Part 5

"In recalling my impressions of Professor Elmslie, nothing strikes me so forcibly as his unfailing gentleness towards his students. It was very seldom indeed that any student was inattentive or troublesome in class, but when anything of the kind did occur Elmslie never spoke a word to the offender, and but for the pained flush on his face, one would have thought he had not noticed the occurrence. Again, when a student had not prepared his Hebrew lesson, and was unable to read it, Elmslie always appeared more ashamed than the student himself, but never said a word in blame or warning. Only he was afterwards chary of asking the same student to read.

"Elmslie was always ready to answer questions or meet any difficulties raised by the students, and he was often more eloquent on these occasions than when engaged in the ordinary routine of the class. He had rather a dislike for the schoolmaster's work that he was compelled to do with junior students, and hurried the class on until they were able to read passages in Hebrew. He did not aim so much at turning out Hebrew scholars as at making preachers, with a deep interest in Hebrew literature, and imbued with its spirit. If he could only secure our interest in a Hebrew author, and enlist our sympathies, he was willing to excuse any ignorance of ours in regard to grammar or syntax."

Another says—

"Perhaps my most vivid remembrances of Dr. Elmslie collect round his criticisms upon his students' trial discourses. Always kind, invariably conciliatory, in his criticism, yet he pointed out very plainly the defects, and indicated what was lacking with unfailing clearness of judgment. Even in the midst of his rebukes he would frequently take the bitterness away by some half-playful remark or reference to his own experiences.... But better than any criticisms were his own concluding remarks on the text. Compressed, as they had to be, into a very few minutes, the whole intensity of his nature was seen in them. We often left the lecture-hall with our brains all astir and our hearts glowing with the inspiration of his words.

"I rather think some of his first-year students generally thought him occasionally heretical in his remarks at the close of his criticism. The one thing he could not bear was dulness, a uniformity of mediocre unreproachableness about a sermon. So he loved to give with startling effect a single side of a truth, and thus to send us away with our minds in a state of rather anxious activity. Once he half-humorously gave us the advice to begin our sermons with a truth stated in an unusual, half-heretical way, if one liked; for there is nothing makes people listen so attentively as a suspicion of heresy. But these early doubts of our Professor's soundness soon vanished, and we found him, as one has said, 'not so much _broad_, as _big_.'"

"He read to us a letter from a young man in much doubt as to whether he should enter the Wesleyan pulpit or no. His correspondent had read with relish Dr. Elmslie's article on Genesis. Could the Professor tell him of any books in which points of Christian faith were dealt with in an intelligent and convincing way? He, the correspondent, knew of no such books. Dr. Elmslie asked our opinion. I ventured to suggest that everybody had to hammer out these points of faith for himself. The Doctor was rather pleased with this remark, and at once said, 'Oh, yes! indeed he has, and to live them out too.'"

In his old students who had become ministers he took an earnest interest, and their letters show sufficiently how they prized him. "I feel," says one, "that you have inspired me with a something quite apart from the detailed work of the class—with spirit and enthusiasm for preaching."

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He himself was soon drawn back to the pulpit, and as he preached in the various Nonconformist churches of the Metropolis it was almost immediately felt that a new force of the first rank had appeared. He preached frequently in Brixton Independent Church, then under the brilliant and devout ministry of James Baldwin Brown. Mr. Brown's health was very infirm when Dr. Elmslie began to preach there, and on his death the congregation looked to the Professor as his natural successor. Ultimately a cordial invitation was given. The inducements offered were great, and the position was among the most influential London Nonconformity can bestow. That a change of ecclesiastical relations would have been necessitated by his acceptance would have been no difficulty to Dr. Elmslie. But he feared to face the physical strain involved, and preferred to continue his work as Professor.

The disappointment felt at his declinature of the invitation to Brixton Independent Church was very deep, although the members construed his refusal in the right way, and understood that no difference of opinion on ecclesiastical polity and no doubt of their fidelity had anything to do with it. Some of the letters written to him were very touching. Among these I may quote the following:—

"DEAR SIR,—We are, with the exception of my husband (who is somewhat of an invalid), closely occupied all the week, sometimes even the strain becoming excessive. On Sundays, when you come, your teaching and influence lift us above all our difficulties, and we start for the next week full of hope, and feeling nothing too hard to be accomplished. With regard to my sons, it is an especial boon, because, though they are thoughtful and good, it has been almost impossible to get them to attend church during the last two or three years. They did not meet, perhaps, with a single service for many weeks into which they could enter with the slightest interest, so they stayed away. We have all found our Sundays very wearisome, but on those you have visited us all is changed. All are deeply interested, one competing with the other in bringing forward the ideas that have interested them." The writer goes on reluctantly to acquiesce in a declinature which had evidently gone to the heart of the whole household.

His sphere as a preacher steadily widened, and he became, in addition, a most popular platform speaker at the May meetings in Exeter Hall and elsewhere. There is no room to recount his triumphs, and no need to do so. All who heard him bore the same testimony. If he was preaching in one of the suburbs the trains towards the time of service brought a company of admirers from all parts of London. The chapel would be crowded to the doors. When he stood up in the pulpit strangers felt surprise. Youthful in appearance, unpretending in manner to the last degree, and in the early part of the service generally nervous and restrained, it was not till the sermon began that he showed his full powers. He usually read the first prayer, and was always glad if he could get some one to help him with the lessons and the giving out of hymns. But in preaching all his powers were displayed at their highest. He did not read his sermons, but his language was as abundant and felicitous as his thought, and his audience was always riveted. Alike in manner and matter he was quite original. He imitated no preacher; he did not care to listen to sermons, and was rarely much impressed by them when he did. I doubt if he ever read a volume of sermons unless it was to review them. His knowledge of the Bible and his knowledge of life gave him inexhaustible stores; he had always matter in advance, and never felt that sterility of mind which so often afflicts the preacher. He would retell the stories of the Old Testament, and make them live in the light of to-day. The reality and firmness with which he grasped life—the life of toiling, struggling, suffering men and women—was his chief power. His sympathetic imagination helped him to divine the feelings of various classes of the young men in business, for example, with a small salary, and little prospect of rising, forbidden the hope of honourable love, and tempted to baseness from without and within. He had an intense concern for the happiness of home life, and much of his preaching was an amplification of the words—

"To mak' a happy fireside clime To weans and wife; That's the true pathos and sublime Of human life."

Mothers' hearts he would win by praying for the "dear little children asleep in their beds at home." Young couples he would warn to keep fresh the tenderness and self-sacrifice of first love. But the sermons which follow speak for themselves, though nothing can transfer to the printed page the light and fire of which they were full as the preacher spoke them.

Of the helpfulness of his preaching he had from time to time many testimonies, of which he preserved a few. These were very welcome to him, far more so than any appreciation of the intellectual ability or the eloquence of his sermons. This, from one letter, is a specimen of many more: "I wandered past my own church in a heavy weight of business care, knowing that a mortgagee would this week likely take all I had, and caring little where I wandered when I went in to hear you, and was surprised at the text you preached from, and more so at the helpful words you spoke, which I hope, by God's grace, will enable me to see—

'Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face.'"

He delivered courses of lectures to Sunday-school teachers under the auspices of the Sunday-school Union. These were very largely attended and highly appreciated. He received many letters of encouragement, among them one from the vicar of a London church, who wrote that although he could not attend them all, owing to the exacting nature of his own work, he listened to those he could be present at with the deepest attention and the greatest thankfulness. "That a great scholar should fearlessly approach these vexed questions, and with his grasp of them be able to make them popular and understood by the people, and above all attractive to the people, is to me a great joy. You make the Bible a living book, filled with people met with in workaday life. You show that the social problems which superficial minds imagine are utterly new are only old difficulties under new names, and that the Bible has a definite word to say upon them, and its 'Thus saith the Lord' is to be listened to still. I venture to think that this is the great need of this fevered age of ours, and I heartily thank you."

An attempt was made in 1888 by the Westminster Congregational Church, where he had often preached with great acceptance, to secure him as pastor. This invitation he was inclined to accept. The condition of the Theological College was not at the time satisfactory, and for that and other reasons it seemed not unlikely that the call would be closed with. To me, as to others of his friends, it seemed certain that his physical strength was wholly inadequate to the position, and I am glad to think of the urgency with which this view was pressed on him. He was reassured about the College, and gratefully declined the invitation. In connection with it he received the following letter, which reflects so much honour on all concerned that I venture to include it here:—

"LONDON, _March 8th, 1888_.

"TO THE REV. PROFESSOR ELMSLIE, M.A., D.D.—We hear with sympathetic interest that the Westminster Church is calling you to its pastorate.

"The traditions of the Westminster Church are good, its ministry has always been highly spiritual and largely human, and its importance and influence have been second to none among the churches of our order in this great Metropolis.

"We feel special interest in this call from the fact that it will involve on your part the crossing of the denominational boundary between Presbyterianism and Congregationalism. Identical though the churches practically are in the foundation of their theological belief, we appreciate the strain upon early and sacred association which this may involve, with, however, this compensation, that, borne in answer to a call for service and furtherance of the kingdom of Christ, it is a practical and valuable evidence that the sister denominations are truly wings in the one great army of God.

"Should you accept this call to the highly honourable post which the Westminster Church offers you, we beg to assure you of the cordial welcome, brotherly sympathy, and, as the occasion may arise, the friendly co-operation of the ministers of our body.

"It is unusual for the representatives of other churches to intervene in cases of this kind, but understanding there may be questions in your mind as to the feelings with which you would be received into the ranks of the Congregational ministry, we have thought it right, on the suggestion of a representative of the Westminster Church, to give you this assurance.

"With best wishes for your future welfare and highest prosperity,

"Yours fraternally,

"Alexander Hannay, "Henry Allon, "J. C. Harrison, "J. Guinness Rogers, "Andrew Mearns, "Samuel Newth, "Joseph Parker, "Robert F. Horton, "John Kennedy, "John Fredk. Stevenson, "R. Vaughan Pryce, "Alfred Cave, "John Stoughton, "Henry Robert Reynolds."

It is unnecessary to refer in detail to the numerous invitations to Presbyterian pulpits which reached him from time to time. Some of these were from Scotland, on which he looked back with mingled feelings. He did not willingly turn his face to the north, or think of it with much pleasure. "I worked too hard there," he would say. On the other hand, he writes from Edinburgh in 1880—"I had a splendid talk, fit to be printed, with Taylor Innes, Davidson, and Iverach. I think I might become a great divine with such stimulating society."

Elmslie's connection with the Congregationalists not only greatly heightened his estimate of the loyalty and piety still abiding in the Nonconformist churches of England; it also brought him more fully into the current of modern life. He began to be deeply interested in politics, which he had previously rather held aloof from, became a diligent reader of newspapers, and was led to an absorbing interest in Socialism, on which he delivered a memorable address in Exeter Hall in connection with the Pan-Presbyterian Council of 1888. In politics he was an ardent Liberal and a thoroughgoing Home Ruler.

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Dr. Elmslie added to his other engagements some of a literary kind. He became adviser to the firm of Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, of 27, Paternoster Row, and occupied this position for a few years with great satisfaction on both sides. His work was to write estimates of any manuscripts Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton submitted for his consideration, and that he did it incisively and honestly the following specimen, selected almost at random, will show:—

"Energetic, intelligent, earnest discourses on the lines of the old Evangelical Protestant school, not in any way original in exposition or fresh in presentation, but quite sensible, vigorous, and good. That they are not up to date appears in such a reference as this: 'The excitement caused in this country by the publication of "Essays and Reviews," and subsequently of Bishop Colenso's heretical works, is still fresh in our memories,' etc. Even if thoroughly rubbed up and revised, the sermons would only sell where writer's name would carry them, and to some extent to preachers in search of ready-made discourses."

He ceased to act in this capacity some time before his death, but continued to be a constant visitor to No. 27, where his appearance gave pleasure to every one in the place. His inaugural lecture on Ernest Renan was published in the excellent "Present-day Tracts" of the Religious Tract Society, and was very well received. He had often heard Renan lecture, and was thoroughly conversant with his books. To the _Expositor_ he made some contributions, but in spite of pressure, delayed publishing extended articles. In _Good Words_ and the _Sunday Magazine_ some of his sermons were published from time to time. To the _British Weekly_ he was a large contributor, mostly of short anonymous reviews and paragraphs; occasionally he would write an extended critique or a travel sketch. But he was making ready for work as an author. A remark made by Dr. Marcus Dods had sunk into his mind; it was to the effect that men should study till they were forty, and then publish the result of their studies. He had arranged to begin writing and to give up preaching, and had he lived this purpose would have been carried out. His schemes were numerous, but the chief was to write a book which should make the Old Testament intelligible—its contents and message—to the common people. He had made a careful study of the Minor Prophets, the result of which will shortly appear in a popular commentary.

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So his life went on, useful, happy, honoured, and but too busy. In 1888 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from his Alma Mater. In the same year he preached the opening sermon at the Nottingham meeting of the Congregational Union. This high honour was never before conferred on a Presbyterian minister. He enjoyed social intercourse, and in recent years had much of it. He had many pleasant Continental holidays. But the claims upon him constantly increased, and alas! his strength did not. He had the happiness of being under the care of an accomplished and skilful physician, who was also an intimate friend—Dr. Montague Murray. I need not speak of the faithful care that never ceased its vigilance. But although often warned against overwork, and constantly paying the penalty in severe headaches, no serious danger was apprehended. I am anxious to make it clear that he did not wilfully throw his life away. He apprehended no danger, and thought he was taking sufficient precautions. The last summer of his life he took two Continental holidays. He loved life. His last years were his best—the brightest and the fullest of influence. If one had been asked to say who among his friends had the prospect of the surest happiness and the greatest influence, he would have named Elmslie without hesitation. It was in such a noon that his sun went down.

He spent September 1889 in the Engadine. Although he enjoyed the trip he benefited from it less than he had hoped, and began the work of his classes with a certain feeling of weariness. He did not, however, imagine that anything was seriously wrong, and accepted many engagements for the winter. He preached with wonderful eloquence to crowded audiences in St. John's Wood Presbyterian Church on the Sunday evenings of October, and had promised to take anniversary services on Sunday, November 3rd, for the Rev. John Watson, M.A., of Sefton Park Church, Liverpool. Although unable to go to College on the previous Friday, he was anxious not to disappoint his friend, and accordingly went to Liverpool. His medical adviser reluctantly allowed him to preach once. He officiated at the forenoon service, getting help from one of his students in the service. That afternoon he spent in bed, and he was too unwell to return to London till Wednesday. Dr. Murray saw he was seriously ill, and ordered that all his engagements should be postponed. On Thursday, however, he lectured at the College, but on Friday he was prostrated, and remained so till Tuesday, when unconsciousness set in. He suffered from agonizing headache. Symptoms of diphtheritic sore throat set in on Sunday, November 10th. On Tuesday the medical man in attendance pronounced the disease to be typhoid fever, and after the evening of that day he was never conscious. His busy brain worked on. The faithful friend and physician, who hardly left his side, says he never heard such intelligent unconscious talk. If his mind travelled to the scene of his recent journeys he would give directions in German about ordering rooms, arranging for dinner and the like, with perfect clearness. More often he would fancy himself in his class-room teaching Hebrew, and urging the students to put heart into their work. Over and over he spoke to his wife of what had been the master thought of his life. Lifting his hand he would say with great earnestness, "No man can deny that I always preached the love of God. That was right. I am glad I did not puzzle poor sorrowful humanity with abstruse doctrines, but always tried to win them to Christ by preaching a God of Love." Once he turned to her with wistful eyes and said, "Kate, God is Love. All Love. We will tell every one that, but specially our own boy—at least you will, for I seem to be so tired these days, and my one wonder and trouble is, that all these people (meaning the nurses) try to prevent me from going home, where we were always so happy." He was reassured for the moment, when some familiar object was pointed out, and asked that he should often be told that he was at home. He was soon to go home indeed. He recognised his wife on Friday, with the last signs of consciousness. Shortly after he became faint, closed his eyes, and never opened them again on earth. About four o'clock on the morning of November 16th, 1889, he quietly passed away.

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Scarcely any death could have made a greater rent than this, and the tokens of sorrow—public and private—were almost unexampled in the case of one who held no high office in Church or State, who had not lived long enough to make his mark in literature, who had sought no fame or honour, but had been content with doing his duty as it called him day by day. The funeral service was conducted in Marylebone Presbyterian Church (Dr. Donald Fraser's), of which he was a member. Dr. Fraser and Dr. Allon delivered addresses, while Dr. Dykes and Dr. Monro Gibson offered up prayer. The great church was crowded with a deeply moved audience of two thousand persons, every one of whom probably represented some word spoken or some service rendered by the kind heart then cold. He was buried at Liverpool next day by the side of his mother, his attached friend and colleague the Rev. Dr. Gibb, being among those present at the interment. A service was conducted at the Presbyterian College, where Principal Dykes delivered a deeply moving address. "You may send us another Hebrew Professor," said he, "and we shall welcome him, but you cannot send us another Elmslie."

Tributes from the Presbyteries of the Church, from congregations of various denominations to which he had ministered, from well-known Church leaders, from old students, and, not least, from unknown men and women whom he had helped and comforted, poured in. They were too numerous to be quoted or further referred to, but the intensity and turmoil of feeling expressed in them, showed that the sorrow for him was as deep as its appointed signs were extensive. One for whom much sympathy was felt, his aged father, seemed to bear up bravely against the blow. He received with eager gratitude the abundant testimonies to the honour and love in which his son was held. But the grief had gone to his heart, he soon began to sink, and died a few months later.

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