CHAPTER IX.
1841—1844.
NEWCASTLE, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN.
D
URING the next three years Mr. Burns was incessantly engaged in evangelistic work, partly in places which he had already visited, and partly in new fields. Of the latter the most conspicuous were Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Dublin, and to a brief notice of his labours there I propose to devote the present chapter. They were, of course, in most respects essentially similar to those which we have already described in Dundee and Aberdeen, but still possessed some features sufficiently distinct to deserve a separate, though less detailed record. At Newcastle, the first aspect of the field and his first trial of the work were not encouraging. I know not if the “sins and sorrows of the great city” be really greater there than in other communities of similar extent and character with which he had been before acquainted, but it seemed to him, at least, as if it were so. The giant forms of evil with which he had everywhere to contend, stood forth before the eye in more naked and unblushing prominence, as though iniquity were, in truth, too strong to feel ashamed or hide its face. He found himself in the presence of a power which, alike in its extent and terrible energy, startled and shocked him, and threw him back as scarce ever before on the power that is infinite and divine. “The people of God,” he writes a few days after his arrival, “are rallying in their places, and we have them of every name on our side. Ah! but the LORD is with me as a mighty, terrible ONE. This is enough.” “I ask it as a favour,” he writes to his endeared friend Mr. Milne, “and plead for it, that you will lay before your people the case of Newcastle, an iron-walled citadel of Satan. Almighty power, and that alone, can make a breach and plant the banner of salvation in the Lamb on its proud ramparts. They must cry, they must wrestle; for the devil is in the field, and the day will be hot.” While, too, “the enemy thus came in like a flood,” it seemed to him as if the forces on the other side were comparatively few and feeble. “The Scotch Church,” says he, “is low here; the audiences were not large. During the week I preached every night but Tuesday and Saturday, but chiefly to the church-going few, including some Christians, with a view to stir them up to come nearer to God. . . . Went out at meal hour and began to invite sinners. Very apathetic. The sleep of death is on the city.”
The spell of apathy, however, was soon, at least partially, broken. The announcement of a Sabbath pleasure trip of a more than usually offensive kind having met his eye, his spirit was stirred within him, and he denounced it in a terrible placard, which he signed with his own name and posted up in every street and open place in Newcastle. It fell like a bomb-shell in the midst of the community, startled the ears alike of friends and foes, and drew general attention to the preacher and his message. A solemn tract on the sins of the city and the impending judgments of God was at the same time prepared and sown broadcast among the people. The newspapers too, both local and metropolitan, took up the matter, bitterly denounced his proceedings, and thus still more loudly rang the bell of alarm in the ears of a community from whom he only desired a hearing, even though they should strike while they heard him. “Newspapers and Socialistic placards,” wrote his friend Mr. Bonar of Kelso, “have been making Edinburgh, and I suppose other places, ring with your doings in Newcastle.” But he remained calm amid the storm, unmoved alike by the rage of enemies and by the doubts and fears of friends, so only the cause of Christ were helped, and not hindered. “The people in Scotland,” said he, “are thinking that the opposition must be awful here. But it is like bomb-shells thrown over our heads and bursting at a distance. They know more of it in London than I do in Newcastle. ‘Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle.’”
Meanwhile, according to his wont, he soon exchanged the empty churches for the open and crowded streets—preaching to varying audiences and with varying tokens of success on the quay, at the ’Spittal Square, in the Corn and Cloth Markets, in the open space beside the castle, sometimes in continuous and impressive discourse, sometimes in a running fire against Secularist or Romish objectors who started up as opponents from amongst the crowd; sometimes alone, and sometimes dividing the ground with the political lecturer or the puppet showman, who spread forth their rival wares at a few paces’ distance. He had some encouragement, but no very marked or decisive evidence of blessing. He speaks from time to time of “solemn attention;” “very great attention and eagerness;” “a very large and deeply solemn audience;” “a large audience who stood riveted to the end;” of a “service of three hours’ duration, in the castle-yard where Whitfield preached of old;” “and would have remained almost till midnight;” “a considerable audience who continued immovable under darkness and rain;” “the people so much impressed that the stars were out in the sky before we separated;” “some of the old sailors on the quay weeping, and pressing their money on those who gave away the tracts at the end;” yet there were few or none who sought him out in private for spiritual counsel and instruction. Perhaps this might in part arise from the fact that his street audiences here consisted almost exclusively of men—the softer and more impressible sex having, as he suggests, either less curiosity, or more fear of noisy crowds, than in the cities of the north. Now and then, too, after all his labours were over, he would go forth into the dark streets, with a bundle of his “plain sentences” under his arm, that he might see the city in its midnight dress, look down into the depths of that abyss of ruin which for the love of God and man he so vehemently longed to sound, and it may be hold out the torch of life eternal to some poor wanderer whom he might never hope to meet at any other place or time. Strange scenes would sometimes on these occasions meet his eyes and ears: “I went out after coming into my room and with a bundle of the “plain sentences” paraded some of the chief streets. In this I met with some strange incidents. I offered near the mouth of the Arcade a copy to a gentleman half-intoxicated. He swore fearfully and said, ‘Oh, what a cursed country this is! I might go through every town on the Continent, and not meet with such another rascal as you infesting me. Rome is infinitely better than this,” &c. On another occasion he writes: “After the meeting I spent a half-hour on the street with tracts, and met with awful proofs of the enormous wickedness of the people, also with many whose language amid their sins seemed almost to be, Oh! that I were saved, oh! that you could do me any good.” One is reminded of the heathen in Tertullian’s days, of whom he tells us that even their oaths and ejaculated utterances of grief and fear bore witness to their deep consciousness of God and of a higher world, and showed that the “testimony of the soul” was by its very nature on the side of Christ.[1] Sometimes conscience would still more distinctly speak and take part with the reprover against the sinner: “I spoke to three young gentlemen intoxicated; they mocked; but one of them, having separated from the rest, went along with me a short way. He then left me and whistled for his companions, but they had deserted him; and conscience-stricken he called after me, and when I went back asked where I was from, my name and residence, and promised to call on Friday at five P.M., saying with some feeling, ‘he had much need of a lecture.’”
Still there was no deep and general impression, and even the partial interest that had been excited began after a season gradually to die down towards the former state of apathy. The congregations in church were small, the audiences in the open air less numerous and less solemn. The sensation created by the Sabbath placards was passing away, and no deeper and mightier influence apparently had come to supply its place. Even some of his friends, who had most sanguinely hoped for a rich and widespread blessing, began to lose heart. “I had hope at one time,” said one of the most ardent of these, “but now I confess it is gone. Every ear seems closed.” He himself too almost despaired. Receiving a letter from Mr. Parker, in which he expresses his astonishment that the people could bear his words, he writes in his journal bitterly, “Alas! the people can bear anything here as yet. The body seems so dead, that though you plunge the knife to the heart there is no pain.” But it was only the lowest ebb, before the turning of the tide, and before another day had passed it was in full and buoyant flow. God had only made him utterly to despair of self, that he might the more simply and wholly triumph in Christ. We cannot here indulge in numerous extracts, but one or two continuous passages must be given, as affording a vivid picture of the nature of the hot battle which he had expected and which had come at last, and of the spirit in which he fought it:
“Thursday, September 23d..—During the day I was very weak in body, and was tempted to think of neglecting an opportunity of doing good at the cattle-show, which is held here this day. But the passage turned up, ‘If thou say, Behold, I knew it not,’ &c., and I was compelled to go. I found that there was no opportunity for preaching, as the show was within a park, and the people outside were staying but a few minutes. Alas! perhaps it may be found in the day of God that there was opportunity. Certainly the showmen found an opportunity of attracting many. However, I only gave away tracts, spoke to the people here and there, and intimated that I would preach in the cloth-market in the evening, which is at the end of the corn-market, the place where, at three P.M., about a thousand were to dine together. The tracts were received by high and low. . . . After dinner I felt my strength of body renewed, and had hope of something being done of God in the evening. A little after six we went to the scene of action, and found a great crowd around the place, many of them trying to see in through the windows, and multitudes waiting for the music at intervals. I thought of heaven lighted with the brightness of a thousand suns, and of poor lost souls longing to be in when it is too late, and forced to hear from afar the joyful praises of the redeemed, loud as the noise of many waters. We had no sooner begun than an immense crowd gathered round. Some of the enemies were enraged and urged the police to interfere, crying, ‘Down with him, down with him.’ The policeman told me that the people were disturbed by us within, but this was so absurd that he did not insist on it; and as he could not find us guilty of a breach of the peace, he soon went away. But although the enemy could not oppose us by legal force, they did not cease to show their deadly hatred of what was said and done. Once a stone was thrown, again a quantity of manure, which bespattered my clothes. Afterwards, in the time of prayer, when we were prevailing against them without hand, they raised a burst of horrid laughter, and pushed the crowd at the side on me with the view of overthrowing the pulpit. At this time I had to pause in the prayer, and when I began to tell them that they could do nothing without the Lord’s permission, and that all they did would promote his cause, &c., they were quieted for a time; and I was led out to speak with greater power, perhaps, than ever before in Newcastle, putting the sword into the very heart and bowels of the town’s iniquities. At this time, and ever after it until ten o’clock, when we parted, there was the greatest solemnity, and a deep impression; and though I was frequently interrupted with questions, they all tended to bring out in a marvellous way the truth of God, so that they who put them were silenced and the people rejoiced. During the first hour and half we were obliged to contend, at intervals, with a tumult of people all around the music in the Corn-market, and the movements of a travelling show taking up its encampment close to us. Even amid those trials, although increased by the contradiction of sinners, I was enabled not to waver nor faint; afterward, however, the meeting in the market broke up, the show people were quiet, the streets were nearly empty, and we worshipped the Lord amid solemn silence for another hour and half. At this time the singing was truly sublime; and the whole scene, when contrasted with what it had lately been, was fitted to deepen the impression of the word in the hand of the Spirit. I did not speak on any text, but used the various circumstances of the feast so near as to set off by way of comparison and contrast the feast of fat things on Mount Zion. I did not proceed regularly, but from time to time noticed such topics as these:—That feast is for the body, this is for the soul; that is one of which you easily take too much, in this you cannot exceed; that is soon over, this will last eternally; that would tire and nauseate if often repeated, this becomes sweeter every day; that is only open to those who can pay for a place, this is provided freely for the poor: it is made free not because it is of little value, but because it is so costly that no money can buy it, and in order that it may be a feast for all; that is made on bullocks and fatlings, but this, oh! wonder of wonders, is made on the body and blood of God’s own Son; the greatest sinners are welcome to it now, and the greater they have been they will sit nearer the head of the table as honoured guests, in order that the more the grace and mercy of Jehovah may be displayed to view! These and similar points gave ground from time to time for varied information to the mind, and appeals to the conscience which seemed to arrest many; and the effect of this was aided by the many truths which were from time to time drawn out by the questions and objections of enemies. One man cried there was no hell, and demanded a definition of it. He was answered, ‘If thy right hand offend thee,’ &c., and remained silent. Another said there were no devils, and this was the occasion of tearing away the veil from the iniquities of the town, and exposing their power over men in its deformity and dreadfulness. Many in different ways tried to vex us, but this explained the text, ‘Consider him who endured,’ &c., and gave us ground for praise that we had not yet resisted unto blood. Nay, one shameless man, whose question the people would hardly bear, asked me, ‘How are you supported?’ a matter of general wonder. I answered him that I never needed to ask a penny from anyone, but that even since I came here £10 had been sent to me unasked, and partly without a name![2] They seemed confounded. At ten o’clock we asked the parting blessing and separated—indeed only for a moment, for when I got to the lamp I took out my Bible to look at a verse, and the whole crowd gathered round and stood with breathless attention while I read what God had sent me, ‘None of these things move me,’ &c., and told them some things about my own conversion. We then parted, and it would not have been so soon, had not the policeman desired it.