'because, though other ministers show me the majesty of God and the
plague of my own heart, Mr. Samuel does both these things, but he also
shows me, as no other minister ever does, the loveliness of Christ.' It
is as great a mistake to think that all our Christian people are able to
take in a sermon on the loveliness of Christ as it is that all ordained
men can preach such a sermon. There are diversities of gifts among
hearers as well as among preachers; and when the gifts of the pulpit meet
the corresponding graces in the pew, you need not wonder that they
recognise and delight in one another. Jesus Christ was Rutherford's
favourite subject in the pulpit, and thus it was that he was Marion
M'Naught's favourite preacher, as she, again, was his favourite hearer in
the church and his favourite correspondent in the Letters. To how many
in this house to-night could a preacher say that he wished them all to be
'over head and ears in love to Christ'? What preacher could say a thing
like that in truth and soberness? And how many could hear it? Only a
preacher of the holy passion of Rutherford, and only a hearer of the
intellect and heart and rare experience of Marion M'Naught. 'O the fair
face of the man Jesus Christ!' he cries out. And again: 'O time, time,
why dost thou move so slowly! Come hither, O love of Christ! What
astonishment will be mine when I first see that fairest and most lovely
face! It would be heaven to me just to look through a hole of heaven's
door to see Christ's countenance!' No wonder that the congregations were
few, and the correspondents who could make anything of a man of such a
'fanatic humour' as that! But, then, no wonder, on the other hand, that,
when two fanatics so full of that humour as Samuel Rutherford and Marion
M'Naught met, they corresponded ever after with one another in their own
enraptured language night and day.