THE LIFE OF HENRY DRUMMOND.* THE late Henry Drummond had
so many admirers and readers that a very large audience may safely be predicted for this biography. The work is well done, though perhaps it might have been a little shorter. The writer tells his story with directness and force, and, wherever possible, allows Drummond to tell it himself. While we cannot honestly say that we have been persuaded to believe that Drummond was a great thinker, we do see very clearly that he was a very noble man. A more devoted life has rarely been portrayed, a cleaner soul has not often been unveiled. Drummond seems to have been from his earliest years an especially spotless character. Indeed, if we are to criticise him, we should be inclined to say that he was scarcely enough conscious of the inner soul struggles, of that conflict which the great Pauline words have stamped on the consciousness of mankind. But, doubtless, Drummond knew more of that than he told even to his dearest friend. He did not wear his heart upon his sleeve, and we are told both by his biographer and by others who have written on his life, that there was a certain aloofness which always characterised him, and prevented bim from falling into the rack of revivalists, in whose company so much of his life seems to have been passed. His was a rare spirit; he belonged to what we may call the aristocracy of souls. In the finest meaning of the term, he was always emphatically a Christian gentleman, as faultless in dress and behaviour as he was in conduct.
Drummond's life can hardly be called eventful. Born at Stirling of Evangelical parents in a good social position, Drummond went to the Grammar School at Stirling, and afterwards to a school at Crieff, and he was said to be more prominent in the playground than in the class. He was a great egg-collector, he was always bargaining with other boys for pencils, knives, and marbles, and his early, as it was his lifelong, passion was fishing. When fifteen years of age he entered Edinburgh University, and took a rather erratic course. It may indeed be doubted whether it was ever
• The Life of Henry Drummond. By George Adam Smith. London: Hodder, and Stoughton. I% 6d-] possible for him to move in the line of conventional routine. After graduation, Drummond entered New College, Edin- burgh, intending to study for the ministry of the Free Church of Scotland. At that time Dr. Duff, the great [Alan missionary, lectured in tI College on Evangelistic theology, and apparently strove in vain to rouse in the minds af the students much interest in other forms of religion. "We could not follow the incarnations of Vishnu, nor rouse Dar interest in the patriarchs before Abraham. ' How many gods have the Hindoos, Mr. — ? ' Dr. Duff asked a luckless student of Drummond's year. The student kicked Drum- mond, who sat next to him and whispered : I don't know ; about twenty-five, I think.'—' Twenty-five,' shouted the student gey.—' Twenty-five, Mr. ! Twenty-five ! Twenty-five million of millions !' " Drummond's time was not wholly absorbed in theology, for we find him while in College reading Carlyle, George Eliot, Ruskin, and other modern writers ; and in 1871 he went to Ireland and became deeply interested in Irish politics, an interest which he re- tained throughout his life. He was a Home-ruler, and it seems that Mr. Gladstone at one time wanted him to stand for a Scottish constituency,—a desire which Drummond wisely withstood. A short time spent at Tiibingen made Drummond acquainted with German life, theology, and language, and one would have said he was fairly well equipped for the calling of the ministry as internreted in Scotland. But that destiny was not to be his, though his life was to be given to religion.
In 1873 there began in Scotland a powerful revivalist movement, and into this Drummond flung himself with all the impetuosity of a fervid nature. Thoughtful and culti- vated men are apt to look askance on movements of this kind, doubting, with good reason, whether the emotional religion which they commonly engender is likely to be lasting, or to be able to withstand the assaults of that purely critical temper which is a characteristic of our time and which seems destined to spread over the whole face of society with the progress of culture. We will not enter into this difficult problem, but will content ourselves with saying that, if we are to have the Evangelical revival, with its hysterical and sentimental element, with its overpowering femininity, it will be a good thing if manly and educated men like Henry Drummond should take part in it, not to weaken its conviction, but to impart that reasoning and masculine element of which it stands in need. Henceforth Drummond became primarily an evangelist, and only secondarily a teacher and man of culture. His interests in life were varied, there is no monotony in his mind or habits, but his dominating idea is that of persuading men to a belief in the Christian Revelation, as he understood it. He started as an Evan- gelical, with all that that implied a generation ago,— a. belief in the verbal, or at least in the plenary, inspiration of every portion of the Bible, a narrow view of the Atonement, and probably a touch at least of that Calvinism which has been the source of so much of the strength and of the bitterness of Drummond's native land. But his mind grew, his scientific studies forced him to recog- nise certain facts, and he gradually and insensibly dropped the more rigorous and indefensible part of his religious heritage, while retaining, as few enlightened men do, all the ardent faith and religions enthusiasm of his early days. Indeed, Drummond realised Wordsworth's aspiration,—his days were bound each to each in natural piety. We cannot say that he had none of the experiences of intellectual problems which come so naturally to the modern thinker, for his work on the Ascent of Man shows that he felt the apparent gulf between modern naturalism and the historic faith. But he had little inward fighting to do, and that not because his intellect was not keen, but because his moral nature was so regnant in him as to leave no room for the doubting spirit which so often makes shipwreck of those keen minds who have once abandoned the narrow path of their early belief.
Drummond's profession was that of teacher of natural science in the Free Church College in Glasgow, but, as we have said, his heart was in the work of evangelising, and to it he devoted his chief energies. For this he travelled to America, endeavouring to rouse the young men in some of the American Colleges, as he had aroused some of the young men of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Oxford. Indeed, he
was a sort of academic evangelist. We should like to know if the results of that work are enduring. It is impossible to trace such viewless influences, but the present writer inclines to think that they probably left but a small deposit in the religious sense proper, while they generally roused the nature and impelled generous minds to human service. The story of the publication of the best known of Drummond's works— Natural Law in the Spiritual World—is told. That book, unsatisfactory as it is and as Drummond came to find it himself, made a success perhaps unrivalled among the more serious books of our time. It called forth not only numerous editions, and also translations into foreign languages, but it led to elaborate criticisms and to multitudes of letters to the author, asking for advice and aid from pe-ple in various parts of the world. The second important work of Drummond, that on Tropical Africa, was the outcome of a visit paid by him to that region. He was immensely interested in Africa from the point of view of the missionary and the naturalist, but he had to endure many hardships, and his friends remarked that, on his return, he had become visibly older, and he was a shade less buoyant afterwards. His third work, The Ascent of Man, was pro- duced as a series of lectures which he was invited to deliver before the Lowell Institute in Boston. It is, as our readers know, an attempt to reconcile Christianity with the theory of evolution, and to justify the ways of God to men. It is a suggestive book, though scientific men have not been very tender to its scientific side. Drummond was warmly welcomed to the United States, whether as evangelist or as lecturer; and he seems to have always felt himself invigorated there. He says one can do more there than here,—" for one man you can help by lecturing in Great Britain, you can help twelve or twenty in America." He also paid a visit to Australia, crowded with work in the shape of lectures and religions addresses, and he went to the New Hebrides, where he saw converts who had only a short time before been feeding on human flesh. He loved travel, and had a keen eye for points in natural scenery. In the latter part of his short but busy life he added work for boys to that which he had been doing for College students. He was not at all "goody," though his prime idea was to reach the hearts of the boys. He was fond of boys, was always more or less of a boy himself, was fertile in games, and had that love of adventure and that courage which the boy soon discovers in his mentor. During the end of his life his mind was unclouded, and his face bright and smiling. To the last he seemed to take pleasure in music, and in his last days his friends sang hymns to him. He died in March, 1897, and was buried at Stirling amid demonstra- tions of sorrow, whilst in distant cities funeral services were celebrated at the same time. Men who knew him or who had come under his influence missed a true man.
Previous page
