Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/79

Rh devote themselves to his service, we most heartily bid God speed. Fly, ye angels of grace, from pole to pole, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth, bearing to all men the glad tidings of the everlasting gospel; stop not in this bold flight of philanthropy, till you convey to the simple sons of the isles the knowledge of the true God and eternal life—till you arrest the wanderings of the roving savage with the wonders of redeeming grace—till you dart the beams of celestial light and love into the dark habitations of ignorance and cruelty—till you convert the barbarous cannibal to humanity, to Christian gentleness and goodness. Hasten to the shores of long-injured Africa, not to seize and sell the bodies of men, but to save their perishing souls. Follow the miserable captives to their several sad destinations of slavery, with the inviting proclamation of spiritual liberty, while you inculcate the strictest duty to their masters. Speed your way to India, to repay her gold with the unsearchable riches of Christ. Meet all the high pretensions of the Brahmin religion and literature, and all their fatal delusions and cruel impositions, with the overpowering evidence of the Christian as a divine revelation—with the full luminous display of evangelical truth and holiness. Cease not, till you see the whole earth filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the channel of the sea."

Dr. Balfour was "an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures." But his was not an eloquence which sought its reward in popular applause. It flowed spontaneously from a heart deeply imbued with love to the Saviour and to the souls of men. Earnest preaching made earnest listening, and whilst his reputation in the pulpit continued unimpaired to the close of his life, the fruits of his ministry were abundant, and his influence extended far beyond the limits of his own congregation. His preaching was clear and comprehensive; textual, luminous, and pointed; exhibiting a remarkable intimacy with the varieties of Christian experience, and a profound knowledge of human nature; animated with a warm and persuasive earnestness; faithful and close in applying the truth; and exhibiting an exuberant flow of appropriate and powerful expression. All his pulpit addresses bore the impress of the cross; he preached Christ and the doctrines of salvation by free grace with simplicity and godly sincerity. "Those who have listened to him," wrote his attached friend, the late Dr. Wardlaw, "in his happy moments of warm and passioned elevation, have heard him pour forth the fulness of an affectionate spirit; warning, alarming, inviting, persuading, beseeching; his whole soul thrown into his countenance; and, in his penetrating eye, the fire of ardent zeal gleaming through the tears of benignity and love." His preaching engagements were frequent, and he was always ready to afford his services on every call of public usefulness. He was not in the habit of writing his discourses at full length, but his preparations for the pulpit were never relaxed. Although not displaying the plodding habits of the scholar, he kept up his knowledge of general literature, and cultivated an acquaintance with the works of the best authors in his own profession. His morning hours were consecrated to study and devotion. He possessed the power of readily commanding his thoughts in the intervals of daily occupation, and was in the habit, to use his own expression, of "carrying about" with him the subjects on which he intended to preach. His stores of thought and illustration were ample and exuberant, and, being gifted with a ready utterance, he could on every occasion express himself with ease and propriety. Without the appearance of much labour, therefore, he was able to appear in the pulpit with a felicity and success to which men of inferior minds