History of Knox Church Dunedin/Chapter 2

by John Hislop

CHAPTER II.

Biographical Sketch of the Rev. Dr Stuart up to the date of his leaving Home for Dunedin.

THE following biographical sketch of Dr Stuart cannot fail to be read with interest. It is copied from Cox's "Men of Mark of New Zealand," and Ross's "Education and Educationists in Otago":—"Mr Stuart was born in the year 1819, in a hamlet on the banks of the Tay, and began his education in the parish school of Kenmore, which was conducted by Mr Armstrong, a university man. In this school, which stands where the Tay issues from its parent loch, a succession of lads, bred on the slope of the Grampians, have been trained for the Universities for at least a century. 'Though in my first teens,' he said on a public occasion, 'before I had access to a newspaper, yet in no sense was I a waif, for I was within reach of church and school and such books as Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," Boston's "Fourfold State," Hervey's "Meditations," "The Scots Worthies," one or two histories, and Burns's poems. To these institutions and books I am a debtor to a degree more than I can express. Still, it was a red-letter day in my life when I was asked as a boy to become reader to an old couple who received the Scotsman newspaper from a son who had pushed his fortune in the South. I then heard for the first time the glowing words of Brougham and Russell, and Peel and Graham, and became acquainted with the questions and discussions which engaged the high court of Parliament. My little world, hitherto bounded by the Grampians, suddenly embraced London and Paris, the Indies and the Americas. In the Scotsman I found a schoolmaster with more force and greatness than Mr Armstrong, at whose feet I had sat for years.'

"Mr Stuart was instructed, in his village school, in Gaelic, English, Latin, Greek, and mathematics; and, with a view to acquiring fluency in speaking English, he was sent for two summers into the Lowlands. Like other young Highlanders who had set their hearts on getting to college, he, when a mere boy, took to school-teaching, a calling which then yielded little pay, but which afforded opportunities for reading and study. In order to keep himself abreast of the doings in the great world, he now resolved to get a newspaper. With that object in view he opened communication with the editor of the Fife Herald, and induced him to accept his offer to furnish him with the news of the town of his habitation in exchange for his weekly paper. When it was known that the weekly carrier put such a prize into Mr Stuart's hand, he was inundated with applications for a reading of it; and in the interest of peace he had to give his landlady—Granny Brown—a discretionary power in lending it. In 1837 he bought the goodwill of an 'adventure school' at Leven, Fifeshire, which enabled him to start with one scholar at threepence per week.^[1] For six weeks he met his solitary pupil for the full number of regulation hours. This circumstance drawing general attention, led to an attendance of pupils which put it within his power in three years to enter St. Andrews University. A bursary, and assistance in kind from a home which never withheld from him prayer or sympathy or cheer, placed him at his ease for the four years of his undergraduate course. 'When I went to college,' he once said, 'my first engagement was to join a firm of six members to secure the celebrated Edinburgh Witness, edited by Hugh Miller. We prized the prelections of our professors, but the arrival of our newspaper never failed to withdraw us for an hour from science and philosophy. The questions and discussions with which it dealt had an irresistible charm. Prizing the newspaper, I never grudged its cost, or deemed the hours devoted to its study as wasted or lost.'

"The quiet university town felt the non-intrusion agitation, which shook Scotland from end to end, and in 1843 caused the disruption of its historic Church. The movement influenced the students—some standing by the authorities in favour of the existing order of things, and others going for reform in the Church and in the government of the University. The election of the Lord Rector became a casus belli. The reform party brought forward Dr Thomas Chalmers in opposition to the nominee of the Senatus, and carried his election. Mr Stuart, who represented his 'nation,' voted with the majority. The Senatus in its haste summoned the rebels, as they were termed, and asked them to submit to an admonition for their part in the election. They respectfully declined, on the ground that their action was within the limits of the constitution; whereupon the Senatus, by a large majority, expelled them. The expulsion touched Mr Stuart and two others in both purse and pride, entailing many grievous consequences, which, however, did not long outlive his restoration and that of his fellows by a Royal Commission. Leaving St. Andrews, he entered the New College, Edinburgh, where as a theological student he had the advantage of sitting at the feet of Dr Chalmers. In 1844 he received the appointment of Classical Master, and shortly after that of Principal, in a first-class school near Windsor. He carried on his studies for the ministry in London, under Drs Lorimer, McCrie, and Hamilton, and completed them in Edinburgh. On receiving from the Free Presbytery of Kelso his license to preach the Gospel, he returned to Windsor, and some months thereafter was called to the Presbyterian church of Falstone, in the upper district of the North Tyne, on the English border. Here he laboured for ten years with much acceptability, success, and happiness, preaching, organising schools, and diffusing a knowledge of literature," until the end of 1859, when he was selected by the commissioners to be the first minister of Knox Church, Dunedin.

1. A letter received by the writer from Dr Stuart, dated "Leven, Fifeshire, 21st July, 1888," begins:—"I am now writing at a very early hour opposite the hall which I rented in 1837, and where I opened a school with one scholar—the only one for six weeks. I traced her out last night, and hope to see her after breakfast. I spent two hours with the banker of the place, another pupil, and through him I traced many of the scholars of that distant day." In a subsequent letter he wrote, "I have seen my first scholar, now a maiden of 57 years. I found a few old friends, with whom I had pleasant talk of long, long ago."