John Urquhart, part 4: Lord, Use Me
St. Andrews in 1843, 16 years after John’s death. He attended the “United College of St. Salvator and St. Leonard” in the center of the picture. Pastor Lothian lived on Market Street, and his church was just west of the Town Hall. Notice how near John was to the seashore, where he frequently went for walks.
In April 1824, John sent the good news of his salvation to his pastor back in Perth. In his letter he shared how he had not waited long to join a church in St. Andrews. He realized that a Christian detached from a local fellowship is not only living inconsistently with New Testament practices but also living in a place of danger. He knew that to keep his feet on the right path he needed the consistent oversight of pastors and the accountability of other believers. Presbyterianism is the state church of Scotland (as Anglicanism is the state church of England), but John had grown up in a “Dissenting” family, one which differed in several points from the state church. Although St. Andrews was predominantly—even aggressively—Presbyterian, John made the informed and intentional decision to join the smaller Independent Chapel in town, pastored by William Lothian. This showed a strength of character to stand by what he believed in, even though by doing so he was depriving himself of future benefits and opportunities that would have come by joining the national church.
Pastor Lothian later reflected on John’s early days of church membership—
“The account which he gave of his religious views and experience when he was received into the church, was very satisfactory, and showed great knowledge of the Scriptures in one so young. He particularly mentioned the benefit he had obtained from his parents’ instruction, and from hearing the gospel faithfully preached. I thought it my duty to remind him, that by casting in his lot with us, he would be deprived of that patronage which might otherwise have held out to him prospects of earthly advancement. He told me however, that he had examined the subject for himself, and could not conscientiously unite himself to any other body of Christians.”
The change in John’s spiritual condition did not affect his diligence in his studies. When the term ended in the late spring, he again walked away with several academic awards—two prizes for top scholarship in his Greek class as well as one in mathematics. In spite of these attainments, which showed he could easily pursue a variety of vocational options, from almost the moment of his conversion his heart was drawn toward gospel ministry. Having seen and felt the eternal danger from which he had been delivered, his heart was burdened to bring the message of salvation to those who had not heard.
Since childhood he had been exposed to the news of contemporary missionary endeavors. William Carey had launched modern missions when he left England for India in 1793, just 15 years before John’s birth; his countryman Robert Morrison sailed for China in 1807, and Adoniram Judson had left the United States for Burma when John was 4. These men and others like them were—in a sense—the Christian heroes of their age. They were household names whose reports were printed in Christian magazines and circulated among churches and missionary societies. Reaching the nations was in the air in those days, and John now had the internal motivation to think about what God would have him to do.
He returned home to Perth for the summer and had the chance to speak many times with Pastor Orme. Seeing John’s attention turned toward ministry, Orme did all that he could to encourage him and gave him books that would help to shape his thinking. In his mind, John’s incredible gift for academics would be best used in England to build up the church, and he guided him in that direction. He did not then realize that John was beginning to think of more distant lands.
Though the time that the pastor and the 16-year-old shared that summer was sweet, it was not destined to last. Before the fall term resumed, Orme moved to London, 450 miles away. From then on, they would interact mainly through the mail. When Orme sat to write John’s biography just a few years later, he expressed his sadness that he had not taken full advantage of the time he had spent with John. Neither of them had anticipated that the beginning and the end of John’s earthly labors would be spanned by just two years. Orme wrote, “I too often neglected the present, by anticipating the future; and thus allowed many opportunities to pass away, which might have been employed in promoting his advancement in knowledge and piety. Still, I trust, those interactions were not altogether without profit.” Orme followed John to heaven less than five years later and did not live to see the full impact of the time he spent with John. But others did.
