VIII

ALEXANDER MCLAREN

1826-1901 (918.

Dr. McLaren is one of the greatest and most interesting preachers of the last century. The recent biography by his sister-in-law, published by Hodder and Stoughton, gives us an interesting and seemingly just account of his life and personal character, which is both trustworthy and complete. “In this book," the author says in the preface, "Dr. McLaren's name is spelt as he signed it, not Maclaren as in his published works."

From the materials furnished by this biography we derive the particulars in regard to the subject of our sketch. He was born in Glasgow, February 11, 1826. He was the son of David and Mary McLaren, and the youngest child in their family of six. His parents were Christian people of the Puritan type. His father, David McLaren, was a business man but "eagerly devoted his leisure hours to Christian work" especially to preaching the gospel. "He had many business anxieties, "his son says, "but his children remember to have heard him say that when he began his preparation for Sabbath on the Saturday afternoon, all his troubles passed from his mind, and left him undisturbed till Monday morning, when the fight was renewed."

"His ministry," his son adds, "was marked by much intellectual vigor and clearness. It was richly scriptural, expository, and withal, earnestly evangelistic. Its key-note was: "That which we have seen with our eyes and our hands have handled of the word of life—we declare unto you.' His children set on his tombstone the two words 'steadfast, unmoveable.""

The father, like his son, was a Baptist, and Alexander inherited from him, besides this denominational bias, mental and spiritual traits.

The mother, Mary Wingate, was a person, "whose patient fortitude, calm wisdom and changeless love were her husband's treasure for many years of mingled sunshine and storm," and left a memory "fragrant to her children."

Alexander went through the course of the High school of Glasgow, and entered its University in his fifteenth year, but he continued there only a year because of the removal of his family to London. In that one year, however, he distinguished himself by his superior scholarship, so that at its close he received several prizes. "He remembered all his life," we are told, "that prize giving. He was seated far back, and the first time his name was called he had to be waited for, so the Master remarked to the Lord Provost who presided, "This young gentleman has to appear so often that he had better be accommodated with a seat nearer the table.'"

Cambridge and Oxford in those days were not open to Non-conformists, so after examination, he

entered, in 1842, the Baptist College at Stepney, now transplanted to Regent Park, London. The committee before whom he appeared were struck with his boyish appearance and also with the excellence of his examination papers.

The principal of Stepney College at that time was Dr. Benjamin Davis. To him Alexander McLaren "owed his lifelong habit of patient, minute study of the original, not only in the preparation of sermons, but in his daily reading of Scriptures for his own spiritual life."

It is proper that here we should speak of the conscious beginning and development of his religious life. Of course, being the child of such Christian parents, he was the subject of early religious impressions, but these did not crystallize into definite shape until, in those years of his boyhood, he joined a Bible class taught by the Rev. David Russell, a Congregational minister and afterward his brother-in-law. In connection with this Bible class Mr. Russell held some revival meetings which he attended with the result that, "to him, under God," Dr. McLaren said in his old age, "I owe the quickening of early religious impressions into loving faith and surrender, and to him I owe also much wise and affectionate counsel in my boyish years. He joined the Hope St. Baptist Church, Glasgow, when fourteen years of age, and when, two or three years later, he entered the Baptist College at Stepney with its theological course of study, it was with the purpose of preparing himself for the ministry. Shortly before his death, he said: "I cannot recall

ever having had any hesitation as to being a minister; it seems to me it must have been simply taken for granted by my father and mother and myself; it just had to be."

Before he had completed his twentieth year, he was sent by the authorities of Stepney College to preach one Sunday, November 16, 1845, at Portland Chapel, Southampton. His preaching gave such satisfaction that he was invited to preach there three months. The trial resulted in a call by the church to be its pastor. The place was not very inviting the congregation was small and the salary meagre, and the chapel had a past history that was clouded with failure. But he accepted the call notwithstanding, saying: "If the worse comes to the worst, I shall at all events not have to reflect that I have killed a flourishing plant, but only assisted at the funeral of a withered one." He began his pastorate there, June 28, 1846, when he was but little more than twenty years of age, and he remained in it twelve years. For ten of those years he remained single, working strenuously to build up his "poor little congregation," which gradually but steadily grew in numbers and influence. Later in life, when he had become a famous preacher he said that he was "thankful that the early part of his ministry had been spent with such a church in a quiet corner of England where he had leisure to grow and time to think." "The trouble with most of you young fellows," he said to a company of young ministers, "is that you are pitchforked at once into prominent

positions and have to spend your time in attending meetings, anniversaries, and even breakfasts, when you ought to be at home studying your Bible.'

His conception of the Christian ministry was that it was preeminently a ministry of Christian truth, and he applied himself diligently to the study of the Christian Scriptures. He studied them not only as presented in the best English versions, but in the original Hebrew and Greek. This was evident from his manner of reading the Scriptures in public worship, from the emphasis given to the significant words, from the clear insight into their real meaning revealed and the sympathetic interpretation he gave of it because of his previous careful study. "Every day," we are told, "he read a chapter in the Hebrew Old Testament and one in the Greek New Testament." He was a careful exigete of the Bible and on his careful exegesis he based his illuminating expositions of its truth. "The best lesson," says Dr. Parkhurst, "which McLaren teaches the preachers of today is the necessity of direct and absorbing work upon the Bible, in order to be able to speak with interest and power; and that the Bible only needs hard, faithful study to yield that which will be most fresh, vivid and interesting and helpful to our congregations.

Those years of his young manhood with that small Southampton church were formative years, years determinative of his destiny, as the first years of a man's ministry usually are. In them his habits of study and his methods of work were formed and perfected; in them his conceptions and ideals of