Tchula Presbyterian Church.

Sabbath, 23 February: Fountainbridge

This second Sabbath at Foundtainbridge was a repetition of the first – the same liberty, the same tense silence, the same unknown power. If there is a night I shall never forget, this is it. Preached from Matthew 22:25 and indeed was upheld of God. When I got out Jim MacIver was waiting for me. All the way home not a word passed between us. The silence remained unbroken until we reached the upper side of Bruntsfield Links where our paths diverged. ‘Come to my digs, Kennie,’ said Jim in a low tense tone, ‘I want to speak to you’. His lodging was only about 50 yards from where we stood, and feeling that this was no ordinary matter I willingly went on with him. Nor was it. He gave me a full account of his spiritual experience leading up to the present, and now the whole gist of his difficulty was ‘What must I do to be saved?’ He had been well and religiously brought up, and religion he respected although he knew not its power. He had come to Edinburgh full of hopes and with the ambition to make a name for himself in the University – and well he might, for he had talents of no mean order and his educational successes up till then were second to none. Naturally sociable and a keen lover of music, besides being himself a musician and singer of outstanding talent, his natural proclivities tended to take him into a faster company than that to which he had been accustomed, but his association with the two Free Church Divinity students who were his fellow-lodgers served to tact as a wholesome restraint upon him. Not only so, but there he saw as never before the difference between the world and the Lord’s people, and he realised that he must make a choice as to with whom he was to throw in his portion. With a deepening realization of the seriousness of life he had gone to Fountainbridge that first Sabbath when I stood up, the trembling occupant of that austere pulpit. That very day and at the first service the truth gripped him. The evening service deepened it and he went out into the night at the close under the deepest conviction of sin. He strove to cast it from him; he was young and fresh, he wished to enjoy life a little, and taste all that youth craves for, and he was not willing yet to forfeit all this for peace with God – but his conscience would not be still. The wrath of God seemed to seize his very soul.

Jim was a different being when for the second time we both appeared in Fountainbridge, I to speak, he to listen, and the Word that day, especially that night, finished what it had begun. Poor Jim was crushed and broken, he had no strength left.

After unitedly seeking Divine guidance, it seemed so easy sitting there at the fire to explain the way of life to him. I had no experience in such cases and little would have confused and rendered me helpless, but the Lord must have mad teacher and taught suited for each other. In any case Jim seemed almost at once to grasp – and this was his chief difficulty – the difference between faith and feelings, and after a few words more of prayer I left him, as I have every reason to believe, a changed lad, a humble, rejoicing believer in Christ.

I thought I had reached the finish of this wonderful soul-stirring day when I left him sitting staring into the red glow of his bedroom fire, but about half an hour after my entry to my own home, I was surprised by a ring at the door-bell. Who was this but Jim, with a strangely excited yet awed expression upon his face! ‘Kennie, come and help Annie’, he panted, ‘She is as I was’. Out I went without delay, feeling myself absolutely helpless, yet unable to resist such a cry. I found that she too was under deep concern and would give anything to have peace of mind, but she seemed to be unable to grasp the truth which had set Jim free. At last after prayer with her I had to go, but on the door-step she entreated me to remember her and to try to help her. I sought my own door exulting at such signal tokens of the Lord’s power, yet feeling humbled to the dust. This is an encouragement to me to preach the Gospel.