Part 1

Transcribed from the 1800’s Religious Tract Society edition, by David Price, email [email protected]

[Picture: Cover]

No. 17.

THE LIFE OF COL. JAMES GARDINER.

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THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, INSTITUTED 1799; DEPOSITORY, 56, PATERNOSTER-ROW.

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COLONEL JAMES GARDINER was the son of Captain Patrick Gardiner, who served many years in the armies of King William and Queen Anne, and died abroad with the British forces in Germany.

The Colonel’s mother was a lady of very excellent character; but it pleased God to exercise her with uncommon trials; for she lost not only her husband and her brother in the service of their country, but also her eldest son, Mr. R. Gardiner, on the day which completed his sixteenth year, at the siege of Namur, in 1695. But God blessed these afflictions as the means of forming her to an eminent degree of piety.

The second son, the subject of this Memoir, was born in Linlithgowshire, Jan. 10, 1687–8, the memorable year of the glorious Revolution, in defence of which his own life was eventually sacrificed.

In early life, his mother took care to instruct him with great tenderness and affection in the principles of true Christianity. While at the school at Linlithgow, he made a considerable progress in literature.

In the younger part of his life the good effects of his mother’s prudent and exemplary care were not so conspicuous as she hoped; yet there is great reason to believe they were not entirely lost. Could she have prevailed, he would not have thought of a military life; but it suited his taste; and the ardour of his spirit, animated by the persuasions of a friend, who greatly urged it, was not to be restrained. Nor will the reader wonder at this, when he knows that this lively youth fought three duels before he attained the stature of a man; in one of which, when but eight years old, he received from a boy, much older than himself, a wound in the right cheek, the scar of which was always very apparent. This false sense of honour might seem excusable in those unripened years, and considering the profession of his father; but he often mentioned it with regret. And after his conversion, he declined accepting a challenge, with this truly great reply, which in a man of his experienced bravery was exceedingly to be admired, “I fear sinning,” said he, “though you know I do not fear fighting.”

He served as a cadet very early: and at fourteen years old, he bore an ensign’s commission in a Scotch regiment in the Dutch service; in which he continued till 1702, when he received an ensign’s commission from Queen Anne, which he bore in the battle of Ramilies, in his nineteenth year.

On this occasion, our young officer was commanded on what seemed almost a desperate service, to dispossess the French of the church-yard at Ramilies, where a considerable number of them were posted to remarkable advantage. They succeeded better than was expected, and Mr. G. was glad of such an opportunity of signalizing himself. Accordingly, he had planted his colours on an advanced ground, and while he was calling to the men (probably in that horrid language which is so peculiar a disgrace to our soldiery) he received a shot in his mouth, which, without beating out any of his teeth, or touching the forepart of his tongue, went through his neck. Not feeling at first the pain of the stroke, he wondered what was become of the ball, and in the wildness of his surprise began to suspect he had swallowed it; but dropping soon after, he traced the passage of it by his finger, when he could discover it no other way.

This accident happened about five or six in the evening, on the 23d of May, in the year 1706; and the army pursuing its advantages against the French, without regarding the wounded, our young officer lay all night in the field, agitated, as may well be supposed, with a great variety of thoughts. When he reflected upon the circumstances of his wound, that a ball should, as he then conceived it, go through his head without killing him, he thought God had preserved him by a miracle; and therefore assuredly concluded, that he should live, abandoned and desperate as his condition then seemed. Yet had he little thought of humbling himself before God, and returning to Him after the wanderings of a life licentiously begun. But, expecting to recover, his mind was taken up with contrivances to secure his gold, of which he had nearly twenty pistoles about him; and he had recourse to a very odd expedient. Expecting to be stripped, he took out a handful of clotted gore, of which he was frequently obliged to clear his mouth; and putting it into his left hand, he took out the money, and shutting his hand, besmeared the back of it with blood; in this position he kept it till the blood so dried, that his hand could not easily fall open.

In the morning, the French, who were masters of that spot, though defeated at some distance, came to plunder the slain, and seeing him to appearance almost expiring, one of them was just applying a sword to his breast to destroy the little remainder of life; when, in the critical moment, a cordelier, who attended them, interposed, taking him by his dress for a Frenchman, and said, “Do not kill the poor child.” Our young soldier heard all that passed, though he was not able to speak one word; and opening his eyes made a sign for something to drink. They gave him a sup of some spirituous liquor, which happened to be at hand; from which he said he derived a more sensible refreshment than he could remember from any thing he had tasted either before or since. Then, asking, by signs, the friar to lean down his ear to his mouth, he employed the first efforts of his feeble breath in telling him (what, alas! was a contrived falsehood) that he was nephew to the governor of Huy, a neutral town in the neighbourhood, and that, if they could convey him thither, he did not doubt but his uncle would liberally reward them. He had indeed a friend there, but the relationship was pretended. However, on hearing this, they laid him on a sort of hand-barrow, and sent him with a file of musketeers towards the place; but the men lost their way, and got into a wood towards the evening, in which they were obliged to continue all night. The poor patient’s wound being still undressed, it is not to be wondered at, that by this time it raged violently. The anguish of it engaged him earnestly to beg that they would either kill him outright, or leave him there to die, without the torture of any other motion; and indeed they were obliged to rest for a considerable time on account of their own weariness. Thus he spent the second night in the open air, without any thing more than a common bandage to stanch the blood; and he often mentioned it as a most astonishing providence, that he did not bleed to death.

Judging it quite unsafe to attempt carrying him to Huy, whence they were now several miles distant, his convoy took him early in the morning to a convent in the neighbourhood; where he was hospitably received, and treated with great kindness and tenderness. But the cure of his wound was committed to an ignorant barber-surgeon, who lived near the house. The tent which this artist applied, was almost like a peg driven into the wound; yet, by the blessing of God, he recovered in a few months. The lady abbess, who called him her son treated him with the affection and care of a mother. He received a great many devout admonitions from the ladies there, and they would fain have persuaded him to acknowledge so miraculous a deliverance, by embracing the _Catholic Faith_, as they were pleased to call it. But, though no religion lay near his heart, he had too much the spirit of a gentleman, lightly to change that form of religion which he wore loose about him.

When his liberty was regained by an exchange of prisoners, and his health established, he was far from rendering to the Lord according to the mercy he had experienced. Very little is known of the particulars of those wild and thoughtless years which lay between the nineteenth and thirtieth of his life; except that he experienced the divine goodness in preserving him in several hot military actions; and yet these years were spent in an entire alienation from God, and an eager pursuit of sensual pleasure as his supreme good.

Amidst all these wanderings from religion, virtue, and happiness, he approved himself so well in his military character, that he was made a lieutenant in 1708; and, after several intermediate promotions, appointed major of a regiment commanded by the Earl of Stair. In January, 1729–30, he was advanced to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the same regiment: and here continued till April, 1743; when he received a colonel’s commission over a regiment of dragoons; and at the head of which he valiantly fell about two years and a half after he received it.

We now return to that period of his life which passed at Paris, where he resided in the family of the Earl of Stair, with some interruptions, till about the year 1720.

The Earl’s favour and generosity made him easy in his affairs, though he was part of the time out of commission, the regiment to which he belonged being disbanded. This was, in all probability, the gayest part of his life, and the most criminal. Whatever good examples he might find in the family where he lived, it is certain that the French court was one of the most dissolute under heaven. What, by a wretched abuse of language, have been called intrigues of love and gallantry, constituted, if not the whole business, at least the whole pleasure of his life: his fine constitution, than which, perhaps, there was hardly ever a better, gave him great opportunities of indulging himself in those excesses; and his good spirits enabled him to pursue his pleasures in such a manner, that multitudes envied him, and called him, by a dreadful kind of compliment, “The happy rake.”

Yet the checks of conscience, and some remaining principles of so good an education, would break in upon his most licentious hours; and when some of his dissolute companions were once congratulating him upon his felicity, a dog happening at that time to come into the room, he could not forbear groaning inwardly, and saying to himself, “O that I were that dog!” Such was then his happiness, and such perhaps is that of hundreds more, who bear themselves highest in the contempt of religion, and glory in that infamous servitude, which they affect to call liberty.

Yet in the most abandoned days, he was never fond of intemperate drinking, from which he used to think a manly pride might be sufficient to preserve persons of sense and spirit; so that if he ever fell into any excesses of that kind, it was merely out of complaisance. His frank, obliging, and generous temper, procured him many friends; and those principles, which rendered him amiable to others, not being under the direction of wisdom and piety, sometimes made him more uneasy to himself than he perhaps might have been if he could entirely have outgrown them, especially as he was never a confirmed sceptic, but still retained a secret apprehension, that natural and revealed religion was founded in truth. With this conviction, his notorious violation of the most essential precepts of both, could not but occasion some secret misgivings of heart.

His continual neglect of the great Author of his being, to whom he knew himself to be under daily and perpetual obligations, gave him, in some moments of involuntary reflection, inexpressible remorse; and this, at times, wrought upon him to such a degree, that he resolved he would attempt to pay Him some acknowledgments. Accordingly, for a few mornings he did it; repeating in retirement some passages out of the Psalms, and other Scriptures, which he still retained in his memory; and owning, in a few strong words, the many mercies and deliverances he had received, and the ill-returns he had made for them.

But these strains were too devout to continue long in a heart as yet unsanctified: for how readily soever he could repeat such acknowledgments of the divine power and goodness, and confess his own follies and faults, he was stopt short by the remonstrances of his conscience, as to the flagrant absurdity of confessing sins he did not desire to forsake, and of pretending to praise God for his mercies, when he did not endeavour to live to his service. A model of devotion, where such sentiments made no part, his good sense could not digest; and the use of such language before a heart-searching God merely as a hypocritical form, while the sentiments of his soul were contrary to it, appeared to him such daring profaneness, that, irregular as the state of his mind was, the thought of it struck him with horror. He therefore determined to make no more attempts of this sort; and was one of the first that deliberately laid aside prayer, from some sense of God’s omniscience, and some natural principle of honour and conscience.

These secret debates with himself and ineffectual efforts would sometimes return: but they were overborne, again and again, by the force of temptation; and it is no wonder, that in consequence of them his heart grew still harder. Neither was it softened, or awakened, by the very memorable deliverances, which at this time he received. Once he was in extreme danger by a fall from his horse. As he was riding fast down a hill, the horse threw him over his head, and pitched over him; so that when he rose, the beast lay beyond him, and almost dead. Yet, though he received not the least harm, it made no serious impression on his mind. In his return from England in the packet-boat, but a few weeks after the former accident, a violent storm, that drove them up to Harwich, tossed them from thence for several hours, in a dark night, on the coast of Holland; and brought them into such extremity, that the captain of the vessel urged him to go to prayers immediately if he ever intended to do it at all; for he concluded they would in a few minutes be at the bottom of the sea. In these circumstances he did pray, and that very fervently too; and it was remarkable, that while he was crying to God for deliverance, the wind fell, and quickly after they arrived at Calais. But the major was so little affected with what had befallen him, that, when some of his gay friends, on hearing the story, rallied him upon the efficacy of his prayers, he excused himself from the scandal of being thought much in earnest, by saying, “that it was at midnight, an hour when his good mother and aunt were asleep; or else he should have left that part of the business to them.”

We now come to the account of his conversion. This memorable event happened towards the middle of July, 1719. The major had spent the evening (which was the Sabbath) in some gay company, and had an unhappy assignation with a married lady, whom he was to attend exactly at twelve. The company broke up about eleven; and he went into his chamber to kill the tedious hour. It happened that he took up a religious book, (which his good mother or aunt had, without his knowledge, slipped into his portmanteau,) called, “The Christian Soldier; or Heaven taken by Storm:” written by Mr. Thomas Watson. Guessing, by the title, that he should find some phrases of his own profession spiritualized, in a manner which might afford him some diversion, he resolved to dip into it, but took no serious notice of any thing he read; and yet while this book was in his hand, an impression was made upon his mind (perhaps God only knows how) which drew after it a train of the most important and happy consequences.

Suddenly he thought he saw an unusual blaze of light fall on the book, while he was reading, which he at first imagined might have happened by some accident in the candle. But lifting up his eyes, he apprehended to his extreme amazement, that there was before him, as it were suspended in the air, a visible representation of the Lord JESUS CHRIST upon the cross, surrounded with a glory; and was impressed as if a voice, or something equivalent to a voice, had come to him to this effect: “Oh, sinner, did I suffer this for thee, and are these the returns?” But whether this were an audible voice, or only a strong impression on his mind equally striking, he did not seem confident, though he judged it to be the former. Struck with so amazing a phenomenon, there remained hardly any life in him, so that he sank down in the arm-chair in which he sat, and continued, (he knew not exactly how long) insensible, and when he opened his eyes saw nothing more than usual.

It may be easily supposed he was in no condition to make any observation upon the time during which he remained insensible; nor did he throughout all the remainder of the night once recollect that criminal assignation which had before engrossed all his thoughts. He arose in a tumult of passions not to be conceived, and walked to and fro in his chamber, till he was ready to drop down, in unutterable astonishment and agony of heart; appearing to himself the vilest monster in the creation of God, who had all his lifetime been crucifying Christ afresh by his sins, and now saw, as he assuredly believed, by a miraculous vision, the horror of what he had done. With this was connected such a view both of the majesty and goodness of God as caused him to loathe and abhor himself, and to “repent as in dust and ashes.” He immediately gave judgment against himself that he was worthy of eternal damnation; was astonished that he had not been immediately struck dead in the midst of his wickedness; and, (which deserves particular remark,) though he assuredly believed that he should ere long be in hell, and settled it as a point with himself for some months, that the wisdom and justice of God did most necessarily require that such an enormous sinner should be made an example of everlasting vengeance, and a spectacle, as such, both to angels and men, so that he hardly durst presume to pray for pardon; yet what he then suffered, was not so much from the fear of hell, though he concluded it must soon be his portion, as from a sense of that horrible ingratitude he had shown to the God of his life, and to that blessed Redeemer who had been, in so affecting a manner, set forth as crucified before him.

In this view it may naturally be inferred, that he passed the remainder of the night waking; and he could get but little rest in several that followed. His mind was continually taken up in reflecting on the divine purity and goodness; the grace which had been proposed to him in the gospel, and which he had rejected; the singular advantages he had enjoyed and abused; and the many favours of providence he had received; particularly in rescuing him from so many imminent dangers of death; which he now saw must have been attended with such dreadful and hopeless destruction. The privileges of his education, which, he had so much despised, lay with an almost insupportable weight on his mind; and the folly of that career of sinful pleasure, which he had so many years been running with desperate eagerness, filled him with indignation against himself, and against the great deceiver, by whom (to use his own phrase) he had been “so wretchedly and scandalously befooled.”

The mind of major Gardiner continued from this remarkable time, rather more than three months, (but especially the two first of them,) in as extraordinary a situation as one can well imagine. He knew nothing of the joys arising from a sense of pardon; but, on the contrary, for the greater part of that time, and with very short intervals of hope towards the end of it, took it for granted, that he must, in all probability, quickly perish. Nevertheless, he had such a sense of the evil of sin, the goodness of the Divine Being, and of the admirable tendency of the Christian Revelation, that he resolved to spend the remainder of his life, while God continued him out of hell, in as rational and useful a manner as he could; and to continue casting himself at the feet of Divine Mercy every day, and _often_ in a day, if peradventure there might be hope of pardon, of which all that he could say was, that he did not absolutely despair. He had at that time such a sense of the degeneracy of his own heart, that he hardly durst form any determinate resolution against sin, or pretend to engage himself by any vow in the presence of God; but was continually crying to him, that he would deliver him from the bondage of corruption. He perceived within himself a most surprising alteration with regard to the dispositions of his heart; so that though he felt little of the delight of religious duties, he extremely desired opportunities of being engaged in them; and those licentious pleasures, which had before been his heaven, were now absolutely his aversion; and he was grieved to see human nature, even in those to whom he was a stranger, prostituted to such low and contemptible pursuits. He therefore exerted his natural courage in a new kind of combat, and became an open advocate for religion, in all its principles, so far as he was acquainted with them, and all its precepts, relating to sobriety, righteousness, and godliness. Yet he was very desirous and cautious, that he might not run into an extreme; and made it one of his first petitions to God, the very day after these amazing impressions had been wrought in his mind, that he might not be suffered to behave with such an affected strictness and preciseness, as would lead others about him into mistaken notions of religion, and expose it to reproach or suspicion, as if it were an unlovely or uncomfortable thing. For this reason, he endeavoured to appear as cheerful in conversation as he conscientiously could; though in spite of all his precautions, some traces of that deep inward sense which he had of his guilt and misery would at times appear. He made no secret of it, however, that his views were entirely changed, though he concealed the particular circumstances attending that change. He told his most intimate companions freely, that he had reflected on the course of life in which he had so long joined them, and found it to be folly and madness, unworthy a rational creature, and much more unworthy persons calling themselves Christians. And he set up his standard, upon all occasions, against infidelity and vice, as determinately as ever he planted his colours in the field. There was at that time in Paris a certain lady who had imbibed the principles of Deism, and valued herself much upon being an avowed advocate for them. The major, with his usual frankness, (though with that politeness which was habitual to him,) answered like a man who perfectly saw through the fallacy of her arguments, and was grieved to the heart for her delusion. On this she challenged him to debate the matter at large, and to fix upon a day for that purpose, when he should dine with her, attended with any clergyman he might choose. A sense of duty would not allow him to decline this challenge: and yet he had no sooner accepted it than he was thrown into great perplexity and distress, lest being only a Christian of six weeks old, he should prejudice so good a cause, by his unskilful manner of defending it. However, he sought his refuge in earnest and repeated prayers to God, that he would graciously enable him, on this occasion, to vindicate his truths in a manner which might carry conviction along with it. He then endeavoured to marshal the arguments in his own mind, as well as he could; and apprehending that he could not speak with so much freedom before a number of persons, especially before such whose province he might in that case seem to invade, he waited on the lady alone upon the day appointed.