His last communication to the Church Missionary Society, dated December 10th, 1837, and received after his death, is full of hope for his beloved New Zealanders. "I am happy to say the mission goes on well amidst every difficulty. I visited many places in my last voyage from the North Cape to Cloudy Bay. The gospel has made a deep impression upon many of the natives, who now lead G.o.dly lives." The letter, which is written in a large and straggling hand, as though the pen were no longer under its usual firm control, concludes with these touching words: "I am now very feeble. My eyes are dim, and my memory fails me. I have done no duty on the sabbath for some weeks through weakness. When I review all the way the Lord has led me through this wilderness I am constrained to say, _Bless the Lord, O my soul, etc_,
"Yours very affectionately, "SAMUEL MARSDEN."
The innocent games of children pleased him to the last. When such meetings were more rare than they have now become, the children of the Paramatta school once a year a.s.sembled on his lawn, and then his happiness was almost equal to their own. In his own family, and amongst the children of his friends, he would even take his share in their youthful gambols, and join the merry party at blind man"s buff. Though, as he said of himself, he "never sang a song in his life, for he learned to sing hymns when ten years old, and never sang anything else,"
yet he was charmed with the sweet and hearty voices of children joining in some innocent little song, and it pleased him better still if it finished off with a noisy chorus. Yet all this was consistent with his character as a grave, wise old man. Though mirthful, he was never frivolous; in a moment, if occasion called for it, he was ready to discuss the most serious subjects, or to give his opinion upon matters of importance; and he had the enviable talent of mingling even pious conversation with the sports of children.
It was observed that though always unembarra.s.sed in the presence of strangers whatever their rank or importance might be, he never seemed completely happy but in the company of persons of true piety. He does not appear to have spoken very freely in ordinary society on the subject of personal religion, still less on the subject of his own experience; but his emotions were deep, and out of the fulness of the heart his lips would speak, in the midst of such a circle, of the loving-kindness of the Lord. The sense of his own unworthiness seems to have been always present. Of all G.o.d"s servants he might have been, as he verily thought himself to be, the most unprofitable; and when any circ.u.mstance occurred which led him to contrast the justice of G.o.d to others who were left to die impenitent, with the mercy shown to himself, he spoke with a humiliation deeply affecting. With scenes of vice and human depravity few living men were more conversant than he, yet to the last such was the delicacy of his conscience that the presence of vice shocked him as much as if the sight were new. "Riding down to the barracks one morning," says the lady whose narrative we have already quoted, "to invite Captain B---- and myself that day to dinner to meet the bishop, he had pa.s.sed what, alas! used to be too frequent an object, a man lying insensible and intoxicated in the road. His usually cheerful countenance was saddened, and after telling us his errand, we could not but ask the cause of his distress. He gave us the unhappy cause, and turning his horse"s head round to leave us, he uttered with deep emotion--
"Why was I made to hear thy voice And enter while there"s room?"
Throughout the day the subject dwelt upon his mind; after dinner the conversation turned to it, and he was casually asked who was the author of the hymn he had quoted in the morning. He shook his head and said, "I cannot tell, perhaps it was Watts, or Wesley," and several hymn books were produced in which the bishop and others inst.i.tuted a fruitless search, the bishop at length saying, "I can"t find the hymn, Mr.
Marsden." "Can"t you, sir," was the reply, "that is a pity, for it is a good hymn, sir--says what the Bible says, free sovereign grace for poor sinners. No self-righteous man can get into heaven, sir, he would rather starve than take the free gift." In the course of the day the conversation turning upon New Zealand, the bishop expressed the opinion, once almost universal though now happily exploded, an opinion, too, which Mr. Marsden himself had regarded with some favour in his younger days, that civilization must precede the introduction of the gospel; and his lordship argued, as Mr. Marsden himself had argued thirty years before, in favour of expanding the mind of savages by the introduction of arts and sciences, being impressed with the idea that it was impossible to present the gospel with success to minds wholly unenlightened. Mr. Marsden"s answer is thus recorded--"Civilization is not necessary before Christianity, sir; do both together if you will, but you will find civilization follow Christianity, easier than Christianity to follow civilization. Tell a poor heathen of his true G.o.d and Saviour, point him to the works he can see with his own eyes, for these heathen are no fools, sir--great mistake to send illiterate men to them--they don"t want men learned after the fashion of this world, but men taught in the spirit and letter of the Scripture. I shan"t live to see it, sir, but I may hear of it in heaven, that New Zealand with all its cannibalism and idolatry will yet set an example of Christianity to some of the nations now before her in civilization.""
It will not be out of place to offer a pa.s.sing remark upon Mr. Marsden"s conduct to Dr. Broughton, the first bishop of Sydney. As an Episcopalian, sincerely attached to the church of England, he had long desired the introduction of the episcopate into the colonial church, of which, as senior chaplain, he himself had been the acknowledged leader for so many years. When the appointment was made it was a matter of just surprise to his friends that he was pa.s.sed over in silence, while an English clergyman was placed over him to govern the clergy, amongst whom he had so long presided, and whose entire respect and confidence he had gained. There is no doubt that his integrity and fearless honesty had rendered him somewhat unacceptable to men in power, and that to this his exclusion is, in a great measure, to be ascribed. But this slight brought out some of the finest features in his truly n.o.ble character. He had never sought either honours, wealth, or preferment for himself. If a disinterested man ever lived it was Samuel Marsden. The only remark which his family remember to have heard him make upon the subject was in answer to a friend, who had expressed surprise at the slight thus put upon him, in these words--"It is better as it is; I am an old man; my work is almost done." And when Dr. Broughton, the new bishop, arrived in the colony, he was received by Mr. Marsden not with cold and formal respect but with Christian cordiality. When the new bishop was installed he a.s.sisted at the solemn service; the eloquent author of the "Prisoners of Australia,"[K] who chanced to be present, thus describes the scene--"On a more touching sight mine eyes had never looked than when the aged man, tears streaming down his venerable cheek, poured forth, amidst a crowded and yet silent a.s.semblage, the benediction upon him into whose hands he had thus, as it were, to use his own metaphor, "yielded up the keys of a most precious charge;" a charge which had been his own devoted care throughout the storms and the tempests of a long and difficult pilotage. And now like another Simeon, his work well nigh accomplished, the gospel spreading far and wide over the colony and its dependencies, and the prayer of his adopted people answered, he could say without another wish, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."" Though differing from him, we may add, on some points, Mr. Marsden retained to the last sincere regard for bishop Broughton, who in return fully appreciated the high and lofty character of his senior chaplain. "Well!" said he one day when he heard of his last illness, breaking out after a thoughtful silence, "if there ever was a truly honest man, Mr. Marsden certainly is one;" and after his death he publicly expressed his "deep sense of the loss he had experienced, and the painful void he felt in the absence of his aged and faithful companion who had so often stood by his side, whose genuine piety and natural force of understanding," said he, "I held in the highest esteem while he lived, and still retain them in sincerely affectionate remembrance."
[K] London: Hatchard, 1841.
Conscious that in the course of nature his decease could not be far distant, death was now his frequent meditation. He viewed its approach without levity and without alarm. Familiar through life with death in every form, his feelings were not blunted; he still felt it was a solemn thing to die, but he had experienced the love of Him who had tasted death for every man, and was no longer "subject to bondage through fear of death." He continued his pastoral visits to the sick and dying to the last, and some of those who were raised from a bed of languishing, and who survived their pastor, speak of the affectionate kindness, the delicacy and tenderness, as well as the deep-toned spirituality of mind he showed in the sick chamber, as something which those who had not witnessed it would be backward to credit. One of the last letters which he penned filled three sides of folio paper, addressed to a friend who had met with a severe accident in being thrown from a carriage; it contained the most consoling and Scriptural aids and admonitions; it was unfortunately lost by its possessor on a voyage to India, or it would have proved, we are a.s.sured, an acquisition to our memoir, of real interest and importance.
As he stepped out of his gig, his family easily perceived from his manner if he had been visiting the chamber of death, and never presumed to break a sacred silence that was sure to follow his deep-drawn sigh till he was pleased to do so himself. This he did in general by the solemn and subdued utterance of a text from Scripture, or some verse of a favourite hymn. The tears often fell down his aged cheeks while slowly articulating, in a suppressed voice, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord;" or from one of Watts"s hymns.
"Oh could we die with those that die," etc.
After this touching relief he seemed to feel more at liberty to speak on future events connected with his own decease, when he should be sitting down, as he frequently said, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of G.o.d. Indeed his happy, social spirit led him to connect the joys of heaven with the society of saints and patriarchs and his own departed friends. Sitting at dinner with the bishop and others as his guests, his mind abstracted itself from the surrounding scene, and he addressed the Christian friend to whose notices of his last days we have already had recourse: "You know, madam, you and I are to take an alphabetical list some day of all the names of the good men I expect soon to meet in heaven; there will be (counting them up upon his fingers) John Wesley, Isaac Watts, the two Milners, Joseph and Isaac, John Newton and Thomas Scott, Mr. Howels of Long Acre, and Matthew Henry----" Here the conversation of the party broke off the solemn reverie.
Yet all this tranquillity was consistent with that natural fear of death which for the wisest purposes G.o.d has implanted in man, and which Adam must have known in paradise, or else the Divine prohibition and the threatened penalty, "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," could have had no force and appealed to no motive. "In the month of September, after his last voyage, he called at the house of his friend, the Rev. Mr. Cartwright, with a young lady from New Zealand, to introduce her to Mrs. Cartwright. The door was opened by his aged and now deeply afflicted friend and brother in the ministry, for Mrs.
Cartwright had expired in the night, after a few hours" illness. Mr.
Marsden, with his usual cheerfulness of manner, said, "Well! I have brought Miss W. to introduce her to Mrs. Cartwright." "Stop! stop, my friend," responded the mourner, in a solemn manner, "don"t you know that Mrs. Cartwright is dead?" "Dead? dead?" replied Mr. Marsden. "Oh no; oh no. You must be in joke; it is too serious a matter to make a joke of, Mr. Cartwright." "Indeed," responded Mr. Cartwright, "it is too true.
Come, and I will convince you," and then led him to the room where the remains of his departed wife lay. Mr. Marsden approached the body, saying, "Oh! she is not dead; no, no, she is not dead;" (the bright complexion remaining unchanged), "she is not dead;" and then, pa.s.sing his hand over the face, the cold chill of death dissipated the delusion.
"Yes, she is dead, she is dead," and leaving the room, he hurried away to give vent to his feelings."
As he contemplated his own near approach to the eternal state, a few chosen pa.s.sages of Scripture fell often from his lips; and it was remarked they were almost the only repet.i.tions he made use of; for his mind was richly stored with Scripture, which he seemed to bring forth with endless variety, and often in the happiest combination; but now he often repeated the words of Job, "He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not," chap. xiv. 2.
And those of Zechariah, "Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?" chap. i. 5.
Like Cornelius, he had been a devout man, a man of prayer through life.
He believed in the promises of effectual aid from G.o.d the Holy Spirit, to carry on the work of grace in his own soul. Nerved with this faith, he waged a ceaseless war against corruptions within, and temptations from without. And while he viewed the promises of a.s.sistance from the Holy Spirit, as given not to supersede our own exertions, but to animate them, he simply trusted to Him to become the author of his complete sanctification. And all the blessed fruits of faith were found richly cl.u.s.tering round his character. It was his constant habit, after his return from a journey, to spend some time in his room alone, engaged, no doubt, in holy communing with G.o.d. When he prayed in the family, or before his sermon in the pulpit, where he seldom used a form, the rich and fervid unction, the variety and copiousness of his supplications and thanksgivings, seemed to intimate how closely he had been wont to commune in secret with his heavenly Father. The fifty-first Psalm now often supplied the words for many a humble confession of sin, and many an earnest aspiration for larger supplies of the Holy Spirit"s sanctifying influences, both in the pulpit and elsewhere. He appears always to have held frequent communion with G.o.d in ejaculatory prayer throughout the day. To one whose engagements were so many, and whose interruptions were necessarily so frequent, the practice was no doubt most beneficial. Thus the lamp of G.o.d in his soul was always trimmed, and the light went not out as age and infirmities drew on. His friends now remarked his frequent abstraction from the scenes around, while his moving lip and solemn gesture significantly intimated the direction of his mind, and the occupation of his thoughts. His mind became daily more spiritual, and even when in the midst of visitors he seemed often to be absorbed in silent prayer.
"An incident which seems to show that he had a presentiment of his approaching end occurred on the last Sunday on which the holy communion was administered before his death. Although in his usual health, he did not a.s.sist in the service, as he always had done for a long period of forty-five years in the same congregation; and when the officiating minister was ready to distribute the bread and wine, he remained in his pew, apparently overcome by his feelings. A pause ensued, when, as he still did not attempt to move, the Rev. Henry Bobart, his son-in-law, thought it advisable to take the elements to him. Many of his congregation were affected to tears, impressed with the belief that they might not again receive from his venerable hands those emblems of the Saviour"s love. He had never yet been present at the church without a.s.sisting at the solemn rite. Such fears were but too truly and sadly realized. On the Sunday evening, at the parsonage, it was the custom, at family worship, to read one of a course of sermons. The Sunday before his death, when he was still apparently as well as usual, he requested that the one in course for that evening might be laid aside and Bradley"s sermon the "Morrow unknown," from the text "Boast not thyself of to-morrow," subst.i.tuted. Some slight objection was made; but on his again expressing his wish, it was of course complied with. The remarks made by him upon the subject during the evening excited the apprehensions of his family that the coming week might be one of trial, but they little thought that ere the next sabbath one so loved and revered would be removed from them."
On Tuesday the 8th of May, 1838, a few of his friends visited him at his own house; he wore his usual cheerfulness, and they wished him, as they thought, a short farewell as he stepped into his gig on a journey of about five and-twenty-miles. In pa.s.sing through the low lands contiguous to Windsor, the cold suddenly affected him, and he complained of illness on his arrival at the house of his friend, the Rev. Mr. Styles, the chaplain of the parish. Erysipelas in the head broke out, and a general stupor followed, so that he became insensible. His mind wandered amongst the scenes to which his life had been devoted, and he uttered a few incoherent expressions about the factory, the orphan school, and the New Zealand mission. "Though he spoke but little," says his friend, Mr.
Styles, in his funeral sermon, "yet in his few conscious moments he said quite enough to show that the Saviour whom he served through life was with him in the time of trial. A single remark was made to him by a bystander on the value of a good hope in Christ in the hour of need.
"Yes," said he, "that hope is indeed precious to me now;" and on the following evening, his last on earth, he was heard repeating the words "precious, precious," as if still in the same strain of thought which that remark had suggested. Soon after, inflammation having reached the brain, his spirit was released. On Sat.u.r.day morning, the 12th of May, he entered--who can doubt?--upon the enjoyment of his "eternal and exceeding great reward.""
He was buried in his own churchyard at Paramatta. Upwards of sixty carriages formed the mourning train, and a numerous a.s.semblage of mourners, including most of the public functionaries in the colony, followed him to the grave. Of these, some who had in years long past thwarted and opposed him came at last to offer an unfeigned tribute of deep respect. A few had been his early a.s.sociates in the ministry, and in every good word and work. The majority were a youthful generation, to whom he was only known as a wise and venerable minister of G.o.d. His parishioners had been most of them brought up under his instructions, and had been taught from their infancy to look up to him with respect and love. The solemn burial service was read by the Rev. Dr. Cowper, who first came out to the colony at Mr. Marsden"s solicitation. He stood over the grave and addressed the mourners on the early devotedness of their departed friend and pastor to the great work of the ministry, told them how solemnly he had dedicated himself to G.o.d before he left England in his youth, and reminded them of the fidelity with which through evil and good report he had endured his Master"s cross, despising the shame.
Australia seemed at length fully to appreciate his worth. It was quite fitting, and indeed an additional tribute to his integrity, that some mutterings of calumny should be uttered by unG.o.dly men, even as the grave closed over him, and that a priest of the apostate church of Rome should catch them up, and gladly give expression to them. With this exception the colony was unanimous, as were the friends of religion in England, and throughout the world, in mourning for him as for one who had been great as an evangelist in the church of Christ, and as a philanthropist second to none who have ever devoted their lives to the welfare of their fellow creatures. It was proposed to erect a monument to his memory by public subscription; the proposition was warmly approved on all sides, and subscriptions were offered to a considerable amount. Whole families became subscribers--parents, and children, and domestic servants, all ready thus to testify their reverence. On further consideration, it was thought better to erect a church to his memory on a piece of his own land, which he himself had devised for that purpose, to which the name of Marsfield should be given; and the design, we believe, has been carried into effect, at the cost of about six thousand pounds.
The public press, not only in Australia but in England, published biographical sketches of his life and labours, with articles on his motives and character. The great missionary societies recorded his death with becoming feelings of reverential love. The notice of him in the minutes of the Church Missionary Society, the reader will not be displeased to find in these pages. It was read at their annual meeting at Exeter-hall, and published in their thirtieth report.
"The Committee of the Church Missionary Society record the death of the late Rev. Samuel Marsden with feelings of deep respect for his personal character and grat.i.tude to the Great Head of the church, who raised up, and who so long preserved, this distinguished man, for the good of his own, and of future generations.
"In him the Committee recognise an individual whom Providence had endowed with a vigorous const.i.tution, both of body and mind, suited to meet the circ.u.mstances which ever attend a course of new and arduous labours. Entering upon the duties of his chaplaincy forty-five years ago, at a time when the colonists of New South Wales were, for the most part, of abandoned character and suffering the penalty of the law, he, with admirable foresight, antic.i.p.ated the probable future destinies of that singular and important colony, and never ceased to call the attention of both the local and home governments to the great duty of providing for the interests, both temporal and spiritual, of the rapidly increasing population by a proportionate increase in the number of colonial chaplains.
"In the discharge of his diversified duties, the native energies of his mind were conspicuously exhibited in the undisturbed ardour, public spirit, and steady perseverance, with which his various plans of usefulness were prosecuted; while his high natural gifts were sanctified by those Christian principles, which from his youth up, he maintained and adorned, both by his teaching and by his life.
"But it is to his exertions in behalf of Christian missions that the Committee are bound especially to call the attention of the Society. While he omitted no duty of his proper ministerial calling, his comprehensive mind quickly embraced the vast spiritual interests, till then well nigh entirely unheeded, of the innumerable islands of the Pacific Ocean, whose "inhabitants were sitting in darkness, and in the shadow of death."
"Under the influence of these considerations, Mr. Marsden zealously promoted the labours of the different societies which have established missions in the South Seas. And it is to his visits to New Zealand, begun twenty-five years ago, and often since repeated, and to his earnest appeals on behalf of that people, that the commencement and consolidation of the Society"s missions in the Northern Island are to be attributed.
"In calling to mind the long series of eminent services rendered to the Society by Mr. Marsden, the committee notice with peculiar satisfaction the last visit made by him, in the year 1836, to the Society"s missions in New Zealand--a visit justly termed by the Lord Bishop of Australia "Apostolical." With paternal authority and affection, and with the solemnity of one who felt himself to be standing on the verge of eternity, he then gave his parting benediction to the missionaries and the native converts."
And thus was the man honoured in his death, whose life had been one long conflict with obloquy and slander. With few exceptions his enemies had died away, or been gradually led to abandon their prejudices, and many of them now loved and revered the man whom they had once hated or despised. This, however, is but the usual recompense of a life of consistent holiness. G.o.d often allows his servants to live and even to die under a cloud of prejudice; but sooner or later, even the world does homage to their virtues and confesses its admiration of the Christian character, while the church of Christ glorifies G.o.d in the grace which made their departed brother to shine as a light in the world.
CHAPTER XIV.
Character of Mr. Marsden--His Life and Labours.
The reader may naturally expect in conclusion a summary of Mr. Marsden"s character. In attempting this, we are by no means insensible to the difficulty of the undertaking. Indiscriminate eulogy, and the arrogance which affects to blame in order to establish its own claim to superior wisdom, are both alike impertinent and unbecoming. Yet it is not easy to speak of one whose motives were so high, whose labours so constant and self-denying, and whose triumphs so remarkable, without enthusiasm.
While, on the other hand, those infirmities which may generally be detected even in the best men, and which truth requires to be impartially noted down, did not much affect his public life; and we have felt all along as we have written with the disadvantage of having known him only by the report of others. Still, however, something should be attempted. The character of Mr. Marsden is too instructive to be lost; perhaps few great men ever lived whose example was more calculated for general usefulness,--for the simple reason that he displayed no gigantic powers, no splendid genius; he had only a solid, well ordered, mind, with which to work,--no other endowments than those which thousands of his fellow men possess. It was in the _use of his materials_ that his greatness lay.
Mr. Marsden was a man of a masculine understanding, of great decision of character, and an energy which nothing could subdue. He naturally possessed such directness and honesty of purpose, that his intentions could never be mistaken; and he seemed incapable of attempting to gain his purpose by those dexterous shifts and manoeuvres which often pa.s.s current, even amongst professing Christians, as the proper, if not laudable, resources of a good diplomatist, or a thorough man of business. When he had an object in view, it was always worthy of his strenuous pursuit, and nothing stopped him in his efforts to obtain it, except the impossibility of proceeding further. Had his mind been less capacious such firmness would often have degenerated into mere obstinacy; had it been less benevolent and less under the influence of religion, it would have led him, as he pressed rudely onwards, to trample upon the feelings, perhaps upon the rights, of other men. But he seems, whenever he was not boldly confronting vice, to have been of the gentlest nature. In opposing sin, especially when it showed itself with effrontery in the persons of magistrates and men in power, he gave no quarter and asked for none. There was a quaintness and originality about him, which enabled him to say and do things which were impossible to other men. There was a firmness and inflexibility, combined with earnest zeal, which in the days of the reformers would have placed him in their foremost rank. None could be long in his society without observing that he was a man of another mould than those around him. There was an air of unconscious independence in all he did which, mixed with his other qualities, clearly showed to those who could read his character, that he was a peculiar instrument in the hands of G.o.d to carry out his own purposes. These traits are ill.u.s.trated by many remarkable events in his life.
When he first arrived in New South Wales, while theft, blasphemy, and every other crime, prevailed to an alarming extent among the convicts, the higher cla.s.ses of society, the civil and military officers, set a disgraceful example of social immorality. Such is the account given by a Sydney periodical a few weeks after Mr. Marsden"s decease, which goes on to say: "Many an individual of a more plastic nature might have been moulded by the prevailing fashion of the age in which he lived, and instead of endeavouring to struggle against the tide of popular opinion, would have yielded in all probability to its seducing influence. Such was not the case with Mr. Marsden. When he was opposed on all hands, and even by the civil and military authorities of the day, he faithfully performed his duty, and careless of the powerful coalitions combined for his destruction, "all the ends he aimed at were his country"s, his G.o.d"s, and truth"s." Educated in the school of the Milners, the Simeons, and the Fletchers, he was not disposed to flatter the vices of any man; but with plainness and sincerity of speech, he discoursed "of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come."" He has been known to rebuke sin at a dinner-table in such a manner as to electrify the whole company. Once, arriving late, he sat down in haste, and did not for a few minutes perceive the presence of one who should have been the wife of the host, but who stood in a very different relation to him. Mr.
Marsden always turned a deaf ear to scandal, and in the excess of his charity was sometimes blind to facts which were evident enough to others. The truth now flashed upon him, and though such things were little thought of in the colony, he rose instantly from the table, calling to the servant in a decided tone to bring his hat, and without further ceremony, or another word, retired. That such a man should raise up a host of bitter enemies is not to be wondered at.
To these qualities his great successes in life, under G.o.d, were due. The young chaplain who single handed confronted and at length bore down the profligacy of New South Wales, and the shameless partiality of its courts of justice (the immediate result and consequence of the licentious lives and connexions of the magistrates) planned, and was himself the first to adventure upon the mission to New Zealand. Against the rashness of this attempt the timid expostulations of his friends, the hesitation of the captains who declined so perilous an adventure, and even the remonstrances of Governor Macquarie himself weighed not a feather in the scale. He saw his way clearly; it was the path of duty, and along it he must go. And when, ten years afterwards, scarcely a nominal convert had been won from among the cannibals, when tens of thousands of good money had been spent, when the church at home was almost weary of the project, and half disposed to give it up, he was still true as ever to the cause. He neither bolstered up his courage with noisy protestations, nor attempted to cheer the languid zeal of others by the slightest exaggerations, but quietly went forward calmly resting upon the two great pillars, the _commands_ and the _promises_ of G.o.d. So again with respect to the Polynesian missions; at first he showed little of that enthusiasm in which some of its promoters were caught as in a whirlwind, and carried off their feet. But high principle endures when enthusiasm has long worn out. And it was to the firm and yet cheering remonstrances of Samuel Marsden, and to the weight which his representations had with the churches of Christ in England, that the directors were indebted for the ability to maintain their ground, and that this perhaps the most successful of Protestant missions, was not finally abandoned upon the very eve of its triumphs.
While he embraced large and comprehensive projects, it was one of his striking peculiarities that he paid close attention to minute details.
Some minds beginning with the vast and theoretical, work backwards into the necessary details; others setting out upon that which is minute and practical, from the necessities of the hour and the duties of the day before them seem to enlarge their circle and to build up new projects as they proceed. The former may be men of greater genius, but the latter are in general the more successful, and to these Mr. Marsden belonged.
The cast of his mind was eminently practical. No crude visions of distant triumphs led him away from the duties which belonged to the scene and circ.u.mstances in which providence had placed him. Paramatta was for many years the model parish of New South Wales, although its pastor was the soul of the New Zealand mission, and of many a philanthropic enterprise besides. Commissioner Biggs, in his "Report of Inquiry," which was published by order of the House of Commons, observes that "Mr. Marsden, though much occupied by the business of the missions which he conducted, and by the superintendence of the orphan school which he had himself called into existence, was remarkably attentive to the duties of his ministry." "The congregation at Paramatta appeared to me to be more respectable than at the other places of worship, and the choral parts of the service were admirably performed by the singers, who have been taught under the direction of the Rev. S. Marsden." He was well known to all his parishioners, to whom he paid constant ministerial visits; his attention to the sick, whether at their own homes or the government hospital, was unremitting, and here his natural shrewdness, sharpened as it was by his spiritual penetration, showed itself in his insight into the true character of those he dealt with. Nothing disgusted him more than a want of reality. High professions from inconsistent lips were loathsome to him, and his rebukes were sometimes sharp. A gentleman, whose habits of life were not altogether consistent with Christian simplicity and deadness to the world, had been reading "Mammon," when that volume had just made its appearance, and with that partial eye with which we are too apt to view our own failings, had come to the flattering conclusion that by contrast with the monster depicted in "Mammon," the desires he felt to add field to field and house to house, were not covetousness, but that diligence in business which the Scriptures inculcate. In the happy excitement of the discovery, he exultingly exclaimed, "Well, thank G.o.d, I have no covetousness." Mr.
Marsden, who had read no more about covetousness than he found in the Bible, had sat silent; rising from his chair, and taking his hat, he merely said, "Well, I think it is time for me to go: and so, sir, you thank G.o.d that you are not as other men are. You have no covetousness?
havn"t you? Why, sir, I suppose the next thing you"ll tell us is that you"ve no pride;" and left the room.
But when he spoke to a modest inquirer, these roughnesses, which lay only on the surface, disappeared. To the sick, his manner was gentle and affectionate, and in his later years, when he began, from failing memory and dimness of sight, to feel himself unequal to the pulpit, he spent much of his time in going from house to house and amongst the prison population, exhorting and expounding the Scriptures. Upon one of these occasions, a friend who accompanied him relates that he made a short journey to visit a dying young lady, whose parents on some account were strangely averse to his intrusion, pastoral though it was. But the kindness with which he addressed the sufferer, whom he found under deep spiritual anxieties, and the soothing manner in which he spoke and prayed with her, instantly changed the whole bias of their minds. "To think," they exclaimed when he left the house, "of the aged man, with his silver locks, coming such a distance as seventeen miles, and speaking so affectionately to our feeble child!"
"At Paramatta, his Sunday-school," his daughter writes, "was in a more efficient state than any I have since seen;" and the same remark might probably be applied to his other parochial inst.i.tutions, for whatever he did was done with all his heart; and he was one of those who easily find coadjutors. Their example seems to shed an immediate influence. And his curates and the pious members of his flock were scarcely less zealous and energetic than himself.
He found time to promote missionary meetings, and to encourage the formation of tract and Bible societies, as well as other benevolent inst.i.tutions, at Sydney and other places. On many occasions he delivered interesting speeches, and not long before his death he presided at a Bible Society meeting at Paramatta, when, in the course of an affectionate address, he alluded to his beloved New Zealand. New Zealand was near his heart, and he now seldom spoke of it without being sensibly affected. Relating an anecdote respecting Mowhee, a converted New Zealander, he was completely overcome, and burst into tears.
His manner of preaching was simple, forcible, and persuasive, rather than powerful or eloquent. In his later years, when he was no longer able to read his sermons, he preached extempore. His memory, until the last year or two of his life, was remarkably tenacious: he used to repeat the whole of the burial service _memoriter_, and in the pulpit, whole chapters or a great variety of texts from all parts of Scripture, as they were required to prove or ill.u.s.trate his subject. He was seldom controversial, nor did he attempt a critical exposition of the word of G.o.d. His ministry was pure and evangelical. "You can well remember him, my hearers," says the preacher, in his funeral sermon, "as having faithfully preached to you the word of G.o.d; clearly did he lay before you the whole counsel of G.o.d. Man was represented by him as in a condemned and helpless state, lying in all the pollution and filthiness of his sin, totally unable to justify himself wholly or in part, by any works of righteousness which he can do; G.o.d, as too pure to look upon iniquity without abhorrence, and yet too merciful to leave sinners to their sad estate without providing a refuge for them; Christ, as All in all to the sinner; as wisdom to enlighten him, as righteousness to justify him, sanctification to make him holy in heart and life, as complete redemption from the bondage of sin and death into the glorious inheritance of heaven; the Holy Spirit of G.o.d as the only author of aught that is good in the renewed soul; faith as the only means of applying the salvation of the gospel to the case of the individual sinner; justification by faith; the necessity of regeneration; holiness indispensable. All these were represented by your departed minister as the vital doctrines of the gospel, and the mutual bearing and connexion of each was clearly shown. And this he has been doing for nearly forty-five years."
Dwelling on the outskirts of civilization and of the Christian world, he was too deeply impressed with the grand line of distinction between Christianity and hideous unG.o.dliness, whether exhibited in the vices of a penal settlement or the cannibalism of New Zealand, to be likely to attach too much importance to those minor shades of difference which are to be met with in the great family of Jesus Christ. As his heart was large, so too was his spirit catholic. He was sincerely and affectionately attached to the church of England. He revered her liturgy, and in her articles and homilies he found his creed, and he laboured much to promote her extension. Yet his heart was filled with love to all those who name the name of Christ in sincerity. Wherever he met with the evidences of real piety and soundness of doctrine, his house and his purse flew open; and orthodox Christians of every denomination from time to time either shared his hospitalities or were a.s.sisted in their benevolent projects with pecuniary aid. With what delicacy this was done may be gathered from such statements as the following, which is copied from the "Colonist" newspaper, September 12th, 1838: "An attempt having been made to build a Scotch church in Sydney, the colonial government for a time opposed the scheme, and in consequence some of its friends fell away. Then it was that the late Samuel Marsden, unsolicited, very generously offered the loan of 750_l._ to the trustees of the Scotch church, on the security of the building and for its completion. This loan was accordingly made; but as it was found impracticable to give an available security on the building, Mr.
Marsden agreed to take the personal guarantee of the minister for the debt."