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Lorsque le document est trop grand pour 6tre reproduit en un k^ul clichA, it est fitmi A partir . de I'angle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d drdite.. et de haut en has, en prenant ie nombre . d'images niftcessaire. Les diagrammes sulvants '^ illustrent la-mAthode. /^ 1 /:%:. MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TfeST CHART / (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) J APPLIED liVHGE Infe ^ 1653' Eost Main Street Va Rochester, New York 14609 USA S (716) 482- OJdO- Phone ' S (716) 288 -5989 -Fox M MEMORIAL SERMON rRr^ACHHi) IN #t. ^mm' #(|Mtttt gr^j8*Dl^ria» (Stittrfb, TORONTO, ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF DUNCAN M'COLL, B.A., \ By JOHN M. KING, D.D. (For private circulation only. J • ' • * TORONTO: C. BLACKEiT ROBINSON, PRINTER, 5 JORDAN STREET. ■ • ' , . : ■ 1-883.. ■ :^•.. . ,:■, /' \ A ■■Si, : •X x: X f-y---..:'/-' ¥\ ^j-:.^-- •:,:j^.. ri^' ■/■ A ^^^ MEMORIAL SERMON ■% X tHkachbd in Jt |»mt]8i' Jpar^ "i,xt%\^)i\tx\m (^\k\m% / TORONTO, Uf\ ON THE OCCASION OF THfe DEATH OF DUNCAN M'COXIm B.A., .; . 'I • . V- By. JOHN M. KING, D,D. (I'll/' private chxuhif ion* only.) '^■■ TORONTO: C. BLACKETT ROBINSON, PRINTER, 5 JORDAN STREET. • ■. • ■' ■•]■ I-8-82. ■ • 1 / > '.<0^^ V' UNlVr A S&I ■_ff. ^MON rKI^ACIIBD IN ST. JAMIS' S<;UAl(> PHRSnVTBItlAN CHURCK, TORONTO, OU THB OCCASION OP TlIK DRATK OP q.UNCAN M'COlt-. H'A. *• He will beautify the meek with salvation."— Ps. cxlix. 4. The statement of this verse in both particulars, and in the connection of the one with the other, is a strik- ing one ; at least it becomes so the ntoment we ap- prehend its proper force, " The Lord taketh plea- sure in His people." They are not simply objects of His compassion and of His care; they are also ob- jects of His delight. He rejoices over them with joy ; He rests in His love ; He rejoices over them with singing. And taking pleajj^ Jn- His people, the Lord adorns them. The diPpht which He feels in them, leads Him to array them in beauty. He not only saves the meek. He beautifies them in the act of saving them. He not only clothes them "with the garments of salvation," He mak^s these to become at the same time the adornment of those who are clothed with them. "He will beautify the meek with salvation." It is this last truth which we are to con- sider this evening, with the help of such light as Scripture and observation throw upon it. The Lord give us eyes to discern, and hearts to apprecikte, the beauty to which it refers ! • ■ But first, who are the meek her^ spoken of? There is a meekness, or wha:t, at least, frequently goes among men by that name, which is nothing more than a ■ /• :■■ ■-•■<■/■■ . ■ . • '' ■■ : . ;• ■ \ . . .;•'.' ■ ■ "■ ■ <.-'.'■ ■■>%•:'■';• ••y pliant and facile disposition. It !• a simple matter of temperament— a purely natural quality, having nd con- nection with the person's state of heart towards God^ and possessing, therefore, little or no moral value. The meekness which is so often commended in Scrip- ture is a widely different quality. It is essentially- moral ; the effect, not of temperament, but of grace ; a " fruit of the Spirit." It denotes the fitting attitude towards God of one who is at once dependent and sinful ; who has no good but what he receives, and no claim, no right to receive any, even the smallest, save that which is accorded to him in the exercise of grace ; who submits readily, therefore, to the Divine appointments, humbling himself before Him who i» " of purer eyes than to behold evil," and making daily appeal to His mercy in the .spirit, if not in the very words, of the man who "smote upon his breast "and said, " God be merciful to me a sinner J " The grace i» not only a higb< it is, at least in its more marked forms, a rare attainment. It is one not easily reached. The human heart is by nature proud and rebellious, disposed to plume itself on its own fancied goodness, and to assert its own prerogatives, rather than to adore the perfect gpodne&s and to bow before the prerogatives of the Almighty, ^ow much ^ust God often do to us ; through what disoipline of disappoint- ment, loss, and sorrow n%ust He put us, before the heart becomes truly humble and resigned to His wiM*t It is surely very instructive that the primary mean- ing of^the word translated "meek," is, "afiflicted." The term employed in the passage before us means properly, suffering, depressed ; as if to show that in most cases, only when God has dealt with our hard • '."^ matures in the way of judgment or chastisement, are their high thoughts and lofty imaginations brought down, and the spirit rendered entirely humble and submissive. /. The meeW, thus, are the humble in heart, the poor in spirit, the contrite. The statement made respect- ing them is, that the Lord " will beautify them with salvation." The underlying truth here is, that He will bestow on them salvation. It is one to which numerous passages bear testimony. " Thus sailh the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whoso name is Holy ; I dwell in the high and holy place, with liim also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." *' The Lord preservcth the simple ;" " God saves the meek. " The key of the king- dom is in the hands of the humble. " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." God pardons those who are penitent. He justifies^ those who condemn themselves. He "giveth grace to the humble." He exalts them of low degree. He visits the lowly with salvation. He works deliverance for those who, renouncing eyery other confidence, look only to Him. He saves thdse who exercise faith ; but what [s faith, but meekness, reclining where it has found a worthy ground of confidence ] t^ "God sav^s the meek." This is the implied or underlying truth in the text. The main trtith, how- ever, which the text asserts is, that God not only saves the meek, but beautifies them in saving them ; that He not only gives grace to the humble, but in giving them grace He renders them lovely and at- tractive ; that the salvation which is of God becpmeai ^ - ^WP in some way the ornament of the man on whom it is bestowed. ' In seekij3g> t<^ estimate the constituents of the beauty of which the Psalmist speaks, one must begin with forgiveness. The process of beautifying the meek may be said to commence in pardoning Iheir sins. All sin is deformity. It is not only a wrong against God, and an injury to -the man himself wha commits it; it is an evil and unsightly things, abomin> able to God and to all pure beings. There is no room to spealc of beauty so long as the life is charge- able therewith. Inf pardon, God sets the man free from it. Forgiveness is not simply release* from guilt and from punishment ; it is release from the sin itself, which draws after it guttt and which deserves punishment. The sinner is not only delivered from wrath, yea, restored to favour, he is also 'cleansed. His sin itself is cancelled, blotted out by Him who has the sole and exclusive power to do this. And thusvthe sinner forgiven is no longer a proper object of aversion. That in him which awoke repulsion has been removed. If, in the act of forgiveness, positive beauty is not imparted, at least actual defilement is taken away, and the proper and indispensable founda- tion laid for those graces in which the soul is to be arrayed. The more deep and spjiritual our concep- tion of what foYgiveaess is, the more closely shall we discover it to be allied with that beauty with which God clothes the meek. r But if forgiveness if the commencement, it is the commencement only, of that process of beautifying the meek, to which the te^t refets. Other and more posi- ( tive adornments follow. The forgiven are also sane- tificd. "The washing of. regeneration » is accom- panied by " the renewing of the Holy Ghost." The image of God is restored to the soul. " The new man is put on, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." The believer becomes a new crea- ture in Jesus Christ. His life is brought under the influ- ence of new motives, is informed bya new spirit, and is marked by new and heavenl^j^ qualities. The grace of God, in bringing, salvation to him, teaches him to "live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world." He is made a participant of the Spirit of God, and "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith." The salvation that is of God carries with it such re* suits as these, or rather, they^ form its very essence; and just because of this is the soul beautified in being saved, are the meek clothed with beauty in being clothed with the garments of salvation. The graces which are produced in them, patience, temperance godliness, brotherly kindness, "charity ; the pure aim, the upright life, the heavenly mind, the gentle and tender heart, are not o^ly of inestimable value, they are supremely beautiful. They at once accredit and adorn the discipleship on which they are stamped. He whose work they are does more than secure the safety of those in whom they are found. He invests them with charms, which are not the less real that they can be fully appreciated only by the spiritually- minded or the pure in heart. In other words. He beautifies the meek in the very act of saving them. i have said nothing as yet of the sentiments which are awakened in the breasts of the saved ; the sentiment of gratitude for the red e mption which has been wrought. ^ te- 7 ■■ 8 and at so great a cost ; the peace, sometimes rising into joy, with which the soul is filled as it contemplates the perfection of the Saviour's sacrifice, the liope to which it is b^otten by His resurrection from the dead, the love by which it is inspired not only to the Lord, but to all who are His. But no proper estimate can be formed of the beauty which God puts on the meek, while these are overlooked. These sentiments, indeed, so unmistakably divine in their origination and char- acter, may be said to do for the Christian life in gen- eral what the sunlight does for the ordinary landscape, lending a new charm to rock and tree and river, glori- fying its commonest features. The whole character is irradiated by their heavenly glow. Than the devo- tion of the saved to Him who redeemed them with His blood ; than the love they bear to those who share in this redemption ; than the peace, so deep and holy, of the soul which has come to rest beneath the cross ; than its joy, so bright, yet so free from boisterous ex- citement, when it gives itself to Christ's service and feels assured of His favour ; than the hope of a heaven of which He shall be the chief attraction ;— than these, human life has nothi9|g more beautiful to show— noth- ing, indeed, half so beautiful. But they are, in one measure or another, the common attainments of the saved. It is once more true, then, that God l^eautifies the meek witln salvation. We see the work only in process of accomplishment here, even in the case of the most advanced. Heaven will first witness its completion. The salvation of the meek will be first perfected when they enter into the presence of their Lord, and with and through the per- fecting of their salvation shall come the perfecting of -v/ the beauty oftheir characters and persons. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him." Then, first, when found in that likeness— when, having "borne the image of the earthly," they "bear the image of the heavenly "—when, having laid aside forever the sin^ stained rMments of earth, they receive the vesture of heaven and join the company of the white-robed, will the words come to their full meaning, " He will beau- tify the meek with salvation." It has not escaped your notice that in beautifying the meek God lends beauty to beauty. There is ho incongruity here between object and embellishment such as we often see in human life, but, on the contrary, the most perfect harmony, as when God sows glittering stars in the deep, clear vault of heaven, ot^scatters in profusion flowers of many hues in the green meadow. The adornment, moreover, is of no external kind. It forms a part of the man. It is inseparable from his character. It seems brought out rather than put on ; reseniblihg the vesture pf green with which spring clothes field and forest, rather than the snowy robe in which winter wraps all things. Even when it assumes its hifijhest character— when what is grace here deve, lops into glory there, it is "the glory which shall be revealed tn us" To no one who was acquainted with the deceased will it be matter of surprise that, called to speak re- specting him, the thoughts of the preacher have turned to the theme which has been npw discussed, Duncan McColl was deeply pious, and piety in him was pre- eminently beautiful. There was a captivating charin about it such as all confess in the smile of iDfancy,.or ,1 ■ i -m ■f'-' "\. . the calmjbcncvolent face of age. This was indeed its outstapdmg feature. The story of his brief life is soon told, and it may be told perhaps as appropriately here in this church with which he had so long a con- nection as anywhere else. He was born in the town- ^^hip of Westminster in iaS3i of pious parents, one of whom laboured for many years and with great accept- ance as a catechist in the neighbouring districts ; the other is spared to mourn his loss. Having received such elementary instruction near his home as the pub- lic school could give him, he went at thirteen years of age to London, and for the next four years attended the High School of that city. He then tauglit for a period of one year and nine months, continuing at the same time his preparation for the University of Toronto, which he entered as a second year's student in October, 1873. At an early period in his University course' his health threatened to give way. Attendance ; in classes was discontinued for a time, and the former and loved but exhausting work of teaching was re- sumed, this time in the city of Hamilton, Returning to Toronto, he completed his literary studies in the spring of 1878 with much honour, though without the distinctions which would have been rfeadily his, had he possessed a frame capable of the strain of more con- tinuous exertion. Entering Knox College, to the professors and students of which he was greatjy endeared, atid discharging wi^ marked fidelity and success the duties of classical titor in the institution for the last two sessions of his course, he completed his theological studies in the spring of 1881, and left thi» city in a state of health which excited the alarm UWF A I of his friends, and which he himself knew to be ex- ARCHIVES n \. tremely threatening. By the advice of physicians, he went in July to Wyoming and Colorado, and for a time he seemed to receive benefit from the drier and more bracing atmosphere of that country. But the benefit was only partial and temporary. He returned to Canada in the early part of January, and after nine weeks of little pain, but of daily increasing weakness, receiving throughout the attention of those to whom he was very dear, he passed peacefully away on the morning of Sabbath, the 19th of March. Passing from the outward facts of his life, and coming to its inWai^d character, it appears that he was one of those in whose case religious life be|fins in very early years. Before he was ten years of age, the books which appeal to that life and nourish it were favourites with ^iiQ. Before leaving London he made public profeS^)of his faith in Christ, under the ministry oifSeKev. Mr. Scott, for whom he cherished a warnr aija lasting regard. In October, 1873, he joined the membership of this congregation, and, with the excep- tion of a brief interval spent in Hamilton, he con- tinued to be connected with it until God called him to a purer fellowship. In the earlier years he was a regular attendant on tl\e'Bible-class, and to the last of his residence ii^..this city he was an earnest and devout worshippel-. Most of the students of our Church, as you know, employ the summer mont-hs in supplying with ordinances districts which do not possess settled pastors. These months, in the case of the deceased, shdiild probably have been kept for re- creation. But the people in more than one Mission station, coming to know his worth, urged^him to give them the benefit of his services. In this way he . - --■ - ■■■ ■■■^'^^" -'7 r 12 i7-, \. laboured for three months with much zeal ahd with the very best results in London East, and on another occasion for a similar or perhaps longer period, in' a suburb of our city. It was his ambition, almost his passion* to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ ; and as if to seize and enjoy, for however brief a period, a gratification of which death was threatening to rob him, he undertook in the month of November last to give supply to the vacant congregation of Fort Collins, in Colorado. He preached his last sermon to it on the ist of January. A minister of bur Church, the Rev. Dr. Smith, of Kingston, going there soon after he had left, bears testimony to the wonderful effect produced on a population far from impressible by that less than two months' ministry. He spoke doubtless as a dying man. His message was one the preciousness of which he felt in every fibre of his being» and he spoke it with such tenderness and winning power that the most indifferent were impressed as they had never been before. He loved life ; he had more cause than many to love it, for he had a keen appreciation of its more refined pleasures. There is no reason to think that, any more than others, he was able to accept the alternative of death without some inward conflict. This over, he bowed with entire submission to what was seen to be the will of God. Those who visited hitti in the last weeks of his life, if Christian, were cheered by blessed testimonies to the power of the Gospel; if indifferent and unbelieving, were most faithfully and tenderly warned and entreated. To the relatives who had the privilege of attending on him du r ing his illness he i s p oke many pre cious and memorable words. The promises of Scripture were ■ i V-, .■■■■■■':.' 1-3 . * his stay and his comfofl ; he dwelt on them with evident delight, repeating to the end such words as thes6 : "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee ; " " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate ^ us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesusr oor Lord ; " or words older still, in which the fatherly pity of God is interwoven with the fact of humai| frailty, and the fleetingness of mih's life is made to supply the ground on which all the more strikingly are brought out the never-failing righteousness and mercy of God> "L'ke as a father pitieUi his children, so the Lord piticth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that .we are dust As for man, his days are as grass ; as a flower of theiiel^, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting td everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children's children." The Church, it is not wrong to say, has sustained a great loss in the early removal of this promising student. To intellectual ability of a high order, culti- vated as fully as his years and his tender frame would allow, he added a refined taste and most winning manners. His piety was at once intelligent and fer- , vent. His disposition was bright, almost gay, and his face reflected easily and naturally the light which w as within . His aims were noble, his conduct at once pure and ttanspareiit, and his conscience tender. ■',>■ 14 m Gentle, he was not facile. Courteous and obliging to a degree in matters of mere convenience, he was firm as a rock in matters of principle. Take him altogether, he seemed one fitted by nature and by grace to fill with honour and with usefulness one of the most im- portant spheres in the Church. In the ministry he would have won the hearts of the children and the young by his affability and sprightliness ; he would have drawn to himself the weak, the sufTering, the bereaved, by the tenderness and delicacy of his sympathies ; he would have commanded the apprecia- tion of the mature and of the most cultivated by the boldness and moderation and fervour of his presen- tations of truth ; while he would have won the respect of all by the integrity and the nobleness of his life. Still, I am very far from saying that it is all loss ; that the life has been lived either to no purpose or to small purpose. If the poet could cherish and express the trust; «. ■;. •.; ■■■«>,■ ^ ' .■■ ' .■■■., ■ :■ - . .■"■■■■■■ ■".'.■"'■ '■, ■ ' ■■■.■■' . ' ■ ■ ; ' ' ■ ■ i .:'.■' "^ '' ' '...■*' / ■ ■ ■ ' - * ' ■ • ■ ■ ■ , ■ • ■ . ■.«■■■ , ■ . ....■••■'■■■. ':■■■.'"' ■:■■"■■;-',-■-■'"•■■ ■■.;■'-•■■... .;e / r ■^ '^ •M.- 4^ 4 ■■'MWf'- UNITED CHURCH : ARCHIVES -' *