^ Perhaps the most prominent Secession divine in Aberdeen who was a contemporary of Dr. Kidd was James Templeton, minister of what is now Belmont Street U.P. Church. He was a man of quiet power and singular shrewdness of observation. His mother wit, spiritual fervour, homely illustration, and unabashed vernacular gave him acceptance with the people. One Sabbath, speaking to persons who complained that their burdens in life were exceptionally heavy, he said — "Suppose now you were to take all your separate burdens to the Castlegate and drop them doon there, and after examinin' them and comparin' them one with another, I am thinkin' you wouldna be willin' to exchange with any when you really saw what they were ; but, pickin' up your bit bundlie, each one of you wad gang awa' hame mair contentit than when you went to the Castlegate." ^
(1) There is the burden of physical disability or disfigurement, such as lameness, blindness, or deformity of any sort — always a very grievous burden to be borne. St. Paul knew this burden, the shame and the sorrow of it. Apparently he suffered from some distressing physical evil that made him contemptible in the eyes of men and that injured even his ministerial usefulness. Some, indeed, have held that the thorn in the flesh was a moral weak- ^ James Stark, Dr. Kidd of Aberdeen, 140.
4i6 BURDENS
ness — a violent temper, a jealous nature, even a lustful passion. But no man ever received grace to bear these things, though thousands have received grace to get rid of them. The facts that the thorn was not removed and that grace was given him to bear it show conclusively that it could not have been a moral weakness but rather a physical defect, a disease. And there are thousands in the world to-day, like him, who have to bear unaided and alone the burden of physical weakness or deformity save for that Divine grace which helps them to overcome the shame and to endure the pain.
^ In one of Schiller's poems a beautiful story is told to this effect : When God made the birds He gave them gorgeous plumage and sweet voices, but no wings. He laid wings on the ground and said, " Take these burdens and bear them." They struggled along with them, folding them over their hearts. Presently the wings grew fast to their breasts and spread themselves out, and they found that what they had thought were burdens were changed to pinions.^
(2) There is the burden of intellectual weakness. Men have not all the same mental powers, the same facility in acquiring learning, the same range of vision, the same foresight. One man succeeds in life because he has a greater power of forecasting the future, of calculating the changes in the money market, or industrial life, than his neighbour. The race is perhaps not always to the swift, but it generally is. The battle is not always to the strong, but it generally is. And in the race of human life a man, notwithstanding all his diligence and probity, may find himself outdistanced by one of keener intellect and greater fore- sight. He may think it hard that it should be so, but he must bear the burden of his own defects as best he may.
I would gladly bear your burden.
If it might be so,
But each heart its own must carry;
None may go
Altogether free, you know.
If I might, it would be easy,
0 my friend, for me
Just to take your task and do it,
But, you see,
Such a thing could never be.
* A. T. Pierson.
GAL. VI. 2, 5 417
Though my heart aches, as I watch you,
Toiling through the day —
Missing some of life's old sunshine
From your way —
Finding work instead of play —
Yet I know that it is better —
Know that you and I,
Looking back from God's to-morrow,
By and by —
Never more shall question " Why ? "
By our losses He is leading
To eternal gain:
He will surely give us sunshine,
After rain —
Calm for sorrow — peace for pain,*
(3) It may be some permanent or far-reaching consequence of a former act of our own ; some neglect, or recklessness, or sin in the past, which has hung a weight about our necks. The sin may be repented of ; the pardon may be assured. But the temporal consequences of the sin remain, and will remain so long as we have breath. This is the most irksome and the most painful form which a man's individual burden can take. If you thrust a knife into your arm, it does not affect me. You yourself feel the pain ; you yourself must endure the agony, I may sympathize, I may pity, I may bandage the gash, but the severed flesh and the lacerated fibres are yours, and along your nerves nature telegraphs the pain. So it is with the soul. A man who stabs himself with a bad habit, who opens the arteries of his higher life with the lancet of his passions and drains them of the vital fluid, who inserts his head within the noose of appetite and swings himself off from the pedestal of his self-control, must endure the suffering, the weakness, and the loss which are the issue of his insane conduct,