John Urquhart, part 22: Ushered Into Glory
Greville Ewing (1767-1841) by J. Kelly
Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
In May, John's health had kept him from a preaching tour with John Adam, and throughout the summer he had dealt with intermittent headaches. But in early December symptoms of what would be his earthly undoing began to appear. He wrote on December 13 of “an excessive languor [lethargy] and weakness" that had been hindering his studies that week. The next day, Dr. Cokely, Colonel Moreland's regimental surgeon, came to visit John. He determined that he had an inflamed liver, but in this medically primitive age, it could have been anything. John noticed that when he had gone for a walk that evening, breathing had taken more effort than normal, and that he had an ongoing pain in his arm and side—something he compared to rheumatism. The following day he began a course of medicine that included taking “the blue pill," (a form of mercury) and “Dover’s powders,” (an opium product that gave pain relief). This was just the beginning of ineffective treatments. On the 20th the doctor had plans to apply a “large blister" to his right side. (Blistering was done by intentionally creating a blister—or many blisters—on the skin by applying powder from a blister beetle. Once the skin had blistered, it was cut to allow the blister to drain.) These treatments seemed only to add more stress to a weakened body, to say nothing of the opportunity for poisoning and infection.
The last thing he wrote was a letter to his father two days after Christmas. He was optimistic that the treatments were being working, and expressed thankfulness for the care he was receiving in “a land of strangers." The housekeeper cared for him like a mother, tenderly changing his blister bandages. He closed his letter by saying, “The Lord can raise up friends wherever we are; but I have had not Christian to whom I could open my heart. But the Lord is here."
About a week after this letter to his father, his condition worsened to the point that it was felt he should be sent home to Perth. On Wednesday, January 3rd, he left Tannochside for the 8-mile trip to Glasgow, where he expected to catch a coach to take him home to his family. God had kindly provided him with Christian friends in Glasgow, and he was received into the Ewing home with tenderness. Greville Ewing was a Congregationalist pastor who had helped to found the seminary that had eluded John’s efforts and whom John had met on previous visits to the city. He and his wife Barbara took him into their home and treated them as their own son. In his mercy, God was providing him in his final days the fellowship he had ached for all summer.
The Ewings were immediately concerned that John had not been eating and was continuing to refuse food. He rested on Thursday and plans were made to place him on the coach for Perth on Friday evening. Reverend Ewing wrote to his father on Friday morning to advise him that John was weak but that hope remained. A few hours later, his wife sent a second message asking that John’s father or mother come with all haste. They felt that John could still travel but that he should not do so alone. He was becoming listless, only taking food when they insisted, and Mrs. Ewing said that he appeared “highly hysterical.”
John’s father hurried to Glasgow, but it took time to cover the nearly 60 miles at horse and carriage speed. By the time he arrived on Sunday morning, John had slipped into unconsciousness. In the intervening hours the doctor had come to realize it was not after all, an inflammation of the liver, but one of the brain. With the still barbaric medical knowledge of the day—where doing anything was better than doing nothing—the doctor had John’s head shaved and applied leeches to bleed him. As if this were not enough, he repeated the blister treatment on his head and neck. (For all of its many faults, we can be thankful for the advancements of modern medicine!) Perhaps it was the raw trauma of these treatments, or perhaps it was just a momentary recovery, but for a time John did regain consciousness.
Ewing returned from the morning church service and went up to John’s room, where he began to speak to him the promises of the gospel. Ewing then prayed for him, and as he closed the prayer his wife noticed John moving his hands to free them from the sheets. She helped him to do this, and then John reached out to grasp the pastor’s hands. By then, his father had come into the room, and John was able to recognize him. After this interaction he was silent and still for an hour, but it seemed evident to those in the room that he was praying. He broke the silence by speaking to Barbara, who said, “I trust your hope is fixed on the Rock of Ages.” He answered her, repeating three times, “Yes; my hope is fixed on the Rock of Ages.” She continued to remind him of Scripture, and he would repeat words after her. But then he spoke on his own initiative, saying, “I know that nothing shall separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord.” The way in which he spoke the words brought tears to almost everyone in the room.
This intermittent consciousness lasted until early on Tuesday morning, January 9. From the early hours of Tuesday until Wednesday morning, he continued to slip further and further away until he “fell asleep in Jesus” during the breakfast hour. Jane Cathcart, a relative of Mrs. Ewing, had been his faithful attendant during his final days. She later wrote of those days to William Orme— “The most heart-rending scene I ever witnessed, was on the Tuesday night before his death. Mr. Urquhart came into the room, and at the bed-side gave up in prayer his son to the Lord, [in which] all the yearning of the afflicted parent was expressed, and the submission of a Christian exemplified. . . The poor father is much to be pitied, who says he has lost his child, son, friend, counsellor, and comforter.” Four days later, Reverend Ewing preached his Sunday sermon to his congregation from Psalm 16:15— “Precious in the sight of the Lord, is the death of his saints.”
