June 1929
270
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Finally, brethren, let us give diligent consideration to this Word, studying to show ourselves approved unto God, workmen that need not to be. ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth. To that which we earnestly and sin cerely sow in the Spirit, the Lord Himself shall give the increase.
facts, that is no surety that they will be. Even if one of his opinions is compatible with facts that does not augur that the rest will be. There is only one way that we can attain this last aim of Timothy’s enjoined study. That is con scientiously to study the Word that we might prayerfully know it, that, Spirit-led, we might divide it aright.
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Struthers of Greenock A Spiritual Genius Flashes Light on Some Texts.
B y R ev . A l e x a n d e r R oss , B.D. Sw ift Current, Sask., Canada
was argued, would do such a thing twice, especially after coming out of it so shabbily. ‘No,’ said Mr. Struthers,’ that is exactly what he would do. A man always goes and repeats the same wickedness or folly; there is nothing in which we are less original than our sins.’ ”, Dr. Denny goes on to say: “On the last occasion on which 1 heard him preach, his text was Deuteronomy 2 2 :3 : ‘Thou mayest not hide thyself.’ He spoke of the humane law which required the Israelites not to pretend ignorance of what they knew to save themselves the trouble of helping a brother; they were not to turn down the next street as if they had not seen the ox or the ass which had fallen by the way and needed a friendly hand to raise it. Then he introduced one of his favorite ideas, that God imposes no law on us which He does not Himself observe; so that when He says to us, ‘Thou shalt not hide thyself from thy brother’s trouble,’ He gives us the right to say to Him, ‘Thou shalt not hide Thyself from us in the troubles which are too hard for us. Thou shalt surely help.’ The love of God seemed to flood his heart as he spoke, and the inspiration of the text burned again in his words.” Searching through my set of the Morning Watch —an incomplete set, alas!—I find over and oyer again sur prising turns of thought that delight the soul, and leave one tingling with a sense of sudden wonder. Three exam ples may be given. Can we not discern in them the mind and the heart of a genius? S om e E x a m p l e s of H is G e n iu s In one place he tells about an old man in Versailles who made his living by exhibiting some white mice, most intelligent creatures, which he had trained to do some wonderful things. One night, as he was crossing the Boulevard des Italiens, with his little performers, who had gone to bed for the night, safe in their box under his arm, a great steam roller came along, panting, grunting, and scattering sparks and smoke. The old man did not notice it till it was nearly on him, and then, making a sud den dash out of the way to save himself, dropped the white mice. The huge roller rolled on—it is a former Earl of Lytton who tells the story in a letter—“Crack! and good-bye, mice! Three hours later, about two in the morning, some one who had witnessed the tragedy, return ing from his club passed the spot again on his way home, and found the old man still there, leaning against a lamp- post and weeping bitterly for his white mice.” Then follows an extraordinary paragraph which only Struthers could have written: “One wonders why God did this thing, and yet one may be sure that if we knew every-
REV. J. P. STRUTHERS, M.A., was for jS tT j three years minister of Whithorn Reformed Presbyterian Church in the south of Scotland, and then for thirty-three years minister of the yljL\\r Reformed Presbyterian Church at Greenock, on I p t t the shores of the Clyde. That means that he exer cised his ministry in one of the smallest branches of the Scottish Presbyterian Church, a little denomination which has less than a dozen congregations all told. It is one of the strictest and. straitest of. churches, for it permits neither instrumental music nor the use of hymns in public worship. Yet, in a severely restricted sphere like that, in a secluded corner of Scotland’s ecclesiastical life, Struthers did a remarkably fine work. All who know anything about him are persuaded that he was a spiritual genius of the first order. His genius was manifested supremely in that unique little magazine, the Morning Watch, which he. founded in 1888, and edited until his death in 1915. The magazine ceased publication then, as it was felt that no one else could instil into it that peculiar fragrance, the secret of which died with Struthers. “To many who never saw him,” wrote Dr. Alexander Smellie, “the Morning Watch has made him a dear and honored teacher; and was there ever a magazine like the Morning Watch? Whether one commenced with the picture and its legend on the front page, or, as some of us preferred to do, with those won derfully grouped texts and their illuminating illustrations on the last page, it was invested month after month, as Bengel says of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, with ‘a certain unmixed sweetness.’ I had rather be owner of its twenty-seven volumes than have all the Elzevirs and Kelmscotts in the world. We understand why the Morning Watch must cease with its author’s death; it is too in delibly stamped with his image and superscription.” His K n a c k of I l l u m in a t in g T ex t s of S c r ip tu r e What was specially evident in Struthers was his love for the Bible, and the extraordinary knack which he had of illuminating texts of Scripture, obscure and out-of- the-way texts often, and that with a suddenness and a sheer unexpectedness which sends a thrill of glad surprise through the heart. That great scholar, Dr. James Denny, was an intimate friend of Struthers, and he wrote of him after his death: “Some of the earliest and latest recollec tions I have of him illustrate his attitude to the Bible. The book of Genesis, as is well known, tells wof two occasions on which Abraham denied his wife. Some one long ago mentioned in Struthers’ presence the theory that these are just divergent versions of the same story: no one, it
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