Memorial Sermon for Abijah Murray ISO, preached by the Rev Henry Parnaby MA at Augustine Church, Edinburgh on 25 February 1912

All through the week these words have never left me and I can think of none that would provide a better summing up of his life. What a beautiful simile for a good life this is. It breaks in dimness with the hope of the morning in it. Slowly the light advances bringing into clearness the main features of the surrounding country. Then bursts forth the sun, filling the earth with colour and with beauty, and drawing forth its fragrance. As it advances on its upward march – brighter and brighter become its rays and greater and greater its power. With ever sharper detail all is seen – and the day abides in the power and the glory of the noontide. There is no advance by leaps and bounds, no sudden flashing forth of light from behind the black masses of a thunder cloud – no fogs or mists to blot out the sun after it has risen – but orderly, progressive development in beauty, in clearness and in strength.

"The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day". The path of the just.

The word "just" is often used to describe men we admire and respect but for whom we do not feel the glow of love. They are stern, conscientious and legal in their justice. They are apt to rule, in their conscious strength, with a somewhat heavy hand. They lack the feeling of sympathy with weaker and failing men. Shylock stood for this type of justice: he was reminded that in the courts of justice none of us should see salvation and was exhorted to exercise mercy. But the just man of the Bible needed no such exhortation. He was just as God was just – with the justice that flowed from the compassionate heart. His justice was never separated from his love and was never merely external. It was the outward working of a heart that was rooted in God and good and showed the generosity of true knowledge of the meaning and the struggle of life. "It is joy to the just to do judgment and the way of the just is uprightness" sings the psalmist, and our friend who is gone was the truest example of the Biblical just man it has ever been my joy to meet. These to me were the essential characteristics of his life – he was just with the genuine heart justice honoured and sung by the psalmist, and in his life there was an orderly, progressive unfolding of beauty and strength and goodness from the grey of the dawn to the brightness of the perfect day. There was what I should describe as a singular balance about him. Some men sacrifice business for social and church life, some sacrifice the church and all it stands for for business – he did neither. He gave his whole heart and his whole strength to each aspect of life as he faced it.

He began with the advantage of a fine heritage. His grandfather became a member of this Church in the year 1807 and save for one brief break owing to residence on the north side of the town the connection of the family with the Church has been unbroken for 105 years. The home in which he was reared he told me was a singularly happy one. Mutual confidence and trust marked all the relations of the members of the family, one to another. His most intimate friend through the days of youth and early manhood was one of his brothers. There was in the home too, not only real Christian living, but a vigorous intellectual life and boisterous humour. The family were all intellectually alert and by their wide and yet well selected reading and by their constant discussion of social and religious problems, developed a vigorous and well grounded independence of opinion and judgment. Mr Abijah Murray was perhaps the most able of the brothers. At the Royal High School – more famous in those days than in these later times – he had a most distinguished career. He was the most successful pupil of the school in his year, winning the Rector’s prize. He also carried off quite a number of class medals, distinguishing himself especially in English Literature. Indeed there were many in those days who prophesied for him a great literary career, but he chose another path in life. After some years at the Edinburgh University, where again he won many class prizes, he prepared himself to enter the Indian Civil Service, but in 1873 he was nominated for a position in the office of the Local Government Board for Scotland, or the Board of Supervision as it was then called. This he accepted when the staff numbered only five and the traditions of the Civil Service were very different from what they are today. Of those early days in the office he had many interesting stories to tell – some amusing, some otherwise. In that office, Mr Murray did his life’s work. From the first his great abilities, his fine sense of responsibility, his thoughtful conscientiousness and his devotion to duty manifested themselves. We hear much criticism from time to time of our public offices and their ways and works – most of it, I am sure, is the criticism of ignorance. Never did any man in a private business show a greater or more thoughtful devotion than did Mr Murray to the duties of his office. He mastered every detail of Local Government in this country and wrote or edited several important works bearing upon it. He worked with untiring zeal as a public servant and he worked always with a single eye to his country’s good. Whatever rewards came to him in promotion or renown, came to him unsought, except as a faithful man anywhere seeks by his very faithfulness the appreciation of those for whom he works.

He rose to eminence in his department by sheer merit and all his companions in the service knew that when he was appointed Secretary to the Local Government Board he only received the recognition that had been long over-due. Some men in rising become hard and because of their ways fill others with envy and inspire carping criticism. Not so our friend who is gone. Such was his unfailing urbanity – his sympathy and friendliness with all the members of his staff – his courtesy to all and sundry throughout Scotland and with whom he came in contact that all men who knew him rejoiced in his success.

He was never one whom his subordinates dreaded. He exercised discipline by inspiring trust, by the faith he showed in those around him and by the force of a splendid example. I remember that once, with his usual humility, he told me he had no difficulty whatever in getting the staff to do the work of the office – they were such a splendid lot of men. The following week I met one of these men and told him what I had heard, without mentioning who my informant was. At once he answered – ah well, you see, we have a magnificent chief. And that was true. He was not given to uttering pious appeals. The language of religion was not often on his lips, but by the beauty and kindliness and the strength of his character he exercised an influence upon the department where he worked that none can estimate.

But not only in Edinburgh did he achieve this. He was inevitably brought into contact with public men in all parts of the country and I have, in places far from Edinburgh, heard his praises uttered for help he had rendered. He was a public official but his soul was never bound with red tape. We have heard of a man humanising politics. To the extent of his power Mr Murray humanised administration. Whilst loyal to the statutes enacted, in the settlement of difficult problems it was always the human element that affected him chiefly. In short, no soldier on field of battle ever gave his life more readily and completely for his country than Abijah Murray gave his in the arduous daily round of a civil servant in a responsible position.

Apart from the office he was for long a most enthusiastic officer in the volunteer force, receiving the long service medal at the close of a most successful career.

In social life we all know his quality. Who that heard him will ever forget his recitations of Scottish life and manners. I once heard him give an address in the Home Mission on "A Merry Heart doeth good like Medicine" and certainly he by his unfailing geniality,his hearty laughter, and frank and sincere friendliness helped to cure many an aching heart and revive many a drooping spirit. His interests were wide but always human. For many years he shrank from taking part in religious service in public, but we all know how in the days when Gilmour Street was a much wilder neighbourhood than it is today he went and gathered a class from the streets and for more than twenty years gave them of his best. He not only taught them on Sundays, but week by week met them in social intercourse, walked with them, played with them, swam with them and entertained them in his house and proved himself indeed guide, philosopher and friend to many a desperate and broken down man. All through his career he was a diligent and sympathetic Home Mission worker – he felt a deep compassion for the multitudes because they were as sheep having no shepherd and in consequence no man was more beloved by the people in our Mission district.

It is not for me to lift the veil, even if I could, that hides the sacredness of his home life, except to say that with him as with all true men, home was the first place in his thought and affection. There the best of him was always seen. Whatever the worries and anxieties of office and church – at home he was always bright and cheerful, and his calm and placid temperament was never ruffled. To his wife he was through all the experience of life the same thoughtful devoted lover she had met at the marriage altar and to his children not only a wise father but a constant companion and confidential friend.

What this Church has lost by his passing we all dimly feel but none can estimate. During the 8¼ years of my ministry here Mr Murray was never once absent from public worship, Sunday morning and evening, when it was at all possible for him to be present. I never once saw him enter the Church a moment late. When he was first taken ill some three years ago, he was advised to rest as much as possible, but he would not absent himself from the House of God. Never was there a more appreciative listener to any thoughtful and sincere utterance, nor one with greater charity for the failings and shortcomings of a preacher. At the weekly Communion Service he was one of the few who could always be counted upon to be present. For the past few years when compelled by reason of health to give up his class at Gilmore Street, he was present almost every Wednesday at the weeknight service. Usually he led our devotions in prayer. Who that heard him will ever forget the quiet pleading of his tone, the simplicity of phrase and the humility of his spirit. The very calm of God often seemed to rest upon us and then did we understand the secret of this man’s strength and faith and calm. He was stayed on God and trusted him with childlike confidence. As a deacon of the Church he rendered faithful and unstinted service.

He knew and regularly visited all the members in the district for which he was responsible. He was unfailing in his attendance at the deacons’ meeting and no man was listened to with greater readiness for we had all learned to trust the soundness of his judgment and the charity of his heart. As Clerk to the Church he far more than maintained the high traditions established by those who preceded him.

The minutes carefully kept in his beautiful flowing handwriting witness to the thoughtful carefulness he displayed in all the work he undertook. What he was in the Church meeting only those of us who attended can fully appreciate. If feeling was aroused, his was the voice that soothed and quieted us all, his sweet reasonableness led us and kept us in the paths of peace and sound judgment and to him more than any we owe the harmony that has characterised our church life for so long. For many years he administered our Fellowship Fund and such was his tact, and so deep his sympathy with the poor and the struggling, that the deacons trusted him absolutely and gave him complete freedom in the administration of this fund and the poor all loved him for the way in which he helped them – taking the sting out of their need by his kindliness and sympathy. We all remember vividly how he laboured successfully to have the debt on this Church finally extinguished and the splendid service he rendered at the time of our Jubilee celebrations. All agreed that his fine address on the history of the Church – happily preserved in print – set a high and worthy keynote for those celebrations. But there was other work he did behind the scenes. There often arise occasions when a minister desires to render help to struggling people and the Fellowship Fund is not available. Often did I appeal to Mr Murray for help and never in vain. Indeed he gave readily far more than anyone else I knew and always with simplicity and without question.

Never minister had truer friend and wiser counsellor than I and others had in Abijah Murray. His whispers at the table in the Church meeting many a time restrained me from making mistakes in word or act; in difficult times in my career I turned to no man for advice so readily as to him, and in every case where I followed that advice time proved its wisdom. When I was asked to go South, it was his advice and thoughtful speech that first made the way clear to me, and on his resolution that the Church here treated me with such thoughtfulness and kindness. You all know too that his last service on earth was to travel to Ashton to speak at the services held for the recognition of the beginning of my pastorate.

It was obvious to us there that he was ill – yet on the Sunday afternoon he gave an address to the young men’s class that they will never forget, and on the Monday evening roused himself to give what all confessed to be the most beautiful and inspiring speech delivered. Through all the weakness and the fever of the last few weeks he never once lost the cheerfulness and calmness that had marked his life. Ever grateful for the least service, he thought only of those around him. Waking once from sleep in the last days he said he was "quite comfortable and at peace with all the world".. Never did one say it more truly. To know him at all in any of the relationships of life was a privilege – to be a friend, often in his company, was to receive a liberal education in the Christian life. And now he is gone and his place will know him no more. He was truly a great soul and his path was as the shining light. We think of his quick, alert and well-furnished mind, we think of the strength and grace of his noble character, we think of the charm of his genial personality, his delight in life and in the earth, his unfailing sympathy and readiness to help any in distress, his deep and reverent piety, the humility and lowliness of his spirit and with full hearts we thank God for his gracious gift. If nothing else had come to me in Edinburgh but the friendship of Abijah Murray it would always make this city sacred to me – for he was the strongest, gentlest and truest Christian I have ever known. And is he gone? God is not the God of the dead but of the living. There in that world that infringes so closely upon ours he still lives and serves; the light still shines in its noontide glory and there shall be no night there. He lives too in those influences that proceeded from his life and that have moulded the souls of many; in the home that was blessed by his presence, in the office where men were helped to noble service by his lofty example, in the Church that was so often brought into closer contact with its Lord through his real spirituality and sanctified character, and in the men and women who in many places and different circumstances are today fighting more bravely the battle of life for the gracious encouragement and generous help they received from him. You will remember that he closed his history of Augustine Church with this paragraph:

"And here this record of the Church’s history must close. The story of more recent years must be left to a later day and to another pen. One closing word. At this season of our Jubilee we look back on the past with thankfulness and with congratulations; we look forward to the future with courage and with faith. "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us". Our fathers have left to us a noble heritage on which we have entered. It is for us to see that we in turn pass on to our successors a like inheritance of high aspiration, of patient endeavours, of noble self-sacrifice, of faithful work accomplished, of substantial progress made. It may be that we shall not be able to attain the high measure of achievement reached by our fathers. But we must make the effort. And if our endeavours are true and earnest and sustained, they will assuredly not be fruitless, they will not be vain. Let us then work on, relying on the help and trusting to the mercy of that great judge, To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim, Faithfully kept, is as a noble deed, In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed".

Mr Abijah Murray is now one of the fathers who have left us a noble heritage and that is his call to us. May we try by greater faithfulness and earnestness, and truer trust in God to make up for his loss. And last of all – young people – in the story of life I have tried to describe this morning with the plain simplicity of truth, you have the evidence that the path of the just is as the shining light and is the path that leads to blessedness and peace. His life and his experience teach us best, the only abiding happiness is in goodness, the only lasting success is the achievement of a noble character. Mark the perfect man and behold the upright – the end of that man is peace.

May we so stay our souls on God – so yield ourselves unreservedly and utterly to the Highest – that our last end may be like His. And now unto God our Father and Redeemer, who hath given us through His Beloved Son the victory over fear and doubt and death, be praise, now and evermore, from the whole Church of Jesus Christ.

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