Full Text for Thomas Guthrie, Apostle to the Slums (Text)
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Published by
The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
CONCORDIA. PUBLISHING BOUSE, St. Louis 18, Mo.
I'UII'ftD Dr U. s ....
Thomas Guthrie, Apostle to the Slums
By F. R. WEBBER
Everybody is aware that Dr. Thomas Guthrie was one
of the most noted pulpit orators of the nineteenth century,
but the fact is often overlooked that most of his long life was
devoted to congregational work in the worst of Edinburgh's
slums. He built a spacioul? church there and a parochial
school; and in that district his well-known sermons were
preached. They fill most of the sixteen volumes of his col-
lected works, and very few sermon books have enjoyed so
large a circulation.
Thomas Guthrie was born in 1803 at Brechin, Forfarshire,
on Scotland's east coast. His father was a prosperous mer-
chant and a city official, well able to give his thirteen children
a good education. The elder Guthrie was a devout man, but
unfortunately he was devoted to the State Church (Presby-
terian), which had long been under the control of the ration-
alistic Moderate party. It was otherwise with Thomas Guth-
rie's mother. She decided that the Christless sermons to which
she was compelled to listen in the parish church were very
poor pabulum for her soul, and, being a woman of true Scot-
tish determination, she took the older children and became
identified with the little Burgher, or Secession, chapel not
far away, where a more or less obscure dissenting clergyman
preached the great doctrines of redemption as he understood
them.
In the Guthrie household the strictest standards of old-
fashioned piety prevailed. The family gathered morning and
evening, and the elder Guthrie read his "chapter" and offered
a lengthy prayer in true Scottish fashion. On Sunday they
attended their respective kirks, morning and afternoon. The
remainder of the day was spent in religious pursuits, after
the admirable fashion of those days. The children studied
their Shorter Catechism and recited their lessons to their
father. The parents and the older children read the well-
worn, leather-bound books that were to be found on the
corner shelf in every respectable home. There was the Bible,
The Pilgrim's Progress, Thomas Boston's Human Nature in
Its Fourfold State, and the standard works of Scotland's devo-
tional writers - pietistic, no doubt, and decidedly Calvinistic,
[408]
THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS 409
yet always laying utmost stress upon rugged honesty and up-
rightness of life. Metrical Psalms were memorized and sung
at family devotions, but secular psalms were absolutely for-
bidden on the so-called Sabbath.
At a very tender age Thomas Guthrie was placed in a
school kept by a devout man who augmented his modest salary
by means of a hand loom which stood in one corner of the
room. During the study periods he sat at his loom, and les-
sons were learned to the click of the wooden shuttle. Guthrie's
first textbook was the Book of Proverbs. "That book is with-
out a rival for beginners," he declared half a century later,
"containing quite a repertory of monosyllables and pure Saxon,
English undefiled. Take this passage, for example, where,
with one exception, every word is formed of a single syllable
and belongs to the Saxon tongue: 'Train up a child in the way
he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.'
What a contrast to the silly trash of modern schoolbooks for
beginners, with such sentences as, 'Tom has a dog'; 'The cat
is good'; 'the cow has a calf.' While learning the art of read-
ing by the Book of Proverbs we had our minds stored with
the highest moral truths; and by sage advices applicable to
all ages and departments of life, the branch while it was
supple received a bent in a direction highly favourable to
future well-doing and success in life. The patience, prudence,
foresight and economy which used to characterize Scots-
men - giving occasion to the saying, 'a canny Scot' - and by
which they were so often able to rise in the world and distance
all competitors in the race of life - was to a large extent due
to their being thus engrained in youth and childhood with the
practical wisdom enshrined in the Book of Proverbs." 1 Thomas
Guthrie's next school was the parochial school of the local
anti-Burgher congregation, where no less a man than Dr.
Thomas M'Crie, the eminent church historian, had once been
teacher.
Guthrie entered Edinburgh University at the early age
of twelve. He was a good student, but the university records
show that he was twice disciplined because of his readiness to
fight. Before he was fifteen, he was six feet three inches tall.
His broad Forfarshire "Doric" brogue caused the other boys to
1 Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie, D. D., and Memoir by His Sons
(London and New York, 1874), Vol. 1, pp.28-29.
410 THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS
ridicule him, and this led to frequent and violent scenes where
two boys, each stripped to the waist, settled the argument with
their fists, as the others formed a ring about them and looked
on. Guthrie's theological training was received in the Divinity
Hall of Edinburgh University. He walked halfway across the
city late at night, year after year, taking lessons in public speak-
ing from a qualified teacher. After four years of college work
and four additional years of theological study he was grad-
uated at the age of 20, but was refused a license to preach be-
cause of his youth. He returned to the University for addi-
tional study.
Guthrie was licensed to preach in 1825 and was offered
a large, prosperous congregation. He was told plainly that,
before accepting the appointment, he must go to St. Andrews
and pay his respects to Dr. Nicol, an influential leader of the
Moderate party, then in control of the State Church. Guthrie
refused emphatically to do this, for he had learned to know
and detest fhe Moderates because of their liberalistic views.
His refusal caused the Moderates to enroll his name, figur-
atively, in their Black Book; and for the next five years he
waited in vain for a congregation. He studied for a time at
the famous Sorbonne in Paris. Returning to Scotland, he suc-
ceeded his brother as manager of a local bank, filling this
position with credit for two years or so.
lt was not until 1830 that he received a call, and then only
through the patient efforts of an influential friend of the family.
Guthrie was compelled to pay sixty pounds for this appoint-
ment, half of which went to the crown, and half of which was
used by the Moderates for a dinner to the presbytery, at
which wine flowed freely and at least one clergyman became
very drunk.
The congregation was in the little village of Arbirlot and
was composed of farmers and a few village weavers. The
church was in bad repair, and its floor was merely tamped clay.
The manse, as it is called in Presbyterian circles, was hardly
fit for human habitation. Guthrie entered upon his work
with zeal. He organized catechetical classes for children and
a Sunday afternoon class for young people. The latter became
so popular that people from the congregation in the next vil-
lage walked four miles to attend it. He opened a lending
library; and when the farmers came for books, he led the
THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS 411
conversation adroitly into religious channels. James McCosh,
later the well-known president of Princeton University, was
his nearest neighbor. The Rev. J. C. Burns tells us that
Guthrie had provided himself with excellent critical and devo-
tional commentaries, yet he prepared his sermons with but
two books in addition to his Bible. These were Cruden's Con-
cordance and Dr. Thomas Chalmers' Scripture References.2
During his student days in Edinburgh, Guthrie had heard
all the noted preachers of that city, including Dr. Andrew
Thomson, the great evangelical leader, then pastor of Saint
George's, the domed church at the end of George Street. He
had observed that many a fine sermon may be reduced to
feebleness by a delivery lacking in animation, while many
a superficial sermon may sound very convincing because of
an impressive delivery. Guthrie determined to prepare his
sermons with utmost care and to write out every sermon in
full. Opposite each page of manuscript he left a blank page.
He made a painstaking study of the style of the Old Testa-
ment Prophets, of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Apostles,
and he strove, as far as possible, to imitate their style of
simple, direct statement. He revised each sermon again and
again, seeking to express simple thoughts in clear, pithy lan-
guage. Dr. McCosh often found him, late Saturday night,
recasting his finished sermon on the blank page opposite each
page of writing. On Sunday he preached without manuscript
or notes. His sermons were lengthy, but he usually allowed
the congregation to sing a metrical Psalm between the parts
of the sermon.
It was in his afternoon catechetical hours for young
people that he developed the pictorial style of preaching for
which he became famous. The young people and their parents
were questioned, at this afternoon service, on some section of
the Larger Catechism. Then, after singing a metrical Psalm,
the morning sermon was taken up, point by point, and the
young people questioned in regard to it. Guthrie amplified
the morning sermon by means of striking illustrations which
he did not feel free to use in the course of his morning sermon.
These were drawn from the daily lives of the people. One
of his well-known illustrations is that of the cabin boy in a
great storm at sea. When asked how he could be so cheerful
2 Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 319.
412 THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS
when all others were so terrified, he led the inquirer to a
bulkhead door, pointed to a dim light on the bridge, and said,
"That is my own father at the helm, sir." Guthrie used this
story with great skill in impressing upon his young people
that there is nothing to fear so long as Jesus Christ directs
the ship of the Kirk through troubled waters. During his
seven years at Arbirlot, Guthrie had the satisfaction of seeing
all but three of the thousand people in and near the village
become regular church attendants. During his pastorate but
one crime was committed in the village and its vicinity.
Thomas Guthrie was 27 years old when he became pastor
of Arbirlot, and at the age of 34 his fame as a preacher had
reached distant Edinburgh. Old Greyfriars had become va-
cant. It was one of the most historic and most influential
churches of the city, and on a flat tombstone in its church-
yard the National Covenant had been signed many years
before. Of the eleven candidates Guthrie was chosen by the
city magistrates. He accepted the call only on condition that
he be allowed to devote his energies to the people of the slums.
If the reader has visited Edinburgh, he may remember
the two churches, Old Greyfriars and New Greyfriars, which
stand end to end in a little lane that leads from the Grass-
market to George IV Bridge. Under the spiritual care of
Thomas Guthrie and an associate pastor were 50,000 people
who resided within the limits of the parish and were theoret-
ically affiliated with the church. Guthrie created a sensation
from the start. Every seat, every gallery, every aisle, was
crowded to capacity, and long queues waited outside hoping
that somebody might leave the church and that the police
might allow another to go in and take his place. Affiliated
with Old Greyfriars was Magdalene Chapel, where Guthrie
preached in the afternoon to capacity congregations.
Guthrie had made it clear that he intended to devote
his energies to the neglected people of the near-by slums. He
called attention to the fact that a very eminent Edinburgh
pastor of a former generation had made an annual visitation
of the poorer parts of his parish. Pausing at the end of each
narrow passageway, this clergyman (a Moderate) would lift
an elegantly gloved hand to Heaven and exclaim piously,
"Lord God, bless all the people who dwell in this wynd."
Except for this token visitation the people were completely
THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS 413
neglected. Guthrie spent two or three years visiting those
terrible wynds and closes, as the narrow alleyways are called.
He found wretched people living in appalling circumstances.
In a memorable sermon he describes the slums of his parish.3
There were whole streets of what were once the magnificent
homes of the rich, but now their great rooms were divided
into small cubicles, in each one of which dwelt in utmost
wretchedness a large family. Narrow passageways, some-
times but two or three feet wide, called wynds and closes,
led to what was once the. garden back of the rich man's home.
Every available square foot of ground had been built up in
brick tenements, often eight to ten stories high, and into most
of the rooms of these the sun was never known to shine.
The former gardens of the wealthy were set thick with these
squalid tenements, and in them dwelt people whose poverty
was almost beyond belief. In some cases both father and
mother were drunkards, and their children were taught to
steal in order that they might eat. Again, Mr. Guthrie found
families of devout Christians whom sickness, accident, or un-
employment had reduced to such a condition that they sold
their home and moved to the slums, then sold their furniture,
piece by piece, keeping at last only the family Bible, a few
religious books, and their Sunday clothes. Continued mis-
fortune, and children crying because of hunger, at last caused
them to pawn the family Bible and their Sunday clothing,
and then they quit attending church.
Mr. Guthrie had not been long in Edinburgh before he
resolved to bliild a church and school in the Nether Bow and
to put into operation Dr. Chalmers' territorial plan. Hitherto
Edinburgh, which was overwhelmingly Presbyterian, had been
divided into large parishes, in each of which were one or two
pastors. Two men were expected to care for as many as
50,000 souls. Guthrie declared emphatically that no pastor
can care properly for more than 1,000 souls. The Chalmers
territorial plan called for the division of these large parishes
into small territories and then for placing a number of elders
and deacons in charge, working under direction of the pastor.
Each elder or deacon was to have ten to twenty families under
his immediate care, and each worker was obliged to visit every
family once a week. Forty such trained elders and deacons
3 The City; its Sins and Sorrows (Edinburgh, 1857), pp.51-80.
414 THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS
were assigned to a given territory, and each territory con-
tained a large church and one or more parish schools. Chal-
mers and Guthrie were men of strong personality and deter-
mination, able to organize such a territorial plan, to keep it
running smoothly, and to keep the elders and deacons at their
tasks with no excuses.
In 1839, two years after Guthrie came to Edinburgh, the
foundation stone of a new church was laid. It stands in
Nether Bow, now known as Victoria Street. Unlike most Old
World churches, this one included a basement, and in it Mr.
Guthrie was preaching before the walls were completed over-
head. The church was called St. John's, and late in 1840,
when it was completed, Thomas Guthrie took charge of it as
pastor. The church was seated for 1,000 people. Guthrie in-
sisted that the 650 sittings on the main floor be free of pew
rent and reserved for the poor. There are long galleries on
each side wall and a gallery across the rear of the church.
The 350 sittings in these galleries were rented to the well-
to-do people who came from a distance to hear Guthrie preach.
By renting 350 sittings to the wealthy, he was able to provide
650 free seats for the poor. In the basement of the church
he started Edinburgh's first Ragged School, which differed
from the usual type of parish school (of which the Presby-
terians of Scotland had about one thousand at that time) in
that it was a school for the homeless street Arabs who were
so numerous in Edinburgh. It was a free school for those too
poor to pay tuition and where the children were provided with
free meals and warm clothing as well as religious and secular
instruction.
The church was crowded from the start. People were
turned away in numbers. So great was Mr. Guthrie's pop-
ularity as a pulpit orator that while he was engaged in the
educational campaign previous to the Disruption of 1843, the
people smuggled planks into the church during the week.
Climbing to the open space between the suspended ceiling and
the true roof, they laid these planks across the ceiling joists;
and despite the watchful church officers, many people suc-
ceeded in scrambling up into this church attic, where they
surrounded the ventilating grilles opening into the church
below. There they were forced to remain until Mr. Guthrie
and the elders and deacons were all out of the church at the
THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS 415
close of the service. This continued for some time, until it
reached the ears of the city officials, who prohibited it because
they feared, and rightly so, that the ceiling might give way
under the weight of this invisible portion of the congregation.
Thomas Guthrie was to enjoy his new church for only
three years. When the split in the State Church, known as the
Disruption of 1843, took place,4 it was Chalmers, Welsh, Guth-
rie, Candlish, Cunningham, and Gordon who led the move-
ment. For weeks they went all through Scotland, holding
mass meetings in every town and village. The burning ques-
tion was whether a local congregation had a right to choose
and call its own pastor, or whether this right could be claimed
by an influential patron. Chalmers, Guthrie, Candlish, and
their followers upheld the right of the congregation against
the Moderates, who defended patronage. During this prelim-
inary campaign Mr. Guthrie was asked to address a gathering
at Strathbogie. When he arrived, he was handed a court
order forbidding him to preach in any church, schoolhouse,
or churchyard in the parish of Strathbogie. He announced
a meeting in the open air; and putting the warrant under his
foot, he spoke to a great gathering of people while the court
officers looked on, powerless to stop him because the clerk
of court had no authority to prohibit field preaching.
Thomas Guthrie was one of the six great leaders of the
evangelical party who headed the solemn procession of 474
clergymen and many elders who filed out of the convention
of the General Assembly on May 18, 1843, and made their way
through cheering and weeping multitudes to Tanfield Hall,5
where they at once organized the Free Church of Scotland
and signed a deed of demission, severing all connection with
the corrupt State Church of their time and relinquishing all
claim to its property. In so doing they signed away their
congregations, their incomes, and all claim to the churches,
parochial schools, and manses. In Guthrie's case it meant
giving up his new church and school; but he did not falter
for a moment, nor did any of the 474 who withdrew that day.
In record time he found a new site close by, on the steep
slope of Castle Hill. The great majority of his congregation
4 A more detailed account of the Disruption appeared in the June,
1947, issue of CONCORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY, pp.418-422.
5 CONCORDIA THEOL. MONTHLY, June, 1947, pp.420-421.
416 THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS
withdrew with him; and in some manner, although a great
many of them were from the poorest slums in Edinburgh, they
raised the sum of 6,000 pounds, or about $30,000, for a new
church and school. In some manner Thomas Guthrie suc-
ceeded in building a simple but very substantial church and
school for that sum. St. John's Free Church, as it was called,
was a spacious building, seating 1,200, but it was quickly
filled to capacity. There Dr. Guthrie labored among his
people of the slums until shortly before his death, in the year
1873, when ill health compelled him to give up all but the
lightest of duties. It was in Old Greyfriars, in St. John's, and
in Free St. John's that most of his famous sermons were
preached. He was a man of unlimited energy; for in addition
to his labors in the slums of Cowgate and the task of raising
funds and building a new church and school, he found time
to engage in a speaking tour throughout Scotland. As a result
of this tour he raised $591,850 in order to provide the 474
Free Church pastors with manses, as they are called by the
Presbyterians. This was remarkable, for the people of the
new Free Church had just raised $1,600,000 for 500 new church
buildings, to say nothing of almost as many parochial schools
and the imposing New College and its theological hall, which
stand to this day at the end of the Mound, an artificial cause-
way connecting the Old Town and the New Town. As a result
of a multitude of activities Dr. Guthrie developed a heart con-
dition, and for two years it was feared that he would never
preach again. From this time onward Dr. William Hanna, the
author of the two-volume biography of Thomas Chalmers, was
Guthrie's assistant at Free St. John's. With so faithful a
helper, Guthrie continued his work from 1850 until 1864,
when his worn-out condition compelled him, at the age of 61,
to give up most of his work.
It was not until 1855 that the first of Dr. Guthrie's dozen
or more books appeared. Until then he had published only
his three pamphlets on Ragged Schools and a sermon or two.
His first book, The Gospel in Ezekiel, has its shortcomings.
In it, for example, he shows once more how difficult it is for
the "reformed" type of mind to grasp such a truth as Bap-
tismal regeneration. In his eagerness to warn his readers
against the belief that a mere outward performance of Bap-
tism will prove a guarantee of life and salvation, he comes
THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS 417
dangerously near to denying it entirely.6 Despite its defects,
this Gospel in Ezekiel became a best seller in Scotland and
in America. Other books of sermons followed in rapid suc-
cession, for Guthrie was one of the few famous preachers who
could write well as well as preach well.
Like the Fundamentalists of our own day, one cannot
accept Dr. Guthrie without reservation. He preached Christ
Crucified with singular clarity, and he declared in no un-
certain terms that salvation flows entirely from divine grace,
"without any merit on the part of the sinner to deserve it,
and without any ability on his part to accomplish it," as Dr.
Andrew Thomson so aptly expressed it.7 One can only wish
that Guthrie might have been equally clear in regard to other
important truths of the Gospel of grace. If he could dis-
tinguish between objective and subjective justification, this
is not clear in his sermons. His Calvinism is not of the old,
harsh type. Hyper-Calvinists considered him liberal because
he did not preach a limited Atonement. "John," he said in
one of his sermons, "uses a very broad expression. 'Jesus
Christ,' he says, 'is the propitiation for our sins; and not for
ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.' The whole
world- 'Ah!' some would say, 'that is dangerous language.'
It is God's language; John speaking as he was moved by
the Holy Ghost. It throws a zone of mercy around the world.
Perish the hand that would narrow it by a hair's breadth." 8
Guthrie had, at least in his younger years, the Reformed
conception of the divine obligation to keep the Sabbath;
while his daily experiences in the Cowgate slums with
thousands of drunken men and women caused him to preach
fiery temperance sermons long before that had become a
fashion in evangelical circles. One authority on the history
of preaching, whose name we shall not mention, hails Dr.
Guthrie as one of the nine representative preachers of mod-
ern times. Although admitting his greatness, yet this au-
thority would have us believe that Guthrie was a man with-
out theological depth, but clever enough to conceal his lack
of deep thinking and close argumentation behind a series of
6 Op. cit., pp. 212-218.
7 Andrew Thomson, Sermons and Sacramental Exhortaticms (Edin-
burgh, 1831), p. 61.
S Autobiography, Vol. 2, p.194.
27
418 THOMAS GUTHRm, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS
dazzling word pictures and striking illustration. The real
grievance of this critic seems to be that Dr. Guthrie, like
Spurgeon, rejected the conclusions of the Higher Critics in
toto. lt is here that we find Guthrie's greatest glory. He has
an admirable sermon on the inspiration of the Bible.9 Even
granting that he mistakes mere assertion for logical proof, yet
that sermon, with the blemishes that one must admit that it
contains, is one of the most ringing pleas in behalf of an
unmutilated Bible that are to be found anywhere. in Reformed
circles. Call the sermon rhetorical if you will, and its oratory
of the old-fashioned kind, yet it is the fearless testimony of
a man who had utmost confidence in a verbally inspired and
all-sufficient Bible. In one of his writings he mentions the
youngest of his nine children, a little lad of four years, who
could face with utmost calmness the fiercest tempest because
his father was at his side. The elder Guthrie's confidence in
the Bible was equally sure.
lt is quite true that Dr. Guthrie's system of theology was
not what we might consider complete, yet his critics are
singularly blind to the fact that his dozen or more books con-
tain sermons that he preached to the farm laborers and hand-
loom weavers of Arbirlot and to the unlettered people of
Edinburgh's slums. He tells us more than once in his auto-
biography that it was his lifelong ambition to express the
doctrines of Redemption in the simplest possible language so
that the ragged people from the Old Town tenements might
understand. H he did not make use of such terms as sanc-
tification, reprobation, and concreated righteousness, it is not
necessarily an indication of theological superficiality. Like
Fundamentalists in general, from Charles Simeon, Thomas
Boston, Thomas Chalmers, C. H. Spurgeon, and C. P. Mc-
Ilvaine down to the time of Gresham Machen, W. J. Bryan,
and Campbell Morgan, he was never able to grasp such truths
as our doctrine of the means of grace, nor the doctrine of
election as it was so admirably set forth by Dr. F. Pieper and
by Dr. A. Hoenecke. Guthrie was a reformed theologian, and,
as Carlyle said of Knox, "we are to take him for that; not
require him to be other," much as we regret that his theolog-
ical system was incomplete.
9 Thomas Guthrie, The Way to Life (London, 1862), pp.86-101.
THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS 419
Guthrie's sermons are hardly models of homiletical style.
His main divisions, clearly marked and always announced,
are in the form of simple statements. Unfortunately these
do not always grow out of the text. He has a sermon on the
text: "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present
world." 10 From this text he derives three main divisions,
namely: I. Consider the fall of Demas; II. Consider the cause
of his fall; III. Learn the lessons this case teaches. Clearly
his third main division cannot be considered a part of his
text, although it might serve admirably as a conclusion or
a practical application. In other cases we find Guthrie an-
nouncing a text, expounding it correctly, and then, without
warning, going off on a tangent and introducing something
foreign to the text. Generally it is a very important truth,
but its relation to the text is difficult to see.
Guthrie has been called the greatest master of the pic-
torial style of preaching - perhaps the greatest of modern
times. In his Sunday afternoon Bible hours in the village of
Arbirlot he discovered that picturesque illustrations could
reach the dull minds of the plowboys and the dairy maids.
When he became the apostle to the Cowgate slums, he em-
ployed the same method. Today one would think nothing of
it, but in 1837 such preaching was a novelty, particularly in
Scotland, where pulpit propriety had been carried to ex-
tremes. Guthrie's illustrations are frankly sentimental, for
he found that they reached the hearts of people of limited
education: a shipwreck on a rocky Scottish coast; a ragged
boy gazing at a window filled with Christmas gifts; a woman
pawning her wedding ring in order to buy bread for her
starving bairns; a beautiful child lying dead on a bed of
filthy rags while her parents lounged about, too drunken to
realize what had happened. Guthrie made use of such garish
illustrations as these, and he used them freely. The people
of the tenements filled his church and even sat on the very
pulpit steps. Men of his time often describe Guthrie making
his way with difficulty from the sacristy to the pulpit because
of the mass of humanity that packed his church every Sunday.
Not all who came to hear him were slum dwellers. Hugh
Miller, the distinguished editor of the Witness, was one of
10 Thomas Guthrie, Speaking to the Hearl (Edinburgh, 1862),
pp.201-216.
420 THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS
Guthrie's most faithful office-bearers, and he never missed a
service. With his great plaid travel rug draped about his
shoulder and his huge shock of red hair, he was a familiar
figure at Free St. John's. Dr. James Y. Simpson and Dr. John
S. Blackie were other faithful members. Lord Cockburn and
Lord Jeffrey were usually present, although Jeffrey never
became a communicant member. Thackeray and Gladstone
attended Free St. John's whenever in Edinburgh, and even
Wilberforce was often present. During the summer months
many distinguished visitors from England and America came
to hear Guthrie.
For thirty-four years the tall, broad-shouldered figure of
Guthrie, followed by his favorite black collie, was a daily sight
in the crazy, steep streets of the Old Town. He climbed the
stairs of the reeking tenements, visiting the sick and dying,
seeking to bring them to a realization of their sin and their
need of salvation. Even an impaired heart condition did not
stop him. He retained his proverbial cheerfulness to the end.
At the age of 70, completely worn out by forty-three years
of laborious effort, he lay dying. One of his sons tried to lift
his head from the pillow. "Heave awa, lad!" he cried cheer-
fully, "I'm na dead yet!" Then, more solemnly, he said,
"Just sing me a bairn's hymn." His family sang one of his
favorite hymns, and then Guthrie said, "Pray that I may have
a speedy entrance into Heaven, where we shall no longer
have to proclaim Christ - but where we shall enjoy Him
forever." 11
Guthrie had a voice of great range and power, and his
early training in public speaking had taught him to use it
with the skill of an actor. He had a gift of persuasiveness
that few .could resist, and during his campaign for his Ragged
Schools he not only succeeded in establishing his own school,
but he formed an organization and encouraged the establish-
ment of such schools in other parts of the city. His book
The City: its Sins and Sorrows and his three printed pleas
for Ragged Schools are ample proofs of his persuasive elo-
quence. Pedantic people said of his preaching, just as they
said of the earlier sermons of Dr. John Brown of Broughton
Place Kirk, that it was "for the maist part tinsel-wark";
yet it was a simple, pictorial style that attracted the un-
11 Autobiography and Memoir, Vol. 2, pp. 486---490.
THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS 4~ l
churched multitudes and delighted the poorer classes of people.
Throughout his life he held to the one great central truth of
salvation through Jesus Christ alone - that and his unflinch-
ing testimony to a verbally inspired Bible. Friends warned
him that people would soon tire of the single theme of sin
and grace, but Dr. Guthrie is one of the few men whose
popularity did not wane in the least during his forty-three
years in office. Certainly he never degraded his pulpit with
Christless sermons. The writer of these lines has heard four
of Edinburgh's eminent preachers - some of them several
times. As a rule their sermons were Chiistless. Of Redemp-
tive Christianity there was hardly a hint. One could but
think of Thomas Guthrie and his ringing, flamboyant elo-
quence, his copious sentimentality, and his coruscant word
pictures. He never would have indulged in the pseudo-
psychiatry of today with its nonsensical sermons on "The
Forceful Dynamics of Life" and "Man's Power to Conquer
Life's Unconquerables." 12 With all his shortcomings, Guthrie
always gave the Cross a central place in his sermons. He
built two churches and filled them to capaCity, and he had
an important part in the establishment of a church in the
Plaisance. Five other congregations owe their origin in-
directly to him. Had he preached sermons of the modern
"personality problem" type, his church might have been as
empty as some of Edinburgh's churches are today.
If Guthrie's work was not permanent, he 'is not to blame.
His large church stands to this day at the head of the Lawn-
market, at the foot of Castle Hill, but it is now a mere chapel
of Tolbooth Church hard by. As long as Guthrie lived, his
church was not only the home of a great congregation, but
many people of all walks of life were brought to repentance
and faith through his ministry. If his large congregation is
but a shadow today, the blame may be laid squarely at the
door of liberalists who think that Christ-centered preaching is
old-fashioned. They cannot seem to realize that lost sinners
cannot be reclaimed by sermons on "Adjusting Yourself to
12 A certain man preached recently on the text "Why art thou cast
down, 0 my soul?" His theme was "Life's Gloomy Moods." His divi-
sions were: I. We cannot cure them by running away from them;
n. We cannot get rid of them by going on a vacation; III. We cannot
avoid them by blaming them on the weather; IV. We must admit they
exist and face them unafraid. This is typical of the nonsense of the
popular "Personality Problems" school of preaching of today.
422 THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS
Life's Realities." Thomas Guthrie, with his imperfect system
of theology, accomplished much. He did this because he held
firmly to the facts of sinful man's hopeless condition and the
power of the Lord Jesus to confer life and salvation upon the
believer and because he had implicit confidence in the Bible.
Of the Bible he said:
"Wondrous Book! It levels all, and yet leaves variety of
ranks; it humbles the lofty and exalts the lowliest; it con-
demns the best and yet saves the worst; it engages the study
of angels and is not above the understanding of a little child;
it shows us man raised to the position of a son of God, and
the Son of God stooping to the condition of a man. It heals
by wounding and kills to make alive. It is an armory of
heavenly weapons, a laboratory of infallible medicines, a mine
of exhaustless wealth. Teaching kings how to reign and sub-
jects how to obey, masters how to rule and domestics how
to serve, pastors how to preach and people how to hear,
teachers how to instruct and pupils how to learn, husbands
how to love their wives and wives how to obey their husbands,
it contains rules for men in all possible conditions of life. It
is a Guide-Book for every road; a chart for every sea; a
medicine for every malady; a balm for every wound; and
a comfort for every grief. Divinely adapted to our circum-
stances, whatever these may be, we can say of this Book as
David said of the giant's sword, 'Give me that, there is none
like it.' Rob us of the Bible and the sky has lost its sun;
and in other, even in the best of other books, we have naught
left but the glimmer of twinkling stars. Now, my text crowns
all these eulogies; like the keystone of the arch that binds all
the parts of the span together, it gives the rest their power
and value; for what were all the promises and prospects of
this sacred volume unless we knew that they could not fail,
and were assured by Him who is the Truth, as well as the
Way and the Life, that it were 'easier for Heaven and earth to
pass, than one tittle of the law to fail?' ...
"It has often been reviled; but 'it has never been refuted.
Its foundations have been examined by the most searching
eyes. In Hume, and Gibbon, and Voltaire, and La Place, to
pass such coarse and vulgar assailants as Tom Paine and
Carlisle with their few living followers, the Bible has had to
sustain the assaults of the greatest talent, the sharpest wit and
THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS 423
the acutest intellects. To make it appear a cunningly-devised
fable, philosophers have sought arguments amid the mysteries
of science, and travellers amid the hoar remains of antiquity;
for that purpose geologists have ransacked the bowels of the
earth and astronomers the stars of heaven; and yet, after
sustaining the most cunningly-devised and ably-executed as-
saults of eighteen hundred years, there it stands; and shall
stand, defiant of time, of men, of devils - a glorious illustra-
tion of the words of its Founder, 'On this rock have I built
my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it!'
"Since those eighteen hundred years began to run, what
revolutions time has wrought! what changes he has seen! The
oldest monarchies have been overthrown; the dawn of truth
has chased away the darkness of a long night; the maxims of
statesmen and the theories of science have shifted like the
wind; success has crowned the boldest innovator on all old
established systems. Jove is gone, but not Jehovah, the
Hebrews' God. On Grecian headlands and Roman hills the
temples of Jupiter stand in mouldering ruin; but temples
sacred to Jesus are rising on every shore. Since John wrote
in his cell at Patmos and Paul preached in his own hired
house at Rome, the world has been turned upside down; all
old things have passed away; all things on earth have changed
but one. Rivalling in fixedness, and more than rivalling in
brightness, the stars that saw our world born and shall see
it die, that rejoiced in its birth and shall be mourners at its
burial, the Word of our God stands forever. Time, that weak-
ens all things else, has but strengthened the impregnable posi-
tion of the believer's faith, and hope, and confidence. And as,
year by year, the tree adds another ring to its circumference,
every age has added the testimony of its events to this great
truth, 'The grass withereth, and the flower fadeth, but the
Word of the Lord shall endure forever.' "13
Dr. Guthrie is attractive to us today not only because he
was one of the most brilliant pulpit orators of the nineteenth
century and because of his intense interest in evangelizing
the unchurched people of his city; but he is of especial in-
terest to us because of his firm conviction that a church with-
out a parish school is a church without future. In this matter
he has been misunderstood. At one period of his life he
13 Thomas Guthrie, The Way to Life (Edinburgh, 1862), pp.103-107.
424 THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS
was an eloquent champion of the National School movement.
This does not indicate any loss of interest in the parochial
school. He found that the parish schools of the Church of
Scotland and those of the Free Church were unable to reach
all the children. Even with these excellent schools, by this
time almost 2,000 in number, many children were still growing
up without an education. It was then that he took to the
platform and urged the organization of State-controlled schools,
for he saw that the task was too great for the two larger
Presbyterian groups and the two or three minor Presbyterian
bodies.
Thomas Guthrie's three pleas for Ragged Schools, issued
at first in the form of three pamphlets, were eventually in-
cluded as a supplementary section of The City: its Sins and
Sorrows. They are masterpieces of persuasive propaganda;
and for those who would maintain a parochial school, espe-
cially in the poorer sections of a city, his words will prove
of interest today. While they are rhetorical and while he
makes free use of pathos, yet his vivid pictures of children
growing up like young pagans have a strong appeal even
today. He heard of Sheriff Watson of Aberdeen and his
original Ragged School. He heard of John Pounds of Ports-
mouth, a Christian cobbler, who opened a school for poor
children in 1819. His shop was but seven feet wide by eighteen
deep, yet John Pounds filled every square foot of it with
children. Guthrie was greatly moved. "I confess that I fel.t
humbled," he said. "I felt ashamed of myself. I well re-
member saying to my companion in the enthusiasm of the
moment, and in my calmer and cooler hours I have seen no
reason for unsaying it, 'That man is an honour to humanity.
He deserves the tallest monument ever raised on British
shores." 14 Today a fine bronze statue of John Pounds, sur-
rounded by several ragged children, may be seen in Ports-
mouth, and his little wooden shop was long one of the show
places of the city. At least four accounts of his life have been
written.15
The story of the cobbler led Guthrie to visit the Edin-
14 Autobiography, Vol. 2, pp.1l2-1l3.
15 Anon., A Memoir of the Late Mr. John Pounds (Portsmouth,
1839) j Lives of Distinguished Shoemakers (Portland, Me., 1849) j Wm.
Anderson, Kings of Society (London, 1873); R. E. Jayne, The Stewy of
John Pounds (London, 1925).
THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS 425
burgh police stations with one of his elders. He found scores
of homeless children sleeping on the bare stone floors. The
governor of Edinburgh Prison told him that 740 children had
been imprisoned within three years for minor offenses: this
in a city whose population at that time was but 150,000. Guth-
rie found that most of the homeless children of Edinburgh
came from the homes of worthless, drunken parents, who
thrust their children out on the street to shift for themselves.
A smaller number were orphans. Edinburgh had, at that
time, seven large hostels for children, yet many remained
homeless. Guthrie opened his parish school in the church
basement, and within a very few months he had 265 pupils
enrolled. He provided the children with meals and warm
clothing, and his school cost him $10,000 a year at the outset.
Not only did he appeal to the well-to-do people who filled the
church galleries, but he organized a city-wide group and fired
them with zeal for the Ragged School movement. He went
before Parliament and urged his cause. He delivered lectures
throughout Scotland and England, and lived to see Ragged
Schools in scores of large cities, and even ten such schools
where the children were quartered in unused ships tied up
at the docks in various seaports.
It was not long until trouble arose. A cry was raised
that compulsory religious training is an infringement upon
the rights of free citizens. Guthrie insisted that religion must
be taught in his parish school, and he fought the case to
a finish and won. He attended a great mass meeting, called
by a group who termed themselves the Protestant Liberals.
Guthrie walked to the platform and declared that not one of
his school children, now numbering 300, had come from a
Christian home. Their parents, in every case, were virtual
pagans. He was not trying to teach the Bible and the West-
minster Catechism to Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Meth-
odists, and Baptists, but to children whose background had
been paganism. This declaration convinced the majority of
his opponents.
Guthrie lived long enough to see many of his street Arabs
become useful citizens. Between the years 1847 and 1851 the
number of children in Edinburgh Prison was reduced from
315 to 56, and the warden of the prison declared that Guthrie's
Ragged Schools had been "the principal instruPlents in. effect-
426 THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS
ing so desirable a change." Some years later, at a commence-
ment at Edinburgh University, Dr. Guthrie could not restrain
his tears when he saw one of his former waifs, now a hand-
some young man, receive his Master's degree. Taking sixty
names at random, he found that fifty-six of his parochial
school graduates had become useful citizens, and some held
positions of responsibility and trust.
The object of the Ragged School, as Dr. Guthrie expressed
it in the constitution and by-laws of his School Association,
reads:
"It is the object of this Association to reclaim the neglected
or profligate children of Edinburgh, by affording them the
benefits of a good, common, and Christian education, and by
training them to habits of regular industry, so as to enable
them to earn an honest livelihood, and fit them for the duties
·of life. The general plan upon which the schools shall be con-
ducted shall be as follows, viz:
"To give the children an allowance of food for their daily
:support.
"To instruct them in reading, writing and arithmetic.
"To train them in habits of industry, by instructing and
employing them daily in such sorts of work as are suited to
their years.
"To teach them the truths of the Gospel, making the Holy
Scriptures the groundwork of instruction." 16
In our own day, when congregations often enter a new
community and begin by building a social hall before they
build a church or school and plead that the high cost of build-
ing has compelled them to do this, one cannot escape the
thought that there is much to be learned from such men as
Thomas Guthrie. He realized the value of the Christian day
school. When he found that the people who lived near by
were too poor or too worthless to support such a school, he
,organized his well-to-do minority into a School Association
and expanded this by drawing in other people from through-
out the city. When he found that the children who lived
near by were hungry and poorly clad, he provided them with
meals and warm clothing, free of cost, and by his appeals, both
printed and by word of mouth, he raised $15,000 a year to
: support his enterprise - a large sum in those days.
16 Autobiography, Vol. 2, p.120.
THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS 427
Have we, today, a right to abandon a run-down section of
the city and move our churches to "fields of greater oppor-
tunity" in the residential suburbs? Have we a right to invest
our money in social halls and parish houses and devote our
evenings to entertainments of one kind or another, while the
children of the tenements grow up without religious training
of any kind? The money that will build a parish house will
build a school. The hours devoted to social activities in the
parish hall might be devoted to the training of a band of de-
voted people, pledged to give one evening each week to the
task of calling upon the unchurched multitudes of the com-
munity. Guthrie did just this. Not only did he gain the
children, but eventually he gained many of their parents; and
the influence of Free St. John's Church, at the junction of
Castle Hill, Lawnmarket and West Bow, transformed scores
of good-for-nothing, drunken parents into devout Christians
and faithful church workers. There were old people in prom-
inent New York churches not so many years ago -lifelong
church members, who had begun life in the Cowgate slums,
and had been lifted from a state worse than paganism by
Dr. Guthrie, his church and his school. Chalmers, Tasker,
MacColl, Ross, Macleod, and others had the same experience
and employed the same methods in the poorer tenement sec-
tions of Edinburgh and Glasgow. If the Presbyterians can
do it, so can we.
lt is well that we send food, clothing, Bibles, and Cate-
chisms to the hungry and ragged children of Central Europe.
Their sad stories move us; but after all, Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Cardiff, Durham, Dublin, and scores of other cities have always
had their swarms of hungry and ragged children. The man
answers poorly who tells us that other denominations have
a duty toward those people as well as we. He forgets that
those very denominations, lacking the solid doctrinal founda-
tion that is ours by an unmerited gift of grace, have gone
down under the withering blight of Higher Criticism and
Modernism. Who ever heard of a Higher Critic devoting his
time to the evangelization of the poor or a Modernist engaged
in organizing Christian day schools? Such men seek fashion-
able, wealthy congregations, and they ridicule the parochial
school. When Higher Criticism and Modernism take pos-
session of a religious denomination, missionary zeal languishes,
428 THOMAS GUTHRIE, APOSTLE TO THE SLUMS
schools (if any) are closed, and their empty buildings are
turned into social halls; and in such surroundings one never
hears of worthless families transformed into devout Chris-
tians. Under the malevolent influence of liberal theology there
is no zeal for such work as that of Thomas Guthrie; and the
Christless sermons of the Modernist will repel rather than at-
tract the very people who need religion. A grave responsi-
bility rests upon those of us who still, by the Lord's mercy,
possess the saving truth.
THOMAS GUTHRIE'S MORE IMPORTANT WORKS
The Gospel in Ezekiel (Edinburgh, 1856). Unsatisfactory.
The City: its Sins and Sorrows (Edinburgh, 1857). Brilliant word
pictures of the needs of the unchurched and the poor.
Christ and the Inheritance of the Saints (Edinburgh, 1858). A series
of sermons on Colossians. .
The Street Preacher (Edinburgh, 1858). An account of Robert Flockhart.
Seed Time and Harvest of Ragged Schools (Edinburgh, 1860).
The Way to Life (Edinburgh, 1862). A series of sermons.
Speaking to the Heart (Edinburgh and London, 1862).
Man and the Gospel (London, 1865). Sermons.
The Angels' Song (Edinburgh, 1865). Twelve studies in the Redemption,
in the form of short devotions.
The Parables (London, 1866). Twelve sermons.
Early Piety (London, 1867).
Our Father's Business (London, 1867). Eleven religious essays.
Studies in Character (London, 1867). Old Testament worthies. Six-
teen essays.
Out of Harness (London, 1867). Articles appearing originally in the
magazine edited by Guthrie.
Pleas for Ragged Schools. Originally three pamphlets, published in
1847, 1849, 1850, and later in book form.
Autobiography of the Rev. Thomas Guthrie, and Memoir by His Sons,
2 vols. (London, 1874).
Platform Sayings, Anecdotes and Stories of Thomas Guthrie (Edinburgh
and London, 1863). Compiled from his writings.
New York, N. Y.
Contributors to This Issue
Dr. L. B. Buchheimer, for many years pastor of the Church
of Our Redeemer in St. Louis, Mo., has retired from the active
ministry; he lives in St. Louis.
The Rev. F. R. Webber is in charge of the Lutheran Parish
Center, N. Y., editor of the Church Builder, and secretary of the
Committee on Church Architecture of The Lutheran Church-
Missouri Synod.