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RQS.I.1S.Z . * P ® vp <'CTS ^ fiobenfson ol? Ipmne, Poef-Ppeachep. TH, D n Di i . v ROBERTSON OF IRVINE poet^pueacfoer. •—wyv>— BY ARTHUR GUTHRIE, Editor of “The Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald,” Ayrshire, N.B. THIRD EDITION. ARDROSSAN: ARTHUR GUTHRIE. LONDON: HOULSTON & SONS. EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW : MENZIES & CO. MDCCCXC, •v O o o an* PREFACE. The substance of the following pages appeared in the latter months of the year 1884, in the Ardrossan 6° Saltcoats Herald, as a series of articles, headed “Memorials of Trinity Church, Irvine.” In preparing them for republication, my recollec- tions of personal intercourse with Dr. Robertson, extending over a long period of years, the many careful reports which from time-to-time were made of his ministerial services in his own and other churches, his lectures and speeches, have furnished the added matter. The title indicates both the limitations and the scope of the work—the life only in so far as it is a setting to the picture of the preacher. For the details of the early years of Dr. Robert- son’s ministry in Irvine—more especially, for the im- pression he then made, I acknowledge with grateful PREFACE. feelings, my indebtedness to Mr David Lambie, Dundee, and other kind friends. 'The life of Dr. Robertson, wrote one of these friends before any Life had, as yet, appeared, should be written by a woman. In this view I concur. Only a woman, like-gifted to the authoress of “ The Life of Edward Irving,” could paint, with that delicacy of touch and true sympathetic insight, the portrait—as it lives in the memory—of a man so lovable, a per- sonality so real and yet so ideal, and a genius so unique, as Robertson of Irvine, Pastor and Poet- Preacher. Ardrossan, 1890. CONTENTS. Chaps. Page I. Chiefly Relating to the Ecclesiastical Archeology of the District, . i II. Birthplace, Parentage, School and Col- lege, . .14 III. Called to the Burgher Kirk, Irvine, . 32 IV. Ordination—First Impressions, . 48 V. Church Growth: “Outwards and Up- wards,” . -65 VI. Friendships—Growing Popularity, . 106 VII. Calls, ...... 139 VIII. Church Building, . .160 IX. Opening of Trinity Church, . 177 X. The Church’s Servant—Special Services, 199 CONTENTS. Chaps. Page XI.—Anniversary and Christmas Eve Services, 245 XII.—Illness, ...... 274 XIII. —Closing Years, . 308 XIV. —Preacher, Lecturer, and Poet, . 342 Illttstrations. Portrait, in Photogravure, from a Photo, by John Fergus, Largs. Trinity Church, Irvine (Calotype), from a Photo, by A. Brown & Co., Lanark. ROBERTSON OF IRVINE. C H A P T E R I. Chicflt) Ilclating ta tlic (Ecclesiastical ^vchaologn of tlxc JlisR'ift- Trinity Church as seen from the Railway Station—St. Inan—Carmelite Friars—Site of the Friary—Benefactions—Revenues of the Order granted for Educational purposes—Irvine a Religious Centre after the Reformation—David Dickson—Hippo and Irvine. IF the reader, having a few minutes to spare while awaiting the arrival of a train at Irvine Railway Station, turn himself townward, his eye will not fail to rest on a handsome Church, of novel design, and erect- ed—as all ecclesiastical edifices should be—on an eminence over-looking a wide stretch of landscape. There are other good-looking Churches within view, but Trinity Church, designed in the Venetian-Gothic style of architecture, with colour introduced into the stone-work, windows curiously fashioned, carved arch- way and arcade, pointed gables, and lofty spire, is unique and conspicuous. The site allows the build- ROBERTSON OF IRVINE. ing to be seen to great advantage from the railway. The observer will notice that the hill slopes to the river Irvine, the stream flowing within green banks seaward; and it needs no great stretch of imagi- nation to fancy the extent and beauty of the view obtained from the summit crowned with the Church —flowing river, sandy beach, rolling sea, and far- off mountain-ranges, ever changing with the varying lights of day, and reflecting the mood of each passing season—the freshness of spring, the calm of summer, the pensiveness of autumn, and the gloom of winter. As he looks in admiration, not unmixed with surprise that so beautiful a Church should be erected in a town with a population apparently of only a few thousand inhabitants, the train is signalled, he takes his seat, and leaves, but carries with him a vision of the beautiful in Church architecture—a mental photograph of a sacred edifice in the West of Scotland, grand in design, harmonious in its proportions, rich in its ornamentation—a veritable “ sermon in stone.” I will have more to say about the building by- and-by; meanwhile, I may remark, that Irvine, for centuries, in regard to Churches, has been a favoured place. St. Winning, and the saint’s successors in, or belonging to, the Abbey at Kilwinning, for hundreds ST. IN AN. j of years, were the only servants of God in the district, and would not, we may be sure, limit their religious ministrations to their own side of the Garnock. We are not to suppose, however, that Irvine had not, in early times, a patron saint of her own, as well as Kilwinning. For St. Inan (or Evan, as he is also called by the Bollandists), the eremite and confessor, commemorated on the 18th August, is represented by the Scotch hagiologists as belonging to Irvine, in Ayrshire, where he lived in great holiness, did many miracles, and wrote several books. The MS. of one of these, on “ The Names of Sacred Places,” was in the library of Bonci, the Archbishop of Pisa, at the time of this prelate’s death, in the year 1619, but was un- fortunately lost sight of after the breaking up of his library. In 1837, when Colonel Mure of Caldwell was residing in Italy and Greece, he, personally as well as by deputy, made diligent search for the works of St. Inan, as well as for the lost chartulary of Kilwin- ning, but no trace of either could be found. According to some writers, St. Inan flourished in the year 839, under the Scottish king, Kenneth I. But this king lived two centuries earlier, so that it must have been Kenneth II.—Kenneth Macalpin—for St. Inan is said to have prophesied of his triumph over the Piets, and their union with the Scots, which took place in 843, under his reign. St. Inan, therefore, could not have been 4 ROBE RTS OX OF IRVINE. much later than the time of St. Winning. He was a man of great repute in his time, resided occasionally at Beith, a neighbouring parish, where his chair and well may still be seen; and founded several churches—his name being associated with that of Lamington, South- enan and Inchinan. After journeys to Rome and Jerusa- lem, as Dempster tells us, he “fell asleep at Urvinum (Irvine), in Scotland, of which place he is the patron saint ’’—where also, as we learn from other sources, he was buried. St. Inan, therefore, furnishes us with a fitting link between the time of St. Winning, in the sixth century, and the building of the Abbey of Kil- winning in the twelfth, when the religious life of Ayrshire received a new impulse under the L)e Morvilles and their vassals. The influence of the Abbey of Kilwinning over the villages of the district continued till the Reformation. Like several others, the Church of Irvine anciently belonged to the monks of Kilwinning, and was served by a vicar. Fully a century after the coming of the monks of Tyron from Kelso to Kilwinning, the district came under another influence—that of the Mendicant Friars, as they were called; for the erection of a Convent by the Carmelites,* or White Friars, on the banks of the * The Carmelites were the third Order in importance of those Mendicant Friars, and had their origin and name from Mount THE CARMELITE FRIARY. 5 Irvine, not far from where Trinity Church now stands, is placed, by local antiquarians, in the thirteenth century. The exact site of this religious house is a disputed point with them. A century has passed since the fragments of a wall, supposed by some to be part of the Convent, was dug up near the south corner of the present churchyard. But others are of opinion that these fragments were the remains of a Chapel, known to exist, dedicated to the Virgin Mary ; for, close by, is a well called the Chapel Well, and the true site of the Friary was near the spot where Fullarton Free Church now stands. The Friars’ Croft gives a colouring of truth to this latter con- jecture ; but, be this as it may, the White Friars had one of the nine Convents they possessed in Scotland at Irvine, and its inmates ministered there to the religious wants of the community till the Re- formation. Carmel, in Syria. Very numerous in Spain and Italy, they came into Scotland in the nth year of the reign of King Alexander III., which would be A.D. 1260. Their attire was a scapulary, or small woollen habit, of a brown colour, thrown over the shoulder. In Scotland they were called White Friars, from their outer garments; and for the same reason the Dominicans wefe called the Black Friars ; and the Franciscans the Grey Friars. Like the two latter Orders, the Carmelites were allowed to preach abroad and beg their subsistence by the way—hence called the Mendicant or Begging Friars. They had, however, nine conventual rallying places in Scotland, amongst which was that of the Convent at Irvine— which stood on, or near to, the ‘‘hill Mizar” of later Presbyterian times and influences.