The Dominion SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1916. THE CENTENARY OF A SPIRITUAL WARRIOR

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2687, 5 February 1916, Page 4

The Dominion SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1916. THE CENTENARY OF A SPIRITUAL WARRIOR

On the third of February one hundred years ago a child was born in London who was destined to find his life's mission in the Christian ministry, and in that ministry to fill a unique place. We refer to Frederick William Robertson, familiarly spoken of in religious and literary circles as Robertson of Br.ighton. The saying that those "whom the gods lovo die young" was illustrated in his ease, for, at the age of thirty-seven, his stormy life of strenuous sacrifice ended on this earth. But his soul is marching on. During Ihis life he only printed one sermon, i and' he did so under great pressure from his friends; but after his death his-sermons in the form of manuscript notes and of reports taken by hearers were published, and have exercised a deep influence over thoughtful niinds throughout the English-speaking world, and through translations an immense number of people of other nationalities have taken in the dead preacher's message. Robertson occupied a very lowly rank in the Church of England. He was only a curate, and at Brighton rose to the designation of "perpetual curate," but nothing that bishops or archbishops have said during the last hundred years has interested and gripped and moved men like the words of Robertson of Brighton. Countless editions of his sermons in a fairly expensive form have been sold. As. far back' as 1861 the famous TaucHnitz printed them in English in Leipzig • for circulation in Germany. Not long ago the owners of the English copyright issued a cheap edition with an appreciation by lan Maclaren, and the sale was large. In the well-* known "Everyman's Library" the only room found so far for sermons has been found for three volumes of Robertson's. The law of the survival of the fittest accounts for the unique position of these sermons today. The sermons throb and pulsate with moral and religious life, and they possess that indefinable quality that makes them literature,

Mrs. Browning, in her "Cowper's Grave" finds an explanation of the "deathless-singing" of the poet in the tragedy of his life. He sang with a bleeding heart and an aching brain. The "deathless speaking" of Robertson may, be explained in the same way. He poured the very blood of his heart and his brain into his sermons. Dr. Stopford Brooke, in his voluminous and yet inadequate Life of Robertson enables,us to understand this. Thero. we see how he fought the battle and ran the race with panting .breast, and bleeding feet. It has been said that the way to be popular preacher is to have easy-going good nature, and a blind eye to sin. Robertson was not built in this way. . No more loving heart ever beat in a human breast, but he had a horror of sin, and especially the respectable sins of the religious. Robertson carried on his life's work in an English environment, but he was a Scotchman by both parents. His father belonged to one of the oldest Celtic families in Scotland, and the fiery blood of the Celt flowed in the veins of Brighton's famous preacher. Scotland was the home of bis childhood and of his youth. His father was a soldier, and young Robertson was cradled to the roar of the artillery guns in Leith forts: _ warfare was. in him like an instinct, .and the dream of his boyhood, youth, and early manhood was that lie should bo a soldier. He did becorao a sddicr, but his weapons were spiritual and not carnal. From his earliest years he had a genius for religion—Henry Martyr and David Brainerd were his spiritual heroes—and as a student ho was a Qalfihntl as l'mjarria i Durite of life, Ee had one o£ the.

most alert intellects of his time. He whs a hard student and an omnivorous reader. The writings of great teachers as far apart as Plato and Jonathan Edwakjos he studied, and they becamc like iron in his blood. Ho had a keen appreciation of poetry and he won the respect of Tennyson. He was constrained to abandon the profession of arms—it was like tearing the skin from his flesh to do so—and he becamc a Christian ministei.

His story as a minister is the story of the tragedy of a soul. He was an earnest evangelical of the more intense type up' to twenty-seven years, when he wont to be curatc at Cheltenham, and then he passed through a violent and painful religious change, and he began to lash the evangelical construction of Christianity and its professors. No adequate reason for the change is given. It would seem that evangelicalism at Cheltenham had degenerated into cant phrases and worldly living. We have hints' that he was struck a crushing blow by a flaring Evangelical. The explanation of this collapse of faith maybe found in his Celtic temperament, which makes the mind work by intuition and not by logic. This ctying to his old views cost l)im a great deal. He was nervously and physically shattered. He becamc a victim of religious gloom. His Christian creed seemed to tumble into ruin. But this rock never failed him—the eternal rightness of duty, goodness, and unselfishness. '.The clouds rolled away and the sun shone. A theology and a religion that.-, filtered through his own heart and brain became his. He studied his own heart, faced anew the facts of "life, and accepted with all the passion of his soul the remedy for the sin and sorrow, of the world furnished bv tho Founder of Christianity. With this equipment he began his memorable ministry of six short years in Brighton. Disease like a vulture clawed into his brain, and the end came in 1853. In those six years he compressed the brain and heart toil of a long life. He cannot be classed' with any special church party. He belonged neither to the High Church nor the Loiv Church, nor to the Broad Church, nor to the Hard Church. He saicl he was an Ishmael, but no man was ever less a son of the bond-woman and more a child of the free.

It is said that the working men of Brighton raised a sum of money long ago to keep flowers perpetually fresh on the gra-v© of Robertson. lit is a fitting thing _ for us to keep his memory green in this new land and to call attention, to the moral worth of the- message of this spiritual warrior. The real wealth of our Empire is made up of such lives as that of Eobeiitson it .Brighton. Thomas Carlyle puts the .matter thus: "The world's wealth is its original men:- by these and their works it is a world and not'a waste; the memory and the record of what men it bore—this is the sum of its strength, its sacred'■ property "for ever." . ■>