabated, and the number of inquirers increased. I find on one of the last pages of his Aberdeen diary specific mention of the 200th case of spiritual anxiety with which he had had to deal since the commencement of his visit; and those who sought him out on this errand, and with whom he was able to converse, were of course only a fraction of those who were more or less affected by the general and wide- spread impression. So great at one time was the number of the anxious, that appointments made for their special behoove would be responded to by such crowds, that individual instruction became impossible, and the inquirers’ meeting grew into a congregation. Meanwhile the intensity of feeling manifested by those who were the more especial subjects of the movement was often very great, and found vent to itself in the case of those who were of a more impressible nature, and were least habituated to self-control, now in silent weeping, and now in loud sobs and cries. There was undoubtedly at this time a good deal of what is called religious excitement. The solemn impressions of eternal things renewed night after night, in crowded congregations composed in large measure of the same individuals, and under the spell of a voice that seemed as if the very echo of eternity, gradually grew to an intensity which became at last altogether uncontrollable. It cannot certainly be matter of surprise that such manifestations, occurring in the midst of a great christian community, should have attracted a large measure of public attention, and should have been thought deserving of serious consideration and inquiry on the part of those entrusted with authority in the church. They were sure to be variously, and by many severely, judged. Not only were those to whom every expression and sign of religious earnestness were but as the raving of fools, sure to turn away from such scenes with contemptuous scorn, but even some, to whom the struggles of the interior life were a great and blessed reality, might question whether a spiritual movement, attended by such a tumult of emotion, were likely to prove in the highest degree solid or lasting. It was not that the spiritual concern of those whose souls were most powerfully stirred by the melting and thrilling words of the preacher was in itself too solemn or too deep. No amount of solicitude in regard to interests so stupendous as the favour and love of god, and the eternal life of the soul in him, could be regarded as either unreasonable or extreme. Of such solicitude, whether called by the name of excitement, or enthusiasm, or the awakening of the spiritual life, well might it be said with president Edwards: “if such things are enthusiasm or the fruits of a dis tempered brain, let my brain be evermore possessed of that happy distemper! If this be distraction, i pray god that the world of mankind may be seized with this benign, meek, beneficent, beatifically, glorious distraction. but the question still remained, whether a course of such continuous and exhausting excitement of the feelings were not fitted rather to hinder than to help spiritual inquiry in the highest sense by preventing quiet thoughtfulness, and possibly issuing in a 298 reaction of deeper carelessness and apathy. Grace, it was urged, while in itself supernatural and divine, yet works ever according to the essential laws of our moral and physical constitution; and whatever in any degree runs counter to those laws must tend in that degree to hinder or to mar that work. Of those laws the healthy equipoise of the different elements of our nature the reason, the conscience, the feelings- is one of the most fundamental, and therefore any undue or exclusive predominance of one of these to the suppression or abeyance of the others must tell with more or less of injurious influence upon all. It was alleged too that the excitement then prevalent was in many cases an excitement of fear rather than of love or moral feeling, and for that reason also the more liable to prove evanescent, or to issue in morbid and unsatisfactory results. It was not enough to say in answer to these considerations that the work was, as most christian men fully believed, in its essential nature and substance a work of the spirit of god; for a divine work was all the more sure to be more or less marred by the erring touch of man; and that work, it was maintained, would have been helped, not hindered, and the spiritual birth or holy progress of souls furthered, had the public meetings and protracted and exciting services been fewer, and the hours of still and meditative retirement more. There was some truth, doubtless, in these considerations; but probably not so much as those who urged them were disposed to think. It was not enough considered that such a season of general awakening to the sight and sense of eternal things was in its nature exceptional and temporary, and that the intense excitement with which it was at first attended was sure, in the course of nature, soon to die down into a more quiet and tranquil condition of things. Whatever effects of a permanent kind might result from the earthquake shock, in startling souls from the sleep of death, its immediate tremor and concussion would soon pass away. Neither in the public mind generally, nor in the history of individual souls, would the tumult of emotion last long enough to produce, at least to the full extent, that revulsion or paralyzing exhaustion of feeling that was apprehended. Many of those who were most deeply moved by the prevailing influence very soon passed the crisis of their anxiety, and through that sore agony and travail of soul entered into a state of calm peace and rest in god, which was the very opposite of all tumultuous excitement. The same power that was mighty to wound was mighty also to heal, so that “the bones which” that divine unseen hand “had broken” were speedily made to “rejoice. there was the gentle and reviving south wind, as well as the biting north the time of the singing of birds, as well as the winter and the rain. Thus those whose desires after god, the living god, were deep and real, did not long fail of the object of their quest, and with it of that holy calm which can alone effectually still the tumults of the heart; while in the case of those whose natural sensibilities alone were stirred, there was enough in the cares of the world and the pressing exigencies of daily life soon to blunt the edge of excited feeling, and preclude the danger of a too intense or long-continued anxiety. Those, in short, who had then been roused to momentary seriousness, would either inevitably soon sink into slumber again, or have their eyes opened to the sight of him, the beholding of whom alone can permanently keep the soul awake, and in whom there is not only life everlasting but peace unspeakable. It should be remembered also that those to whose benefit Mr. Burns’ labours were at this time for the most part directed, belonged to that class whom it is most difficult to arouse to any thought or care about eternal things at all, and who when they are so roused, are then only led to think when they have been first made to feel. Those rude and untaught hearts in Albion street and barrack hill, or amidst the crowds of factory workers, who were brought to weep and wail aloud at the thought of god and eternity, might never get beyond those mere sobs and tears might catch only a momentary glimpse of a higher world, and then pass again into darkness; and yet surely the very state of mind which made them capable of such tears had already raised them far above their former state of stolid indifference and moral debasement, and brought them at least several steps nearer the kingdom of god than they were before. There are those let us never forget it whose deeper nature must be reached, primarily and chiefly, not through the head, but through the heart.
It was a time doubtless of high, but, in the main, of sacred and salutary excitement. Occasionally, no doubt, the tide of feeling was too unrestrained more continuous and less subjected to regulative control, than with a view to solid and enduring results would have been desirable. There was not indeed too much feeling; but there was perhaps too little thought not too much of the whirlwind and of the fire, but possibly too little of the still small voice. Without any less of the religion of the heart, there might have been more of the religion of the informed judgment, the educated conscience, and of the disciplined will. It is hard in any case, and under any ministry, fully to reconcile and combine what may be called the stimulative and the educative functions of the gospel message to give full scope at once to the powers that stir and to the principles that should guide and control the spiritual nature. I do not say least of all would the subject of this memoir have said that in the present instance this reconciliation was perfectly attained. In the great lack, too, of wise guides of souls, and in the comparative inexperience in such work even of those who were most fitted for it, it is not wonderful if a spiritual movement, at once so extensive and profound, should have got occasionally somewhat beyond control; and if some portion of its good results should thus have been lost or have passed away into impure and morbid forms.
Even a divine work in human hands partakes ever and necessarily more or less of the imperfection and the error of that which is human. In the main, however, and with every reasonable allowance for such imperfection and error, we believe this remarkable movement to have been a real and most blessed work of the spirit of god a true awakening, through his heavenly breath, of the spiritual nature, and quickening of the springs of highest life in multitudes of human souls. If it was an enthusiasm, it was an enthusiasm of faith, of love, and of holy endeavor and aspiration. Still, let it be admitted that the dangers apprehended from excessive and too continuous excitement, if often exaggerated, are nevertheless real, and that so far as they can be avoided, they are, in the interest of the work itself, and for the honour of him whose work it is, to be sedulously and anxiously guarded against. there being a great many errors and sinful irregularities, ” to use again the words of Edwards, “mixed with this work of god, arising from our weakness, darkness, and corruption, does not indeed hinder it from being very glorious. Our follies and sins in some respects manifest the glory of it. The glory of divine power and grace is set off with the greater lustre by what appears at the same time of the weakness of an earthen vessel.
It is god’s pleasure to manifest the weakness and unworthiness of the subject at the same time that he displays the excellency of his power and the riches of his grace. And i doubt not but some of these things which make some of us here on earth to be out of humor, and to look on this work with a sour countenance, heighten the songs of the angels when they praise god and the lamb for what they see of the glory of god’s all-sufficiency, and the efficacy of Christ’s redemption. And how unreasonable is it that we should be backward to acknowledge the glory of what god has done, because the devil, and we in hearkening to him, has done a great deal of mischief. still none the less error is error, and sin is sin, and both are to be with the utmost watchfulness and care guarded against, so that the work which we recognize as divine may not only be, but be seen to be, “honorable and glorious, ” and that no needless stumbling-block may be thrown in the way of any true though feeble seeker after god. Whether, then, and to what extent, any such incidental evils had appeared in the present case, was a most fair and important subject of inquiry; and a committee was accordingly appointed for that purpose by the presbytery of Aberdeen, moved thereto chiefly by some very unfair and one-sided accounts of some of the meetings which had appeared in one of the public prints. The result was eminently satisfactory.
The proceedings were conducted on the whole as Mr. Burns himself most cordially admitted with candor and fairness, and in such a manner as fully to elicit the essential elements of the truth. To the convener of the committee in particular, the rev. Wm. Pier, he felt himself under deep obligation for the kindness and courtesy with which he conducted his own examination, when called personally to appear as a witness. The committee of presbytery very properly extended their inquiries beyond the sphere of their own immediate jurisdiction, to some of the other scenes of Mr. Burns’ labours, where a religious movement essentially similar to that at Aberdeen had taken place and where from the lapse of time its real nature and tendency could be the better tested. The result was a remarkable concurrence of weighty and impressive testimony alike to the depth and extent of the influence at work, and of the holy and enduring fruit in the hearts and lives of multitudes of its subjects; and the presbytery accordingly agreed to the following resolution, as embodying their mature and final judgment, after a full consideration of the whose facts and bearings of the case: “the presbytery, having taken into their solemn consideration the evidence on revivals of religion received by their committee on that subject, resolved,
“1. That a revival of religion, consisting in the general quickening of believers, and the conversion of multitudes of unbelievers, by the holy spirit, cannot but be an object of most earnest desire to every follower of the lord; that the genuineness of such a revival is chiefly to be tested by the nature and permanence of the effects by which it is followed; that it can only be expected to flow from the use of the appointed means, accompanied with the abundant outpouring of the spirit of god; that it should be made a subject of fervent and persevering prayer; and that, when such a revival takes place, it should not be dreaded or spoken of with levity, but should be carefully and seriously marked, and acknowledged with devout thanksgiving.
“2. That the evidence, derived from answers to certain queries sent by the committee to ministers and others in different parts of the country, amply bears out the fact that an extensive and delightful work of revival has commenced, and is in hopeful progress in various districts of Scotland the origin of which, instrumental^, is to be traced to a more widely diffused spirit of prayer on the part of ministers and people, and to the simple, earnest, and affectionate preaching of the gospel of the grace of god; that this work in the districts referred to, many of which are locally far distant from others, has been attended with few of those evils which have generally more or less characterized seasons of great religious excitement; and that, on the whole, an amount of good has been accomplished which loudly calls for gratitude and praise to him ‘who turneth the hearts of men as the rivers of water. ‘
“3. That in the case of Aberdeen, to which the evidence more especially refers, it clearly appears, so far as the test of time can be applied to the subject, that a very considerable number of persons, chiefly in early life, have been strongly, and it is hoped savings, impressed with the importance of eternal things, and are in the course of further instruction; that many of all ages have been awakened to a more serious concern about christ and salvation than they formerly felt, and have been quickened to activity in well- doing; and that the labours of Mr. W. C. Burns, preacher of the gospel, are peculiarly discernible in connection with these results. At the same time, the presbytery cannot but regret that such an exclusive reference should have been made to two particular meetings at which mr. Burns presided, where the services were protracted to a late hour, and where much outward excitement prevailed circumstances obviously liable to much inconvenience as well as misconception while it appears from the evidence that many other meetings were held for religious instruction, through the same instrumentality, which could be liable to no such misconception, and where much good was wrought. And, upon the whole, the presbytery are convinced that, if it had entered more into the nature of the inquiry to ascertain simply the extent of the awakening that has been effected in this city and neighborhood, the evidence of a favorable kind would have been such as to lead to increased thanksgiving.
“4. That the presbytery having considered the whole evidence that has been laid before them on this unspeakably important subject, feel themselves called upon to recommend to all ministers, preachers, and elders within their bounds, in their respective spheres, to labor more and more diligently and prayerfully, in the use of all scriptural means, to promote the cause of vital religion, which needs so much to be revived among us; and they would also exhort and entreat all the private members of the church to study to grow in grace, to abound in all the fruits of righteousness, and to plead more earnestly with the great head of the church that he would pour out of his spirit more plentifully upon us, and bless his appointed ordinances, that the wilderness may become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. ” before the commencement of the investigation, mr. Burns had already closed his labors at Aberdeen, having been called to take the temporary charge of a new church at Dundee. He left for that town on the 5th of December, at early dawn; but not too early to find awaiting him at the place of departure a number of those who had learned to look to him “even as an angel of god, ” and who parted from him with many tears : “Saturday, December 5 th though i was very late up last night (this morning), and had but a short time for sleep, i awoke of my own accord at the proper time quite refreshed, and set out at twenty minutes to seven with the Dundee mail. A number of my young friends had found out the time of my departure, and stood by on the pavement in tears. The mockery of many around made our tongues silent: we looked at each other, with Jesus in our hearts‘ eye i hope, and wept. “