Samuel Rutherford | Page 9

wife and
there a working housekeeper, who kept life in the whole place. It is not
station that does it, nor talent, though both station and talent greatly
help; it is character, it is true and genuine godliness. True and genuine
godliness--especially when it is purged of pride, and harsh judgment,
and too much talk, and is adorned with humility and meekness, and all
the other fruits of holy love--true and pure godliness in a most obscure
man or woman will find its way to a thousand consciences, and will
impress and overawe a whole town, as Marion M'Naught's rare
godliness impressed and overawed all Kirkcudbright. Just as, on the
other hand, the ignorance, the censoriousness, the bitterness, the
intolerance, that too often accompany what would otherwise be true
godliness, work as widespread mischief as true godliness works good.
'One little deed done for God's sake, and against our natural inclination,
though in itself only of a conceding or passive character, to brook an
insult, to face a danger, or to resign an advantage, has in it a power
outbalancing all the dust and chaff of mere profession--the profession
whether of enlightened benevolence or candour, or, on the other hand,
of high religious faith and fervent zeal;' or, as Rutherford could write to
Marion M'Naught's daughter: 'There is a wide and deep difference
between a name of godliness and the power of godliness.' Even the
schoolboys of Kirkcudbright could quite well distinguish the name
from the reality; and long after they were Christian men they would tell
with reverence and with love when, and from whom, they took their
first and never-to-be-forgotten impressions. It was, they would say to
their children, from that woman of such rare godliness as well as public
spirit, Marion M'Naught.
It was all this, and nothing other and nothing less than all this, that
made Marion M'Naught Rutherford's favourite correspondent. Her
mind and her heart together early and often drew her across the country
to Rutherford's preaching. Marion M'Naught had a good minister of her
own at home; but Rutherford was Rutherford, and he made Anwoth
Anwoth. I think I can understand something of her delight on
Communion forenoons, when his text was Christ Dying, in John xii. 32,

or the Syro-Phoenician woman, in Matt. xv. 28. And then the feasts on
the fast-days at Kirkcudbright, over the cloud of witnesses, in Heb. xii.
1, and all tears wiped away, in Rev. xxi. 4, and the marriage of the
Lamb, in xix. 7. And then, on the other hand, Rutherford is not surely
to be blamed for loving such a hearer. His Master loved a Mary also of
His day, for that also among other good reasons. If a good hearer likes
a good preacher, why should a good preacher not like a good hearer?
Take a holiday, and give us another day soon of such and such a
preacher, our people sometimes say to us. And why should that
preacher not also say to us, Give me a day soon again of your good
hearers? As a matter of fact, our good preaching friends do say that to
us. And why not? Fine hearers, deep hearers, thoroughly well-prepared
hearers, hearers of genius are almost as scarce as fine, deep, thoroughly
well-prepared preachers and preachers of genius. And who shall blame
Rutherford for liking to see Marion M'Naught coming into the church
on a Sabbath morning as well as she liked to see him coming into the
pulpit? 'I go to Anwoth so often,' she said, 'because, though other
ministers show me the majesty of God and the plague of my own heart,
Mr. Samuel does both these things, but he also shows me, as no other
minister ever does, the loveliness of Christ.' It is as great a mistake to
think that all our Christian people are able to take in a sermon on the
loveliness of Christ as it is that all ordained men can preach such a
sermon. There are diversities of gifts among hearers as well as among
preachers; and when the gifts of the pulpit meet the corresponding
graces in the pew, you need not wonder that they recognise and delight
in one another. Jesus Christ was Rutherford's favourite subject in the
pulpit, and thus it was that he was Marion M'Naught's favourite
preacher, as she, again, was his favourite hearer in the church and his
favourite correspondent in the Letters. To how many in this house
to-night could a preacher say that he wished them all to be 'over head
and ears in love to Christ'? What preacher could say a thing like that in
truth and soberness? And how many could hear it? Only a preacher of
the holy passion of Rutherford, and only a hearer of the intellect