Part 4

In the spring of the following year the new church was completed and opened for public worship. Mr. Elmslie seemed to be able to draw into it men of all shades of religious opinion, and some even whose family traditions were at variance with evangelical orthodoxy. One of the distinguished sons of a famous Unitarian household was a fellow-worshipper with Ned Wright the evangelist. Throughout the whole of the little community which he ruled, for young and old alike, there was life, energy, and kindly charity. He felt that the path of Christian living was not to be trodden without ardent effort; and his example was at once a stimulus to the strong and an encouragement to the weak. "Your prayers," said a lady to him at this time, "always make me feel that it is a terribly difficult thing to be a Christian—but you can't think what a lot of good they do me."

The year after (1877) Mr. Elmslie commenced mission work. The London and North Western Railway Company had just built an Institute for their employés who are housed in large numbers in what is known as the Railway Village, at Willesden Junction. Above the recreation rooms in the new building was a large hall, which was placed at the disposal of Mr. Elmslie, by the directors, for Sunday services. He willingly took advantage of this kindness to gain a further hold on men whose hearts, in many cases, he had already reached. An engine-driver, who had been long ill, remarked to a friend about him: "He comes here, has a long chat, and tells me about many things; but never lets me feel he knows more than I do." The services then commenced are still continued under the oversight of Mr. Elmslie's successor.

Four years later another mission was started from Willesden which has since grown into an independent charge. The district of College Park came into being beneath Mr. Elmslie's eyes, and its spiritual needs attracted his attention. He applied to the London School Board for use of a schoolroom in which to hold Sunday services. The application having failed he bought, in the following year, along with his office-bearers, the site for a hall and church. The hall was at once built, and by the kindness of Mr. Andrew Wark, and other friends to whom Mr. Elmslie made a personal appeal, the money to meet the cost was subscribed. The church has been more recently completed.

One noticeable feature in his work at Willesden was his power to attract the young. I remember his saying on one occasion, half jestingly, that he liked to make children happy, as he knew how miserable they would be when they grew up. He meant that the strain of living was bound to tell, and that children should have all the happiness which can be enjoyed in the elasticity of youth. I do not know which were more attractive to the young people of Willesden—his children's sermons, or the sweets which he used to produce from mysterious stores when they came to visit him. Both were excellent and both did good.

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The following contains an interesting account of his pastoral work, and is worth quoting at length:—

"Though it is late, and the text for Sunday (Communion) has not been fixed yet, I am going to tell you a very sad story, that has made me think of many things. Over a year ago Mrs. X————, on my recommendation, engaged as governess a Miss Y————, a great friend of Mrs. Z————, who asked that she might be very kindly treated, because she had had a deal to bear, and was all but disgusted with religion. She was a bright young girl, very pretty and graceful, clever in talk and repartee. Often I wished to find a way of showing her some kindness, but naturally that was hardly possible. However, I knew that both Mr. and Mrs. G———— were good to her. She was to have left last Saturday, but took suddenly unwell—had to go to bed. On the same day I called in at Mrs. G————'s on my way to say good-bye to Miss Y————; learning of her attack, I did not go on.... Mrs. G———— had given her some eau-de-Cologne, and she had liked it much, so I took with me my little spray bottle. Her mother was with her; she looked wretchedly ill in face, eyes, and hands, but spoke in a very firm voice, and that made me think there was certainly no immediate danger.

"I at once told her about the spray bottle, and making her shut her eyes, applied it on her temples. She said it was delicious, and took it in her hands.

"I cannot try to describe her talk, for it was broken by moments of wandering, when she said very odd things, and in the midst she grew sick, and I had to go outside; she was too ill then to say much. I deemed it kind not to remain, but had a short, simple prayer. She said, very earnestly, 'Thank you so much for that!' I told her I would come again, and she must not fear to say to me all she wished. She answered, 'Yes, come again.' Thursday was a very busy day, for I had many engagements in London. Though I tried hard, I could not get home early, but it would have made no difference. She had been delirious night and day, with occasional intervals, and died at a quarter to three in the afternoon. She was only twenty-three.

"... J———— G———— went up and held her hands. She struggled for a moment or two, and then let her head down, and while he spoke to her, quieting her, she said she was going to be good and sleep now. Her wild eyes shut at last, and she was in a sleep, such as she had not had since Saturday.

"The mother and Mrs. G———— stole out, leaving only a sister, thinking it was recovery; but it was death. In ten minutes, with a little sigh, she ceased to breathe. Mr. G———— was her great friend, and she died in his arms. You can hardly think how sad her death has made me. So many forlorn things are about it that I have no time to write. Those lonely nights of agony and death-like sickness, that she had said nothing about at the time, believing herself dying, a governess among strangers, etc.

"Two things I am glad of—that Mrs. G———— was with her one night, and that I thought of the spray bottle. She said to me, '_You_ had Mrs. G———— to nurse _you_; is not she an _angel_?' and I said, 'Yes, as much as if she had wings,' and I meant it.

"Then her sisters told me that all that last night and day, till close on the end, my little bottle was never out of her hand; the coolness of the air and the softness of the spray relieved her sickness so much. Once, when in a spasm she jerked the bottle on the floor, she cried, for fear it was broken. The mother has sent a message asking if she may keep it, since it was the last thing in her child's hand, and the last that gave her any pleasure. It seems, too, that she spoke more than once of my prayer for her. Before the mother left last night to go home, she said to Mrs. G————, 'I shall always love you and your husband for what you have done for my child. Your kindness to her and the preaching she heard in your church did her so much good. She came to you with her life embittered, and with her religious beliefs nearly gone. Only a month ago she told me they had all come back again, and she understood Christ better, and believed in Him more, because of the way Mr. Elmslie preached of him, and we all have seen that this last year at Willesden has been the happiest in all her life. If she had been taken a year ago our recollections would have been very, very sad; now it is different,' and then the poor lady burst out crying. To-day I tried hard to get some white roses to lay on her ere the body is taken home, but I could only get some smaller white flowers, and maiden-hair ferns. Mrs. G———— had also got a basket of flowers, and I think the sight of them will comfort the old folks at home a little, as also a letter I have sent the poor mammy, saying some kind things about her lassie.

"Many other touching things the poor girl said and did come to my mind, and I could tell you more, but there is not time. I called it a sad story, but in some ways it is not sad. Indeed, I almost think that it is death alone that makes life at all sacred.

"All these things have made me think that Christ's account of the judgment must be quite real. I mean the 'Inasmuch as ye did it to one of these,' etc., for that is just how we would feel, that is just how the poor mother of the dead girl felt. There is nothing to thank God for more than to have been able to do a kindness to a dying soul. To think that a poor troubled soul has gone out of the pain and tiredness of life straight into the arms of God from yours, with the touch of pitying hands fresh on it; to feel God sees that, and knows those hands were yours, seems to me to bring you and God very near to each other. If it be true that He loves 'the souls that He hath made,' surely He must love you for loving them. I do not think it would matter very much about other things, if you had loved a good deal. If a little child said, as you were being turned away, 'He made me so happy!' and another, 'He fed and clothed me;' and another, 'He held me so gently in the agony of death,' even if he were a very sinful man, what could God do to him who had been good to the 'little ones'? The Apostle John had thought of it, and said, 'He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God,' and Paul must have been in the same mind when he wrote 1 Cor. xiii."

They were very bright and happy, those Willesden days with their expanding usefulness; and before Mr. Elmslie left the district his life had been crowned by the commencement of that heart-union with another which seemed to more than double the separate influence of each for good. He worked unremittingly, and even his holidays were not given to idleness or rest. When he came to London he knew little of French, and one of his first holidays was spent in Paris, where he worked at the language with conscientious thoroughness, and obtained an adequate mastery over its difficulties. He returned to Paris on another occasion for further study, and one late summer he spent in Rome studying Italian.

His second visit to Paris was very helpful to him in more ways than one, especially in the influence exercised upon him by Bersier.

"I find that the £30 I spent on going to Paris is going to pay me far more than I thought of, not merely in French, though I rejoice in that daily, but in preaching. Perhaps you remember me saying that I had got several hints from the style of Bersier, who spoke, not read—mainly in letting out, adopting a free, direct style, variation, etc. Since coming back I have had constantly to preach very badly prepared; but I knew that (partly in consequence) I was much more free, bold, and roused. On Sunday I was very ill-prepared, nothing written, even order of thoughts not fixed; and I did not stick, even, to the line intended; but feeling this, I let out tremendously in vehemence and language. I saw how it took, and several spoke. Yesterday two old folks were on the sermon, and then they said, 'But ever since you came back from Paris you have been so much improved,' etc., etc. And indeed, I have heard more of my sermons during the last few weeks than ever before. So I owe a debt to M. Bersier. Another item, however, is, I fancy, that Paris made some things a little more real to me than they were before."

During all these years Mr. Elmslie's reading was wide and various. At the same time it was not difficult to see that the subject that interested him most was the study of man, and the books that attracted him were those that threw light upon the actions and passions of men. When he returned from Paris for the first time, for example, the author of whom he was most full was Rousseau—not Rousseau the philosopher and speculative thinker—but the Rousseau of the "Confessions"—with their strange candour and unblushing avowals. He read little of the works of the great imaginative masters of English prose or verse. If he did read a volume of Tennyson or Ruskin, for example, his criticisms were always brilliant and penetrating; but he never nourished his spirit upon their loftier utterances, nor was his style moulded by the melody of theirs. One exception I should perhaps make. His study of George Eliot was frequent and appreciative. One of his students has told us how, shortly before his own death, he referred to the scene in which Mr. Tulliver's is described to point a characteristic lesson in theology and charity. The passage was a favourite one, from the day when a friend first gave him the "Mill on the Floss" to read. I remember another remark of his about George Eliot which is worth quoting, but to appreciate its point I must introduce a word of explanation. I had, just at that time, drawn up a memorial on a subject in which we were both interested. Avoiding the conventional "wharfoes" which "Uncle Remus" has satirized in such documents, I had worded the appeal with perhaps exaggerated directness. Each sentence contained a distinct proposition, and the whole was expressed with something of that oracular emphasis with which, in those days, Victor Hugo used, from time to time, to address the citizens of Paris. After talking of this composition, and the subject of which it formed part, the conversation turned on George Eliot. I referred to "Romola"—especially to the closing scenes in the life of Savonarola, which, as it has always seemed to me, touch the highest point that has been reached in analysis of the drama of spiritual conflict. As I recalled the passage in which the disciplined imagination of the writer shows us the great Florentine stripped, one after another, of all those dazzling evidences of divine favour with which he used to feed his soul in pride, till there is nothing left to tell him of the unforsaking love of God save the lowly witness of his own bowed and penitent heart, the eyes of my companion grew bright with a large approval. After a pause he said, "If we find George Eliot is not in heaven when we get there, I think you and I will have to draw up a memorial—in the style of Victor Hugo."

When one thinks of the versatility of Dr. Elmslie's mind, and of the keenness of his intelligence, one feels that he might have won laurels in any domain of intellectual effort. And yet theology was the one subject on which his heart was set. He conceived of it grandly and nobly. He believed in it in that deep, derivative sense in which it is referred to by Carlyle in the opening to his story of the Puritan revolt, as a knowledge of God, the Maker, and of His laws. And for him Christ was the Divine Lawgiver—sole Lord of his conscience as well as Saviour of his spirit. For me at least, the facts of Christianity seemed always to grow larger and more solemn as he pressed their spiritual significance; its doctrines seemed to grow more real as he pierced beneath the forms in which they are encased to explore their ethical contents. God and man, and the relations between them, were the absorbing subjects of his study. It was his constant brooding over human nature as seen in the light of Divine pity, which gave its largeness to his measurement alike of the deadly hatefulness of sin and of the atoning charity of Christ. Sin was for him a thing far more terrible than any punishment which could possibly await it; and his sense of its dread, though still expiable, terror gave to him his Christlike eagerness to watch for the faintest signs of contrition and amendment. The following passage in a letter written to his mother some years earlier contains, it seems to me, the heart and soul of all his preaching.

"Am very much touched to hear about the poor Doctor. No matter what he may have done, with his disordered brain and troubled home life, I had rather go into the next world like him than like most of those who have condemned, though there were even nothing more than that near the end he tried a little to do right, and had a pitiful wish in his heart to be at rest, and go back to his old mother, and live a Christian life. And if it is really true that there is a heavenly Father who pities sinful men, and a Christ who died to save them, then I think my mammy, in helping him only but a little to better thoughts and hopes, did a greater thing than most deeds men call great. Any way, she has the satisfaction of having done kindly by an unfortunate man, and of knowing that it is all well with him—unless, indeed, Christ was altogether mistaken. It is not the first time, either, that she has done that sort of thing."

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In 1880 he was appointed tutor of Hebrew in the Presbyterian College, London, and carried on the work along with that of his congregation in Willesden. He made himself very popular with the students, and when a permanent appointment came to be made in 1883, he was unanimously elected Professor of Hebrew. He writes: "It seems that the speeches of Walton, Fraser, and Watson were just perfect, so earnest and generous, and loving and hopeful. That put the Synod into a melting and happy mood. All yesterday I felt very grave, and almost afraid. I see that a very great thing, of good or evil, has happened in my life. God grant that it may be for good."

Almost immediately after his appointment to the Professorship, he married Kate, daughter of Mr. Alexander Ross, formerly Rector of the Grammar School, Campbeltown. The home which he made first at Upper Roundwood, Willesden, then at 31, Blomfield Road, Maida Vale, will ever have the brightest associations for his friends. He had all the qualities that fit a man to bless and grace married life. When his son and only child was born it seemed as if he were drinking the richest happiness of life in its fulness. I shrink from quoting words so sacred and tender as these which I take from a letter to his wife, but I cannot otherwise convey the full truth:—

"It makes me so glad, dear, every time I think of it, to know that we chose each other for no base worldly motives, but out of pure love and esteem for what (with all faults and defects) was good, and tender, and true, in one another. It was not for the mean things that the world and fashion make much of and worship that we two came together, meaning to go hand in hand through life with mutual help and kindness. We knew quite well the world's ways, and we could feel the pressure of its lower estimates and aims. But this act at least was done not with shallow hearts and for mean ends, but in honest friendship out of true affection, and with a very earnest wish to do only what was good and right, and to help each other to live a happy and a noble life." Such a life it was, though its years were few; and when the news of his death came, amid all the absorbing and confounding regrets which filled many minds, the thought was ever uppermost of the wife and child left desolate in the home that had been so full of sunshine.

Dr. Elmslie gave himself unsparingly to the work of his chair. He declined preaching engagements, and made zealous preparation for his classes. Apart from his own high standard of duty, he greatly respected the opinion of students. He thought Professors could have no fairer judges. The diligent study of the Old Testament, with the aid of the best German commentaries, was of course the main part of his preparatory work. But he did more with dictionaries than with commentaries, and made up his mind for himself. He always kept pace with the progress of research, and followed with deep attention the absorbing discussions of recent years on the structure of the Old Testament. As he was himself so chary in expressing publicly the conclusions he had arrived at on these subjects, it would not be right for me to say much. Of this, at least, he was sure, that the worth and message of the Old Testament were unimpaired by criticism, and would be so whatever the ultimate conclusion might be. He was also exceedingly sceptical as to the finality of the critical verdicts generally accepted at present: he believed that the analysis would be carried much farther. But although he diligently studied these things, and was an accurate and exact grammarian, he had his own theory of the duties of a Professor, which cannot be better described than in his own words, in an anonymous article contributed to the _British Weekly_ for September 16th, 1887. There he says—

"Theological colleges are not in the first instance shrines of culture or high places of abstract erudition, but factories of preachers and pastors. They are not so much fountains of pure scholarship, but are rather to be classed with schools of medicine and institutes of technical education. Their function is not to produce great theologians, but to train efficient ministers—though they will hardly do that without possessing all that is essential to do the other. The ideal Professor is not your dungeon of learning, in whose depths he and his pupils are buried away from all practical life and usefulness. Information is good, in large measure indispensable, but the rarer gift of the heaven-born teacher is infinitely more. The old institution of the "lecture"— pretentious, laborious, in every sense exhaustive—must vanish. What was spun out into an hour of dry-as-dust detail must be struck off in ten minutes of bright, sharp, suggestive sketching. It is the difference between the heavy leading article of our newspapers and the crisp incisiveness of the French press. There must be much more teaching from text-books, and direct instruction from the Bible and human life. Dogmatic must deal less with theories and mouldy controversies, and more with the actual forces of sin and salvation. Exegetic cannot be allowed to fool away a whole session in a wearisome analysis of a few chapters of an epistle or a prophecy, fumbling and mumbling over verbal trivialities, blind to the Divine grandeurs that are enshrined within, while the students are left without even a bird's-eye view of the contents of the Bible as a whole, and destitute of any adequate conception of its vital majesty and meaning. Above all, a new scope and purpose must be given to the teaching of Practical Theology. Instead of a few lectures on the doctrine of the Church, and the ideal construction of a sermon, and the theoretical discharge of pastoral duty, this ought to constitute the crowning and chief study in the curriculum. And it should be in the form, not of teaching, but of actual training. Montaigne complained of his physicians that they "knew much of Galen, and little about me." They manage better in medical education now. Fancy the souls of tempted and sick men, women, and children handed over to the unpractised mercies of our book-taught young ministers. Colleges cannot quite mend this difficulty; but they might do much. And still more would be done if each student could be secured a year of travel abroad, and after that be required to serve an apprenticeship as curate or evangelist in connection with our larger congregations."

Through the kindness of my friend Mr. W. D. Wright, B.A., a student in the English Presbyterian College, I have received some very interesting reminiscences from his students. Space does not permit me to give them fully, but they show that Elmslie acted up to his own conception of a Professor's duties. One gentleman says—