Thoburn--called of God

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Foreword 7

I. The Man for India 13

Chapter I The Man For India

The great contribution that the home church makes to the peoples in foreign lands is the gift of her choicest sons and daughters. When opportunities for medical help, for education, and for sanitation and industrial development are opened to backward peoples, or to civilizations that have not kept step with the movements that have brought us to the strange new day in which we live, great service is rendered. But when, with these gifts of material equipment, the church sends carefully chosen men and women to so use this equipment as to quicken the people's understanding and arouse the slumbering spirit, or to quicken it so that it may throw off the spiritual fetters that arrest its progress, the value of the gift is multiplied many times. The doctor, if a "living soul," is worth many times the hospital building; the teacher, if a "quickening spirit," is a greater factor in bringing new life to a people than a complete set of university buildings. Indeed, it may boldly be said that not only is the contribution of chosen lives the greater contribution, but it gives significance to all the rest.

The increasing care of the church in selecting these agents of the gospel, that only duly equipped and God-anointed men shall be sent, attests our deepening belief in the matter. It is, therefore, with devout thankfulness to the great Father who holds all men in his loving thought that we call attention to the peculiar worth and felicity of the gift the Methodist Episcopal Church made to the peoples of India when, following the leadings of the Holy Spirit, James M. Thoburn was selected and sent to that great, peculiar, and difficult field.

Let us consider briefly the field and the man. India is peculiarly the "Orient." Here, more than anywhere else, life is held in molds or runs in channels most remote from the thoughts, or even the comprehension, of the West. But at the heart of this strange and complex life is a burning, passionate regard for religion, and with it a dreamy, mystic conception of what religion is and wherein it consists. Strange and

THE MAN FOR INDIA

subtle philosophies, rooted in pantheism or in thoroughgoing agnosticism, have filtered down into the poetic and imaginative soul of even the plain and unlearned people. And the masses, though unreasoning and inarticulate, are yet spiritually penetrated with a vague sense that life is illusory and transient. Add to this an almost universal prepossession to belief in the transmigration of the soul and a devotion and surrender to the customs and traditions of the past. It will at once be seen how this fragment of "the all" passing through its illusory experiences, with its "now" fixed in the matrix of all its yesterdays and shaping all its morrows, would vehemently resist any teaching of a discrete individual soul, with the possibility of its seeking and finding in a Saviour God both pardon for past sin and power to assert its moral sovereignty and to exercise its spiritual energy, moment by moment, as the days come and- go. Further, add to this a very deep pride of race, a high religious conceit, and a strong suspicion of all things new and unfamiliar, and then judge the character of the gospel agent whom you would select to send to India.

We would immediately pass over many a man admirably fitted to serve at home, or among some differently constituted people — the man of dogmatic speech ; the man without delicate antennae to discern and quick susceptibility to feel and sympathize with the earnest spiritual struggles and aspirations of men of utterly other mental training and outlook ; the man whose religious teaching can all be conveyed in clear, logical propositions, and to whom all movements must be in direct straight lines to escape the reproach of insincerity; the man without reverence for the past and, therefore, without any fellow feeling for that mental attitude which greatly dreads to assert the individual as over against both the solid traditions of the centuries and the social caste organism in which those traditions are preserved ; the man of bold, venturesome spirit, who knows nothing of what it costs a trembling, hesitant soul that has been built into a social and religious fabric, like a brick in a wall, to seek to break out of that wall to the dismay and, indeed, to the rending of the integrity of the whole order to which it belongs. In a word, your straightforward,

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honest, vigorous, sympathetic, and aggressively energetic man, bent on taking short cuts everywhere, and having all others go across lots with him, is not the man you would select for dreamy, nonventuresome, conservative, staid India.

In Thoburn, boy though he was when he first appeared as a missionary, were the opposites of all the undesirable qualities we have sketched, for he strangely combined great personal faith and conviction of the divine truth of the Christian religion with the utmost appreciation of the blind struggles toward the Light of many a devout Hindu "seeker after God." He seemed, with less effort than most Western men, to enter into the subtle, mystic thinking of India. Himself a singular blend of the mystical enthusiast and the clear-seeing, practically minded man of America, in him the East and West met and each supplemented and fulfilled the other as in very, very few The clear, penetrating intellect for affairs; the eye to see, with capacity to do, is in him so happily blended with a mysticism that borders on the realms of the superstitious without ever touching the line, that we might truthfully know one side of him without ever suspecting the other. In the commingling and the balance of these very diverse elements, however, has been his marvelous strength. Without this analysis of this man we could neither understand nor explain the accomplishments of his fruitful life.

Then, too, he is a religious democrat. He has known nothing of race prejudice nor of social caste feeling. Thrown with men of the highest social and official positions, he has ever been eager to approach and has been easily accessible to the low-caste and the out-caste of all races. Men and women have always been to him the subjects of his deep concern; and he has ever seen not the drunken white man, or harlot, or low-caste Hindu, or abusive Mohammedan, nor the military general or commissioner or highplaced man of wealth, but in all and each he has seen an immortal being, the defaced image of God, with infinite possibilities and, therefore of large potential value. And he has been the servant and the brother of all, seeking to recover each to the restored image of his Saviour God. A man he is of deep religious fervor, of unshaken religious con-

THE MAN FOR INDIA

viction, of intense belief that the gospel he bears is the only real hope of mankind — a man, too, of a loving heart, of democratic spirit, holding all men in reverence for the possibilities that are in them ; with eyes to see God in unusual settings and to see large values in truth under unusual forms and amid unfamiliar surroundings; a man with kindness of heart, of sacrificial spirit, eager to serve and, with it all a man of gracious manners and winsome speech.

How splendid the gift to India the readers of this book will see, if the writer can at all interpret to them the real James M. Thoburn.

Chapter II Thoburn— Early Days

"If you would build a man, begin with his grandmother." Thoburn's grandmother was "a woman of strong character, notable courage, and decided views in both religious and political matters." Her husband was nominally a Unitarian; but, seeking controversy with a visiting Methodist preacher, he was so impressed by that doughty traveler that the Crawford home in the little village of Rallp, County Antrim, Ireland, became the local headquarters of Methodism.

From this Irish home came Jane Lyle Crawford, a young woman of marked quality, tinged with the mystic quality that she was so notably to impart to her son.

Meanwhile, in another Irish village named Mollusk, near Belfast, another Methodist itinerant, meeting a young Irishman standing in the door of his widowed mother's cottage, shook hands with him heartily and asked his name.

THOBURN— EARLY DAYS

"My name is Matthew Thoburn."

"Well, Matthew, I am going to preach this evening in yonder cottage; won't you come and hear me and bring your mother with you?"

The couple went. That evening young Matthew was informally left in spiritual charge of the deeply impressed company as "class leader" until the preacher should return. A class leader and an effective exhorter Matthew Thoburn remained through life. It was when addressing a meeting Matthew met Jane Lyle Crawford.

She recognized in him at once the very person whom she believed God had shown her in a dream of the night when, sorrowing for her dead father, God had strengthened her heart by assuring her she had a lifework to do, and showed her the partner of her life career. This belief in visions and experiences of them recurs strangely in her son's life.

The Thoburns soon after their marriage sailed for America and settled in Saint Clairsville, Ohio, where was born on the seventh of March, 1836, their seventh child, a son, whom they named James Mills. Other children of this Irish family in America were an older sister — Ellen, afterward Mrs. General B. R. Cowen, for years the splendid leader of the Woman's Foreign Missionary forces in the Cincinnati Branch; and Isabella Thoburn of sainted memory, a woman of rare power and ability, one of the first two women missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church to any foreign field and the founder of the first Christian Woman's College in Asia — the Isabella Thoburn College, in Lucknow, India. "God bless the Irish." He does ; and has often used them to convey his blessing, as when he sent two such as the Thoburns, James and Isabella, to India.

Chapter III Unconscious Preparation And Conversion

James was a bright lad, and his discerning mother anticipated greatness for her boy, as mothers have ever done. When coming from Belfast, in Ireland, to her brother in Guernsey County, Ohio, before James was born, she saw beside the road the handsomest building she had yet seen in America. It was a four-story brick building which still stands beautiful and unshamed among numerous and handsome buildings which now surround it on the campus of one of western Pennsylvania's best-equipped schools — Allegheny College. It was Bentley Hall — and many an Alleghenian who reads these lines will both recall with affection old Bentley Hall, and • send thoughts of gratitude and thanks to President Crawford, whose magic wand has surrounded Bentley Hall with other noble buildings.

When James was fourteen and considered by his father to be a very bright lad, they were visited by a young college graduate, the late Dr. W. A. Davidson.

"One evening when he was with us, as we sat around our hospitable fireplace, my father asked him to test my knowledge of algebra, remarking at the same time that I had been through my algebra more than once. The preacher very readily undertook the task, but finding that I knew nothing about the science, except the method of 'doing the sums,' he turned abruptly to my father and said, 'Your little boy knows nothing about algebra.' To me this was a startling announcement. The teaching of those days was often imperfect, and I had not yet learned how to study on the independent basis. Our young pastor then explained the situation and kindly advised me to go back to the first page of arithmetic and begin all over again. He added that he would advise me to go to Allegheny College, where he himself had graduated, and not to rest until I had completed a full college course. I resolved to follow his advice, but little dreamed that in the early future a way would be opened for me, but only through bereavement and sorrow "

His father died, leaving a small estate to be divided among many children. But it was not the Thoburn way to be discouraged. The mother managed to find a little money for her son. "She gave me $162.50, and, telling me to spend this carefully, she sent me away, with her blessing."

"I understood perfectly well that this small sum would not suffice to keep me very long, but I was still young, with some of my boyhood and all of my youth ahead of me, and did not for a moment feel anxious for my financial future. I used all possible economy, and still remember that when I returned at the end of seven months I had expended only $87.50." It was characteristic of the independent spirit of the boy, even as early as in his fifteenth year, that, on arriving in Meadville, Pennsylvania, instead of "calling on President Barker and delivering my letter, I set off immediately to find a boarding house, and in the course of the afternoon succeeded in finding a good place on the brow of the hill overlooking the town and about half a mile from the village. Four young men and a boy somewhat younger than myself made up the company of students who shared with me the shelter of my new home. On Monday morning, August 23, 1851, my name was enrolled as a student of Allegheny College, and I selected my studies without asking or being asked a question of any kind. When this was done to my satisfaction I went in the afternoon to call on Dr. Barker, our college president, who read my letter of introduction, asked me a few questions, and expressed himself as satisfied with my arrangements which I had made. Six years later I received my diploma from his hands."

Concerning his religious condition at this time, he says: "I was not a member of the church, simply a well-meaning boy, in my fifteenth year. I had never been prayerless in my life. From my earliest consciousness I had been taught to pray, even if I had to do so in silence, or probably after getting into bed. I never omitted it. I took no part in the religious life of the college, until my awakening. During my second year at college, at the time of revival, I became very deeply awakened. This was increased by the conversion of my brother David, who was with me. His conversion was clear, and the effect was permanent in his case. I went forward for prayers in a great religious revival then in progress, at the old brick church, but found no light. The meeting was managed very badly. A boy such as I got little attention, and the advice given was simply random expressions which led nowhere. The college president gave me a week's absence from my recitations, but even when alone I made no progress."

The reason is evident; for young Thoburn was eminently reasonable in his approaches to the spiritual life. He has never been favorable to emotional outbursts. Perhaps he has not recognized their value with lethargic natures, where there is knowledge that needs to be galvanized into action.

The entire episode is so important that a full statement from the Bishop follows:

"On Sunday morning I went to church with a young man from Pittsburgh. As we went down to town I was full of spirits and quite gay in my manner, but all the time I was more or less moved by feelings which I did not understand. We entered the church, which was crowded, and found seats in a remote corner of the gallery. Bishop Kingsley, who was then professor of mathematics in our college, preached. His theme was the final judgment given in the book of Revelation, 'And I saw a great white throne,' etc. The familiar words impressed me deeply, and as the sermon proceeded I began to become agitated in a peculiar way. The sermon was impressive and at times eloquent, but a part of it seemed to me speculative and in a measure weak. But I was soon in no mood to notice the merits or demerits of the sermon. Like Paul in olden times, the professor reasoned of righteousness and judgment, and the impression made upon me was like that made upon the sinner in olden times. I trembled — trembled until I found myself trying to hold my knees steady lest my student friend should notice my agitation. But I soon became oblivious to all considerations of this kind, and determined that I would try and make my peace with God at once.

"At the close of his sermon the professor called on all who were awakened to a sense of their danger to come and kneel at the altar, while the people prayed for them. My mind was fully made up, and I turned at once to my friend and proposed that we go forward together. A blow in the face could hardly have startled him more. He was almost dumb with astonishment, but managed to decline my proposal. Dr. Robbins, who sat near us, overheard my remark, and kindly advised me to go alone. This I would have done in any case, and I rose, picked my way down among the young men and boys who crowded the stairs, and walked forward and fell upon my knees and wept bitterly. When the singing ceased Dr. Barker was asked to lead in prayer. He was evidently deeply moved, and began to pray in language which I could easily adopt as my own. I have often thought that if the people around had only kept quiet so that I could have heard that prayer to its end I might have been led step by step to the cross, and thus have found Christ as a living Saviour at the very outset. But it was not so to be. A score of men and probably women too, began to pray in loud tones, and in a moment all was confusion around me. No one came to instruct me, and, indeed, it seemed as if no one thought further about me. I had gone forward for prayers, and all took it for granted that in some way or another I could come out all right. For five successive nights this routine continued. I could hear nothing and understand nothing. Now and then I would hear some one shouting above me, 'Look up, my brother,' or some such expression of the kind, but only once in the course of five evenings was an intelligent effort made to find out my real condition and teach me how to trust in Christ. This was done by Professor Hamnett, who spent some time in trying to find out my difficulties and to lead me into the light.

"In later years I have often been led to protest against the way in which this kind of work is too often done. In many places invitations are given for awakened persons to come forward for prayers, but when they accept the call a scene of disorder takes the place of intelligent prayer, and instruction is made nothing of. Once not very long ago I heard a preacher urging the people to pray aloud and all together: 'People may not understand you, but God understands you. Don't be afraid to let your voices be heard,' etc. In Paul's day it was not considered a light thing to pray with the understanding, but in some places this counts for little now."

Following this he joined the church, but God would not let one for whom and from whom he expected great things, to rest in any such "twilight of the soul."

His money having given out, he was obliged to find a place as a teacher. This he did in Lloydsville, Ohio ; and, while teaching there, a revival of religion commenced, and the method of its progress was much better suited to the brooding young teacher. He says that while attending the village church a revival of religion occurred in which many young people were converted. The pastor made the announcement that Mr. Thoburn would lead the class meeting consisting of these young Christians. "He added that the first meeting would take place in the schoolhouse the next morning at nine o'clock. This was startling news. I had never prayed- audibly in my life. I knew nothing about some mysteries of the spiritual life with which most of the members of my class had already become familiar, but at last I saw it was imperative that I should obey. I accordingly went to the meeting and found a list of twenty-seven members and probationers who had been assigned to me for spiritual oversight. I told them frankly how I stood, but added that I intended to do my best, and leave the result to God. A visitor led the devotions that day, and before the next Sunday came round I was in the light, and found it a joy to pray, or speak, or do anything that came to me in the way of my duty as a servant of Jesus Christ.

"In these later days I often hear in song the words of the refrain, 'Trust and obey.' I had tried to trust, but had assumed that I could not obey Now the light had come, and life had become sweet, and the service of Christ was like daily food. The days went pleasantly and rapidly by, and all too soon the date came round at which I had determined to return to college. My class of twenty-seven had increased to over fifty, and sweet harmony and love had prevailed in all our meetings and social intercourse. If I had found it hard to gain an entrance into this little village, I found it much harder to get away from it. The directors were ready to meet any and every possible demand, and the people with one voice begged me to remain. The circuit preacher, the Rev. N. C. Worthington, advised and urged me to enter the Conference at once, and assured me that the door was wide open for me to enter. But something, a feeling which I could not define, impelled me to go back to college. I was only nineteen, and very youthful in appearance, and wisely judged that I was too young for the responsibilities of Conference membership, even if the question of my call to the work of preaching had been clearly and definitely settled. As yet, however, this was still an open question with me. I was not sure that God had chosen me for this work, and appreciated the danger of a mistake in a matter in which there was so much at stake, both for the church and myself. I accordingly bade adieu to Lloydsville and the dear circle of young people to whom I had become greatly attached, and in the early autumn returned to Meadville and entered the junior class in Allegheny College."

Thus did God clearly lead this young disciple into the clear light of the knowledge of personal salvation, and the second great step was taken in the fitting of a strong missionary for that wonderful career in which, amid strange people and in other tongues, he was to declare unto many the gospel of "the remission of sins" through faith in the atoning Saviour.

Chapter IV Called To Preach

Is there a distinctive "call to preach," or is much of what is so recorded in religious biography the mere subjective impression of the young mind gathered largely from traditions current in pious circles?

If a young man is a sincere Christian, has a good education and agreeable manners, possesses some powers of utterance and some facility in making friends and in securing the cooperation of others in religious projects— when he considers his lifework — may he not confidently assume that in the ordained ministry he will find a suitable career?

The question is raised not to attempt an answer, or even* to raise a discussion, but simply to record how one young man found his way into this sacred calling, who has proved, in his own case at least, the validity of the claim that God, in this most practical day, still continues to distinctly convey to the inquiring mind his will regarding the particular investment of the individual life.

On this subject Bishop Thoburn feels deeply, and said in regard to his own personal experience: "When I began to preach I soon began to feel the need of a clear and definite call to that work. I had conscientiously come to the conclusion that God would have me preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, but when I seemed to preach in vain, when people listened and yet did not seem to hear, and when no tangible result appeared in any quarter, I began to feel that life under such conditions would be insupportable. One afternoon during a series of meetings in Marlborough, Ohio, I went out into the woods near the village, and kneeling alone among the branches of a fallen maple tree, I talked the matter over with my Saviour, and there alone with him I received my clear and distinct commission to go and preach his gospel to dying men. I heard no words, but the commission could not have been more specific and clear had the visible Son of God said to me, 'Go preach my gospel.' From that hour I could preach with or without visible results. A foundation of adamant

CALLED TO PREACH

had glided under my feet, and I knew for Whom I was to speak, and what the message was with which I had been intrusted."

He says on the general subject: "The whole subject of divine calls should be studied not only more carefully, but also more generally than has been usual in the past. In a great multitude of cases no special direction is needed, but when it is needed, to what extent is it expected, and how are God's tokens to be interpreted? A very wide door opens before us when we ask these questions, and God has been explicit in promising help . 'In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.' I was left in no doubt or uncertainty concerning my call to missionary service in India. Many tokens were given, and many incidents were made to 'work together.' "

His mind was now fixed. His salary was but one hundred dollars a year, and more lucrative employment was offered him. But he knew he was "called to preach." His ministry in the homeland was brief, for he was soon to go to his real life task in a far country. But how intelligent, sane, and fruitful his home ministry was in its less than two years may be learned from his own record.

"My last special work before leaving my circuit was in the village of Greensburgh, Ohio. My senior preacher had been detained by illness in his family, and had asked me to take charge of a series of revival meetings at that place in his absence, and I was more than glad to do so. Up to this time I had never had charge of meetings of this kind, and for several reasons I coveted the privilege. The village was not large, but it contained three churches, and a majority of the people were communicants. I met with few difficulties at the outset, but very soon discovered that we were going to have enough to do. When I requested awakened persons to come forward for prayers there was an immediate response. Quite a number came, and there seemed to be deep and genuine feeling on the part of most of them. But the church was small, and the vacant space around the pulpit was limited, and it was simply impossible to instruct the seekers intelligently- Although much good resulted, yet the main result was not satisfactory Sinners were not converted. The persons who

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came out publicly to ask for prayers were in some cases crowded aside, and the general impression made was unfavorable.

"After vainly trying to overcome this difficulty and finding it impossible to do so in such cramped quarters, I announced I would be in the church at 4 o'clock the following afternoon, and would meet any persons who wished to have a talk with me about their spiritual interests. To my surprise, when I repaired to the church at the appointed hour I found so large a company that it seemed like a congregation met for a service, and the difficulty I experienced was that there were too many for a free talk with each separately. I therefore spoke to the entire company The result surprised my expectations. Many professed to see the way of faith clearly, and to emerge out of darkness, or at least twilight, into the clear light of God. All through these long years I have remembered with pleasure and gratitude those meetings which I was permitted to hold on the eve of my departure for my home in the distant East, and in later days I have often found occasion to repeat the plan pursued in that early day. All persons, especially all young persons, when seriously concerned about their spiritual interests, not only need instruction in the general sense of that word, but they need it in spiritual measure, line upon line, precept upon precept, and the utmost care should be taken to adapt the teaching in such cases to the special condition of the party concerned."

Chapter V Called To Foreign Mission- Ary Service

In the days of his unconscious preparation for the work before him, when he was but seventeen years old, he purchased a book not too attractively named Youthful Piety, which "contained two sermons by Dr. Olin." The reading of these powerfully affected him: