Mr. Milne kept back nothing from his people, but spoke freely and boldly of all current events and controversies. He was one of the few who could, without awkwardness or difficulty, introduce any subject into the pulpit, either in prayer or discourse. His first morning prayer in church was always very remarkable for the minute fulness with which it entered into the various cases that had come before him; it might be sickness, or pain, or losses, or bereavements, or anxieties, or spiritual trouble; every one was specially indicated and prayed for. This was one of the tenderest and closest of his pastoral bonds; for thus, while his affections were flowing out towards his flock, theirs were drawn towards each other. In many other ways did his ready sympathies get vent to themselves, far beyond his own people. Wherever he heard of sorrow, thither a note from him found its way, or a call was made; and if the parties could not be seen, his card was sent in with John 14:1, or some such text, pencilled on it, and “love and sympathy” written above or below his name.
The greatest thing in man is mind. But in a fallen world, the best mind degenerates and is subject to all the vicissitudes and decay inherent to our condition. In the twenty-first century, talk of the mind invariably turns to thought of the brain. And what will the physical brain of man be in heaven and in the new earth? This is one of many interesting questions that receives consideration from Rev. Hugh Martin, in one of his letters included in the compendium “Christ Victorious, Selected Writings of Hugh Martin,” recently published by the Banner of Truth Trust.
One of the greatest preachers of modern times is a Chinese man named John Sung. It is thought that, in China today, there are at least one hundred million Christians. This wonderful fact is, under God, owing a great extent to the remarkable preaching of John Sung, who, after a very powerful ministry which swept thousands into the kingdom of God, passed away in 1944. His labors and influence deserve to be known more widely in the English speaking world.
Few will be familiar with the subject of this biography, William Hamilton Burns (1779–1859). More will be familiar with his sons, William Chalmers Burns and Islay Burns. The father stands less known, not because less faithful, but likely because more ordinary. While less prominent than his sons Islay and, certainly, William Chalmers, he was devoted, godly, and earnest for over fifty years of steadfast labor to God’s glory. But as this brief biography demonstrates, it was not merely his duration but the quality of his labor that warrants our attention.
We ought never to forget the great work which early Christian missionaries did to promote the Gospel in different parts of the world and in different languages. One of these eminent missionaries was John Eliot, who has been called “The Apostle to the Indians,” because he was among the first to dedicate his life to the strenuous task of taking the Gospel to the American Indians in the seventeenth century.
Records of revival and reformation are precious to the believer. Themes that gladden the heart fill every page: the glory of God, the holy law of God, sinners crying out for salvation, and gospel freely offered to sinners. These accounts of history fill the heart with holy longings. The names associated with these outpourings awaken the desire for such days to return. Among those names, we find John Knox.
In his parish, there lived a wealthy young Laird, who in defiance of a pious education had forsaken the God of his fathers, and struck out into a career of headlong wickedness. He was an heritor of the parish, and the representative of a distinguished family; and as such, had occupied a conspicuous place in the house of God. This was now deserted; and he sought by every means to shun the presence of his minister, at home and abroad, as well as that of his associates in the discipline of the church. Every one saw that the young man was hastening on to ruin. His amiable spouse was now neglected and broken-hearted. His very children seemed to be forgotten; and the fireside scenes of his former days, so peaceful and so happy, were lost sight of and forsaken for the haunts of drunkenness and impiety; while his fine estate was melting away, as snow before the sun of summer, and pious parents presenting his case to the minds of their rising children, as a specimen of the misery which a life of debauchery ever entails on its wretched victim.
In Brown of Wamphray’s ministrations, we have not obtruded on our famishing souls that oily sentimentalism, or that iced intellectualism, which so abound in this epicurean age of the Church; but we have the true bread, just as it has been gathered—wholesome and nutritious. O that, amidst the multitude of our popular and evangelical preachers and writers, we had but a phalanx of godly and spiritual men like him—men of heart, men of business—who would in right earnest negotiate between the Prince of life and dying men, and not merely transact between a dead doctrine and a blind intellect—men who will not ever be substituting the vague idea of ‘religion’ for the living person of the Son of God, or ‘moral influence’ for the personal operation of the Holy Ghost.
Dingwall is a royal burgh in the heart of the Scottish Highlands; in the mid-nineteenth century, it was the administrative centre of the county of Ross and Cromarty, and a busy market town with a settled population of around 2000 people. Like much of the Highlands, Dingwall was firmly Episcopalian during the seventeenth century. A mob thwarted an attempt to hold a Presbyterian service there in 1704, and an attempted settlement of a Presbyterian minister four years later was similarly prevented. Gradually, over the course of the eighteenth century, a peaceful and stable Presbyterian ministry was established.
A previous article in the journal described the preaching ministry of John Kennedy (1819–1884), minister of Dingwall Free Church of Scotland from 1844 until his death, and the leading preacher of the Highland section of the Free Church of Scotland during the second half of the nineteenth century. That account of Kennedy’s preaching ministry underlined the importance of the work of pulpit ministry, fulfilled in faithful Scriptural exposition, experimental application and earnest evangelistic appeal. The present article explores what one can learn of Kennedy’s preparation for the pulpit, and practice there, in fulfilling his significant and influential preaching ministry.
