Essay and Memoir
on Robert Flockhart
From "Autobiography of Robert
Flockhart, the Street Preacher"
IT was before the fall of the leaf in 1857, but when the
fields around Edinburgh, along the foot of the Pentland Hills, and on the
shores of the Firth of Forth, were flashing with sickles, and white for the
harvest, that Robert Flockhart, the author and subject of the following memoir,
fell like a shock of corn in its season.
On the morning of the day that
proved to be his last upon earth, I received a letter informing me that he was
dying, and that he had expressed a wish to see me. I hastened to his house in
Richmond Place. Knowing that his wife was dead, and that he had no child to
nurse him in his old age, I feared that I should find him but poorly attended
to ; but his Master had provided kind friends for the old man's comfort. The
small apartment in which he dlwelt, and whose walls, if I may say so, he had
sanctified by so many prayers, was clean and tidy, and I found a young man and
woman watching over him, and ministering to his wants with filial affection. On
entering the apartment, I was much struck by his aspect. Propped up for freer
breathing, his head lay quietly on a snow-white pillow; and although the film
of death was on his eye, and the features were sharp and pinched, his
countenance was, as it were, radiant. I have seen many dying; but none whose
face wore an air so heavenly. It looked as if light was streaming on it down
from those gates of glory that angel hands were rolling open to admit his
departing spirit.
They told him that I had arrived. Making an effort, and
stretching out his hand, which was burning hot - for by this time he was
posting fast to eternity - he said, in a low whisper, and in his own kind and
homely way, "0 man, I'm glad to see you." Perhaps I should have congratulated
him, as one who had been a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and had, through
grace, fought the battle well, that his fight was so nearly done, and the crown
so nearly won. But having a great regard for him, and great admiration of the
large and loving heart, of the self-denying devotedness, and of the true
Christian heroism, with which he had served our common Master, I and saying
that I was sorry to see him laid so could not help thinking more of our loss
than of his gain, and saying that I was sorry to see him laid so low. It would
be difficult to convey to the reader any adequate idea of the delight expressed
in the look and the tone with which he quickly replied, I'm going home, I'm
going home." The scene was worth a thousand sermons, and would have given birth
in the heart of the coldest worldling to the wish, "Let me die the death of the
righteous, and let my last end be like his."
I saw that he was eager to
communicate something. But by this time his voice was sunk to a whisper, and
his speech was so thick and faltering, that although I bent over his pillow to
catch the words, all that I could gather was something One of his attendants
explained that he wished to commit to my care a Life of himself, in the hope
that I would take charge of it. On my at once assenting to the request, an
expression of great satisfaction passed, like a sunbeam, over his dying face,
and pressing my hand, he thanked me as best he could. Having joined together in
prayer, or rather in praise and thanksgiving, we parted in the hope of meeting
in a better world; and in a very few hours afterwards, the Master he had loved
so well and served so long, said, "Come up hither.
In the following
memoir, the reader will find the best portrait of the heart and soul of this
remarkable man. Robert Flockhart had been a great sinner, and He who in other
days had changed the bitterest persecutor of the church into its noblest
preacher, had changed him into a great saint. He had sinned much, had been
forgiven much, and so he loved much. He had often exposed himself to disgrace,
danger, and death itself in Satan s service; and, if there had been need for
it, I believe there was no man in Edinburgh who would have gone to the stake or
scaffold for Jesus Christ with a firmer step or nobler bearing than this brave
old soldier of the cross. He united the most ardent piety and untiring zeal to
indomitable courage, and had no idea of flinching, whether he was called to
fight the French at Port Louis, or for Christ and God's truth, face ribald
crowds in the High Street or West Port of Edinburgh.
As to his bodily
appearance, his presence, like that of Paul's, might be called "contemptible."
He was a man of diminutive stature; he had a shuffling gait; he was ill hung in
the limbs; and had a curious cast of the eye. On the other hand, his face,
reflecting like a mirror the emotions of the inner man, and every feeling which
swept over his soul, was full of expression. He abounded in the gesticulations
of a natural oratory; and being endowed with keen sensibility, and easily
affected himself, he had therefore the power of moving others.
It must be
confessed that he was at times carried beyond the bounds of propriety by the
vehemence of his feelings. We have read a defence made by a Highland minister
of the sins of his people, which was certainly more ingenious than sound: He
said, that their vices sprang out of their virtues - they were a brave people,
therefore they were given to fighting and quarrels - they were by nature very
polite, therefore, to make themselves agreeable, they did not always stick to
the truth - they were very hospitable, therefore they often got drunk. With
more justice I may say, that Robert Flockhart s defects were the excess of
noble properties. His vehemence in the cause of religion occasionally ran him
into intemperance; his graphic powers, although consecrated to God,
occasionally passed from the picturesque into the grotesque; and having, like
most other men of true genius, a very lively sense of the ludicrous, he
sometimes indulged his humour in circumstances where it would have, been better
restrained. There are many stories of smart repartees and odd sayings fathered
upon Flockhart, as on Rowland Hill and other such men, which I believe are not
true; but so far as they are so, it is but justice to his memory to remember
the rude and irritating provocations to which, as a street preacher, he was
often exposed, and also that he was the foremost to acknowledge his own faults,
saying, "I know that I sometimes say what I should not."
The following
autobiography was written to dictation, at various times, and by various hands,
and the pecuniary profits are to be given to the Indian mission, as Robert
Flockhart wished, because it was in India that God called and converted him. It
has cost some trouble to put it into shape and order, but in doing so, the
editor has been careful to preserve its salt, and give it to the church and
world, as given to him, with as few alterations as possible. He leaves Robert
to speak for himself; hut while admiring the zeal, and powers, and piety of a
man who has in so many things set us an example that we should follow him, even
as he followed Christ, the editor is not to be understood as approving of
everything that he either said or did. He has only further to add, in justice
to the memory of two excellent men, who appear, according to the memoir, to
have acted harshly towards Flockhart, that he has no doubt, unaccustomed as the
world then was to street preaching, and imperfectly acquainted, as they were,
with Robert's peculiar temperament, that Dr Stewart and the Rev. Christopher
Anderson looked upon him as insane, and one who had no right to say with Paul,
"I am not mad, most noble Festus!"
Thomas
Guthrie. EDINBURGH, March 31st 1858.
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