The Scottish Philosophy [119]
that you are tenants at God's will, who can take them away with His stroke when they are thinking to have their wills of you. He exhorts them to trust in God and do what is right, and warns them that, even though they should by acting an unconscientious part secure an earthly habitation, yet they might soon be driven out of it." The appeal produced a powerful effect. The people, having no hope of getting their rights protected by the church courts, adopted a mode of expressing their feelings characteristic of the times. The tradition is that, when their minister came to the place, men dressed in women's clothes, ducked him in a pond; and that, on the sabbath on which he preached his first sermon, an uncle of his who resided at Rosehill, two miles off, defended him on the pulpit stair with a drawn sword.
I am not sure that the sphere to which Reid was now appointed was the one exactly suited to him, or that he was the fittest man to preach the gospel of Christ to a country congregation, or indeed that the old Scotch theory of connecting the church and the colleges so closely was the best either for the church or the colleges. For the first seven years he was in {199} the way of preaching the sermons of others, a practice very obnoxious to the people. The tradition is that on one occasion when at Fintray, three miles off, the lady of Sir -- Forbes thanked him for preaching on the previous sabbath so excel lent a sermon from Tillotson; whereupon he denied in strong terms that he had taken a sermon from Tillotson. To his confusion he found, on retiring to his bedroom, a volume of Tillotson's on his table, lying open at the place where was the discourse he had preached. Ashamed, not of the fact of his preaching another man's sermons, but of his being supposed capable of uttering a falsehood, he hastened to inform the lady that he had taken the discourse not from Tillotson's published sermons, but from a packet which he had otherwise.[54]
But while thus obnoxious at his first settlement, he is said to have gradually won the good opinion of his parishioners by the propriety of his conduct, his conscientiousness, and his kindness. His popularity was increased when, in 1740, he married Elizabeth, -- the daughter of his uncle Dr. George Reid, physician in London, -- who endeared herself to the people by her kind offices to the sick and poor. There is reason to believe that in the later years of his ministry he became earnest in his Master's service. The tradition is that, in dispensing the sacrament of the supper, tears rolled from his eyes, when he spoke of the loveliness of the Saviour's character. The following dedication of himself to God is preserved in the manuscripts,[55] and lets us see more clearly than any thing that has been printed by Dugald Stewart the deep feeling that lay beneath that calm outward demeanor. It is dated March 30, 1746.
" O God: I desire humbly to supplicate thy Divine Majesty in behalf of my distressed wife, who is by thy hand brought very low, and in imminent danger of death, if thou, who alone dost wonders, do not in mercy interpose thy Almighty arm, and bring her back from the gates of death. I deserve justly, O Lord, that thou shouldst deprive me of the greatest comfort of my life, because I have not been so thankful to thee as I ought for giving me such a kind and affectionate wife. I have forgot thy goodness in bringing us happy together by an unforeseen and undesigned train of events, and blessing us with so much love and harmony of affections and so many of the {200} comforts and conveniences of life. I have not been so careful as I ought to have been to stir her up to piety and Christian virtues. I have not taken that pains with my children and servants and relatives as I ought. Alas ! I have been too negligent of my pastoral duty in my private devotions, too much given to the pleasures and satisfactions of this world, and too little influenced by thy promises and the
I am not sure that the sphere to which Reid was now appointed was the one exactly suited to him, or that he was the fittest man to preach the gospel of Christ to a country congregation, or indeed that the old Scotch theory of connecting the church and the colleges so closely was the best either for the church or the colleges. For the first seven years he was in {199} the way of preaching the sermons of others, a practice very obnoxious to the people. The tradition is that on one occasion when at Fintray, three miles off, the lady of Sir -- Forbes thanked him for preaching on the previous sabbath so excel lent a sermon from Tillotson; whereupon he denied in strong terms that he had taken a sermon from Tillotson. To his confusion he found, on retiring to his bedroom, a volume of Tillotson's on his table, lying open at the place where was the discourse he had preached. Ashamed, not of the fact of his preaching another man's sermons, but of his being supposed capable of uttering a falsehood, he hastened to inform the lady that he had taken the discourse not from Tillotson's published sermons, but from a packet which he had otherwise.[54]
But while thus obnoxious at his first settlement, he is said to have gradually won the good opinion of his parishioners by the propriety of his conduct, his conscientiousness, and his kindness. His popularity was increased when, in 1740, he married Elizabeth, -- the daughter of his uncle Dr. George Reid, physician in London, -- who endeared herself to the people by her kind offices to the sick and poor. There is reason to believe that in the later years of his ministry he became earnest in his Master's service. The tradition is that, in dispensing the sacrament of the supper, tears rolled from his eyes, when he spoke of the loveliness of the Saviour's character. The following dedication of himself to God is preserved in the manuscripts,[55] and lets us see more clearly than any thing that has been printed by Dugald Stewart the deep feeling that lay beneath that calm outward demeanor. It is dated March 30, 1746.
" O God: I desire humbly to supplicate thy Divine Majesty in behalf of my distressed wife, who is by thy hand brought very low, and in imminent danger of death, if thou, who alone dost wonders, do not in mercy interpose thy Almighty arm, and bring her back from the gates of death. I deserve justly, O Lord, that thou shouldst deprive me of the greatest comfort of my life, because I have not been so thankful to thee as I ought for giving me such a kind and affectionate wife. I have forgot thy goodness in bringing us happy together by an unforeseen and undesigned train of events, and blessing us with so much love and harmony of affections and so many of the {200} comforts and conveniences of life. I have not been so careful as I ought to have been to stir her up to piety and Christian virtues. I have not taken that pains with my children and servants and relatives as I ought. Alas ! I have been too negligent of my pastoral duty in my private devotions, too much given to the pleasures and satisfactions of this world, and too little influenced by thy promises and the