56

HIS DIARY-ITS DESIGN.

He

tically to record his thoughts in a Diary. The first entry was made on the 8th of August 1825. meant it to be a faithful transcript of his mind, "to retain till a future period the present fleeting impressions of the heart," and recorded a solemn prayer for "the blessing of God on his undertaking, that His glory and the writer's religious improvement might be the great end of all his actions." Here, therefore, John Macdonald becomes himself our guide in this narrative; or, rather, he is henceforth to be his own biographer. It was his insulation from the friends whom he loved that prompted the desire to record his feelings and opinions; and it is illustrative of his ruling principle in life, to hear him say, in his very first entry, "What conIsolation does it afford to the Christian to know that his Saviour, his Intercessor, He who is to be his judge at last, is one who was once clothed in our nature, and in all points tempted like as we are!" He had begun, perhaps unconsciously, to long for a closer connection, and a deeper sympathy, with the Friend that sticketh closer than a brother, than any he had yet experienced. It was the soul seeking back to its source-the gravitating body which could find rest nowhere but at the centre-instinct, perhaps, rather than believing intelligence, exclaiming, "Whom have I in the heavens but Thee?"

It may here be noticed, once for all, that towards his pupils at Westerton he was ever gentle and indulgent. As their companion during the hours of relaxation, he entered into all their sports, and enjoyed their amusements along with them; yet his authority never was relaxed, and the bond of affec

HIS LOVE OF THE YOUNG.

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tion that united them to him appears to have been a beautiful combination of the filial and fraternal. Some of his earliest letters indicate his profound estimate of the importance that attaches to the young, and the need of moulding them, while impressible, for God; and in no respect did he walk more like the Shepherd of Israel than in thus carrying the lambs in his bosom. This continued one of his characteristics through life, insomuch that children instinctively discovered that he loved them, and loved him in return.

But while engaged in training the youth of his charge, he was not regardless of his own soul. His interest in it waxed perceptibly deeper and deeper; and he now began a system of rigid self-scrutiny, with a view to advance his spiritual welfare. He was averse at first to the close dealing which this implied; but "as the knowledge of the disease is the first step towards the remedy," he persisted in searching it out, and in one of his earliest entries he records this earnest petition :

"Do thou, O Lord! cause light to arise out of darkness -make the crooked places of my heart plain unto me! Convince me that it is the great distance at which I stand from thee, which prevents me from seeing more clearly the state of my heart, which, to my sad continual experience, I know to be deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.""

-He felt as if his interest in religion were only the effects of habit, or of hereditary convictions-such as parent may impart to child, or brother to brother, but not such as the Spirit plants in the soul; and for this he laboured more and more. Though there

58

HYPOCRISY DREADED.

is ample reason to believe that his efforts at first were those of one who would fit himself by assiduities, instead of coming as a sinner to be at once, and for ever, made "complete in Christ," for the favour of his God, yet he asked, as we are commanded, and he received he sought, and he found that the Saviour has "received gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious also." He was sternly jealous over himself— he feared lest nature should be substituted for grace, and he was delivered at length from that wasting delusion. The dead are never heard bewailing; and those who begin to mourn in their complaint and make a noise, have at least the spirit of conviction in the soul. "I feel no true delight in religious exercises"-" I am haunted by coldness of spirit"— "It would seem as if it were only to satisfy conscience that I at all enter on them"

66

My contentment with the formal fulfilling of duty is the index of a heartless state of mind"-these, and similar remarks, will

prove to the experienced Christian that the day was, at least, dawning, and the shadows beginning to flee away, while such searchings and anxieties of soul might sound as a knell in the ear of those whose. self-complacency no fear ever disturbs, who have no bands even in their death, and who are the victims of the law and its death at the very moment that they dream of the gospel and its life.

his

As his mind grew more and more earnest, fears were augmented, not by any morbid or selfconsuming spiritualism, but by an intelligent and exact analysis of his state of mind. Conscience, he felt, had been lulled to sleep by his formality, whereas, had he been less of a formalist, it might have

While exhibiting a

spoken in a voice like thunder. degree of earnestness which might have yielded intense gratification and a false peace to a self-righteous soul, he was writing bitter things against himself, and living in the daily dread of trusting to his religious training, as if that could supersede the power and demonstration of the Spirit, or be a substitute for the finished work of Christ, or render it unnecessary to make sure of a personal interest in Him.

The following extract, which leads us into the very shadow of Sinai, will show the workings of this exercised, though still unrenewed, soul. It should be remembered that he who wrote it was only eighteen years of age:

66 August 14.-What a world is this! How awfully depraved! How replete with crime and rebellion against God! Whether we look to the page of history, or to the records of daily observation, what do we find continually taking place but wars, and rumours of wars, insurrections, massacres, murders, thefts, and all manner of unnatural and abominable crimes? Is not justice continually taking its course of punishment on thousands of offenders? and yet is the complaint common that the strictest measures avail nothing to repress vice. Am I surprised at all this? Need I wonder that sin, collectively, is so strong, so obstinate? Is not the root of all in my own breast? Do I not there feel all those principles which exhibit themselves, in so many malignant forms, in the surrounding field of the world? From whence come wars and fightings ?-come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your mem-bers?' Is there a command of God which I have not broken in thought, word, and deed? Have I not suffered earthly objects to become my gods, by giving them the prerogatives which belong only to God? Have I not bent the

60

MAN'S HEART TESTED.

knee to such false representations of God in my mind as were as unlike Him as are the very images of the heathen? Have I not positively used God's name in vain, and am I not always withholding from it that honour and love which are its due? The Sabbath-day in how many ways have I broken; and how have I taken pleasure in those who did so! Did I ever render honour to my parents and superiors from right motives? and have I not often done what, if known, would have grieved and offended them? I have not killed; but have I not often been under the influence of motives and passions which differed only in degree from murder itself? Have I not too often cherished impurity and licentiousness, and listened with complacency to the words of the unclean? Have I always been careful to speak truth between man and man, and to maintain my neighbour's good name, without envy and without jealousy? Have I not coveted many things that were my neighbour's? Have I not always felt, as it were, a wish or inclination to do evil and not good? Was it not amongst my earliest

conscious exercises of reason to lie and to deceive others? Have I not since then acted the hypocrite in religionacting beyond my feelings-seeming to be what I was not? But it is needless to continue the list, else I might set down every action of my life, every thought of my breast, for they have been all evil, and that continually, before God. My sin has indeed been original sin, birth sin. From Adam downwards have we been defiled, and I with the rest! O Lord! look on me in mercy-remove the source of my depravity-change my heart-give me a right spirit—and then, at last, the desert shall blossom as the rose !'"

When we remember the reasonings-somewhat superficial, as might have been expected in a youth of seventeen-by which this young inquirer was swayed in deciding on the ministry as his profession, it will not surprise us to hear that, when his mind was at length concentrated on that subject, it be