*5° 



The Review of Reviews. 



February t9, 190&. 



D». MacDonnir) in His Later Lfe. 



<A pathetic interest attaches to this portrait, which has 

 not been published before.) 



and others preached from the pulpit, was made cur- 

 rent coin by George MacDonald's novels. The 

 truth embodied in a tale entered in at far more 

 doors than when spoken from the pulpit or printed 

 in theological books. The full establishment of that 

 great fact to-day is due more to George MacDonald 

 than any other writer. And let it be said here 

 that he gave the true idea of Fatherhood in God — 

 the full-orbed idea in which the Father was at once 

 the King and Judge. Xo writer ever entered more 

 fully into Christ's description of God as the " Righ- 

 teous Father." People of that day described it as a 

 weak and sentimental idea of God. They would 

 never have done so if they had read George Mac- 

 Donald's delineation of the Divine Fatherhood which 

 included both " the goodness and severity of God."' 



Out of this doctrine grew the forces which have 

 overthrown the hideous idea of life as a probation, 

 instead of being, as it is, an education, and the still 



more hideous idea of the future world which brought 

 darkness to so many souls, and turned so many 

 away from Christianity altogether. 



Thus he bore a part, and it was a great one, with 

 A. J. Scott, Thomas Erskine, MacLeod Campbell, 

 Norman Macleod, Thomas Lynch, Baldwin Brown, 

 John Pu.sford. and others in bringing men back from 

 the arid paths of metaphysical theology to the 

 naturaln.-ss. the simplicity, the healthfulness of 

 Christ and the Gospels. Those who to-day walk 

 in these Gospel paths little realise the debt they 

 owe to these men, who were keenly persecuted at 

 the time, but who wire the restorers of paths to 

 dwell in. 



Let it be noted, too, that the faith which he 

 preached both by pen and lip was a part of his very 

 life. It was no garment put on for holy days or 

 places, and put off when these were over. I never 

 knew a man whose religion was so interwoven with 

 his very being. I remember well a visit I paid him 

 once in Harley Street, just after the loss of a greatly 

 loved daughter. He was ill in bed at the time, and 

 with a velvet rap on his head he looked like one of 

 the old prophets. \ tried to express my sympathy — 

 always a difficult task. I shall never forget the look 

 on his face and the tone of his voice as he replied : 

 "It is all well." Resignation? It was more than 

 resignation. It was assurance. It was joy in the 

 assurance that " in His will is our peace." 



Xo man that I ever knew more really walked 

 with God. Spinoza was called a God-intoxicated 

 man. In a far more spiritual sense this was true of 

 George MacDonald, the cry of whose heart was 

 " Abba Father." Then, too, his sense of the Divine 

 Fatherhood wakened a sense of human brotherhood. 

 God was to him the God of the open hand. And 

 he would be, and was, the man of the open hand. 

 With a family of eleven of his own, from time to 

 time he added others that had been left destitute. 

 I remember, on one of his summer visits to this 

 country from Italy, he had been telling of how he 

 had adopted another child, and a friend said, 

 " Thank God it is no more." If he had a fault, it 

 was that his generosity sometimes outran his means. 

 He was often straitened himself because of his gifts 

 to others. 



As to his printed works, little need be said. His 

 novels were, to a large extent, sermons in disguise. 

 He took little trouble about the plot, and in nearly 

 every story there was one character through which. 

 George MacDonald communicated his thoughts to 

 his readers. His output was very great — too great 

 for his permanent reputation. Some of his writing 

 was done when he was out of health, and should 

 have been resting rather than writing. He is best 

 represented bv his earliest novels, " David Elgin- 

 brod," " Robert Falconer," and " Alec Forbes." I 

 once asked him which novel he thought the best. 

 He replied, " I had most models before me in 



