On "The Cure of Souls" by John Watson

by Jesse Halsey | Monday Morning | 12/19/49





With thanks to: The Jesse Halsey Manuscript Collection. Special Collections, Princeton Theological Seminary Library.

Parish Paragraphs, In Lieu of a Pastoral Epistle

March 22, 1931

The Seventh Presbyterian Church

In Cincinnati

Jesse Halsey, Minister

“I wish that you would put up with a little ‘folly’ from me. Do put up with it, for I feel a divine jealousy on your behalf.” –II Cor. 11: 1-2.

It is eighteen years ago Sunday that the present minister first preached in this church. Mr. Garvey and Mr. Besuden met him at the door. On the afternoon of the following Sunday (Easter Day) Judge Hollister and Mr. Ballantyne talked with him about the possibility of his becoming the minister . . .

This is from Ian Maclaren, my patron saint. (An elder is speaking to a young minister.) “There is just on thing that the brethren laid upon me to say, and you will not be considering it a liberty from the elders. You are never to be troubled in the pulpit, or to be thinking about anything but the Word of the Lord and the souls of the people, of which you are the shepherd. We will ask you to remember, when you stand in your place to speak to us in the name of the Lord, that as the smoke goeth up from the homes of the people in the morning, so their prayers will be ascending for their minister, and, as you look down upon us before you begin to speak, maybe you will say to yourself, “They are all loving me.’”

. . .

The acoustics in the church are bad. Two thousand dollars worth of acoustical material would cure it. But there is another way—a full house, and all hear perfectly! The hard surfaces are too many; but four to five hundred people will cure it. On Easter Day, with its crowd, you can hear a pin drop. If one day, why not other days?

The Canvass comes on March 22. The preacher will talk about money. Nothing sordid in that. The Romance of the Kingdom is tied up with its use. “Good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

This from Carl W. Petty: he is describing two ministers, acquaintances: “one gives a brilliant performance. His sermons are literary gems, his delivery is faultless. But when he is through that is the end of it. He has a metropolitan pulpit, but he preaches in the suburbs of the great realities. He juggles skillfully with secondary issues. There is no urgency in his preaching. And there is B--, his sermons show carful preparation, but preparation for an event rather than a performance. His sermons do not scintillate, but they stab into the heart of things. Preaching for him means wrestling with stern reality, asking no quarter nor giving any. When he is through you go out convinced something ought to be done about it, and that you are a partner in the responsibility of getting it done.”

On Death

MS. For Russell Dicks, 1500-1800 words

By Rev. Jesse Halsey, D.D.

Lane Professor of Pastoral Theology and Liturgics

McCormick Theological Seminary | c1947

The Puritans gave much thought to death; we give very little. But with the passing of a friend or relative, and with increasing years, death comes nearer and reveals to us his fearsome mien. One modern preacher of wide experience avers that “death is not long from the thought of any person.”

Be that as it may, the writer here testifies that only twice in a ministry of forty years has any person come deliberately and asked frankly and fearlessly to talk about death.

The writer of Hebrews says that Christ came “to destroy him that hath the power of death (that is, the devil) and to deliver them who through fear of death were al their life-time subject to bondage.” Even without Luther’s emphasis on the part the devil plays in the picture, we would all gladly confess that the deliverance from this, as form every other devastating fear is in some very real measure related to Christ and our fellowship with  Him.

First then, look at His teaching; then at His experience, though they are so interwoven that, with Chaucer, we rejoice in saying, “first He wrought and afterwards He taught.”

Jesus never argues about God’s existence or being; He calls God “Father,” and teaches his disciples to pray and say “Our Father.” He himself is overhead to pray thus, “Father, I thank Thee . . .” (Luke 10:21) In the hour of death He asks the question we often ask, “My God, why? . . .” thus bringing comfort to many who have come after:  “in all our affliction he was afflicted . . .” He learned obedience by the things that he suffered: “having suffered being tempted he is able to succor them that are tempted.” But in the last article of death He is heard to murmur—or was it in a strong voice to say, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” This is the ultimate faith, His or ours.

Likewise, Jesus never argues about immortality, He takes it for granted. It is an axiom of faith. Stated in argument: “A cosmos cannot have a chaos for its crown” (Latze), it seems reasonable. But that was not Jesus’ approach. In the Upper Room when they were all distressed by his departure, He said, “Let not your hearts be troubled, ye believe in God; believe also in me; in my Father’s house are many rooms: If it were not so I would have told you.” Philip was not the last to ask such questions, nor the last to get an answer: “not what I do believe, but Whom”; “I know whom I have believed (trusted) and am persuaded He is able . . .”

“We do not believe in immortality because we can prove it, but we constantly try to prove it because we believe it,” so says Martineau. Then, as George Herbert Palmer said at the death of his wife, “emotion joins our reason,” and we refuse to longer doubt.

As Christians we walk by faith and in the fellowship of Christ: trusting as He trusted, it is impossible to be afraid. Many, like Mr. Fearing and his daughter, Miss Much-Afraid, when they finally come to the river go over “not much above wet-shod.” The roots of our religion are in Christ’s resurrection and the concomitant belief that as He lives we shall live also. Communion with Him along the way—prayer as we most often call it—is the –is the secret. Willum MacLure, the Highland doctor who all his life from boyhood had knelt down every night and said, “Now I lay me down to sleep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take, and this I ask for Jesus’ sake. Amen,” like many another found light in the night of death. Prayer; honest confession; bold assurance of faith; humility, confidence, trust; “vocal or unexpressed”; this is the best preparation for death.

An illuminating experience, and encouraging to us because it is rather typical of the experience of many others who have for human reasons changed their point of view with a change of personal circumstances, is that of Sir William Osler, the great physician, who in a lecture on Immortality delivered at Harvard* in 1904 says that as a physician he has seen many persons die and most of them were unconscious or unconcerned. He confesses that he is also a “Laodicean,” i.e., indifferent (Revelation 3:15). Some ten years later his only son, Revere, was killed in the First World War. Sir William’s whole attitude changed. Thereafter he was often heard singing or humming snatches of Abelard’s hymn about heaven: “O what the joy and the glory must be.” His center of gravity had changed.

When the feelings are neutral one can argue for or against immortality in as remote a way as some of the Ingersoll lectures*, but “let one of his own flesh and blood bid him goodbye and pass within the veil and reason surrenders the place to love, and many a man has set his face toward the Eternal City in the hope that he may again see a golden head on which the sun is ever shining.” (Ian Maclaren)

“Aunt” Abby Grey, ninety years old was dying. She had read the Bible through over sixty times and knew great passages by heart. In her youth she had learned an ancient catechism. Her young pastor stood by her bed. Because her children, and her children’s children who stood by were of another form of faith, the minister had read from their Book, with no response from the patient. Then the minister began to repeat, “In my Father’s house . . .” The old lady picked up a verbal inaccuracy and carried on half the chapter, then sank into a coma. Presently, however, her lips moved and the nurse said that she couldn’t make it out, it sounds like “souls of believers.” Fortunately, the young minister had also once learned the Catechism and picked it up: “the souls of believers do immediately pass into Glory and . . .” “Aunt” Abby had “gone home.”

*For the last fifty years Harvard has sponsored the Ingersoll Lectures on Immortality. Clergymen, scientists, and others have given their ideas in a series expressing many points of view, and now totaling nearly thirty different books.

Dr. John Watson

Ian Maclaren was a name to conjure with in that day, forty years ago, when he died at the age of fifty-seven in an Iowa town whither he had gone on lecture tour. For a decade his books had been among the best sellers and Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush, his first, had topped a million. A half dozen other titles in short story and fiction had only enhanced his reputation. Scottish dialect often made them a bit difficult, but they sold in spite of it, or was it partly because of it? Queen Victoria and Mr. Gladstone had agreed on one thing at least--the beauty of the "Bonnie Brier Bush."

Ian Maclaren had become famous overnight. That was in the fall of 1894. On both sides of the ocean his new book was having tremendous vogue. One printing after another was exhausted. "Tell us about the author," demanded the public, with repeated insistence. "How is his name pronounced?" "Ian," said some; "Ean," said others; and still others were sure that it ought to be "Yan." (All proved to be right-depending upon whether one was English, Scotch, or Gaelic.)

He could not be long hidden. By Christmas it developed that Ian Maclaren was none other than the Reverend John Watson, M.A., a Presbyterian minister in Liverpool. 

Biographical details were avidly sought. He was forty-five. Though English born, he was a thorough Scot. As a Free Church minister, his first charge had been in a highland parish and in his stories he had skillfully adapted the setting and experiences of his early ministry. 

W. Robertson Nicoll, the best informed literary critic in Britain ('twas he who launched Barrie), had constrained Watson to write, after overhearing some of his engaging reminiscences. Something like the interest created by Dickens in an earlier day followed Maclaren's stories as they came out in quick succession. Nicoll, who had been the death of many an aspiring author, testifies that no adverse criticism of Watson's work appeared--only praise. 

The last chapter in this "wee bookie" is called "A Doctor of the Auld School." It recounts the labours of William MacLure, the beloved physician of the glen and adjacent districts, his fights with death and his final defeat. Mr. Gladstone's judgment is thus recorded: "There has never been anything finer than the sketch of that country doctor." Appearing in various editions "Weelum MacLure" has become the classic symbol of the unselfish devotion of his profession. 

"Drumtochty" became famous along with its chronicler for he had peopled it with friends. The passionate devotion of the people to their countryside endeared them to all readers. The outward life of the Glen people was meagre and bare, a few events such as the ploughing match, the school examination, and the Sacrament season made up their year. 

Maclaren reveals the inner life in its richness; hidden from the uninitiated by the crude setting. His creations live in our minds, they have character, are individuals. There is Mrs. MacFayden, the sermon-taster, who keeps the heads of the discourse in order by setting them in the orderly rows of teacups on her pantry shelves; and gentle Marget Howe, mother of Geordie, the scholar; Domsie, the schoolmaster, elated at his pupils' success and starving himself to send a likely boy to the university; Drumsheugh, the richest man in the Glen, and the life-long lover of Marget Howe, writing his check to pay the great surgeon who comes to operate on the wife of a tenant farmer. Then there is Burnbrae who sacrifices his farm rather than betray his conscience and his Kirk; also Jamie Soutar, the gentle cynic who covers kindness with his nippy tongue; or Doctor Davidson, the Auld Kirk minister with his courtly grace; and MacLure, the doctor who wins through the flood. These are all real as life to us who drank at that fountain, fifty years ago, auld acquaintance unforgot. 

Watson had gone into the ministry largely to please his mother but the problems he found in his first parish nearly caused him to leave it. These difficulties were not in his parishioners so much as in himself. For example, he could not remember his sermons. On one occasion he completely forgot and retired to the vestry in confusion, determined to quit and study law. An old elder came in, told the young minister how much his people loved him, and suggested that in the future he give out a psalm while he collected his thoughts. This kindness, Watson afterward confessed, saved him to the Church.

A dozen books on religious subjects were penned during the same years that created his fiction. Twenty three books in all, every line written in the last twelve years of his life! And all was the by-product of his ministerial activity in a great city parish where he served for twenty-five years.

Three times he visited America, lecturing and preaching, everywhere making friends. He was strong and tall, broad-shouldered and with a high forehead; with a slight Scottish accent to his words as they fell from his mobile lips. Throngs crowded to hear him. Ninety engagements in seventy days! Is it any wonder he fell victim to laryngitis and pneumonia? He died at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, in May, 1907.

At the time of his death, Dr. Watson was slated for the principalship of Westminster College in Cambridge. He had a dozen theological and religious books to his credit; some of them, like the Upper Room, the Potter's Wheel, and Companions of the Sorrowful Way, grew out of addresses preparatory to the Communion. As a sample of their deep spiritual quality, we quote from the first: "If anyone receive Him into his soul, Jesus comes to have a place of His own that has no parallel in life, and which has no proof save in experience. We make Him the confidant of our secrets, but in the end He tells us things about ourselves we have not known. We turn to Him for help, but find that He has promised what we were about to ask. We declare a good intention, only to remember it was His suggestion. His presence is an irresistible condemnation of wrongdoing, a perpetual inspiration to well-doing."

Dr. Watson once told the writer that he thought his best work, and most useful, was in The Potter's Wheel, and he wished that it might have had a larger circulation. Here the trials of faith, the perplexing providences are dealt with in an understanding fashion by a pastor of long experience who knows life. Faith and common sense have joined hands. 

The Mind of the Master represents Watson's most mature theological thought. Jesus' major emphases are examined. Jesus as Supreme Teacher, devotion to a Person, the dynamic of religion, Jesus' teaching of Fatherhood as the final idea of God--such aspects as these are examined and developed with the skill that comes only with thinking through, and living through the Gospel, for one's self and with one's congregation. Is such Christo-centric theology out-moded? "I believe in the clean heart; I believe in the service of love; I believe in the unworldly life; I believe in the Beatitudes; I promise to trust God and follow Christ, to forgive my enemies, and to seek after the righteousness of God."

In his Yale lectures, The Cure of Souls,1896, there is much autobiographical material, slightly disguised. ("If the minister desires to give a personal experience he can say 'one' or 'a certain man,' and if the people suspect the identity, it is no matter. They have been delivered from the perpetual "I" which devastates some men's utterances, and from whose monotonous boom you never escape.")

A warm evangelical, yet a moderate; a mystic, yet a realist; a scholar, and a humanist! There are many in the ministry today who owe such wisdom as may guide the exercise of the pastoral office to Ian Maclaren's other self, John Watson. "All the sparkle and effervescence of his nature never concealed the fact that he was a profoundly religious man."

One final quotation: "From His words let us learn to preach; from His example let us learn to serve; in His communion let us find our strength, comfort, peace, Whom not having seen we love, to Whom we shall one day render our account." 

- THE REV. JESSE HALSEY, D.D., Lane Professor of Pastoral Theology and Liturgics, McCormick Theological Seminary in McCormick Speaking, Vol. IV, No. 5,  February, 1951, pp. 3-6.