5 December: Boreham on Henry Drummond

A Modern Sir Galahad
The people of Stirling are commemorating today the birth, in their ancient and romantic burgh, of one of the most magnetic and colourful personalities of the nineteenth century. Sir George Adam Smith, his biographer declares, that you might as well attempt to describe a perfume as attempt to describe Henry Drummond. The grandson of the founder of William Drummond and Sons, the great firm of seedsmen, and the son of the founder of the well-known publishing house, Henry found the ball at his feet from the start, and he was quick to make the most of his opportunity. His life long charm was his perfect naturalness and commonsense. Asked in mid-career if, in boyhood, he had any premonition of the course that his afterlife was to take, he replied that a real boy never thinks of such things; he is too busy in being a boy. His favourite pastime was scalp-hunting with other synthetic Red Indians under the shadow of Stirling Castle; his library consisted exclusively of adventure stories; and he acquired a passion for Punch and Judy shows that, to his dying day, never relaxed its hold upon him.

He was, if he himself is to be believed, an incorrigible duffer. "I wish," he said, years afterwards, in addressing the students of Melbourne University, "I wish to talk as a duffer to duffers." If this estimate of his capacity as a student was just, he must have outgrown that youthful stupidity or concealed it most successfully behind the scintillating brilliance of his maturer years. The choice of a career presented, in his case, unusual difficulty. Indeed, it is not certain that he ever solved the problem, for nobody can say, in so many words, exactly what Henry Drummond was. There was scarcely any position that he might not have occupied—and adorned. In actual fact, he was a Presbyterian minister, although he never assumed a ministerial title, never wore a ministerial garb, and never accepted a call to a congregation. Anyone who knew him would have smiled if they had heard him referred to as the Reverend Henry Drummond.

Reconciliation Of Learning And Faith
He became Professor of Natural Science, and his lectures on scientific themes, now published broadcast, were recognised by the Royal Society, the British Association, and other learned bodies, as being extremely valuable contributions to our knowledge of the subjects that he so skilfully treated. Mr. Gladstone tried hard to persuade Drummond to enter Parliament; Lord Aberdeen, when he went to Canada as Governor-General, begged Drummond to accompany him; whilst the McGill University of Montreal did its level best to secure him as its principal. Innumerable were the golden gates that swung open at his approach. He was thirty when he produced his masterpiece. His "Natural Law in the Spiritual World" took everybody by storm. When, 15 years later, its author died, the book had reached its 32nd edition.

Until Drummond's time, earnest and well-educated religious people looked with profound suspicion on the researches of scientists, whilst the sages and savants viewed with ill-disguised contempt all ecclesiastical institutions and spiritual developments. Nobody did more than Henry Drummond to bring about a rapprochement and usher in a better day. No man ever addressed such a variety of audiences. He preached in pulpits; he lectured before the great scientific assemblies; he joined Mr. Moody in dealing with the immense concourses that gathered to hear the American evangelist. He was equally at home among public school boys, university students, bootblacks, crossing-sweepers, African negroes, South Sea islanders, London stockbrokers, Australian squatters, peers of the realm, leaders of society, princes of commerce, captains of industry, doctors, lawyers, bankers, and people of every class and kind.

Personality His Greatest Achievement
The Duke and Duchess of Westminster invited Drummond to conduct meetings in the ballroom of Grosvenor House. Many members of Parliament, including several Cabinet Ministers and Opposition leaders, thronged these gatherings. "The vast and luxurious apartment," says a Press report of the time, "was invariably crowded by a company that included politicians, authors, artists, critics, soldiers, and the headmasters of the great schools. The audience was, without an exception, deeply moved by the utterance of this remarkably equipped and immaculately dressed young man." No sensation was created, but the impression produced was indelible. The audience that Drummond loved best, however, was an audience of one. He was often to be seen going home arm-in-arm with some man who, after a meeting, had asked him a question. He specially loved humanity's oddities. The unconventional, the Bohemian, and the vagrant were his peculiar delight.

But, after all, the choicest thing about Henry Drummond was just Henry Drummond. Bearing himself like a knight, dressing like a duke, and speaking with the caressing persuasiveness of a lover, he made himself master of all hearts. He was, Ian Maclaren says, a singularly handsome man; "and those who met him on the streets of Glasgow, wearing round his fine shoulders his tartan plaid of green and black, will carry to their graves a memory of extraordinary grace and winsomeness." Sir George Adam Smith declares that those who knew him will always think of him as the most Christ-like man they ever met. Late one Saturday night, a woman called at his home in deep distress. "My husband is deein', sir," she sobbed. "He's no able to speak to you, and he's no able to hear you; but I'd like him to hae a breath o' you aboot him afore he dees!" No incident could convey more faithfully the impression created on the popular mind by the fascinating personality of Henry Drummond.

F W Boreham

Image: Henry Drummond