HE subject of this memoir died in December 1847. Few are now left who enjoyed his friendship, and knew his many admirable qualities and lofty character, or were personally cognisant of the great services which he rendered to the Free Church. A fitting opportunity is presented, by this publication, to preserve a record of those services, and to recall the memory of one who pre-eminently deserves to be kept in grateful remembrance.
Graham Speirs was born in June 1797, and was thus cut off in the prime of his manhood. He was the second son of Mr Peter Speirs of Culcreuch, brother to Mr Speirs of Elderslie; and his mother was of the family of Gartmore. His early education was conducted partly at the High School of Edinburgh, and partly at a school in Warwickshire, where he remained till December 1811. He then entered the Royal Navy, and continued in the Naval Service for five years, when, directing his attention to the study of law, he was called to the Bar of Scotland in 1820. His professional career was distinguished by steady but not rapid progress; no one, however, brought into contact with him in professional matters, even at an early period, could doubt that he must ultimately attain the highest eminence. He was throughout of liberal politics, and on the occasion of the party attaining to power in 1830, Lord Advocate Jeffrey - who fully estimated his talents and character - appointed him one of his Advocates-Depute, and soon afterwards he was appointed Sheriff of Elgin and Nairn. Subsequently, in 1840, on a vacancy occurring in the Metropolitan Sheriffdom, he was offered and accepted the office of Sheriff of Edinburgh, which he held until his death. He was thus, for a time at least, removed from practice at the bar, to the regret of his more intimate friends, who looked to him as, in certain probabilities, sure to be called to fill a still more distinguished position of public usefulness.
At the time of his decease, there appeared in the Witness newspaper, from the pen of its distinguished editor, Hugh Miller, a notice, from which we cannot do better than make one or two quotations:-
"Seldom has a more melancholy Christmas dawned upon this town than that of 1847. The death, of Mr Speirs, which happened late on the evening of the 24th, spread a gloom and sorrow through the city that we have seldom known equalled. . . He was a remarkable man, not from brilliancy either of parts or attainments, though in both he was eminent, but from the singular combination of his qualities, and the commanding tenor of his daily life. He was a man who united deep knowledge of the world with the most active and earnest religious impression, one whose manners and demeanour, as well as his birth and education, commanded respect in the highest circles, and placed him on terms of equality with all stations, and yet exhibited so bright and burning a Christian example, that even scoffers respected the light which shone in him with so much dignity and constancy. Consistent, imperturbable, of great discretion, conscientious, and yet tolerant, he held a course of uncompromising courage and honesty, and yet seldom lost a friend or made an enemy."
To this truthful portrait of the man, there is little to add, but we cannot refrain from adverting to similar testimony to be found in the recently published (1874) Journal of Lord Cockburn. Amid the graphic and racy descriptions of events and delineations of character with which these volumes, like their predecessor (" Memorials of his Times "}, abound, there is none so life-like as the following, written in 1843:-
"The apostolic Speirs, whose calm wisdom, and quiet resolution, and high-minded purity, made his opinion conclusive with his friends and dreaded by his opponents. He had no ambition to be the flaming sword of his party, but in its keenest hours he was the pillar of light. Amidst all the keenness, and imputations, and extravagances of party, it never occurred to any one to impeach the motives, or the objects, or the sincerity of Graham Speirs."
Afterwards, at the time of his death, Lord Cockburn says:-
"Graham Speirs, Sheriff of Midlothian, died, to the great regret of everybody, but especially of the thoughtful. He was a most excellent and valuable man, and of a sort of which we have few." . . . "A strong Whig, he was too gentle to avert any honest Tory, and too candid to encourage any folly on his own side; and, deeply religious, those who are not so, instead of being repelled by any severity, were attracted by his reasonableness and toleration." His early career in the Navy is adverted to, and it is added - "From the moment that he began his civil course, he put on a new nature, and, aided by his friends Mungo Brown and John Shaw Stewart, both of whom preceded him, by several years, to the grave, matured that character of calm and resolute, but gentle honour, and of pious thoughtfulness, that distinguished all the three."
Just as this observation is, we would rather say that the Rev. Dr Gordon, of whose kirk-session, when translated to the High Church, Speirs was for many years a member, had fully more influence in moulding his character and views, as he certainly had with others of the same class and standing. Between them, indeed, there was a remarkable similarity - the same gravity of manner; the same wisdom and sagacity in counsel; and the same reticent demeanour, - but not the less prompt and decided in action in matters of conscience and of duty. No one who knew that truly excellent and admirable divine, can wonder at the power and influence which he exercised for good in this city, from the time when he first came, comparatively a young; man, but in the full vigour of his powerful intellect and impressive eloquence, to fill the pulpit of Buccleuch Chapel.
But however this might be in Speirs' case, it is certain that the divine and the layman acted in entire concert in the eventful struggles for the independence of the Church and the rights of the people in the election of their ministers, which occurred in the ten years which preceded 1843. And that Speirs did so from deep religious conviction of the truth of the principles contended for, is undeniable. His was not a character to be swayed by any other motives in such a matter. To be convinced of the rectitude of any particular course of conduct, was for him to be followed as its sure sequence by active co-operation.
Sheriff Speirs was no mere Churchman; he interested himself in whatever tended to the wellbeing of society. In connection, for instance, with Prison reformation and discipline, he was an active member of the society formed in 1835 on that subject, which by its efforts so materially contributed to the enactment of 1839, by which the jails of Scotland, once described as " nurseries of vice and crime," have been placed in their present-satisfactory condition. In this work his associates were men of all classes and denominations - the accomplished Dr Kaye Greville, the benevolent John Wigham junior, Dr David Maclagan, Mr George Forbes, and other like-minded citizens. Afterwards under the Statute as chairman of the Edinburgh Prison Board, and as member of the General Board of Prisons in Scotland, Speirs was in a position to give his valuable aid in carrying through this national reform. In defence of the observance of the Sabbath, the establishment of Ragged Schools, and in the cause generally of education, he was no less zealous and useful.
Our purpose, however, is to record his connection with the struggles which preceded and followed the formation of the Free Church. His support, based as it was on conscientious principle, was felt to be all-important, and his advice of the greatest moment in the organisation of the Church. Nevertheless it is true, but quite consistent with what we have said of him, that his name does not occur as taking a leading part in the discussions, whether in or out of the Assembly, until about the time of the Disruption. We shall refer, however, to two occasions, as illustrative of the leading position which he then assumed, and energetically maintained.
The one was at the time of the Convocation of ministers which preceded the Assembly of 1843, when it was thought right that the laymen attached to the principles then upheld by the majority of the Assembly, and especially the eldership, should come forward and at once strengthen the hands of the ministers, and provide means for their sustentation on the Disruption taking place. The meeting of the eldership occurred on the 1st February 1843. It was mentioned at the time in the Witness newspaper. Speirs proposed the first resolution, and in doing so he is reported to have represented the Church of Scotland "as she has existed since the Reformation, as by far, he would venture to say, without any comparison whatever, the cheapest institution for good government that ever any nation had to boast of;" and to have been affected even to tears when he uttered the words, " I cannot look forward without dismay to the prospect of the Disruption of the Church of Scotland," which he so characterised and loved. The Committee formed at this meeting was united to another appointed by the Convocation, under the auspices of Dr Chalmers. This most effective body, organised under the title of the "Provisional Committee," held its first meeting the following day; and to its labours the Free Church mainly owes that state of orderly preparation, and absence of all division and confusion, by which the days of the Disruption were so signally characterised. This is fully explained in Dr Chalmers' Life and Correspondence by Dr Hanna.
The other occasion when Speirs was of the utmost service to the Church, was in relation to sites for Churches and Manses, in those districts where hostile proprietors had refused the applications made to them in that matter. It is known that, for some years after the Disruption, great inconvenience and much discomfort and suffering was experienced by ministers and their congregations who adhered to the Free Church in those districts. For a time the Assembly were unwilling to take any steps, in the expectation that the first feelings excited by the Disruption might pass away. But this expectation not being realised, a special Committee was appointed in May 1845 by the General Assembly; and that Committee having reported to the Assembly, which met at Inverness in August thereafter, the appointment of the Committee was renewed, with special instructions; and of this Committee Mr Speirs was appointed Convener.
It was in a verbal Report to the Commission, held in Edinburgh 19th November 1845, that, as Convener, Speirs made one of the most effective and practical speeches ever delivered in the General Assembly. In this he developed the principles on which the Committee had acted, and detailed the proceedings in such a way as to command the " profound admiration," and "the warmest and most unqualified approbation," of all who listened to his stirring statement. Can anything, indeed, be better expressed than the following reference to the abortiveness of the first application to Parliament by the Assembly of 1845:-
"It is our duty to persevere in this struggle. I regard it not only as a religious, but as a constitutional, question. The brunt of the battle has fallen on us, but it is not our own cause alone for which we are contending - it is the great, the sacred question of liberty of conscience; and I am persuaded that the Church will only lay down the weapons of her warfare when the victory is won." And, when meeting the argument by the individual site-refusing proprietors, based on the ground of their absolute right of property, he said:- " There is no person has more respect for the rights of private property than I have, but I cannot help thinking that these rights are peculiarly insecure when the owners have merely the law to look to for their support. I believe that property is best secured in that country where the corresponding duties are best performed; and I am not aware of any duties so incumbent upon them as that of refraining from interfering with the rights of conscience."
For, as he justly reasoned -
"There is a kind of oppression which maketh a man - aye, a wise man - mad. I would just ask, what must be the feelings of any intelligent man who finds himself in this country, on account and in respect of opinions which, as a Christian, he entertains, subjected to a system of treatment for obeying the dictates of his conscience, which I declare would be severe, - if that man, instead of being a Christian, were a heathen idolater; and yet such is the position in which many of our people are placed."
A renewed application to Parliament was made in the spring of 1847, and a select Committee was then appointed to inquire in what parts of Scotland, and under what circumstances, sites had been refused. A great deal of evidence was laid before the Committee, and, amongst others, Dr Chalmers, and Mr Speirs, as Convener of the Sites Committee, were especially under examination. The evidence of the former, as regards the cross-examination by Sir James Graham and others, is very happily explained by himself in letters written by him at the time, minutely referred to by Dr Hanna. The evidence of the Convener of the Sites Committee cannot be read without exciting the utmost admiration, for the calm, full, and satisfactory way in which he explains the course taken by the Committee, and meets the objections with which their proceedings were met. It is impossible here to go into the details of that evidence. One great object of the hostile examiners was to make out that there was so little difference between the two Churches, as to justify the site-refusing proprietors in their refusal. We shall confine ourselves to his answers on this point, as illustrating the principles on which he had throughout acted, and the fearless avowal of them he was ever prepared to make:-
"The moving cause of the Disruption," he says, " was the religious feeling of that part of the community who now constitute the Free Church. They believed conscientiously that the principles involved in the question were the true principles of the Established Church of Scotland.'' And afterwards, "that, according to my apprehension, the great and cardinal difference between the two churches is this - that the Free Church, in consistence with what has always been maintained by a large part of the Establishment, and in consistence with the doctrine of all the old divines of the Church of Scotland - holds that she has a right of legislating for herself in matters spiritual - that, in fact, she is entitled to exercise spiritual independence within her own jurisdiction, without the interference of the civil power."
In the same pamphlet which contains his speech before the General Assembly in 1845, to which we have referred, is given the correspondence which, as Convener of the Sites Committee, he maintained with the proprietors and their agents. The calm and dispassionate, but decided terms in which, throughout that correspondence, he contended for the constitutional principle of toleration, and stated the hardships to which its refusal had subjected the people, had much practical effect in obviating the objections in some quarters, even before the result of the Parliamentary inquiry and publication of the evidence. That result, as reported to the House of Commons, was that the Committee held it to be proved that there were a number of Christian congregations in Scotland who have no place of worship within a reasonable distance of their home, where they can unite in the public service of Almighty God, according to their conscientious convictions of religious duty, under convenient shelter from the severity of a northern climate. And the Committee farther reported to the House that they had heard with pleasure, in course of the evidence, that concessions had been made and sites granted; and they expressed an earnest hope that those which have hitherto been refused may no longer be withheld. Such has happily been the case, and no farther proceedings were taken. We cannot doubt that for this the Church was mainly indebted to Graham Speirs.
Our space will not permit of the insertion of some interesting details connected with his death, which occurred so soon afterwards. During his illness, and when he was suffering much, on the name of Dr Candlish being mentioned by his medical attendant, Professor Miller, he said with animation, " Give him my love, and tell him that I am quite happy. I know in whom I have believed, and if He has more work for me to do, He can raise me up for a year or two." On seeing his brother-in-law, Mr Grant (of Kilgraston), who came up to him from the country on hearing of his danger, he said with deep emotion, " I have suffered much - very much - but all is right." In his anticipation of death he was singularly resigned and peaceful. Surely of such a man it may be truly said, " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord."
On the 30th December his remains were laid in the Grange cemetery, near the grave of Dr Chalmers, in accordance, it is understood, with his own request.
At the meeting of the General Assembly held in May 1848, a resolution was engrossed in the minutes, expressing in very strong terms their sense of the loss which the Church had sustained in Mr Speirs' death, and the high and affectionate regard which they entertained for his memory.
J.C.
'Aussie Outpost' is pleased to be able to present to you this classic work. Please feel free to print this for reading offline at your leisure.
Outpost Homepage
Library - History
Memorial - Table of Contents
Next Chapter
TOP
03/06/2007
AN OUTPOST PRODUCTION
