A feature by Charles Gardner, that was originally published in ‘Heroes of Faith’, an inspiring UK-based quarterly magazine
Andrew Murray (1828-1917) was among the world’s most inspiring devotional writers. And although he lived for the most part in the 19th century, reprints of his writings (he wrote 240 books) kept coming off the presses well into the 21st century.
He was also a pastor whose ‘parish’ once covered a staggering 13 million hectares of a largely uncharted South African interior.
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He was the son of Andrew Murray Snr (1794-1866), who came out from Scotland in 1822 in response to an appeal for shepherds to minister to the widely scattered Dutch-Afrikaans communities who had fled from stifling British rule at the Cape.
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The Scottish Presbyterian Church was very similar in ethos and theological understanding to the Dutch Reformed Church that was to greatly influence the emerging South Africa. And Andrew Murray Jnr is generally seen as the father figure of its evangelical wing, pioneering preaching in Afrikaans as opposed to High Dutch.
But it is to his father that my family owes its survival. It was around 1850 that my great-great grandfather James Gardner, a Scotsman who had settled in the Eastern Cape as a soldier to help protect both British and Dutch pioneers in a series of wars with the Xhosa tribe, decided he had had enough of the hardships of frontier life after losing two wives.
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So he packed his children onto an ox-wagon and trekked some 320km towards Port Elizabeth to catch a boat back to Scotland. But he never made it. Stopping by the wayside, he was the victim of an armed robbery, leaving several young children wandering the veld, apparently for days, until they were discovered by Afrikaner Christians who took them back to the town of Graaff-Reinet, from whence they had come.
Among those children was my great-grandfather, also Charles, who was taken in by the Rev Andrew Murray Snr and his wife Maria, while his siblings were shared out with other families. Despite having 16 children of their own, including Andrew Jnr who was by now an adult, the Murrays had time and love to spare for orphans like Charles.
I visited the beautiful Dutch-gabled parsonage, now a museum, in 2003, and imagined how it must have reverberated to the happy sounds of laughing children brought up in Christian love, care and compassion which has been well expressed in Andrew Jnr’s books. By the time Charles was adopted into the family, Andrew Snr had already served the community for a generation, and his sons, Andrew and John, both in their twenties, were also ministers.
‘Born again’
Without adequate educational facilities to hand, they were sent to Scotland where they spent seven years before completing their theological studies in Holland while at the same time learning the language. It was on his way to Holland that Andrew, aged 17, was ‘born again’. They returned to South Africa in 1848, the year Charles was born, and threw themselves into the work of reaching the scattered Dutch-Afrikaans communities with the Gospel.
Andrew was soon based in Bloemfontein, about 320km north of Graaff-Reinet, with a ‘parish’ of 13 million hectares. He was only in his early twenties yet commanded the respect of everyone and even helped broker deals with the British Government in later years.
His main concern, however, was that his parishioners should discover a personal relationship with Christ and lead a life of complete devotion to God. He rode on wagons, traps, on horseback and sometimes walked for hundreds of kilometres to bring the word of God, and communion, to lonely settlements.
On one occasion he braved a stretch of land infested with dangerous wild animals to reach an isolated farmhouse, praying all the way. And he took his annual leave by riding out to the wild far north country of the Transvaal to bring spiritual comfort to the settlers there with a view to pioneering new churches. His passion for Christ knew no bounds as he ran the gauntlet of prowling lions and poisonous snakes in a vast wilderness.
Later he was called to the pastorate of Worcester in the Western Cape and, while there, a revival broke out which had the effect of greatly boosting the work of the Gospel throughout the land. Strange things happened, people fainted and trembled, but the outcome was that there was a much greater awareness of the presence of God, and of his claim on the lives of the townsfolk. Many were converted to Christ while others, already among the regular flock, felt a call to deeper commitment, with 50 young men soon offering themselves for the ministry.
Andrew owed much to his upbringing and, throughout his life, stressed the importance of the raising of children under God. Clearly the home in which Charles was brought up reflected the beauty of a family tied together by the three-fold cord of father and mother in love, with God above pulling the strings. From the age of 10 until he was 17, Andrew stayed with his Uncle John in Aberdeen, Scotland, along with his elder brother John, while they were educated. It is said that never once in all that time did his uncle or aunt need to scold either of them. For they were brought up to love God and show respect to their parents and elders. When young Andrew later took over as moderator of the national church, he still afforded his father much greater honour than himself. For when his father got up to speak at the church’s synod in Cape Town, he stood up himself for the entire duration of the speech. But Andrew was uncomfortable with the “church politics” he inevitably had to deal with in this position, and later moved to Wellington, near Worcester, where he made a huge impact over the years.
As for the Worcester revival, it was part of a worldwide phenomenon that seemed to be God’s answer to Charles Darwin’s 1859 theory that we are no more than animals. The revival was accompanied by wonderful changes in society and, in South Africa at least, had much to do with the Murrays. This was hardly surprising as, from the commencement of his pastorate at Graaff-Reinet, Andrew Murray Snr had devoted every Friday evening to praying for revival. His children never forgot how they sometimes stood outside his study door listening to his loud crying to God as he pleaded for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Others joined him at the Friday meetings, and they prayed for over 30 years. At Worcester, where Andrew Jnr took over the pastorate in 1860, a band of intercessors had already been regularly climbing a hilltop overlooking the village to pray for God’s power to fall on the community.
And their prayers were answered as both the village and surrounding lonely farms felt the Spirit of God at work, manifested by increased attendance for prayer and a warmth of atmosphere in the meetings. Andrew is said to have sparked the move – appropriately enough – with his prayer on Pentecost Sunday (May 27, 1860). Describing the rising tide of revival, an eyewitness told of a meeting of young people where a Coloured girl of 15 began praying in a moving way.
Sound of revival
“While she was praying, we heard as it were a sound in the distance which came nearer and nearer until the hall seemed to be shaken, and with one or two exceptions the whole meeting began to pray – the majority in ordinary voices, but some in whispers. Nevertheless, the noise was deafening.”
Rev Murray got to hear about it and proceeded to call for silence – not once, but twice – to no avail.
“No-one heard him, but all continued praying, calling on God for mercy and pardon. After that, evening prayer meetings were held daily. Sometimes they continued until three in the morning; and they sang through the streets as they returned home. The hall where they met soon proved too small, and we were compelled to move into the school building. But this was also filled as hundreds came in from the surrounding farms.”
Later, with Rev Murray leading, there was that distant sound again, drawing ever closer until suddenly the whole gathering was praying. This time, when Murray called for silence, a stranger who had been watching the proceedings rebuked him, saying: “Be careful what you do, for the Spirit of God is at work here. I have just come from America, and this is precisely what I witnessed there.”
Andrew’s father visited him at Worcester and blessed God for what he witnessed, saying: “Andrew, my son, I have longed for such times as these, which the Lord has let you have.”
The excitement was very intense, and many decisions were made for Christ. The fruit of the revival was seen in that congregation for years and it spread throughout the country. One farmer sold his farm for £1,500 to devote himself to mission.
Paul Kruger, the Boer leader who was later to become President of the Transvaal Republic and was responsible for the world-famous Kruger National Park for wildlife, was among those in the far-flung north who had been ‘born again’.
Andrew wrote to his wife Emma: “Mr Kruger says that when God gave him a new heart, it was as if he wanted to tell everyone about Jesus’ love, and as if he wanted the birds, the trees and everything to help him praise his Saviour.”
Andrew and Emma followed his parents’ example of taking in children other than their own four boys and four girls. Over a period of 60 years at least one young person lived in the parsonage with Mr and Mrs Murray as a second father and mother while they were trained for future ministry.
Love for children
As with her in-laws, it was difficult to distinguish which were her own from the love Mrs Murray showed her adopted children. Andrew himself was very popular with children, playing and romping with his own and imitating a lion’s roar as he told vivid stories of missionary escapades.
In a letter to Emma written while on one of his numerous journeys as a travelling preacher, he made some telling observations: “Did you ever observe the promise applicable to parents when God grants them children? Whosoever receives a little child in My name receives Me. If we only knew how to receive our children in His name, as given by Him, to be educated for Him and, above all, as bringing a blessing to the home where they are rightly welcomed, how rich the reward would be!”
He added: “This subject of parental and domestic religion may be more closely connected with ministerial success than we think. Paul at least thought so when he spoke of the necessity of a bishop’s knowing how to rule his own house well. And so did our Saviour since, in answer to the disciples’ question: ‘Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?’ he replied: ‘He that is like a little child’… The faith and the simplicity required for training children would perhaps be better training for the ministry than much that we consider great.”
That said, the Murrays believed the Church could be revived by Holy Spirit power. In Living the Christ Life, a collection of daily readings by classic “deeper life” authors, published in 2010 by CLC and compiled by Rebecca English, Andrew writes: “God longs to give each one individually, separately, the power of the Holy Spirit for daily life… Are you living as an anointed, Spirit-filled man? Go into God’s presence. He alone can affect the change.”
The legacy left by Andrew Murray, particularly in South Africa, is priceless. But like the legendary Reinhard Bonnke who followed him generations later, his heart was for all of Africa, as he is credited with sending missionaries all over the continent, as far north as Nigeria. And of course, he has a multitude of descendants, including my own family by adoption.
Of particular interest to this magazine1, in view of its publishers, is the fact that one of his books – for training new disciples – was called The New Life!
As for revival, he famously said: “God is more eager to answer our prayers for revival than we are to pray them.”
1Heroes of the Faith, New Life Publishing, Nottingham NG11 6QA, England.
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