Review of Reviews, 2012/06. 



Character Sketches, 



i-l9 



and listen. Many a one found at Bordighera not 

 merely bodily, but spiritual health. His summers 

 were spent in England preaching and lecturing. 

 His visits were eagerly anticipated by a wide circle 

 of friends, who had found in his words help and 

 comfort. 



The death of his wife some three years ago prac= 

 tically closed his life. Since then he has existed 

 rather than lived, and, on Monday, September 18th. 

 he passed to the realm of which he had no dread. 

 but for which he longed, with a quiet trust that it 

 would prove a life fuller than that of earth. 



My acquaintance with Dr. MacDonald dates from 

 the time I had just left college — a time when hero- 

 worship is usuallv strong. He was announced to 

 give a lecture on " As You Like Tt " in a hall in 

 Liverpool ; I think in Bold Street. Since then I have 

 heard him deliver many lectures, but this first one 

 stands out most clearlv in my memory, probably 

 because it was the first, and because my memory 

 at that time was the more plastic. His method 

 was to find the idea out of which the whole play 

 grew, and then to trace its outgrowth in the drama. 

 This idea he found in the song, " Blow, Blow, Thou 

 Winter Wind," which he read in a most remarkable 

 way. He declared that the burden of the play was 

 the moral uses of adversity, which, with a note of 

 conviction I shall never forget, he said, " I believe 

 not as a mere doctrine but as a reality." Then he 

 dealt in a very forcible way with the passage, " All 

 the world's a stage," which, he said, some people 

 regard as Shakespeare's idea of life. " Don't you 

 observe," he asked, " that this passage is put into 

 the mouth of Jacques — one of the worst characters 

 Shakespeare ever painted?" Then he dealt with 

 it in detail. " ' First the infant, mewling and puking 

 in the nurse's arms.' Do you think," said he, ' : this 

 was Shakespeare's idea of a baby ? ' Then the 

 whining schoolboy, with his satchel and shining 

 morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to 

 school.' Shining with what? Soap? Do you think 

 that was Shakespeare's idea of a schoolboy ?" 



And now that I am referring to his lectures, I may 

 as well say that when he was well prepared and in 

 good health he was a magnificent lecturer. To hear 

 him lecture on " The Moral Drift of Macbeth " was 

 a thing not to be forgotten. But candour compels 

 me to say that when he trusted to the inspiration 

 of the moment he was very difficult to follow. I 

 remember to have heard Mr. Binney say. " Every- 

 body knows that I can preach the worst sermon of 

 any man in London." "And the best, too," said 

 one of his listeners. In the matter of lecturing 

 George MacDonald was not always on the heights. 



On the platform, as in the pulpit, he was greatly 

 helped by his appearance, which was most impres- 

 sive Mr. Binney and he were the most impressive- 

 looking men I have ever seen. Wherever seen 

 people were sure to ask — "Who are thev?" 



Those acquainted with portraits of George Mac- 



Donald at various periods of his life will be struck 

 with the changes that passed over his face. The 

 earlier portraits are of a man grappling with the 

 problems of life, doubtful of what their issue will 

 be. The later portraits are of a man who has fought 

 and conquered — who has reached the sure place of 

 firm conviction — who knows that 



God's ia His heaven : 

 All's right with the world. 



Youth has the advantage in formal beauty. Old 

 age is richer in beauty of expression. 



It is natural to pass from him as a lecturer to his 

 preaching. The man whose early ministry at Arun- 

 del was, as some of the small folk there thought, a 

 failure, in later vears crowded any church in which 

 he was announced to preach. People took long 

 journevs to listen to him, as if he were an oracle. 

 And at heart he was essentially a preacher. I once 

 said to him, " You have done many kinds of work 

 in your life. Which do you like best?" He re- 

 plied : '• I like preaching best, then writing poetry, 

 then writing stories." Not only in the pulpit, but 

 on the lecture platform, and as poet and novelist, 

 he was always the preacher. He once said to me, 

 " I dearly like to get a bit of preaching into a lec- 

 ture.'" On another occasion he said to me, " I 

 would not write novels if I could not preach in 

 them." Like the Apostle, he surely felt, "Woe is 

 me if I preach not the Gospel." But when you 

 had heard him preach it was very difficult to re- 

 member or give an account of what he had said. 

 A most skilled reporter once said to me, " It was 

 impossible to give an intelligible digest of one of his 

 sermons." But though it was thus, yet through the 

 service vou were more assured of God, more con- 

 vinced of the eternal order. It was a kind of Mount 

 of Transfiguration which brought vision. And in 

 the effect — prayer — how he prayed ; and reading — 

 who could read the Bible as he? — both bore their 

 part. 



He gave the world three volumes of " Unspoken 

 Sermons." I am not quite sure that I am not re- 

 sponsible for the second and third volumes. At 

 all events, the second appeared soon after I had 

 said to him, " Whv don't you give us some more 

 unspoken sermons? - ' But the first volume is the 

 best, especiallv the sermons on " The Child in the 

 Midst," and "Our God a Consuming Fire." 



He was one of the men who helped to overthrow 

 the old despotic idea of God, and to put in its 

 place the Fatherly idea of Him. This is the great 

 change in theology in the latter half of the nine- 

 teenth century. It is hard to believe now that this 

 great idea which has revolutionised theology has so 

 recently established itself that half a century ago it 

 was regarded as heresy, and that men were thrown 

 out of the Church for teaching it. Such is the fact. 

 This doctrine, which Thomas Erskine of Linlathen 

 taught in books and letters, and MacLeod Campbell 



