Whatever pity one must have for the “son,” brought up in such a painfully contracted and bigoted groove, most right-minded people can have nothing but censure for the “man” who, after fifty years, can so expose the mistakes of a sincere but misguided “father.” The old proverb of the “ill bird” comes irresistibly to mind. However much the “son” may smart at the wrong done him by a well-meaning but sadly narrow-minded “father,” decency would have drawn the curtain of silence around such a sacred matter, “De mortuis,” &c.
The secret of the production of this book is found in chapter 12, where the interview of the “father” with the wealthy banker is described, the “son” being present:
“This question, ‘What is he to be?’ in a worldly sense, was being discussed.... Mr. Brightwen, I fancy, had been worked upon by my stepmother... to suggest... a query about my future. He was childless and so was she, and I think a kind impulse led them to ‘feel the way,’ as it is called. I believe he said that the banking business, wisely and honorably conducted, sometimes led, as we know that it is apt to lead, to affluence. To my horror, my father with rising emphasis replied that ‘if there were offered to his beloved child what is called an opening that would lead to an income of 410,000 a year, and that would divert his thoughts and interest from the Lord’s work, he would reject it on his child’s behalf.’ Mr. Brightwen... soon left us, and I do not recollect his paying us a second visit.”
Here, then, is quite enough to account for four hundred pages of bitterness. The effect upon the “son” was disastrous, and plunged him soon into infidelity. His hatred of the gospel and utter rejection of the atonement prove that there never was real faith in the “son’s” soul. It is easy to understand his dislike of the phraseology bordering upon cant, the constant speaking about the “saints,” &c.
It is a sad history of apostasy, the natural enmity of the unrenewed heart against God and His Son, embittered by the recollection of a cold and narrow legalism on the part of the “father,” an ignorance of the gospel rarely found amongst so-called “Plymouth Brethren.” How different it might have been had the bright and cheerful warmth of grace surrounded the child rather than the rigid, hard legality described in this book. May the grace of God in Christ even yet gain the victory!
ED.