Lea’s Web Presentation / October 25

That he was a brilliant orator and writer was evident in the impression his sermons and speeches and essays had on his audiences. Beneath those skills, honed carefully over many years, was a infinitely deep connection to God that was the foundation of his entire life. I’ll focus on three stories and examples of how this expressed itself in what we know of him.

His Conversion as a Young Man to the Christian Faith 

Alexander’s father David, also a Baptist, was a business man, but devoted his leisure time to the study of the Bible and Christian work. David was an elder in a Baptist church in Glasgow who preached to that congregation as part of his role. “His ministry,” wrote Alexander, “was marked by much intellectual vigor and clearness.”

Alexander inherited many of his father’s mental and spiritual traits and his father ensured all the children had a solid grasp of their faith. Saturdays in Glasgow were spent learning and reciting passages from the Bible and preparing for church on Sunday. That being said, being raised in the faith led him to his own personal conversion, rather than it just being inherited from his father. 

A letter from him to his pastor, dated June of 1840 – when he was 14 years old – described his own personal process of conversion to the Christian faith. He wrote about how he experienced a profound sense of his personal limitations and failures – which he described as “sin” in the letter. He came to realize in his heart and mind that believing in God and having faith in Jesus Christ offered him the healing power of salvation and forgiveness of his own weaknesses and human frailties and shortfalls. Through this enlightenment he experienced a profound sense of relief and peace. He wrote: 

“Since then I have found that peace increasing every day, and have found in reading the Bible and in prayer great joy and pleasure such as I have never felt before.”  

 – Dr. McLaren of Manchester; A Sketch, E.T. McLaren 

The words in that letter are some of the only ones he ever wrote about his own personal religious experience. But in that letter the words “I found peace and pardon in believing that Christ is the Saviour” were an expression of a light that seemed to have shone in his soul for his entire life, and a light that he was driven to share with thousands of people around the world. 

His Intellectual Pursuit of the Meaning of Scripture 

Starting in his early years, and throughout his life, Alexander had a deep desire to grasp the spiritual meaning of and took a diligent, disciplined approach to studying the Christian Scriptures. He studied them not only in English, but in the original Hebrew and Greek. His knowledge of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament helped him more deeply understand and explain the meaning of the words written in the Old and New Testaments to his listeners. It helped him put the true intentions of those writings into relatable, human terms his audiences could understand. 

Alexander wrote multiple volumes of essays about the Psalms and other scriptures to help people grasp what they meant and how they could relate them to the struggles of everyday life. His breakdown of Psalm 23, well known by even non-Christian people, is a brilliant example of his deep grasp of each word in the Psalm. 

You may know this little Psalm or have heard it before:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

I won’t summarize the entire essay written by Alexander about this Psalm, but one passage he wrote about it is a good example of the simple way he attempted to explain scripture to his audiences: 

“This psalm is the pure utterance of personal trust in God, darkened by no fears or complaints and so perfectly at rest that it has nothing more to ask.” 

He continues later: 

“Life is full of trial and effort, but it is an unusually rainy region where rain falls on more than half the days of the year. We live so much more vividly and fully in the moments of agony or crisis that they seem to fill more space than they really do. But they are only moments, and the periods of continued peaceful possession of blessings are measured by years. But the sweet words of this psalm are not to be confined to material good. The psalmist does not tell us whether he is thinking more of the outer or of the inner life, but both are in his mind, and while his confidence is only partially warranted by the facts of the former, it is unlimitedly true in regard to the latter.” – The Psalms; Volume 1, by Alexander McLaren, 1892.  

One could spend years exploring his writings and sermons in an attempt to secure a grasp of the deep understanding he had of the entire Bible, which was truly a reflection of an entire lifetime of studying. 

The Way He Observed the World

Alexander looked at the world all the time through the lens of connecting it to his understanding of God. Nowhere is this more evident than in the book he wrote after he and his wife spent three months traveling in Italy, called “A Spring Holiday in Italy”, written in 1865. 

This book was interesting to me personally because of the love I have for Italy, but also because of the insight it offered into a country that at that time was vastly different than it is today. Back in 1865, Italy had only just become a country and was still reeling from the change that had come with the breakdown of the Italian monarchy and the success of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the general and nationalist who played a key role in the unification of the country in 1861. 

He was stricken with disgust at the opulence of the Catholic Church – the buildings, the costumes of the clergy, the art collections – as it contrasted significantly with the austerity and simplicity of the Baptist expression of what God represented. He described the natural beauty of Italy using words like “creation” and “heavenly” and “splendor” and expressed pity at how he observed Italian people existing – in poverty, somewhat prisoners of a dysfunctional history, and abused by the Church. 

Alexander wrote about Italy with his Baptist, spiritual lens on. Here’s just one passage that describes his impressions of the Sistine Chapel, in Rome. The ceiling in that Chapel was painted by Michael Agnolo Buonerotti, also known as Michelangelo. Alexander described him as such: 

“No man that ever wrought with chisel or brush has smitten with such sure and strong hand the deepest chords of my soul as he whom I venture to believe has the greatest mind that art ever inspired – Michael Angolo Buonerotti.”  – A Spring Holiday in Italy, p. 98. 

Here’s what he wrote about the ceiling of the Chapel: 

“Intense imagination and solemn power characterize the whole. The roof is filled its flat panels with the successive steps of the creation and the apostasy. With daring reverence, and with power which almost succeeds, the painter has ventured to give human form to the creative God.”

He goes on in detail to describe every scene on the ceiling with an air of humility, awe and respect that may capture what any of us who has been fortunate enough to see that ceiling may have also felt, but couldn’t put into words. 

All in all, as one dives deeply into his writing through his books and essays, one comes to understand the deep love and reverence he had for God, the respect he had for the writings and teachings of the Church, and the passion he had for sharing his love of it all with others.