11 Henry Drummond F.R.S.E., F.G.S. (1851-1897) J. B. Paterson

Henry Drummond died in Tunbridge Wells on 1 lth March 1897 at the age of 46, after a short progressively incapacitating illness, later diagnosed as a malignant growth of the bones. The funeral was held in Stirling on 15th March. Professor George Adam Smith wrote: On that day, or upon one of the Sundays either side of it, services were held in many towns of the kingdom; also in Princeton University, at Ottowa, at Adelaide, at Singapore, and I know not where else . . . there was hardly a country on earth where he was not being mourned.1 Drummond was appointed lecturer in Natural Science in the Free Church College in 1877, elected to the chair of Professor of Natural Science in 1884 and held office until March 1895, when the onset of his illness made it clear that he could no longer continue. He was remembered as a man of many talents, not only in the field of science, but also as an evangelist with the ability to speak and write in a simple direct style with vivid illustrations from daily life. Many of his comments and insights are still relevant, although the only work of his still in print is the well known address The Greatest Thing in the World.2 The centenary of his death has already been marked in by a Cen­ tenary Symposium held at New College, , on 14th March 1997, co­ ordinated by Eric L. Motley, an American student at the University of St Andrews. Papers were read by Professor Alex Cheyne, former Principal of New College, Dr David Bebbington, Department of History, University of Stirling, the Very Revd Professor Sir Robin Barbour, former Moderator of the Church of Scotland, and Dr Thomas E. Corts, President of Stanford Univer­ sity (USA). The occasion was used to launch a shortened version of George Adam Smith's biography The Life of Henry Drummond published by the Drummond Trust.3 This gives those interested an opportunity to cover all major aspects of Drummond's thought in a compact and readable form. This paper therefore is confined to a review of some of Drummond's lively remarks on science and religion and related issues during his latter years. These include the importance of altruism in its widest sense, the need to have a flex­ ible approach to doctrine and truth, the nature and authority of scripture, the danger of over-specialization, and the value of a questioning spirit. Central to these were his most important book, The Ascent of Man4 pub­ lished in 1894, in which he re-worked the substance of the Lowell lectures delivered in Boston in the spring of 1893, and his contribution to the World's 12 HENRY DRUMMOND F.R.S.E., F.G.S. (1851-1897) Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in the autumn of the same year. His paper 'Christianity and Evolution' was read on the last day of the Parliament, after which he went on to take part in the meetings of the Evangelical Alliance Congress, one of the major congresses which followed the lecture session of the Parliament.5 In the Ascent of Man one of the most important themes is the emergence of altruism and the need to balance Darwin's emphasis on the struggle for life, with the struggle for the life of others. He defined altruism in terms of sym­ pathy, tenderness and self-sacrifice, and developed his argument in subsequent chapters on The Evolution of a Mother' and The Evolution of a Father'. He concluded that Christianity must be reconciled with Evolution and that both had the same object - to make more perfect living beings. Both worked through the growth of Love, and Christianity itself'is the Further Evolution'.6 In his address to the Parliament Drummond began by discussing evolution and truth in typical style: No truth can now remain unaffected by evolution. We can no longer take out a doctrine in this century or that, bottle it like a vintage, and store it in our creeds. We see truth now as a profound ocean still, but with a slow and ever risingtide . Theology must reckon with this tide. We can store this truth in our vessels, for formulation of doctrine must never stop; but the vessels with their mouths open, must remain in the ocean. If we take them out the tide cannot rise in them, and we shall only have stagnant doctrine rotting in a dead theology.7 He constantly advocated a critical approach to theology and to truth and illustrated this with a nice turn of phrase in an earlier paper The New Evange­ lism' published in London in 1899: As the serpent periodically casts its skin, so Truth. The number of times it has cast its skin marks the number of stages in its forward growth. Many of the shelves of our theological libraries are simply museums of the cast skin of truth. The living organism has glided out of them to seek a roomier vestment.8 Despite his assertion that the essence of Christianity is the fulfilment of evolution, he allowed for future changes in its detailed expression. He wrote: To the student of God's ways ... the field of science presents just now a spectacle of bewildering interest ... It is the new chapter of the world's history. What it contains' for Christianity, or against it, he knows not. What it Will do, or undo - for in the fulfilling it may undo - he cannot tell. He pointed out that evolution had also affected the science of biblical criticism and had given to the world what amounted to a new Bible: This Bible is not a book which has been made; it has grown. Hence it is no longer a mere word-book, nor a compendium of doctrines, but a nursery HENRY DRUMMOND F.R.S.E., F.G.S. (1851-1897) 13

of growing truths. It is not an even plane of proof-texts without propor­ tion or emphasis or light and shade; but a revelation varied as nature with the divine in its hidden parts, in its spirit, its tendencies, its obscurities and its omissions ... It is a record of inspired deeds, as well as of inspired words, an ascending series of inspired facts in a matrix of human history.9 He dealt with the question of the Bible in more detail in an address to American students in a collection published by Henry Altemus in Philadelphia in 1896. He made four good points. First: The Bible came out of religion, not religion out of the Bible ... it is not the words that are inspired so much as the men. Secondly: These men were authors; they were not pens. Third: The Bible is not a book; it is a library. Fourth: These books, which make up this library, written at inter­ vals of hundreds of years, were collected after the last of the writers was dead - long after - by human hands. And lastly: All religions have their sacred books, just as the Christians have theirs.10 In this last section he went on in some detail in a way which made it clear that he was familiar with the Koran and the Vedas, and to some extent fore­ shadowed the important work of Cantwell Smith in his book What is Scripture.11 Drummond anticipated the danger of over-specialization recently addressed by Arthur Peacocke and others.12 Asking why it was that the struggle for the life of others attracted so little attention, he wrote: 'Foremost, of course, there stands the overpowering influence of Mr. Darwin . . . Next is to be considered the narrowing, one had almost said the blighting, effect of specialism.' He went on to make the point that once a valid new viewpoint is established 'unqualified practitioners' leap to a generalization which then retains its hold on the popular mind, 'and before the complementary, the qual­ ifying, or the neutralising facts can be supplied, the mischief is done.'13 There was a good passage on the validity of doubt and a questioning spirit in one of the Philadelphia publisher's collection of addresses entitled Dealing with Doubt. In the firstplace , we are born questioners ... Respect doubt for its origin. It is an inevitable thing. It is not a thing to be crushed. Secondly: the world is a Sphinx. It is a vast riddle.Go d has planned the world to incite men to intellectual activity. Thirdly: The instrument with which we attempt to investigate is impaired ... the instruments are feeble and inadequate for their tremendous task. And in the fourth place, all religious truths are doubtable. There is no absolute proof for any one of them. He ended by drawing attention to Christ's attitude to those who had doubts, 'for the intellectual questioning of Thomas, and Philip and Nicodemus, and the many others who came to Him to have their great problems solved, He was respectful, generous and tolerant.'14 14 HENRY DRUMMOND F.R.S.E., F.G.S. (1851-1897) It may well be asked, why reference is so seldom made to the work of Drummond in current theological circles. Part of the answer probably lies in the fact that although he had many valuable insights into the relationship between science and religion, he was never considered by some of his more influential contemporaries either as a true scientist or a true theologian. He was, however, widely recognized as a gifted evangelist and counsellor, whose major achievements lay in his work with students both at home and abroad, and also as a writer and popular orator able to appeal to a wide public. His personal faith was undoubted and it is clear that he applied his understanding of Christian discipleship to his own life. A final testimony can be left to George Adam Smith, who in a long passage describing the last two years of Drum­ mond's life stated: His sense of humour never left him, and his room became a kind of 'pool' for new stories which were brought to him by his friends, and passed on by him to others ... His weakness reaped the harvest of love he had so richly sown in the years of his strength. No man had such friends or more devoted physicians ... And so he sank slowly down a long slope to the last edge with faith and love and humour undiminished, and with his friends about him to the last.15 Notes: 1. George Adam Smith, The Life of Henry Drummond (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 6th ed., 1902), p. 468. 2. Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1890, current ed., 1980). 3. George Adam Smith, The Life of Henry Drummond a shortened version of the biography (Stirling: The Drummond Trust, 1997). 4. Henry Drummond, The Ascent of Man (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1894). 5. John Henry Barrows (ed.), The World's Parliament of Religions (Chicago: 1893). 6. The Ascent of Man, p. 439. 7. Barrows, p. 1316. 8. . Henry Drummond, The New Evangelism and Other Papers (London: 1899), p. 1239. 9. Barrows, p. 1324. 10. Henry Altemus (ed.), Addresses by Henry Drummond (Philadelphia: 1896), p. 307. 11. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, What is Scripture (London: SCM Press, 1993). 12. E.g. Arthur Peacocke, God and Science (London: SCM Press, 1996) and John Bowker, Is God a Virus? (London: SPCK, 1995). 13. The Accent of Man, p. 42. 14. Altemus, p. 251. 15. Smith, p. 465. The RevdJ. B. Pater son, a former Hon. Canon of the Diocese of Brechin, is an active member of the Werld Congress of Faiths. ^s

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