Samuel Rutherford | Page 8

the best graces of heart and
character. 'In truth, religious obedience is a very intricate problem, and
the more so the farther we proceed in it.' And he has poor eyes and a
poor heart for true religion, and for its best fruits both in the mind and
the heart and the character, who does not see those fruits increasing
letter by letter as Rutherford writes to Marion M'Naught.
Her public spirit also made Marion M'Naught to be held in high honour.
Her husband was a public man, and his intelligent fidelity to truth and
justice in that day made his name far more public than ever he wished it
to be. And in all his services and sufferings for the truth he had a
splendid wife in Marion M'Naught. 'Remember me to your husband,'
Rutherford writes; 'tell him that Christ is worthy to be suffered for not
only to blows but to blood. He will find that innocence and uprightness
will hold his feet firm and make him happy when jouking will not do
it.' And again, 'Encourage your husband and tell him that truth will yet
keep the crown of the causey in Scotland.' And when the petition is
being got up for his being permitted to return to Anwoth, Rutherford
asks his correspondent to procure that three or four hundred noblemen,
gentlemen, countrymen and citizens shall be got to subscribe it--a
telling tribute, surely, to her public spirit and her great influence.
But an independent mind and a public spirit like hers could not exist in
those days, or in any day this world has yet seen, without raising up
many and bitter enemies. And both she and her husband suffered
heavily, both in name and in estate, from the malice and the hatred that
their fearless devotion to truth and justice stirred up. So much so, that

some of the finest passages in Rutherford's early letters to her are those
in which he counsels her and her husband to patience, and meekness,
and forgiveness of injuries. 'Keep God's covenant in all your trials.
Hold you by His blessed word, and sin not; flee anger, wrath, grudging,
envying, fretting. Forgive an hundred pence to your fellow-servant, for
your Lord has forgiven you ten thousand talents.' And again: 'Be
patient; Christ went to heaven with many a wrong. His visage was
more marred than that of any of the sons of men. He was wronged and
received no reparation, but referred all to that day when all wrongs
shall be righted.' And again: 'You live not upon men's opinion. Happy
are you if, when the world trampleth upon you in your credit and good
name, you are yet the King's gold and stamped with His image. Pray
for the spirit of love, for love beareth all things, believeth all things,
hopeth all things, endureth all things. Forgive, therefore, your
fellow-servant his one talent. Always remember what has been forgiven
you.' And on every page of the Kirkcudbright correspondence we see
that, amid all these temptations and trials, no man had a better wife
than the provost, and no children a better mother than Grizel and her
two brothers. Her talents sought no nobler sphere for their exercise and
increase than her own fireside; and her public spirit was better seen in
her life at home than anywhere out of doors. Hers was truly a public
spirit, and like a spirit it inspired and animated both her own and her
husband's life with interest in and with care for the best good, both of
the Church and the State. Her public spirit was not incompatible with
great personal modesty and humility, and great attention to her
domestic duties, all rooted in a life hid with Christ in God.
And then, all this--her birth, her station, her talents, and her public
spirit--could not fail to give her a great influence for good. In a single
line of Rutherford's on this subject, we see her whole lifetime: 'You are
engaged so in God's work in Kirkcudbright that if you remove out of
that town all will be undone.' What a tribute is that to the provost's wife!
And again, far on in the Letters he writes to Grizel Fullarton: 'Your
dear mother, now blessed and perfected with glory, kept life in that
place, and my desire is that you succeed her in that way.' What a pride
to have such a mother; and what a tradition for a daughter to take up!
So have we all known in country towns and villages one man or one

woman who kept life in the place. Out of the memories of my own
boyhood there rises up, here a minister and there a farmer, here a cloth-
merchant and there a handloom weaver, here a blacksmith's