Chapter XIV: Closing Days (2)

The influence of a good life does not pass away with the mortal breath. Alexander Balfour lives to-day in the many lives over which he exerted his magnetic influence; in many Christians who were quickened, encouraged, impelled by his holy enthusiasm; in not a few, I believe, of all ranks who are now doing good work for God and man in various departments, who were first started in the course of Christian philanthropy through him; in young men scattered over the land and the world, of whom we hear from time to time, who trace their serious impressions to the Y. M. C. A. of Liverpool, and sometimes directly to its President. And may it not be that God, who gave him the especial task of kindling other souls, may have seen fit to order his removal as He did--direct from the conflict to the crown, without pause, without decline, without sensible change, till the great change came--to intensify the influence of that potent life? May not the electric touch of love, of sympathy, of sorrow, which passed from this man, greatly beloved, to a wide circle of friends, have been just what was needed to “perfect that which concerneth Him,” and to crown that fruitful life? “We asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him.”

Our friend is gone, but he lives in the institutions he founded or sustained, he lives in good men who have risen up to call him blessed, and who will spread their life in wider and ever wider circles in our day, and long after we too shall have passed away. Good deeds and generous purposes do not die.

We prayed for life and our brother died. But when we prayed, did we sufficiently realise that there are two sides to this matter of living? To “abide in the flesh seemed more needful for us;” did we also remember that “to depart and be with Christ was far better” for him? The good Lord saw all sides, while we looked most at one. We must not forget that over against our prayer for life stands recorded our Redeemer’s prayer, “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory.” The hour comes when that will of Jesus must prevail; and the remembrance of this should ever lead us to lay beneath all such prayer for life a basis of submission: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” Our friend was taught this lesson by the Spirit of the Lord. As the weeks of waiting rolled away, he said to his wife, “We need not any longer ask for acquiescence in God’s will, whatever that may be, for we have got that; let us ask for the glory of God.” In such falling in with the will of the Living God, is there not more than the life we asked for him? I had the privilege of spending with him the late evening hours of his last Sunday upon earth. With his usual courtesy and elasticity, he came with me to the door when I was leaving. I expressed my delight at seeing him so bright and cheerful, adding, “That is greatly in your favour.” I dare say something of surprise was in my tone, for he said, “Well, it is just this way, I have put it all into the Lord’s hands, and I take no burden of the morrow; He will take care of that; I just go on from step to step, one at a time.” His manner seemed to mean, “No credit to me; the Lord has seen to all that.”

Once more, a ripe soul has gone to the inheritance of the saints in light, for which, through God’s goodness, it was made meet. Of that heavenly life we shall not speak. He knows far more of it, in all its freedom from sin, and sorrow, and suffering, in all the fulness of blessing which the presence of the King commands, than we shall know till--if we take his Saviour to be our Saviour--we are called to join him. “Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; Thou shall make me full of joy with Thy countenance.” “In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” “We asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him, _even length of days for ever and ever_.”

Our beloved friend’s own view on the Christian limitations of prayer is so beautifully expressed in the following simple incident, that I will venture to narrate it:--A life-long friend wrote to him that his boy of six had been listening to his evening lesson read to him by his teacher. It contained the words addressed to Solomon, “Ask what I shall give thee.” The nature of prayer was explained to the child, who quietly whispered, “I know what I am going to pray for to-night.” To the question, “What will you ask for?” he answered, “That Mr. Balfour may get better, and I’m going to ask it every day till he is well.” A letter from Mr. Balfour’s pen, which bears date the 10th of April, contains these words: “Dear little Bay’s action is a lesson for us all. I am truly grateful to him, and shall ask that the Lord Himself may reward and bless the honest, kindly heart that has been thinking of me in my trouble. I can never be grateful enough to friends for their prayers, which God _must_ answer; not, perhaps, in the way we desire, but in the way He knows to be best for us. So my own prayer would be that His will may be my will Madame Guion wrote:--

‘Upon God’s will I lay me down
As child upon its mother’s breast;
No silken couch, nor softest bed,
Could ever give me such deep rest.’

And her position I desire may be mine.” The lines just quoted he had in his later weeks fastened upon his desk, where his eye continually rested upon them. Need I add that the child was startled and surprised when he heard that the good man for whose recovery he prayed was dead! Are we not all children in such matters? The boy did not understand, and we find it hard to understand that still it is true, “We asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him.”

I have dwelt long on the closing weeks of our friend’s life. The truth is, that the impression made on my mind, and on the minds of those nearest him in that crisis, is profound and indelible. It was almost awe-inspiring to find him, on the very brink of the unseen world, living his accustomed life, seizing every opportunity to do good; joyful among his friends, playful with the children, unruffled and undisturbed. The breath of the next world was already breathing on his brow; and something more than the love, and gentleness, and joy of this world were in his heart. There was a majestic peace and self-possession in the man. I was reminded of what I was told by one who had known him from boyhood; he said, “He always looked on him, even when a lad, as formed of the stuff of which martyrs are made: he would not have hesitated two minutes to go to the stake, had duty required it.”

Of his life I need say little to you among whom he lived. I cannot here stay even to mention all the Christian and philanthropic institutions with which his name is identified, and some of which owe their existence to his simple faith, his burning enthusiasm, and his indomitable perseverance. Not once nor twice did he appear to his friends and fellow-workers a Utopian in the large plans he sketched, and the heavy burdens he took, and encouraged them to take. His projects seemed the visions of an excited brain; yet he lived to realise them in full development and splendid usefulness. “Impracticable,” his own best friends have sometimes whispered in such cases. Yes, impracticable to men of common mould, but not to faith and zeal like his. “All things are possible to him that believeth.”

Seamen were early the objects of his care. It was not in his nature to climb by their help to fortune, and to leave themselves unconsidered. His conviction was, that the tie between sailors and their employers ought to be much stronger and more permanent than it is. This view--not he only, but in thorough union with him--his firm endeavoured to carry out in practice. The Apprentices’ Home in Duke Street was one valuable expression of this conviction, for which many have had reason to give thanks to God. Then, if, in his perilous calling, the sailor, as he held on to his sinking ship, thought with agony of the children who were to be written fatherless, was nothing adequate to be attempted to assuage that grief, and provide a home for the desolate? Such thoughts, seething in his heart, and the hearts of a few like-minded men, translated themselves into the noble institution known as the Seamen’s Orphanage. The Mersey Mission and the Seamen’s Friend Society formed additional outlets for generous effort in the sailor’s highest interest.

The young men of Liverpool occupied a sacred place in his heart. He thought of them, he planned for them, he worked for them, he prayed for them continually. Get the young men of Liverpool, he would say, imbued with Christian principle, and adequately taught and trained, and the Liverpool of the future will be a new Liverpool. None but those nearest him can know how he bore the young men on his heart without ceasing. That the Y. M. C. A.--deep-rooted in Mount Pleasant, and already beginning to spread forth its branches to other parts--is what it is, is largely due to its President. He, with his friend, Mr. S. Smith, rejoiced in the acquisition of the Gymnasium, as a kind of annex to the Y. M. C. A. Thus the necessities of the physical frame were not overlooked.

Were we to traverse the whole circle of Liverpool’s best charities, we should find his footsteps everywhere. Where was help needed? Where could the substance which God had given him be best employed for the good of his fellow-men? These were questions continually in his mind. No one can tell the multifarious channels in which his beneficence flowed: homes of rest near his own country mansion, for toil-worn city missionaries, and other Christian workers; quiet encouragement to Christian ministers of various denominations who, in seeking to do good work in the city, became faint by the way; timely counsel for young men needing a start in life; bales of blankets in the cold winter for the poor and the needy. And what shall I more say? There are hundreds in our great city who could add indefinitely to a catalogue like this, and who can say to-day, “Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands. Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees.” The record of his often-hidden deeds is on high.

One branch of his work must not be left untouched--temperance. He held with Cobden, that “the temperance movement lies at the root of all social and political reform.” He saw in drunkenness the most powerful among the causes that produce the poverty, degradation, and crime which prevail around us.

His spirit was moved with compassion for those perishing from strong drink, and he sought to diminish the abounding temptations. He pitied the overburdened public-house managers, barmen, and barmaids, whose hours are more protracted, and whose task is more deadly, than those of any other trade in England; and he sought their relief. But, besides all this, he perceived, as he believed, law perverted and wrong done in ways which this is not the place to specify, in the interest of a powerful trade, or of unscrupulous traffickers outside said trade, to the ruin of thousands. Could such a man see such things and hold his peace? He buckled on his armour, and in the town and its Council set himself to the task of exposing, and, if possible, removing these evils. No venerable abuses would he spare. No combination of opponents and no amount of contumely could silence his voice. A tremendous indignation burnt like fire within his breast. I do not allege that, with a spirit goaded by a sense of intolerable wrong done to thousands of his fellow-citizens, his proposals were always wise, or his words always measured; but I dare affirm that, as the result of the rough task assigned to him, and discharged with a courage that knew not how to flinch, our city has been in part delivered from abuses which skulked unseen, till his brave hand tore down the veil. Besides this, none can doubt that the tone which marks the conduct of our public affairs is sensibly elevated. To this result our departed friend made no slender contribution.

In his position as President of the Popular Control and Sunday-closing Association, he laboured with ceaseless energy for two objects, viz., the better administration of existing License-law, and reform in Imperial License legislation. In reference to the latter, he worked largely on the lines of the Church of England Temperance Society, so ably presided over by his warm friend, Canon Eilison.

As a part of the great temperance reform, the Cocoa-Room movement and the “separated milk” movement engaged his warmest sympathies. The recent conversion, in the blighted corner near the Sailors’ Home, of a huge gin-palace into the Institute of the Mersey Mission, combined with a flourishing Cocoa-Room, made him radiant with joy. No accession to his personal possessions could have gladdened him as did the change of hands--from evil to good--of this fortress, which, better than any other, commands the haunts of our seamen.

In work like this it has been my privilege to be long and closely associated with him, and to know the grandeur and purity of his aims.

We have spoken of his Christian work among ourselves. But its sphere was much wider. Valparaiso can testify to his long-continued and enlightened efforts. The opening fields of the Dark Continent occupied his heart: yea, and to have all the world won for Christ was his intense desire. But Liverpool, “that great community,” for which he so pathetically pleaded daily till the day when he lay down to die--Liverpool was graven on his heart, like Jerusalem on the heart of the exiled Jews. To succour, to elevate, to bless Liverpool, was the consuming passion of his life.

As a man of business, how did this Christian philanthropist stand? The commercial world around us with one voice bears testimony to his high and unblemished reputation. I am permitted to quote a few sentences from a letter written by his partner, Mr. Stephen Williamson, to Mrs. Balfour on the 17th April:--“Liverpool and the world little know what they have lost. Only those who knew him, as an inner circle did, can form a right conception of his nobility of character, his purity and unselfishness, his Christian faith and heroism. During thirty-five years’ association with him, I never heard him utter a word or saw him do an act that he might not, as it seems to me, have said and done in the presence of Infinite Holiness.” A better testimony words could not frame.

Your hearts, brethren, as we have been contemplating this noble character, have been asking, From what source did it take its rise? Have we any clear means of knowing? Happily we have access to materials that will not mislead us. Let himself unveil the spring of his own life and motive. On the 15th of August 1880, he thus wrote to our venerable father, the Rev. James Towers of Birkenhead, to whose congregation he used, as a young man, to belong: “It was under your ministry that I first was led to that entire surrender of my heart to the Lord, which marked an era in my existence, unending in its gracious results. We can only faintly, while we live here, realise what is implied in the text, ‘A child of God by faith in Jesus Christ.’” Mr. Towers tells me that till he received this letter, he did not fully understand what Mr. Balfour meant when he used to say to him that “coming to Birkenhead had been worth more to him than thousands of gold and silver.” There is reason to think that what Mr. Balfour here refers to, was not his first reception of the truth as it is in Jesus, but a season of new consecration and great enlargement of soul.

Another unquestionable guide in this matter lies before me. It contains the deliberate and carefully expressed declaration of his faith. I quote from his will. “In conclusion, I wish to testify to the goodness and mercy shown to me, who am less than the least of all saints, by Almighty God, and I gratefully recognise His wonderful kindness and indulgence during my whole life. I have no merits of my own, and I put my hope and assured confidence, in this life and for another, solely in the merits of my Redeemer. I commend my wife and children to the care and blessing of our Heavenly Father, in whose love and fear, and in obedience to whose blessed will, I desire that they may live; and I seek to leave this world in charity with all men.”

His pronounced personality was all his own. _That_ we could not, and should not try, to imitate. But the fountain from which he drew his deep gratitude, pure motive, elevated purpose, is not exhausted. Let us too drink of it, and our lives also shall grow noble. It was good to weep around his grave, as many of us did last Tuesday, in that wonderful gathering of devout men, of every name and rank, who carried him to his burial; it will be better to cluster round his Lord, and, like him, to sit at the feet of Jesus. If we desire to follow him we must begin where he began, by “the entire surrender of our hearts to the Lord.” We “must be born again.”

Time will not permit me to enlarge upon his character. In the view we have taken of his life and death we have seen everywhere proofs of his faith, his unselfishness, his purity. On two or three characteristics suffer a brief word.

His humility was such that he tended to disclaim all credit for his noble acts, and often spoke as if the recipient were conferring a favour upon him in accepting his kindness. He reminds me of the Centurion who asked the Lord for the healing of his servant. The elders pressed the petition, saying that “he was worthy for whom He should do this; for he loveth our nation, and hath built us a synagogue.” The Centurion would not endorse their testimony, but said, “Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come under my roof.” Just like our friend, who sensitively shrank from praise, and passed it on to others, whatever he had built or done. “He is worthy,” said his colleagues in effort, and the receivers of his benefits; “I am not worthy,” was the constant answer of his humble bearing. His whole life seemed to carry out the Apostle’s precept, “Be kindly affectioned one to another, in honour preferring one another.”

His catholicity was a marked feature. No man more conscientiously adhered to the truth he held, and yet none was more ready to appreciate all that was good in those who differed from him in minor things. It does not need to be said that his princely benefactions, though beginning in his own Church, welled over to the refreshment of uncounted good causes in other branches of the Church of Christ, and in the community at large.

This leads me to mention that strange magnetic sympathy in him which fastened, as by instinct, on that which was best in other men. He credited them with all they had and more. Such men he drew into beneficent work, who are now doing excellent service--men some of whom seemed to others unlikely instruments, and who, but for him, might never have learnt to put life to such good account. He made them first wonderingly admit to themselves that their lives might be made useful; and then he gradually inflamed them with the fires of his irrepressible enthusiasm and hope. Work must be done for God and man, and men must be found to do it. He found them sometimes where no one else could find them. He touched the latent good that was in them, and at his sympathetic touch that good grew greater. They found that the paths of beneficence were pleasant paths, and they followed where he led. This power of influencing others was, perhaps, the most marked of all his characteristics.

There was a certain manifoldness about his character. Most enthusiastic men get absorbed in one main enterprise. He carried on many at a time. He would lay hold of one man, and pour out his soul on temperance as if he could think of nothing else; he met another, and education was his theme; another, and with a zeal as impetuous he would launch forth on what must be done for the waifs of our streets. He held them all in hand at once, and apparently, with equal firmness.

His courage rose to fearlessness. It was the boldness of a man who knew that in his cause he had Heaven behind him. Our conflicts in this great community are not over yet; and the day may come ere long when the thought of him shall call to mind the inscription graven by the Carthaginians on the tomb of Hannibal, “We greatly desired him in the day of battle.”

I well remember a prayer of his in the vast Victoria Hall, when Moody and Sankey were here--in no small measure through his influence. He prayed that the Gospel might so illuminate our town that the “dark spot on the Mersey” might be changed into the bright spot on the Mersey; and that, as it had been conspicuous for drunkenness and vice, it might become an example among cities, of righteousness and godliness. For this end he lived. It seemed as if a charge from Heaven had been given him over the highest interests of our city. As he stood, with nervous energy, holding me fast with his penetrating eye, and pouring out his projects for the rescue of the perishing and the blessing of all, he has often reminded me of the prophet of the wilderness, or of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, with the “burden of the Lord” upon his soul.

A rare man is taken from us. Long and deeply will Alexander Balfour be missed by our city, which he loved so well. On whom shall his mantle fall?

Of the loss to his family of such a husband and father I need not speak. Of the loss to myself of one who was more than a friend I will say little. I felt some compensation for his residence of late years so far from us, in the circumstance that frequently after meetings in town he would spend the night under our roof. These brief bright visits were times of impulse and of gladness. His joy over improvements already attained in the condition of his city, and his confident hope that these improvements would make rapid advance, furnished strong impetus hopefully to persevere in all Christian effort. And his too generous appreciation of what his friends endeavoured to accomplish, if it was felt to spring more from the love of his heart than the quality of the work done, yet served to lighten labour and to brace for further service.

And for our congregation, in whose origin he took a large share, and to which he clung with singular attachment even when he resided twenty miles away from us, what shall I say? A great gap is left among us. Brethren, let us dress our ranks;--closer together now, nearer and more helpful to one another, thankful for this, that there remaineth One who will never leave us nor forsake us. Let every life be loftier, let every heart be kinder, let every hand be more diligent, because the good Lord lent us such a man, and spared him to us for the space of twenty years.

For himself we will not weep. Can he not say to-day with still deeper meaning than when on earth, “Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling”? Shall we mourn because, when we asked life for him, God gave him length of days for ever and ever?

* * * * *

“He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me, shall never die.”--JOHN
xi. 25, 26.

We ask the Lord, on bended knee,
One guerdon to bestow--
To give us back a flickering life,
If it should please Him so.

The trembling wife, the tender child,
Together seek the throne
The widow whom his hand had helped
Pours the same plea, alone.

The wanderer sheltered by his love,
The orphan child, his care,
The grateful sailor cries to God
That precious life to spare.

In groups, with accent hushed and low,
They meet, and moistened eye,--
The young, the old, he loved to shield;
“Give, Lord, his life,” they cry.

Won by the heavenly voice that said,
“But ask and I will give;
But seek and ye shall find,” they plead,
“We ask that he may live.”

The day of trial comes: “He lives;”
The next, “He lives, he sleeps;”
The next, “All well: he sweetly sleeps;”
Next dawn his widow weeps.

And many widows weep with her,
And many fatherless,
And eyes, unused to dim, run o’er
With tears of bitterness.

The hardy tar, the hoary sire,
The boy hushed in his play;--
All, all have lost a faithful friend:
A city weeps to-day.

_Our_ hearts, who prayed for life, are struck
With sorrow to the core;
Yet God _has_ heard and given him life,
Even life for evermore.

He toiled for all, his blessed quest
To sweeten every lot;
Of others ever mindful, he
Himself alone forgot.

We’ll miss his fearless hand in fight
With evil and with wrong;
And in our aim to help the weak
We’ll miss him oft and long.

But, Lord, we still ask life for him
To Thine eternal praise,
In hearts enkindled, lives inspired--
An endless length of days.

He did not tire, or faint, or fade,
His life knew no decline;
At noon his lamp from earth to heaven
Was taken, there to shine.

He hath not ceased to live, to work,
With eager soul and bright,
But now, before the throne of God,
He serves Him day and night.

We will not mourn that he is glad,
Nor weep that life is given,
Nor sorrow that his gentle heart
Finds gentle rest in heaven.

_APPENDIX B._

LETTER OF COUNSEL TO YOUNG PARTNERS IN BUSINESS.