Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/313

Rh have been emblazoned as choice episodes in the Acta Sanctorum, if not exalted into full claims for canonization. The steps by which James Haldane was conducted to the "highways and hedges," he has thus detailed in language of straight-forward simplicity:—"For some time after I knew the truth I had no thoughts towards the ministry. My attention was directed to the study of the Scriptures and other religious books, for my own improvement, and because I found much pleasure in them. When I first lived in my own house, I began family worship on Sabbath evenings. I was unwilling to have it more frequently, lest I should meet with ridicule from my acquaintance. A conviction of duty at length determined me to begin to have it every morning; but I assembled the family in a back room for some time, lest any one should come in. I gradually got over this fear of man; and being desirous to instruct those who lived in my family, I began to expound the Scriptures. I found this pleasant and edifying to myself, and it has been one chief means by which the Lord prepared me for speaking in public. About this time some of my friends remarked that I would by and by become a preacher. A person asked me whether I did not regret that I had not been a minister? which made a considerable impression on my mind. I began secretly to desire to be allowed to preach the gospel, which I considered as the most important, as well as honourable employment. I began to ask of God to send me into his vineyard, and to qualify me for the work."—While these wishes were thus forming and growing within his heart, events were occurring to draw them into action. He first confined himself to the silent distribution of tracts, and afterwards advanced to the visitation and establishment of Sabbath-schools, where a "word of exhortation" was expected as a matter of course; and, finally, having accompanied John Campbell (his brother's friend) and another preacher to the large collier village of Gilmerton, where a preaching station had been established, he found himself drawn, in the course of necessity, to take his turn in that apostolic labour which he had already thus far countenanced and commended. He preached his first sermon on the 6th of May, 1797, and by that decisive act committed himself to the vocation in which he persevered to the end of his long- extended life.

After having continued to preach for a short time at Gilmerton, James Haldane's views extended over Scotland at large, so that he resolved to commence the work of an itinerant preacher in good earnest. But an ambulatory ministry and lay preaching these are irregularities which only a very urgent emergency can justify; and yet, perhaps, Scotland at this time needed them as much as England did the labours of her Wesleys and Whitefield. James Haldane also went forth, not as a minister, to dispense the higher ordinances of religion, but simply as an evangelist, to call men to repentance. This his first tour, in 1797, extended through the northern counties of Scotland and the Orkney Islands, and was made in company with Mr. Aikman, originally settled in a prosperous business in Jamaica, but now a student in theology, with the view of becoming a minister. They preached wherever they could find a place to assemble men together in school-rooms and hospitals, at market-crosses, and in church-yards, and upon stair-heads and assembled their auditories by announcing their purpose through the town- drummer or bellman. In this way they itinerated through Perth, Scone, Cupar, Glammis, Kerrymuir, Montrose, and Aberdeen. At the last-mentioned place Haldane had hearers in thousands, who were attracted by the novelty of a captain of an East Indiaman turning preacher. The tourists