While in Scotland recently my wife Leeta and I had the
privilege of visiting Christian Focus Publications, my primary publisher
located near Fearn, Ross-shire. One morning during that visit CFP interviewed
me about several of the books I’ve had the privilege of publishing with them.
Here’s the short feature CFP released earlier this week of “yours truly”
commenting briefly on the biography I’ve written on Andrew Murray, South
Africa’s premier preacher, devotional writer and church leader of the
nineteenth and early twentieth century. To this day Murray’s devotional
writings continue to bring significant spiritual benefit to Christians around
the world.
I hope this brief feature will whet your appetite to read the full account of Murray’s life and ministry in Andrew Murray: Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa. I think you’ll be inspired and encouraged by Murray’s example, as I have been, to serve Christ with greater diligence and warmth of personal devotion to Him.
After becoming convinced that the sudden spiritual awakening which came to his own church and community in Worcester, South Africa, truly was the work of God’s Spirit, Andrew Murray joined in supporting the powerful revival as it continued to sweep across the country. This blog, the last of a three-part miniseries, shows how God used Murray as a discerning and skilled young minister to help promote the awakening that took place throughout South Africa in 1860 and 1861.
In the weeks that followed the commencement of the revival at Worcester during the middle of 1860, Andrew Murray’s wife, Emma, wrote her mother of the ongoing, dramatic awakening in their parish: “We are having many visitors from the surrounding places who come to see us on account of the revival meetings, and they go away blessed, saying that half has never been told. It is a solemn thing to live in such a congregation at such a time.
“I feel sure the Lord is going to bless us even more, and yet there are heavy trials before us; the work is deeply interesting and yet some things are painful. In the midst of an earnest address [by Murray] a man drove a dog into the church with a tin tied on its tail and frightened the people. Andrew came down the aisle and prayed a most solemn, heart-searching prayer, that if the work was not of God, He Himself would put a stop to it. The people were terrified as the excitement was very intense and some even fainted.
“The prayer meeting last night was very full and ten men decided for Christ, but fifty undecided left the building about twelve o’clock. We had no idea of the time. Two souls afterwards came through who were wrestling in agony for a time, but got into the light in their own houses. Some go through a fiery struggle. Two sisters have both passed through, are now bright and rejoicing.
“Last night again the church was full and Andrew preached so powerfully and yet so simply on ‘the Lamb of God.’ He is so very discreet in dealing with souls. About twenty came forward, and others stayed behind to be talked to. We do feel and realize the power and presence of God so mightily. His Spirit is indeed poured out upon us.”
Several other South African towns were visited and transformed by the revival around that same time. Toward the end of the year God began to use Murray’s powerful preaching ministry in even greater ways than he had previously experienced. He was invited to speak at a number of conferences from Cape Town to Graaff-Reinet, 500 miles to the east. His itinerant ministry was greatly blessed by the Lord and helped further the revival in various locations.
Nicolaas Hofmeyr later in life
During 1861 the awakening continued to spread across South Africa, impacting some two dozen additional parishes. Some of the communities first awakened in 1860, including Worcester, continued to be powerfully impacted by the revival in 1861. Early in September of the latter year a ministerial friend of Murray’s named Nicolaas Hofmeyr visited Worcester. He was on a collection tour to raise funds for missions but also wanted to observe for himself the “vehement, excited and confused prayer meetings” he had heard were taking place at Worcester, purportedly as an inevitable outcome of the mighty work of God’s Spirit.
Murray was away at the time of Hofmeyr’s arrival at Worcester, so the latter attended a prayer meeting with a church elder. As Hofmeyr opened the meeting in prayer he heard a few people moan. Then when a youth who had been powerfully converted began to pray in emotional tones, the assembly broke out in a bewildering verbal tumult. Due to their emotional distress, people tended to pray in short outbursts: “Lord, won’t you pour out your Holy Spirit?” “Yes, Lord, do it!” “O Lord, convert the unconverted!” As soon as the young man’s emotional prayer came to an end, the commotion stopped. But when other individuals subsequently prayed with great fervor the same type of group response occurred.
Hofmeyr was convinced that such behavior was not of God’s Spirit, was unedifying and needed to be stopped. As soon as Murray arrived home, Hofmeyr expressed his concerns and suggested that Murray put an immediate stop to the questionable behavior. Murray instead told Hofmeyr he was in no position to accurately judge a whole movement by observing it during its middle phase rather than from its beginning. Murray further explained that he had tried to put a halt to the emotional behavior, but had been unable to do so. He had concluded that these prayers from the heart served as the most powerful proof that the Holy Spirit was at work. It was for this reason that he was reticent to suppress such manifestations with force.
This incident certainly shows the change of perspective Murray had come to have concerning his own role in the midst of revival. He was now seeking not to interfere with, rather than to moderate, the mighty moving of God’s Spirit. To Hofmeyr’s credit, he did not press the issue further.
# # #
A full account of the revival in South Africa is recorded in chapters 11 and 12 of my comprehensive biography on Murray entitled Andrew Murray, Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa. Much spiritual encouragement and instruction can be gained through the consideration of his outstanding life of service for Christ Jesus.
When God’s Spirit first brought genuine spiritual revival to Andrew Murray’s church and community in Worcester, South Africa, the conservative young minister initially responded to it with considerable reserve. This is the second of a three-part miniseries on how Murray gradually came to understand that the sudden spiritual awakening truly was the Holy Spirit’s work, and how he went on to promote rather than futilely try to suppress it.
The year was 1860 and Murray, then age thirty-two, was the new minister of the Worcester Dutch Reformed Church. What had begun as the Prayer Meeting Revival in the United States in 1857-1858 had since brought powerful revivals to Ireland and Wales in 1859 before spreading to South Africa in 1860. (You can see my blogs on those earlier revivals as referenced in my April 15, 2019, Perspective.)
Historic Dutch Reformed Church in Worcester, South Africa
Not long after dramatic spiritual awakening first occurred in a rural portion of the Worcester parish, the revival suddenly flamed to life in the town as well. J. C. de Vries, a young man from Worcester who later became a Dutch Reformed Church minister, provided the following fascinating eye-witness account of the beginning of the revival in Worcester:
“On a certain Sunday evening there were gathered in a little hall some sixty young people. I was leader of the meeting, which commenced with a hymn and a lesson from God’s Word, after which I engaged in prayer. After three or four others had (as was customary) given out a verse of a hymn and offered prayer, a colored girl of about fifteen years of age, in service with a farmer from Hex River, rose at the back of the hall. She gave out her hymn verse and prayed in moving tones. While she was praying we heard as it were a sound in the distance, which came nearer and nearer, until the hall seemed to be shaken, and with one or two exceptions, the whole meeting began to pray, the majority in audible voice, but some in whispers. Nevertheless, the noise made by the concourse was deafening. A feeling which I cannot describe took possession of me.
Andrew Murray at age 28
“At that time Rev A. Murray was minister of Worcester. He had preached that evening in the English language. When service was over an elder passed the door of the hall, heard the noise, peeped in, and then hastened to call Mr. Murray, returning presently with him. Mr. Murray came forward to the table where I knelt praying, touched me, and made me understand that he wanted me to rise. He then asked me what had happened. I related everything to him.
“He then walked down the hall for some distance, and called out, as loudly as he could, ‘People, silence!’ But the praying continued. In the meantime I too kneeled down again. It seemed to me that if the Lord was coming to bless us, I should not be upon my feet but on my knees. Mr. Murray then called again aloud, ‘People, I am your minister, sent from God. Silence!’ But there was no stopping the noise. No one heard him, but all continued praying and calling on God for mercy and pardon. Mr. Murray then returned to me, and told me to start the hymn verse commencing, ‘Aid the soul that helpless cries’. I did so, but the emotions were not quieted, and the meeting went on praying. Mr. Murray then prepared to depart, saying, ‘God is a God of order, and here everything is confusion.’ With that he left the hall.
“After that the prayer meetings were held every evening. At the commencement there was generally great silence, but after the second or third prayer the whole hall was moved as before, and every one fell to praying. Sometimes the gathering continued till three in the morning. And even then many wished to remain longer, or returning homewards, went singing through the streets. The little hall was soon quite too small, and we were compelled to move to the school building, which also was presently full to overflowing, as scores and hundreds of country folk streamed into the village.
“On the first Saturday evening in the larger meetinghouse Mr. Murray was the leader. He read a portion of Scripture, made a few observations on it, engaged in prayer, and then gave others the opportunity to pray. During the prayer which followed on his, I heard again the sound in the distance. It drew nearer and nearer, and on a sudden the whole gathering was praying. That evening a stranger had been standing at the door from the commencement, watching the proceedings. Mr. Murray descended from the platform, and moved up and down among the people, trying to quiet them. The stranger then tiptoed forwards from his position at the door, touched Mr. Murray gently, and said in English: ‘I think you are the minister of the congregation. Be careful what you do, for it is the Spirit of God that is at work here. I have just come from America, and this is precisely what I witnessed there.’
“The fruits of that revival were seen in the congregation for many years. They consisted, among others, in this, that fifty young men offered themselves for the ministry. And this happened in days when it was a difficult matter to find young men for the work of the ministry.”
From the statements made by and about other ministers involved in the early stages of the South African revival it is evident that Murray was not alone in his cautious initial responses to the sudden spiritual awakening. Their reserved responses are not altogether hard to understand. They were not at all accustomed to seeing strong or even overwhelming emotional responses on the part of their congregations. To see a whole congregation of people bursting out simultaneously in prayer, crying out for God to have mercy on their souls, seemingly unaware of their surroundings and unable to restrain themselves, did not fit with Murray’s lifelong training and notions that God is not the author of confusion and that divine worship is to be conducted decently and in order (1 Corinthians 14:33, 40). Murray may have also had reservations about a purported mighty moving of God’s Spirit coming primarily through prayer rather than in conjunction with a pronounced emphasis on the proclamation of God’s Word.
To his credit, as will be shared in my next Perspective (D.V.), Murray went on to support the awakening and was significantly used of the Lord in promoting it in South Africa.
# # #
A full account of the revival in South Africa is recorded in chapters 11 and 12 of my comprehensive biography on Murray entitled Andrew Murray, Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa. Much spiritual encouragement and instruction can be gained through the consideration of his outstanding life of service for Christ Jesus.
When the Spirit of
God brings bona fide spiritual revival to the Church it is often not only an
astounding but also an overwhelming experience for those who are part of it. During
times of spiritual awakening God’s Spirit works so powerfully in people’s lives
that previously-careless non-Christians become intensely convicted of their
sins and cry out to God for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
Christians, too, earnestly repent of their sins and are tremendously quickened
in every area of their spiritual lives—worship, prayer, study of Scripture,
holy living, evangelism, service and more.
Such periods of
revival have sometimes been so overwhelming that they have not always been neat
and orderly. But because genuine revival is the work of God’s Spirit it always
produces truly spiritual results (like those just named) that are in keeping with
God’s will as revealed in His Word.
Andrew Murray at age 28
Andrew Murray was
still a young pastor when revival came to South Africa in 1860-1861. He
actually needed to learn to loosen his grip on the reins over his congregation
and to realize that he could not control how the Spirit of God carried out His
powerful, reviving work in the lives of people. Murray did indeed learn those
lessons and was therefore used of the Lord to help promote the awakening.
Here’s the first of a three-part miniseries on Andrew Murray’s experiences and
lessons learned concerning revival. We can learn much from his example.
In 1857-1858 what
became known as the Prayer Meeting Revival swept across the United States (see
my July 6, 2015, Perspective on that revival). That mighty working of God’s Spirit
next ignited powerful revivals in Ireland and Wales in 1859, then brought
widespread spiritual awakening to South Africa beginning in 1860. After the
revival’s dramatic beginning in Montagu, South Africa (see my July 25, 2015,
Perspective), it spread to Worcester, where Andrew Murray, at thirty-two years
of age, had recently been called as pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church.
Historic Dutch Reformed Church in Worcester, South Africa
The awakening
there actually began on the farm of David Naude in the rural Breede River ward
of the Worcester parish. Three individuals— Naude’s son Jan, Jan’s cousin Miss
Van Blerk and an old native farmhand named Saul Pieterse—had been faithfully
meeting weekly for several months to pray for revival. Miss Van Blerk taught
the servants on the farm and was particularly distressed over their spiritually-needy
condition. She became so burdened for them that she prayed almost continuously
for a week. Then one evening shortly thereafter, God’s Spirit moved suddenly
and mightily on a meeting she was holding for the servants. The spiritual
distress of the people became so great that she ran from the meeting place to
seek help with the situation.
The emotional
strain of the sudden, ongoing awakening soon overtaxed Miss Van Blerk, and she
retreated to Worcester for a week. Upon her return to the farm, the workers
came out, singing, to greet her. Reportedly nearly everyone on the farm was
converted.
As news of these
developments quickly spread, people from neighboring farms—“young and old,
parents and children, white and colored”—promptly began streaming to the
previously-neglected prayer meeting. According to one person’s description, the
people who gathered there were “driven by a common impulse to cast themselves
before God and utter their souls in cries of penitence.”
Murray came to
lead one of the meetings not long after the revival first broke out. But after
giving his careful instructions and inviting individuals to pray one at a time,
the whole group immediately burst into simultaneous prayer, pleading for mercy
and forgiveness. At that point old Saul jumped up, faced Murray and Naude, and
challenged them, “Try now to throw a dam wall around if you can!” By that he
basically meant, “Just try to contain the work of God’s Spirit if you think you
can.”
Members from other
parts of the parish and even from other congregations began to arrive at the
Naude farm in carts and wagons. For three months the Naudes needed to suspend
their farming activities to assist the many people coming to seek salvation.
Not long after
Murray officiated at the prayer meeting at David Naude’s farm, the awakening flamed
to life in the town of Worcester. (To be continued …)
# # #
A full account of the revival in South Africa is recorded in chapters 11 and 12 of my comprehensive biography on Murray entitled Andrew Murray, Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa. Much spiritual encouragement and instruction can be gained through the consideration of his outstanding life of service for Christ Jesus.
Here’s the second of a two-part feature on how Andrew Murray successfully recovered after failing in his initial proposal of marriage to Emma Rutherfoord. (If you haven’t already done so, you can read about Murray’s initial failed attempt in my March 1, 2019 Perspective.) Murray learned from his mistakes on that occasion, and committed Christians today can learn a thing or two from his example about exercising sensitivity and prudence in working through the complexities of romance and courtship.
In 1854, at age
twenty-six, Murray was one of two delegates sent to England to represent to the
British Government the interests of the British and Dutch settlers he
ministered to in the frontier region of South Africa. After returning to South
Africa from Britain in May, 1855, Murray was introduced to Howson Rutherfoord,
a prosperous Christian merchant and philanthropist in Cape Town. While staying
as a temporary guest in the Rutherfoords’ home, Murray met and was attracted to
their twenty-year-old daughter Emma. She was attractive, well-educated, a
capable homemaker and an active Christian who had interest in serving as a
missionary should such an opportunity present itself.
Bloemfontein about 1856
Murray needed to
return soon to Bloemfontein, the frontier town where his ministry was
headquartered. Though he had known Emma less than a month, he concluded he
would like to marry her. Before leaving Cape Town he decided to ask for her
hand in marriage, assuming she would be receptive to his proposal. Apparently
his proposal was quite businesslike and not at all romantic in nature. She was
shocked and dismayed that Murray, a godly and capable young minister who had
already gained a degree of prominence, would propose marriage when they did not
know each other well. And he did not appear to take into account the sacrifices
she would have to make if she were to accept his proposal. As a result, she
flatly refused his proposal and stated her wish to decline further acquaintance
with him.
Emma wrote her
sister Mary about the situation the first week of July. The correspondence
reveals that, despite her strong front, Emma was having difficulty putting the
unsettling developments with Andrew Murray out of her mind: “Mr Murray has left
Cape Town today. He called on Papa on Saturday, and said that he felt that his
conduct had been very wrong, did not seek to extenuate [excuse] it, under any
circumstances it had been wrong, but that his mind had been very harassed and
pressed, his people constantly urging his return [to Bloemfontein]. He had only
left them for ten months and had been absent twenty.
“He felt at the
same time the disadvantage and pain of his entirely lonely condition, no one he
could associate with or make a companion, and that he had acted hastily without
due consideration for me. He expressed extreme regret. Papa said he was evidently
agitated and his mind overpressed, and also said he felt how entirely proper
and just my conduct had been, that it had only heightened his esteem, and
begged to be allowed to send me his very
best regards. …
“I don’t feel
quite happy in a variety of ways, but however I am trying to think of nothing
but the present day and its duties. For to myself I seem moving in the midst of
clouds, though I daresay to others all looks bright around me.”
Murray returned to
Bloemfontein, where he threw himself into his ministry endeavors. Meanwhile,
Emma was still finding it impossible not to think about Murray and what might
have been, as her letter of September 28 to Mary betrays: “Don’t be alarmed
about me, though you cannot, not knowing, appreciate the intellect,
originality, earnestness and goodness of my friend [Murray]. Yet I never allow
my mind to dwell on the subject long without feeling a sort of shudder for a
want [lack of sensitivity on his part] inexplicable. And whenever any of his
good qualities come in view, still this feeling drives me from relenting in any
way. Yet there was much that was pleasant in the anticipation of the
realization of so many of my daydreams, which seem to me now completely
shattered. It seems as though my desire for a missionary life can never be
realized. I don’t know that I am fitted for it …
“Mr. Murray has a
far larger and more comprehensive mind, and I do trust he will get a good wife.
He may pick and choose from all the young ladies in town, Dutch or English, for
they adore him. And perhaps I have done him good and schooled his heart a
little, for he seemed to have appreciation of my reasons [for rejecting his
proposal], which I scarcely at first anticipated. Perhaps the next time he
falls in love he will act in a different manner. I don’t know where he is to
get a companion in his wife, but I earnestly hope he will have a good one and a
helpmeet. Many things now make me feel it would not have been desirable for
either party. And yet I have rather a dread, to speak the truth, of becoming
moss grown and dank and rusty before my time.”
Cape Town, South Africa, about 1850
But Murray had not
forgotten Emma. He still desired to marry her. Sometime early in 1856 (probably
February) he wrote to ask her forgiveness for past offenses and to learn if he
might have some hope of winning her as his wife in the future. In a March 20
letter to Mary, Emma revealed of her response to Murray: “I wrote I am
conscious but a cold answer to a very kind letter. … But I must and do still
refuse to decide without further acquaintance. And he only asks forgiveness of
the past, and some hope for the future. Whether the very small degree [of hope]
I felt justified in giving him he will consider enough to venture on returning
to Cape Town, I know not. He will have much to hazard. … I assure you my letter
was perfectly cool enough to make him quite happy in terminating the
acquaintance if he feels inclined.”
Less than two
weeks after penning the above words, Emma received a reply from Murray which
persuaded her of his genuine attachment to her and broke down her resistance.
Somewhat surprisingly, she set aside the condition she had she had just given
him that they must first become better acquainted through an in-person visit.
Instead, she promptly indicated her willingness to marry him and to return with
him to Bloemfontein.
Her April 5 letter
to Mary brings to light some of the sentiments Murray had shared with Emma that
led to her change of heart: “He is very romantic in his disposition. All sorts
of things that in reading German poetry and plays I had put down to German
mystery and romance, I find he fully sympathizes in. I thought no one in this
matter-of-fact age did, that it was only the philosophy of poets. …
“I must say it
seems very odd that he should have fallen in love with me in so short a time,
excepting that he explains it by these mysterious sympathies which made him
love me the first time we met and drew us together. He acknowledges he did
wrong in acting on impulse and forgetting my feelings in the first instance,
when he found he must leave. But he hopes that various reasons that he gives,
such as not being able to forget me, etc., will convince me that they were not
mere transitory feelings and impulses. He expatiates on the sacrifices he asks
from me.”
Due to tribal
unrest in the Bloemfontein region that made it impossible for Murray to leave
there immediately, he was not able to return to Cape Town until May 31. As it
would likely be at least another year before he could venture back to Cape
Town, Emma consented to a short engagement and to go with her beloved to
Bloemfontein immediately after they were married. Their wedding took place on July
2, 1856.
Andrew and Emma’s
marriage relationship truly was a blessed one. They attentively cared for each
other and worked together well in their shared ministry. Four months after
their wedding, Emma wrote Mary from Bloemfontein, sharing intimate thoughts of
appreciation and affection for Murray: “I am anxious to be a good housekeeper,
especially as Andrew never finds fault with anything I do. … He always listens
to the smallest little household trouble and tries to find me a remedy, and
does everything I ask him and gets what I wish. You cannot imagine a more
sympathizing, loving husband, so tender and gentle to his wife. … I certainly
never knew before I could be so bound to anyone or love anyone so much. It
seems a new faculty I had been perfectly unconscious of, and almost
overwhelming in its strength and depth of joy.”
Andrew and Emma
went on to share forty-eight happy, fruitful years of marriage and ministry
together.
# # #
I have written a comprehensive biography on Murray entitled Andrew Murray, Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa. Much spiritual encouragement and instruction can be gained through the consideration of his outstanding life of service for Christ Jesus.
Here’s the first of a two-part
feature on a major speed bump Andrew Murray hit on his road to matrimony. His
example serves as a helpful reminder that committed Christians need to exercise
sensitivity and wisdom rather than being presumptuous in working through the
complexities of romance and courtship.
Murray was a capable, consecrated and
confident Christian minister who enjoyed marked success in his endeavors of
life. A family member wrote of him in his early years of ministry: “[Andrew] is
so bold, he carries the day. ‘Never fear’ is his motto. He never anticipates
difficulties or refusals. With Andrew an idea suggests itself, approves itself
to his judgment and then he never rests till it is carried out.” This appears
to have been Murray’s general outlook on and approach to life. While such a
confident outlook and bold approach often brought him success, they likely
contributed to his failure in his first proposal of marriage.
In 1854, at age twenty-six, Murray
was honored to be one of two delegates sent to England to represent to the
British Government the interests of the British and Dutch settlers he ministered
to in the Orange River Sovereignty. The ORS was the large region between the
Orange and Vaal Rivers in South Africa.
Cape Town, South Africa, about 1850.
Shortly after returning to South
Africa from England in May, 1855, Murray was introduced to Howson Edwards Rutherfoord,
a respected and influential Christian merchant, philanthropist and politician
in Cape Town. Rutherfoord, his wife and children belonged to the Church of
England. Though they were devoted to their own denomination, the Rutherfoords’
Christian sympathies were broad, and they were well-known for their generous
hospitality to missionaries of every society and denomination.
Howson Rutherfoord memorial fountain
Upon meeting Murray, Rutherfoord
promptly invited the young clergyman to join his family for dinner at their
home on Herschel Estate near Claremont, one of the southern suburbs of Cape
Town. After that, Murray was a regular and welcome guest at the Rutherfoords’
home and table. As the hospitable Mr. and Mrs. Rutherfoord were inclined to do
with some of their guests, before long they invited Murray to stay in their
home for a time.
Murray, who had just turned
twenty-seven years of age, soon began to be attracted to the Rutherfoords’
twenty-year-old daughter, Emma. Emma’s older sister, Mary, was married and
lived with her husband in India, while Emma’s older brother, Frederic, was pursuing
his education in England. Emma also had two younger sisters, Ellen and Lucy,
both of whom were still living at home.
Howson Rutherfoord memorial fountain inscription
Since the time of Mary’s marriage
three years earlier, Emma had inherited the title of ‘Miss Rutherfoord’ and
carefully fulfilled her duties as the eldest daughter at home by paying calls
with her mother, helping to receive visitors and keeping the weekly household
accounts. Emma taught children’s classes at the High Church School in Claremont,
regularly visited the sick and poor, and carried out a tract distribution
ministry.
Emma and her sisters were taught at
home by their mother and visiting governesses and masters. Besides studying
such basics as reading, writing, grammar, literature, arithmetic, history and
geography, the Rutherfoord girls also received lessons in French, Italian,
German and Dutch. Emma and her sisters were also trained in skills that were
considered essential for accomplished young women in the Victorian era – music
(both singing and playing the piano), fancy needle work as well as drawing and
painting. Emma was an avid reader and had an appreciation for a wide variety of
books.
As Murray observed and learned more
about Emma he was impressed with her and his heart was drawn to her. Though he
had known her less than a month, he concluded he desired to marry her. He
further decided to propose to her straightaway, apparently presuming she would
be receptive to that. As it turned out, he was completely mistaken.
Besides the fact that his proposal
was totally unexpected, it was also poorly timed. Emma and Ellen were right in
the middle of helping with a children’s birthday party for the five-year-old
son of some neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Boyle. Mr. Boyle was Aide-de-camp to Cape
Colony’s new Governor, Sir George Grey. In addition to a sizeable group of
children, the party was to be attended by Sir George and Lady Grey themselves. Young
Mordaunt Boyle’s birthday was on Thursday, June 21. After spending that entire
morning at the Boyles’ house finishing the decorating, Emma and Ellen returned
to their own home. They planned to be back for the party the latter half of the
afternoon.
Murray had left the Rutherfoords’
home that morning but returned ‘most unexpectedly’ early that afternoon.
Finding Emma alone, he presented her with a rather businesslike proposal of
marriage. She was so completely stunned by it that she was unable to make any
reply. Instead, she fled to her bedroom and locked herself in. When Ellen, who
had gone out riding, returned home, she found her sister, very
uncharacteristically, in an overwrought state. As a result of these unfortunate
developments, both sisters were too upset to return to the Boyles’ for the birthday
party. While there is no record of Andrew Murray’s response to all this, likely
he retreated from the Rutherfoords’ home feeling confused, distressed and
embarrassed at what he had unintentionally precipitated.
The next morning Emma composed a
written refusal to Murray’s proposal: “Dear Sir, It was with feelings of
perfect astonishment and wonder that I received your communications yesterday,
which on further consideration quickly changed into those of deep pain and
regret. A proposal of marriage after so short an acquaintance shocked me much.
It seemed to me that there could be no mutual sympathy, and no clear knowledge
of character, necessary for so close, so holy a relationship. With these
sentiments I feel obliged to decline any further acquaintance. But wishing you
a safe journey and much prosperity in your future labors, Believe me, yours
truly, Emma Rutherfoord.”
In a letter written that same day to
her sister Mary, Emma further revealed: “I cannot tell you what pain and
suffering this has cost me. And more so I cannot help feeling that if left to
himself he would not have proceeded with such haste, but that he has been
spurred on by the Rev. Mr. Long and his Uncle Rev. Mr. Stegmann, as up to that
unfortunate day his conduct had been such as to put me perfectly at ease. Our
interaction hitherto had been so pleasant and I had entertained such a respect
for his character, felt that his mind was no ordinary one, that his want [lack]
of appreciation and consideration has wounded me most painfully.
“To my real character I feel he is as
perfect a stranger as I am to his. And if I loved him with all my heart, it
would be a bitter trial and a great sacrifice to leave such a home as mine, and
enter into a field of much hardship and self-denial. Of all this he seems to
have made no note. While I feel it must be a love passing anything I have yet
known, to keep me from fainting under the trials and sorrows of wedded life – a
love that I feel in my inmost soul that I am capable of and therefore will
never marry anyone till I feel it awakened. No respect, no ideas of usefulness
(for they would be false where my heart was not) shall ever induce me to leave
my home.”
Three days later, on Monday, June 25,
Emma concluded her letter to Mary: “Mr. Murray called on Papa today to know if
my answer was decisive and negative. I feel so fashed [vexed], so wearied about
it. It pains me that one of no ordinary mental capacity and vigor of piety
should be so totally devoid of proper feelings on this one point. And then I
get vexed with myself for feeling so pained … Sad that one whose mental
superiority and whose work is all I could desire, should so want heart
cultivation.”
(To be continued …)
# # #
I have written a comprehensive biography on Murray entitled Andrew Murray, Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa. Much spiritual encouragement and instruction can be gained through the consideration of his outstanding life of service for Christ Jesus.
It seems that many Christian ministers aspire to serve in a larger city and church setting which carries with it a degree of prestige and prominence. Not a few Christian ministers struggle a bit to serve contentedly in a smaller church and community context which may bring less esteem and eminence.
Faithful ministers with appropriate
motives are needed in both larger and smaller ministry contexts, of course. Whatever
size ministry setting Christians find themselves in, they need to realize the
crucial importance of the service opportunities God has entrusted to them
presently. And they should willingly give themselves to carry out heartily
their present ministry responsibilities.
Andrew Murray eventually became the
most prominent pastor in South Africa in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But
the first eleven years of his pastoral career were spent ministering in a
smaller, isolated community and in a vast, sparsely-populated frontier region.
He gave himself wholly to that demanding ministry and as a result experienced a
good degree of fulfillment and fruitfulness in it.
Murray was born and spent the first
ten years of his life in Graaff-Reinet, Cape Colony, South Africa. After
spending a decade getting his secondary and university education in Scotland
and Holland, he returned to South Africa in 1848 to begin serving as a minister
at age twenty. He was assigned to serve as the first pastor of a new town and British
military outpost, Bloemfontein, which had been established two years earlier
beyond the northern border of Cape Colony.
During the 1830s and 1840s around 20,000
Boers (Dutch farmers) had migrated from Cape Colony to the immense regions
north of the Orange and Vaal Rivers. In addition to ministering at
Bloemfontein, Murray served as the first settled minister to the voortrekkers
(Dutch pioneers) in that vast frontier region of nearly 50,000 square miles.
When Murray arrived at Bloemfontein
it had about fifty houses, a few stores and shops, a courthouse and prison, a
military fortress and barracks, and a schoolhouse which doubled as a church
meeting house until a separate church building could be erected. As
Bloemfontein was home to a British military outpost, most of the town’s
residents were English. Initial attendance at the Sunday afternoon
English-speaking worship service averaged around seventy. A smaller Dutch-speaking
worship service was held Saturday evenings. Sunday school classes were held for
English and Dutch children as well as the children of a group of African
Bushmen who lived nearby Bloemfontein.
Andrew Murray as a young man
The plains throughout that region
teemed with a wide variety of game and wild animals. Once while traveling to
hold services at a location about seventy miles from Bloemfontein, Murray had
to cross a wolf-infested plain at a time when they were very fierce. After
fording a river, he dismounted to rest his horse. When the grazing animal heard
a pack of wolves approaching, it spooked and ran off. Carrying his pack on his
shoulders, Murray had to walk some twelve or fifteen miles to the nearest
house. “How did you do it?” the surprised farmer who lived there inquired. ”I
knew I was in the path of duty,” Murray answered calmly, “so prayed to God to
keep me, and walked straight on. The wolves snapped at me but did not touch
me.”
Between 1849 and 1852 Murray carried
out four ministerial tours in the area north of the Vaal River known as the
Transvaal. During the first itineration, which lasted just over six weeks, he
traveled some 800 miles on horseback and by ox-drawn wagon. He conducted a
total of thirty-seven services at six different locations. In addition, he baptized
567 children and interviewed well over 300 young people for church membership,
167 of whom were accepted upon their clear profession of faith in Christ Jesus
for salvation.
While Murray would wear a beard throughout most of his adult life, at this time he was still clean shaven and looked quite boyish. But he quickly gained the respect of the Transvaal Boers through his serious, confident demeanor, his overwhelming fervency and his willingness to sacrifice himself for their spiritual wellbeing.
A contemporary testified of the
intensity and gravity with which Murray ministered on the frontier: “When
preaching, so absorbed was he in his message that should he by his violent
gestures knock down Bible and reading desk of the impromptu pulpit, he would
not notice it. Solemn were the confirmation services when, before the final
confirmation promise was made, he would lift his hand, and with deep emotion
would adjure them not to reject the Savior, saying, “If you do and promise
falsely to be true to Christ, this hand will witness against you in the day of
judgment.”
The residents of some of the areas
where Murray ministered pleaded with him to accept their call to leave
Bloemfontein and come as their settled pastor. When two men arrived from a
settlement some 300 miles beyond where Murray was ministering during his first
Transvaal tour, he had to tell them that he would not be able to come and
minister in their area for eight months.
He afterward wrote his parents: “When
the men heard that they could not be visited for such a time, they were in
tears, as they had hoped I might go with them, and when they left again they
could not speak. I hardly know what to say when the people begin to discourse
about their spiritual destitution and their desire after the Word. Suppose
another minister should refuse to come here, but be willing to take
Bloemfontein, what would you think of my coming here? … The way in which some
of the people here plead really moves my heart. Many are in a fit state for
receiving the seed of the Word. May the Lord in His mercy help them.”
Murray had promised to visit the
Transvaal’s northernmost Dutch settlement at Zoutpansbergen during his fourth
ministry tour. But when word came that the settlers at that location were
suffering from repeated attacks of malaria and that several individuals had
already died, he was strongly advised not to proceed into that unhealthy
region. Since arrangements had already been made for the services there,
however, Murray considered it his duty to fulfill his ministerial obligation.
After he arrived there he learned
that in recent weeks twenty-four of the 150 settlers at Zoutpansbergen had
perished from malaria, eighteen of those within a fortnight of contracting the
disease. No home had been spared from death. The majority of those isolated
people had not had access to religious services for several years and were
overjoyed with this opportunity.
# # #
I have written a comprehensive biography on Murray entitled Andrew Murray, Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa. Much spiritual encouragement and instruction can be gained through the consideration of his outstanding life of service for Christ Jesus.
Christian parents rightly seek to
share the Gospel (Good News) of salvation with their children and to lead them,
at an early age if possible, to Jesus Christ as their personal Savior from sin.
By God’s grace, some children do come to saving faith in Jesus early in life.
But parents eager for their children’s salvation need to guard against assuming
their kids have been saved simply because they’ve heard the Gospel and made
some sort of an elementary profession such as “I asked Jesus into my heart” or
“I believe in Jesus.”
Andrew Murray as a young man
Instead parents need to listen
carefully for indications that their children have a clear understanding of the
Gospel and an abiding trust in Christ and His death for them on the cross as
their only means of salvation. Parents should also look for ongoing spiritual
interest and fruit, which inevitably accompanies genuine salvation, in the
lives of their children.
Andrew Murray, who eventually became
arguably the greatest Christian preacher and devotional writer ever to come
from South Africa, serves as an example of these truths concerning a young
person’s salvation. Murray was raised by devout parents in a conservative
Christian home and church until he was ten years of age (see my Jan. 29, 2015
Perspective on Murray’s upbringing entitled, “A Godly Parentage Is a Priceless
Boon”). Throughout his growing up years he showed some sensitivity to spiritual
matters. He had numerous opportunities to come to saving faith in Christ. But
he did not do so until he was a theology student preparing for the Christian
ministry. And until he did so, his parents never assumed his salvation but kept
fervently praying for it.
Andrew Murray, Sr.
Andrew’s father, Andrew Murray, Sr.,
pastored the Dutch Reformed Church in Graaff-Reinet, South Africa, for over
forty years. Opportunities for secondary and university education were severely
limited in South Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century. So Murray,
Sr., and his wife Maria made the painful decision in 1838 to send their two
oldest sons, John and his younger brother Andrew, at the tender ages of twelve
and ten, to live with an uncle, Rev. John Murray, in Aberdeen, Scotland. There the
boys could receive a sound secondary and university education.
The year Andrew and John arrived in
Scotland a dramatic spiritual awakening began sweeping across the country. In
the spring and fall of 1840 William Chalmers Burns, the primary human agent
used of God in igniting that bona fide revival, visited and ministered in
Aberdeen for several weeks. He preached to densely crowded audiences in three
separate churches each Sunday. Every weekday he led prayer meetings in the
morning and afternoon, then gave a public address in the evening. Untold
hundreds or even thousands of people came under pressing conviction of their
sin, cried out to God for mercy and were saved at that time.
William Chalmers Burns, later as a missionary to China
Burns was a frequent guest in Rev.
John Murray’s home. Andrew and John had the opportunity to converse with the
evangelist about spiritual matters and to witness first-hand many of the
stirring spiritual events then unfolding in Aberdeen. After leaving Aberdeen,
Burns wrote Andrew and John, urging them not to delay in turning to Christ as
their Savior. But despite all those advantages, neither Andrew nor John was
converted under Burns’ ministry.
The Murray brothers excelled in their studies. They were admitted to Marischal College, Aberdeen, Andrew with an academic scholarship. While heartily commending them for their academic success, their father earnestly wrote to them about the greater importance of their Christian conversion: “I am well aware, my dear boys, that neither you nor I can ever change the heart. But let me entreat you both, with all the intense affection of a Christian clergyman and a loving father, to pray daily that God may in mercy be pleased to do so by His Holy Spirit. Many distinguished students have been taken away by death in the midst of their literary and scientific pursuits. And although I trust God will spare you long to be useful in the world, yet should He take one or another of you away in youth, the consolation of the bleeding hearts of parents would not be that you had excelled in human acquirements, however important in themselves, but that there was reason to believe that you died in the Lord.”
Nine months later, on August 1, 1844,
he wrote similarly: “Every parent wishes to see his family ‘getting on,’ as it
is termed, but what unspeakable joy for the heart of a Christian parent to hear
good ground for believing that his children shall have an eternal inheritance
in Heaven! Oh!, when may I through the free grace of God have this soul’s joy
with respect to you both? Do not think I am needlessly anxious. Every letter I
write to you may be the last you may receive from me. One of our nearest
neighbors spoke to me in tolerable health on Monday and died on Tuesday. This
is a digression, but with such warnings we ought to live and act as dying
creatures.”
Before that letter reached Aberdeen,
Andrew had written to inform his father that he had decided to devote his life
to pastoral ministry. After receiving that intelligence, the father immediately
responded: “I have now to congratulate you on your choice of a profession, and
rejoice that the Lord has been pleased to incline your heart the way He has
done. I trust, however, my dear boy, that you have given your heart to Jesus
Christ, to be His now and His forever, to follow Him through good and through
bad report.”
Andrew and John graduated from
Marischal College, the latter as the salutatorian of their class, the following
spring. By then John had also determined to prepare for the Christian ministry,
so he and Andrew decided to pursue their theological education at the Academy
of Utrecht in Holland. There they joined a small group of consecrated students who
had as their stated purpose “to promote the study of the subjects required for
the ministerial calling in the spirit of the revival” that had visited Holland
some twenty years earlier.
Sometime during his first autumn at
Utrecht, Andrew Murray experienced a personal spiritual transformation that he
ever afterwards called his conversion. In a letter dated November 14, 1845, he
informed his parents of his spiritual rebirth: “My Dear Parents – It was with
very great pleasure that I today received your letter containing the
announcement of the birth of another brother. And equal, I am sure, will be
your delight when I tell you that I can communicate to you far gladder tidings,
over which angels have rejoiced, that your son has been born again. …
“For the last two or three years
there has been a process going on, a continual interchange of seasons of
seriousness and then forgetfulness, and then again of seriousness soon after.
But after I came to Holland I think I was led to pray in earnest; more I cannot
tell, for I know it not. ‘Whereas I was blind, now I see’ [John 9:25]. I was
long troubled with the idea that I must have some deep sight of my sins before
I could be converted. And though I cannot yet say that I have had anything of
that deep special sight into the guiltiness of sin which many people appear to
have, yet I trust, and at present I feel as if I could say, I am confident that
as a sinner I have been led to cast myself on Christ. What can I say now, my
dear Parents, but call on you to praise the Lord with me? At present I am in a
peaceful state. I cannot say that I have had any seasons of special joy, but I
think that I enjoy a true confidence
in God.”
May many Christian
parents today similarly have the blessing of wisely urging and fervently
praying their children to Christ, even when a considerable number of years are involved
in that process.
# # #
I have written a comprehensive biography on Murray entitled Andrew Murray, Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa. Much spiritual encouragement and instruction can be gained through the consideration of his outstanding life of service for Christ Jesus.
Andrew Murray (1828-1917) is best known by Christians today as the author of several still-popular devotional classics. In his lifetime, however, he was equally well-known as a prominent, powerful preacher.
Throughout his active preaching career of some six and a half decades, hundreds and even thousands of people eagerly gathered to hear him preach. His sermons were characterized by overwhelming intensity, depth of spiritual insight and evident empowering by God’s Spirt that stirred, instructed and challenged his hearers.
Beginning in his early twenties, Murray conducted ministry tours to Dutch pioneers in the frontier regions northeast of Cape Colony, South Africa. Dutch settlers would assemble by the hundreds at pre-arranged meeting sites to hear the dynamic young preacher. An early Murray biographer related of his tremendous fervency on such occasions: “When preaching, so absorbed was he in his message that should he by his violent gestures knock down Bible and reading desk of the impromptu pulpit, he would not notice it.”
Andrew Murray
Once an indigenous tribesman watched Murray closely as he preached with his habitual earnestness. The native did not understand a single word of what he heard but afterward stated his impression of what he had observed: “I never thought that the white men stood in such dread of their chiefs. Look at the young chief yonder [Murray]. He points his finger at the people; they sit quiet. He threatens them; they sit quiet still. He storms and rages at them; they sit as quiet as death!”
In 1895, at age sixty-seven, Murray was invited to speak at a number of prominent Christian conferences in Europe and America. An article in a popular British publication provided this description of his intense preaching:
“When preaching or conducting a service his whole being is thrown into the task, and he glows with a fervency of spirit which it seems impossible for human flesh to sustain. At times he startles and overwhelms the listeners. Earnestness and power of the electric sort stream from him, and affect alike the large audience or the quiet circle gathered round him. In his slight, spent frame, of middle height, he carries in repose a volcanic energy which, when he is roused, bursts its barriers and sweeps all before it. Then his form quivers and dilates, the lips tremble, the features work, as from the white-hot furnace of his spirit he pours the molten torrent of his unstudied eloquence. … Audiences bend before the sweeping rain of his words like willows before a gale. The heart within the hearer is bowed, and the intellect awed.”
Older Andrew Murray
Well into his eighties Murray continued to be a powerful, popular preacher who ministered at numerous churches and Christian conferences. He once was the featured speaker at a conference in which a new missionary enterprise to Sudan was being launched. One of the missionary candidates, who was well acquainted with Murray’s preaching ministry, reported:
“A lady was sitting close to me, and as Dr. Murray went up the pulpit steps, frail and gray and old, she asked: ‘Who is that old man? What a shame to make him go up those steps to preach.’ I smiled inwardly and thought, ‘My dear lady, you will be surprised tonight.’ Dr. Murray got up, he seemed to grow tall and majestic. In regard to the new work in the Sudan he once more spoke according to the oracles of God. ‘Forward!’ was his cry. Well, my lady was surprised, and more than surprised, pity made way for esteem. ‘What a voice for such a body!’ she exclaimed.”
Murray’s fervent preaching was reflective of his intimate, earnest personal relationship with the Lord. His preaching was carried out—through dependence upon and empowering by the Holy Spirit—in the context of an extremely demanding ministerial career. By reading a complete account of Murray’s life and ministry (such as my recent biography, Andrew Murray, Christ’s Anointed Minister to South Africa) one is able to glean the keys to his powerful preaching ministry as well as the many other fruitful aspects of his Christian service.
