Various
Excellent Women
ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF GORDON
I.
EARLY DAYS
Just a hundred years ago there was born one who in a marked degree endeavoured to do her duty in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call her. That state of life was a very exalted one, with many opportunities of doing good. The Duchess of Gordon had many talents given to her for improvement, and she was not unmindful of the stewardship with which she was entrusted. Her rank and wealth were held as trusts for her Master's use.
Dr. Moody Stuart tells us in his interesting and graphic memoir of the last Duchess of Gordon54, from which the following incidents are taken (by kind permission of both author and publishers), that Elizabeth Brodie was born in London on the 20th of June, 1794. Her father was Alexander Brodie, a younger son of Brodie of that ilk. Amongst her ancestors there were many remarkable men, some remembered for their faithful service of their heavenly as well as of their earthly King. The memory of one has passed down to posterity in the phrase "the Good Lord Brodie." His diaries reveal a life lived in great humility and special nearness to his Lord. Those around him found in him not only a benevolent neighbour but also a faithful instructor in the highest learning. His delight was to visit the sick, and to declare the love of Christ whenever he had the opportunity. He longed for his children to be great in grace, rather than in worldly distinction. His wish for them is expressed in the words he left on record, that he would not be detained "one hour from glory, to see those come of him in chief honour and place in the world."
The mother of Elizabeth Brodie was a member of the family of Wemyss, a granddaughter of the Earl of Wemyss. Her father had acquired a large fortune in India, and returned home to the large estates in Kincardineshire which he had purchased. The little girl had soon to experience the greatest loss that can befall a child. When she was only six years old her mother died, leaving her alone with her father. The next two years were spent with maiden aunts at Elgin, where she enjoyed a liberty which was bracing to both mind and body. School life began early. When she was only eight years old, she was sent to a boarding school in London, one special object being to eradicate the broad Scotch from her lip and thought. At school she became a great favourite with both teacher and companions, already exercising that power of winning attachment which was a feature all through her life. At the same time she is described as having "a very independent spirit." In matters indifferent she was ever yielding in her disposition; but it was impossible to move her from any principle she had deliberately adopted. Courage was another characteristic that early manifested itself. Her groom, who had served her forty years, delighted to recall instances of her fearlessness. On one occasion, when her party were crossing the Spey in a pony-chaise in a boat, the bridge having been carried down by the floods, her companion asked, "Isn't this dangerous, duchess?" "I never see danger," was the quiet reply.
When she was about sixteen Miss Brodie left school. The winters were now spent in Bath, the summers in Scotland. She had launched into the society of the world, and to a great extent she did as they did. One reproof she received made a lasting impression. It was from the lips of a little child who was exceedingly fond of her. Miss Brodie had joined others in playing cards on the Sabbath. The next day, contrary to all custom, the child kept away from her, and when asked to sit on her knee, gave a flat refusal, adding the reason, "No, you are bad; you play cards on Sunday." Her answer and resolution were ready: "I was wrong, I will not do it again." And those who heard her and knew her character were quite sure she would not do it again.
II.
MARCHIONESS OF HUNTLY
Elizabeth Brodie was still very young when she entered upon the duties and trials of married life. Between the house of Brodie and the house of Gordon there had been a standing feud. About the middle of the seventeenth century the youthful and impetuous Lord Lewis Gordon had made a raid upon the property of the Laird of Brodie. He burned to the ground the mansion and all that was connected with it, the family escaping to the house of a cousin. This Lewis Gordon became third Marquis of Huntly, and was the ancestor of one who made a better conquest, the gallant Marquis of Huntly, who sought and won the hand of Miss Brodie. They were married at Bath on the 11th of December, 1813. The union thus formed was never afterwards regretted. When, fifteen years later, he experienced great losses of property, his sorrow found expression in these words, "All things are against me: I've been unfortunate in everything, except a good wife." What that wife did for him in spiritual as well as temporal comfort, the sequel will show.
The Marquis of Huntly was a thorough man of the world at the time of his marriage. And for a time his wife joined him in the fashionable circle in which he found his chief pleasure. Both in London and in Geneva, where they spent the greater part of the first portion of their married life, she became very popular. But she soon realised that true joys were not to be found in the mere attractions of society. For some years her life cannot be described otherwise than as unprofitable. One instrument used by God for her awakening was a Highland servant. This girl was grieved to see that the interest of her mistress was absorbed by the things of time, which left no room for the contemplation of the things of eternity. She ventured to make a wise and well-weighed remark. It was a word fitly spoken, and did not fail in its purpose. The young lady's eyes were further opened by what she saw of the sins of the worldly circle in which she moved. She began to realise the sentiment of her ancestor, the good Lord Brodie:—"God can make use of poison to expel poison: in London I saw much vanity, lightness, and wantonness." His aspiration was also soon echoed from her own heart—"Oh, that the seeing of it in others may cure and mortify the seeds of it in myself!" She could not help observing the shameless vice that passed unrebuked, by many hardly noticed. The observation gave a shock to her sensitive soul. Her distress was great, and in her distress she turned to the right quarter. She sought solace in the Bible. That hitherto neglected Book enchained her attention, and she became a most diligent searcher into its hidden truths. Some of the gay friends of the society in which she moved found her occupied in this Bible reading. It supplied them with a new amusement, telling how the attractive marchioness had become a "Methodist." Hers was not the nature to be turned aside from its purpose by a taunt. "If for so little I am to be called a Methodist, let me have something more worthy of the name." Such was her reflection, and her Bible reading was continued with renewed earnestness.
In the course of that reading the work of the Holy Spirit was impressed upon her attention. The promise met her eyes, "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" "From that time," she records, "I began to pray for the Holy Spirit." To the end of her life she increasingly realised and brought others to realise the paramount importance of the personal work of the Holy Spirit. Lady Huntly could not now join in the pursuits of the world as she had formerly done. Her husband did not fully sympathise with the change in her views, but he saw enough of the sinful emptiness of mere gaiety to make him refrain from insisting upon her taking part in its pursuits. More than this, he gave every facility to her for carrying out her wishes, even when he could not understand the spirit which was their motive.
When in Geneva, after her Bible reading had begun, she found a very helpful friend in Madame Vernet. "If any one is to be called my spiritual mother," she said, "it is Madame Vernet of Geneva." That good Christian unfolded to her plainly the plan of salvation, showing her first her lost condition, and then the way of redemption by Jesus Christ. Lady Huntly was also helped by her intercourse in Paris with Lady Olivia Sparrow and others who frequented her house for the sake of the religious society.
On her return from Paris the winter was passed at Kimbolton Castle, the seat of her brother-in-law, the Duke of Manchester. That place was memorable in her spiritual history. "I knew Christ first," she afterwards said, "if I really know Him, at Kimbolton; I spent hours there in my dressing-room in prayer, and in reading the Bible, and in happy communion with Him." Lady Huntly referred to this period of her spiritual life in these terms, some one having made the remark that deep conviction of sin is almost invariably the beginning of the work of God in the soul: "I did not quite agree with that statement, and do not think it is by any means always the case. In my own case I believe that for two years I was a saved sinner, a believer in Jesus Christ, and yet that during all that time I did not see the exceeding sinfuluess of sin. I believed in a general way that I was a sinner, who deserved the punishment of a righteous God; I believed that whosoever came to Jesus Christ should he saved; but I had no deep sense of sin, of my sin. Since then I believe that I have passed through almost every phase of Christian experience that I have ever read or heard of; and now I have such a sight of my own utter vileness and unworthiness, that I feel that the great and holy God might well set His heel on me, so to speak, and crush me into nothing." This sense of absolute unworthiness was always a feature of her life. "A useless log" was the term she applied to herself.
One means of profit which Lady Huntly much enjoyed was her intercourse with a friend of bygone days, Miss Helen Home. They were now both walking in the same way. The Bible readings at the house of Miss Home were felt to be of great service.
Lady Huntly soon introduced family prayer in her home. She felt that if God was to be heartily served, His altar must be set up in the house. At first she gathered together her servants and any lady visitors in the house. But later, as we shall see, the whole establishment took part.
III.
DUCHESS OF GORDON
The old Duke of Gordon, Lord Huntly's father, died in the summer of 1827. The subject of this biography became Duchess of Gordon, a title which involved increased responsibilities and increased anxieties. Happily she realised her position, and determined, by the help of God, to show more clearly that, in whatever rank of life she was, she was striving to be a faithful servant of her Heavenly Master. She felt that she must confess Christ more boldly, that she must be more decided for Him, however much this profession might appear singular in her recently-acquired rank.
A short time before leaving Huntly for Gordon Castle, she explored the old Huntly Castle with a party of friends. The duchess was at the time greatly bowed down by a sense of the responsibility of her changed life. There were certain inscriptions round the ceiling of a great hall in the old castle. No one could make them out. But whilst the duchess was standing alone in deep thought, her companions having gone off to examine other curiosities, the sun burst out from a cloud through one of the broken window mullions and shone brightly on the opposite wall, and in the light of his rays she read:—
TO. THAES. THAT. LOVE. GOD. AL. THINGIS. VIRKIS. TO THE. BEST.
"It was," she used to say, "a message from the Lord to my soul, and came to me with such power that I went on my way rejoicing." Ever after this text was a favourite one. She always looked upon it as peculiarly her own. Very practical was her reading of God's Word. She, indeed, expected to find in it a word from Him. Just at the time of her setting out for her new home she read as usual her daily portion in Bogatsky's Golden Treasury. Through two leaves of the book being stuck together, she had missed the portion appointed for the day before. But now it presented itself to her eye—and no less surely to her heart: "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest." Her comment was, "That was another message from the Lord, that put strength into me."
Many years afterwards she wrote: "It was this day sixteen years that the text in Bogatsky was given to me from Joshua 1. 9, and truly I have found the goodness of the Lord with me, and everything temporal that I committed to Him He has indeed kept. It is really most wonderful when I see trials and trouble all around me, to see how everything I prayed for regarding my own home has been accomplished; and shall I not trust Him for my soul, and for all that guidance I so greatly need in all that He would have me to do? Surely He will guide me in spiritual as well as in temporal things; and the more I cease from man, and from any child of man, the more I shall be enabled to live simply to His glory." Another sixteen years passed. The duchess was within a few days of her death. She heard that a young man was in anxiety about his preparation for the ministry. "He looks to difficulties; give him for a New Year's message from me, Joshua 1. 9: 'Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; neither be thou dismayed.' These words were given to me after Duke Alexander's death, and from that day onward they have been a help to me."
IV.
GOOD WORKS AT GORDON CASTLE
The duchess did not write a regular diary. But for one week in the first year of her residence at Gordon Castle such a record was kept. Extracts from it may serve to give some insight into her thoughts and life. The reader will be struck with the marked self-humiliation which was so characteristic of this child of God. "I desired to have resolution to commence and continue a journal, that I might obtain a clearer view of my own heart, which I know, alas! to be deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Well may I say with Job, 'I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.'" "A day lost though well begun; more peace, more clear belief, but, alas! not less indifference, not less hardness of heart; great idleness; after breakfast little or nothing done. O Lord, deliver me from pride and vanity, and make me a humble and devoted follower of the meek and lowly Jesus. He indeed is our peace." "Another unprofitable day; but when, alas! is any day otherwise with me?" "Sins of the week: unbelief proceeding from pride of reason, selfishness, carelessness, hardness of heart, vanity, evil speaking." These extracts are sufficient to show that there was a very severe introspection—a very real shrinking from sin, and sense of unworthiness. Some of the faults she lamented seemed to others remarkably absent in the duchess Evil speaking, for example, was about the last thing she could be accused of. There was no one more careful of the character of those with whom she had to do.
This short diary also shows her busily occupied in attending to members of her household, ministering to one maid, who was sick, instructing another in the Shorter Catechism. Happy was the household that had such a mistress at its head!
In 1830 William IV. came to the throne. The Duchess of Gordon was selected by Queen Adelaide as Mistress of the Robes at the Coronation. The Queen bestowed upon her many marks of favour and friendship. But the promotion to the highest honours of the Court was not allowed to militate against her soul's welfare. The service of the King of kings was always put first.
It is needless to say that the duchess was always a regular attendant at God's house. For thirty years she made a practice of taking copious notes of the sermons. The notes were copied out carefully during the week. This note-taking—sometimes a slight embarrassment to the preacher—was a great help to the hearer. As at least two sermons a week were thus noted, there must have been a great mass of manuscript before the thirty years were expired. Amongst those whose sermons she much enjoyed were Mr. Howels of Long Acre, Mr. Harington Evans, and Mr. Blunt, of Chelsea.
Good works were promoted by the duke and duchess at the cost of much self-denial. The duke's predecessor had left the estates heavily burdened. The consequence was that they were put under trust, only a limited income being allowed to the duke. This made contributions to charitable objects less ample than they would otherwise have been. But generous help was bestowed that cost the givers something to give. The duchess set her heart on building and endowing a chapel in connection with the Church of England. To render this possible the duke proposed to sell some of his horses. For the same purpose the duchess left a golden vase valued at £1200 to be sold. To quote her own words to explain what resulted from this charitable idea: "The Duchess of Beaufort, hearing of my vase, thought of her diamond ear-rings, which she got me to dispose of for a chapel in Wales, and her diamonds made me think of my jewels; and as the duke had always been most anxious for the chapel, he agreed with me that stones were much prettier in a chapel wall than round one's neck, and so he allowed me to sell £600's worth, or rather what brought that, for they cost more than double. The chapel is going on nicely, and I have still enough jewels left to help to endow it, if no other way should open. I do think I may with confidence hope for a blessing on this. It is no sacrifice to me whatever, except as it is one to the duke, who is very fond of seeing me fine, and was brought up to think it right."
The strict observance of family prayer has already been referred to. A room had been fitted up in the castle as a little chapel. The duke was always present, and now, in the absence of the chaplain and the duchess, used to conduct the prayers himself. In later years, when the widow returned to Huntly Lodge, exactly at half-past nine in the morning and evening the household assembled for prayers. Both indoor and outdoor servants were first gathered together. The butler then came to the duchess, and in words which we are assured were never varied by one syllable or accent during the twenty-seven years of her grace's widowhood and his own stewardship, announced, "They're all assembled." A brief blessing was asked, a psalm or hymn read, the organ led the voice of praise, a passage of Scripture was read and frequently explained. A prayer followed, in which the duchess wished that the Queen should never be forgotten.
Very faithfully the duchess sought to do her duty in bringing the interests of religion before those with whom she had to do, especially those of her own household. "But you do not know the difficulty I have in speaking to any one who does not meet me half way. I think if I could see my way clearly, I might get over this painful shyness, which I then know would be want of faith. But I cannot see that, situated as I am, it is my duty; and moreover, I fancy I have not the talent, and it is not one which I have to account for; for I have so often done more harm than good, even when I have prayed to be directed; indeed, I trust I have not often had to speak without that prayer…. Oh! I do pray for more zeal for souls, more true sense of their infinite value; for I think if I felt it as I see it, I should do more."
V.
THE HEAVY BLOW
In the summer of 1835 the duke and duchess made a tour on the Continent. Even amidst all the movements and difficulties connected with hotel life, family prayers were not neglected. Every morning before starting they assembled together to ask God's blessing. The duchess on this tour had daily opportunities of reading the Bible with her husband. She was very anxious about his soul's welfare. His testimony to his old friend, Colonel Tronchin, at Geneva, was very significant. "Tronchin, I am a very changed man to what you once knew me, and I owe it all to my dear wife." She herself writes with reference to the duke—"He has done and said many things since he came here which almost give me hope that the Spirit of God is really at work, and that he begins to experience something of the blessedness of those who fear the Lord."
The greatest trial in her life was now approaching the duchess. He who had been her support and joy for so many years was to be taken from her. On the 27th of May, 1836, she was told by the doctors that the duke had only a short time to live. The terrible news was of course overwhelming, but she knew whither to turn. "I had not realised till then the hopelessness of the case. I retired to another room and fell on my knees; and as if they had been audibly uttered, these words were impressed upon my heart, 'Thy Maker is thy Husband; the Lord of hosts is His name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall He be called,' and I rose up to meet the trial in His strength." The next day the duke died. Full proof was given of the sufficiency of God to support His servants in their darkest hours. Two days afterwards she wrote—"I must tell you of the blessed consolation I have in thinking of the perfect peace which my beloved husband enjoyed uninterruptedly, and the presence of the Comforter from the Father and the Son to my own soul. Pray for me. Although I feel indeed in the wilderness, yet like her who was led there, I would desire to lean on the arm of the Beloved One, who has truly given to me 'the valley of Achor for a door of hope,' and who is a very present help in time of trouble. The comfort I have is at present almost without alloy. It is only when earthly things pull me from my resting-place that I see the desolation of all earthly joys; and yet I am not excited, out as the Lord has enabled me to stay my mind on Him, He has kept me in perfect peace." When the beloved remains were removed into their last resting-place in Elgin Cathedral, she dedicated herself afresh to God. "When the coffin was lowered into that vault, I felt as if God had shoved under my feet all that was most dear to me, the only one on earth to whose love I was entitled, and that now I must live to Himself alone."
After her husband's death her wish was to return at once to Huntly Lodge, where she had spent the first years of her married life, and which was now hers by the marriage settlement. But a lease which the tenant was unwilling to resign prevented this for a time. Accordingly she made up her mind to travel abroad for some months. During the winter of 1836 she lived at Pau. The return home was made the following summer. Naturally she dreaded coming back to the now desolate home—the same place, but all so changed. But God was good, and the grace sufficient for the day was given. "Huntly Lodge, 31st August, 1837.—The Lord has been better to me than all my fears. Wagstaff (the duke's factor), accompanied by both Mr. Bigsby (of the English Chapel at Gordon Castle) and Mr. Dewar (minister of Fochabers), received me. My heart was so full of the Lord's goodness, that there was no room for bitterness; and after a few moments alone, I could not rest till we had thanked our tender Father; Mr. Bigsby was the organ of our thanksgiving. The three gentlemen, Annie (Sinclair), and I joined in prayer then, and at night with all the people of house, stable, and farm; this morning Mr. Dewar's prayer was very much what I needed. My blessed Lord Jesus is very present, and I know I cannot come to my Father without Him. Oh, pray that I may be more and more awakened, and never fall asleep again. Oh, for the quickening grace of the Holy Spirit to realise continually that blessed presence! 4th Sept.—My heart is full of thankfulness and wonder as to myself. I dreaded above all things the bitterness of desolation on my return here; and behold the Lord made His presence so manifest that I am now, as in times past, rejoicing in His unmerited love."