LEXANDER STEWART was born in the Manse of Moulin, Perthshire, of which parish his father, the late Dr Alexander Stewart, was then minister, as he afterwards was of the parish of Dingwall, Ross-shire, and ultimately of the parish of Canongate, Edinburgh. His family were from Argyleshire - of the Stewarts of Appin - one of the oldest houses of that county. Dr Stewart was eminent in his day as a minister whom God greatly honoured, after he had himself become a living witness to the power of divine truth, by making him the instrument of an extensive awakening in the district of country in which his lot was then cast. He was distinguished, also, in the world of literature - his grammar of the Gaelic language giving evidence of his scholarly attainments, and indicating the eminence to which he might have risen had he given himself to literary pursuits.
The subject of our memoir was, in the first instance, educated in the Moulin Parish School, and thereafter at the Tain Academy. Subsequently he became a student of King's College, Old Aberdeen, where he continued for two sessions. Then, being considered sufficiently educated for entering on the business of life in the line chosen for him, he first became a clerk in a house at Perth, and thereafter in a house in London. Whilst resident in the metropolis, he attended the ministry of Mr George Clayton, the word preached by whom God was pleased to make effectual for his spiritual illumination and saving conversion. When it pleased God thus to call him by His grace - the way for the change in his prospects for life which he desired having been wondrously opened to him - he resolved, with the consent of his father and other relations, to resume his university studies, now with a view to the ministry. His paternal aunt being resident in Glasgow, he came there, and was enrolled a student of the college of that city. During his course there, he sought no distinction, but shrank instinctively, with provoking sensitiveness, from any notice of a public kind which at any time was taken of him. Yet he did not escape observation, as the suffrages of his fellow-students on more than one occasion, in awarding him prizes, gave evidence. In the Divinity Hall, as a student with Dr M'Gill, he was more especially noticed, where he raised expectations in the minds of those who knew him well, which were more than realized in after life.
From the date of his first appearance in the pulpit, he became eminent as a preacher. The attention of the first ministers of his time was attracted to him. It is well known by his contemporaries that Dr Chalmers, after hearing him, was so impressed with his pulpit powers, that he used every influence with him to gain his consent to be nominated as his successor in the great church and parish of St John's, Glasgow, from which he was about, himself, to be removed to the Moral Philosophy Chair, St Andrews. In this Dr Chalmers was unquestionably right, though it may seem to be a bold thing to say so, considering only Mr Stewart's high talents and attainments, whilst not taking into account his bodily constitution and mental temperament. These made the proposal one not to be entertained. That the proposal should have been made was, perhaps, the most marked testimony, in evidence of the appreciation of Mr Stewart's qualifications as a young minister of the gospel, which he could have received. His natural diffidence and self-distrust made him shrink from contemplating the proposal, or allowing it to become with him a. matter of serious consideration at all; the friends who knew him best, whilst they regretted the occasion, approved of the course which he adopted in so acting.
Mr Stewart was licensed to preach the gospel early in 1823 by the Presbytery of Lorn, Argyleshire. His preliminary trials, with a view to license, were taken by the Presbytery of Glasgow. He passed the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr, in accordance with the law of the Church in such cases, and thereafter obtained a transference of the remaining portion of his trials to the Presbytery of Lorn. He was a Gaelic-speaking student, and desired to devote himself to the Highlands, as well became the son of a father eminent alike for piety and for critical knowledge of the mountain tongue. Buried in the seclusion of a remote Highland glen, selected by him as a district where the sound of no English word was ever heard, he devoted himself, with his usual ardent student habits, to acquire a knowledge of the idioms of the Gaelic, and the power of familiar, ready expression therein. His success was what might be expected; and at the end of his year of hermit life, he came forth from his seclusion thoroughly versed in all that he had sought to acquire.
He was soon summoned to stated occupation in his holy calling. In November 1823 he was chosen to be the minister of the Chapel of Ease, Rothesay, where the Sabbath services were half in Gaelic and half in English. His period here was, however, short, as was also the use of his acquired tongue. A presentation to the parish of Cromarty, in course of the year in which he was ordained at Rothesay, which he saw it his duty to accept, changed, after a short but highly valued ministry in the West Highlands, the sphere of his labours. At Cromarty he was not required to preach in Gaelic, but as the town is situated in a Highland district, and as he was there In charge of a large Highland population, his knowledge of the language was of much value. From Cromarty he never removed. The seclusion which he enjoyed, or which he fancied he enjoyed, in that ancient burgh, was to his mind very congenial. He used to hug himself in the thought that he had got hid from the great world.
It was a vain fancy. " I have got into the toe of the hose," he used to say with much glee, referring to the Black Isle, from its shape, as the hose, - and to Cromarty, lying; at the extreme point of that bleak wilderness track of cheerless moorland, as the toe. Abundant testimony has been borne, though the half may not have been told, to his course there; to his "work of faith and labour of love;" his most painstaking study of the word of God; his success, numbering such men as Hugh Miller among his converts; his attractiveness in drawing many warm hearts to him, and in making himself to be beloved by all to whom he ministered, all the days of his life, till the end came.
Of him Miller has written:-
''One of the most striking characteristics of Mr Stewart's originality was the solidity of the truths which it always evolved. His was not the ability of opening up new vistas in which all was unfamiliar, simply because the direction in which they led was one in which men's thoughts had no occasion to travel, and no business to perform. It was, on the contrary, the greatly higher ability of enlarging, widening, and lengthening the avenues long before opened up on important truths, and, in consequence, enabling men to see new and unwonted objects in old familiar directions. That in which he excelled all men we ever knew, was the analogical faculty - the power of detecting and demonstrating occult resemblances. He could read off as if by intuition - not by snatches and fragments, but as a consecutive whole - that old revelation of type and symbol which God first gave to man; and when privileged to listen to him, we have been constrained to recognise, in the evident integrity of the reading and the profound and consistent theological system which the pictorial record conveyed, a demonstration of the divinity of its origin not less powerful and convincing than the demonstration of the other and more familiar departments of the Christian evidences. Compared with other theologians in this department, we have felt under his ministry as if - when admitted to the company of some party of modern savans employed in deciphering a hieroglyphic-covered obelisk of the desert, and here successful in discovering the meaning of an insulated sign and there of a detached symbol - we had been suddenly joined by some sage of the olden time, to whom the mysterious inscription was but a piece of common language written in a familiar alphabet, and who could read off fluently and as a whole what the others could but darkly and painfully guess at in detached and broken parts."
Of this magnificent preacher's manner in his public appearances, another friend, for quoting at large from whom we make no apology, writes:-
"I see him enter the pulpit with a solemnity of aspect which is the fruit of real feeling. He is a tall, clumsily-made man - five-feet-eleven, at least. The outline of his figure is more that of the female than the male. His limbs are full and round. There is a little tendency to stoop; a little tendency, too, to corpulence, but very little. His chest is well thrown out, his shoulders are somewhat raised, and his neck is short. The head is a curiosity. It is nearly round, with a sort of wrench to one side. It rises high, being well developed in a circular arch above his ears, which are small and beautifully formed. It is covered with thick-set hair of a lightish sandy colour, which invades the brow, covers the temples, and reaches to within an inch-and-half of the eyebrows on all sides. Instead of being brushed down in the direction of its natural set, it is brushed up, to clear it off the short brow, and so stands like a peak at right angles with the brow. The noble dimensions of that portion of the head are wholly concealed, and the effect, at first sight, on the beholder is not, certainly, to make him expect any depth of intellectual power, but the reverse. The eyebrows are not large nor expanded, but they rise a little at the extremities towards the temples. The nose is beautifully formed; large, but not too large, aquiline and symmetrical, as if cut with the chisel. The eyes are small, grey, rather deep set, sparkling, and expressive. The mouth is large, the line of the lips, which are thin, being beautifully curved. The lips shut easily, and look as if they had a superabundance of longitude. The chin is rather long, and is in a slight degree peaked, but is neither retiring nor protruding. The skin is smooth, as that of early youth. The cheeks are not large. Taking it all in all it is a handsome, though most uncommon, head and face. I have never seen anything to compare with it.
"Well, he enters the pulpit, and after a moment's pause rises to read the psalm. It is not a female voice, and yet it is not the rough voice of a man of his size and form. It is deep, clear, solemn, sweet, flexible, and of great compass. Every word is uttered as if the speaker felt himself standing in the presence of God, and in sight of the throne, and as if he desired all should feel the same. The emphasis is so laid in reading the psalm, as to bring out a meaning I had never discovered. His prayer is simplicity itself; a child can comprehend every word, yet his thoughts are of the richest; whilst Scripture phraseology, employed and applied as I never heard it in another, clothes them all. By the time the prayer is ended, I have been instructed and edified. I have received views of truth I had not possessed before, and have had awakened feelings which have set me on edge for the sermon, and which I desire to cherish for ever. The sermon comes. It seems to be a most deeply interesting and animated conversation on a common topic. 'We ought to think like great men, and speak like the common people,' appears to be the maxim which regulates the style. The manner is that of one who converses with a friend, and who has chosen a subject by the discussion of which he desires, from his inmost soul, to do him good. Illustration follows illustration in rapid succession, shedding light on his doctrine, and confirming it. Sometimes the illustrations seem puerile, scarcely dignified enough for the pulpit, but that impression lasts only for a moment. Some Scripture allusion, or Scripture quotation, reveals the source from which they have been drawn; and I am filled with admiration of the genius which has discovered what I never discovered, and has made a use of the discovery, which I think I and every man should have made, but which I never did. Scarcely any gesture is employed. One hand rests usually on the open Bible. The other is sometimes quietly raised, and its impressive, short motion gives emphasis to the earnest words which are being spoken. The earnestness seems under severe control. It looks as if the speaker desired to conceal the emotion of his heart in speaking for Christ to sinners - as if he thought noise and gesticulation unbecoming. The eyelids grow red, the tears apparently struggle to escape, but no tear comes. A pink spot, almost a hectic flush - but it is not so - appears like the reflection of an evening sunbeam on the cheek. Some burning words clothe some fine thought, which seems to come fresh from heaven; and the speaker, as I think, half ashamed of the emotion which he has manifested, and which he has sensibly communicated to his hearers, returns to the calm manner from which he had for an instant departed, only, however, to be enticed from it again and again, yielding as if by compulsion to the inspiration which ever revisits him. So he proceeds, until, to my deep regret, he closes his wonderful discourse, which has extended long beyond the hour."
Mr Stewart continued minister of Cromarty till his death. At the Disruption he, of course, joined his brethren and abandoned his connection with the State, abjuring the new ecclesiastical Establishment. He never made himself prominent in the discussions which, in his time, filled the land. His local influence was great. Speeches by him in his Presbytery and Synod were described by those who heard them as something unlike any that other men had ever spoken. But on no occasion during his ministry did he open his mouth in the General Assembly of the Church. He did not feel it to be required. He did not think it would have been useful. All that he could say he heard spoken by others, and, as he thought, better spoken than it could have been by him, and therefore he did not speak. This is not to be justified. Could he have overcome, as he might have done, his native timidity and want of self-possession; could he have roused himself to the effort, or had conscience impelled him to put himself forward as a public speaker, he would not have stood second to any in the ranks of those wonderful men whom God raised up for His work in Scotland in his time. He believed that he could be useful in the provinces; he believed that he was required to take part in the discussions there - that the great cause might suffer if he declined to do so; and, therefore, on wisely selected occasions, he delivered speeches that were admitted to be of the very highest order of oratory, for wisdom, beauty, and power.
It would have been in vain, every one knew, to propose to Mr Stewart a change in his field of labour, at any time during his life at Cromarty, in anything like ordinary circumstances. But when, in 1847, the lamented death of Dr Chalmers, and the advancement, consequent on that event, of Dr Candlish to a chair in the New College, created a vacancy in St George's, the minds of all friends of the Church turned to the distinguished subject of this memoir, as the man who should succeed the great preacher of the day in that pulpit. It need hardly be narrated that this proposal was not welcome to Mr Stewart. It created an excitement calculated to affect injuriously a mind sensitive and shrinking to a fault, inhabiting a body which took its character but too much from his natural temperament. Earnest representations and urgent solicitations at length appeared to prevail with him. The late Dr Robert Buchanan, of Glasgow, was one of the Commissioners sent to the north to prosecute the call by the congregation of St George's. When the business in the Presbytery of Chanonry in this matter was ended, as the two friends walked along the street, perceiving the downcast appearance of his companion, and expressing regret, Dr Buchanan said, " You look as if you were carrying a millstone on your back." " No, Dr Buchanan," was the reply, " I am not carrying a millstone, but I am carrying my gravestone on my back." His words proved but too true. An attack of fever came, and ran its course. His time had come, and he knew it. To his physician inquiring as to his feelings, he said, "I am going to die. It is a solemn thing, doctor, to die, and to meet God in judgment!" To Christian friends he declared his abiding confidence in the everlasting God, his Saviour; and in this state he quietly fell asleep in Jesus, on the 5th November 1847, in the fifty-third year of his age. "He got faith," said a friend who was with him at the close, referring to the case of the St George's call, " to lay his Isaac bound upon the altar; his hand, in humble submission, took the knife; he was prepared to do his Lord's will; he did it; and the Lord then relieved him for ever from all his cares, all his anxieties, and all his pains."
Mr Stewart was never married. A maternal aunt, the widow of a minister, became, after the death of her husband, an inmate, put in charge of the domestic affairs of the manse of Cromarty. She formed a precious gift from his heavenly Father, for a great part of the closing portion of her nephew's ministry - the cause of much solicitude, too, in anticipation of the effect which her removal might have upon him and his usefulness - a solicitude quite as great on her side. He was spared the trial, to meet which he ever sought to fortify himself. His aunt survived him for a little; but his death was never revealed to her, the infirm condition of her body and mind both making it at once advisable and kind that the departure of her "dear boy" should be concealed. So they were exempted from sorrow to which they had each, respectively, looked forward with solemn thought, - sorrow which came not. " So He giveth His beloved sleep."
Mr Stewart never indulged in authorship. Nothing from his pen passed through the press at anytime. The volume of posthumous lectures on Leviticus, entitled, "THE TREE OF PROMISE," compiled from the skeleton outlines from which he had discoursed, give but a faint impression of what he was as a preacher. The work, nevertheless, is of great value, especially to the student - original, suggestive, and unique. No minister, who deals with Scripture typology, can want it without loss, or employ it without profit.
A. B.
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