Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/80

28 find it impossible to attain after the most laborious efforts. He seldom engaged in controversy, and did not often obtrude himself upon the notice of church courts, for the business of which, however, he showed no want of aptitude. His modesty and humility prevented him from issuing more than a few of his more public and elaborate productions through the press. An anecdote is related of him, which illustrates his disinclination to publish, as well as the readiness with which he could draw in an emergency upon the resources of his richly-stored mind. On one occasion, after having preached with much acceptance on the divinity of Christ, he was waited upon by a young man, who, on his own part and that of two companions, preferred an urgent request that he would print his discourse, assigning as a reason that it had completely relieved their minds of doubts which they had been led to entertain on this momentous doctrine, and that it was fitted to have the same effect upon the minds of others similarly situated. On the Doctor expressing his aversion to appear in print, his visitor entreated the favour of a perusal of the manuscript. In this he was equally unsuccessful; for it then appeared that the Doctor, on proceeding to the church, had found himself—from some unwonted and inexplicable cause—utterly incapable of recalling the train of thought which had occupied his mind in preparing for the pulpit; and at the last moment he was under the necessity of choosing a new text, from which he delivered the unpremeditated discourse that had produced such a salutary impression upon the minds of his three youthful hearers.

The ministrations of Dr. Balfour were not confined to the pulpit; he laboured assiduously from house to house, and proved himself a "son of consolation" in chambers of sickness and death. His philanthropy and public spirit led him also to take an active interest in every object for the relief and comfort of suffering humanity. His comprehensive Christian charity embraced all of every name in whom he recognized the image of his Lord and Master. Although himself conscientiously attached to the Established Church, he exemplified a generous and cordial liberality towards those who dissented from her communion. Christians of every persuasion united in esteeming and loving him; and his praise was in all the churches. When called up to the metropolis in 1798, to preach before the London Missionary Society, he gave expression to views of Christian catholicity and union, which the organizations of later times have scarcely yet realized:—"Why," said he, "may not every Christian society, and all denominations of Christian society, anticipate in their experience and relative situations, and exemplify to the world that happy state of things which we believe shall take place at the time appointed of the Father, and shall continue in the world for a thousand years? Though we cannot agree in all our views of divine truth, and therefore must have our separate churches to maintain our several distinct professions of Christian tenets, I have often thought that we might, with an equally good conscience, meet occasionally, not only to converse, and pray, and sing praise, but to eat together the Lord's Supper, in testimony of the faith and profession of fundamental principles wherein we are more closely united than we are by other things removed from one another. * * * O thrice blessed day! God of love, thy kingdom come! Prince of peace, let thy rest be visible and glorious! O! gracious Divine Spirit, fly like the peaceful dove over the field of universal nature, to produce, preserve, promote, and perfect the reign of kindness and of happiness, till misery be banished from the earth, murmurs be silenced, love and gratitude be excited, charity and generosity triumph, and all