The vast majority of the mighty servants of the Church of Christ have walked “the studious cloisters pale” – attending the old and famed schools of learning in their day. Few, if any, had a divinity school such as young John Brown attended, for there, he formed one half of the entire student body and one half of the entire teaching staff, as well. Two pupils! – young John Brown, and old John Ogilvie. Two teaches! – old John Ogilvie, and young John Brown. Such was the staff and student body of “The Tabernacle,” as it sat snug and safe from the eyes of men amidst the Perthshire hills – “four turf walls and a heather thatch,” as it has been described.
John Brown, whose name was to be linked so unbreakably with that of Haddington, was born in the year 1722 in the village of Carpow, near Abernethy. The day of his salvation dawned very early in his case, for it was in 1730, when still only a boy of eight years old, that a visiting preacher at the communion services in Abernethy “spoke much to the commendation of Christ,” and there began a growing in grace and in the knowledge of Christ that has had few equals. The young convert’s faith was soon to be tried, however, for both of his parents were taken from him within a few short years. It is here that the older half of the “student/staff” occupants of the Tabernacle – and indeed the Tabernacle itself – enters into the picture.
John Ogilvie was born during the “killing times” in Scotland, and so, was an old man by the time young John Brown had entered into Christ’s flock. The old man opened, not only his home, but his heart and his mind to the young fatherless boy, and he began to instruct him in the ways of the Lord more perfectly. John Ogilvie had never had the opportunity of any “formal” education; but although unable to read or write, he had stored his heart and his mind with the riches of God’s grace and God’s Word. These he imparted to his young friend who in turn, instructed the old patriarch in the “learning of letters.” From thence arose the Tabernacle. “For their mutual improvement,” we are told, “the two Johns constructed their moorland shelter, and there, as circumstances of employment permitted, young John improved and extended old John’s knowledge of the letter of the Scripture, and old John, in turn, gave his herd-boy the benefit of his long experience of the Christian warfare, and of his intercourse with the saints of a former generation … a turf shelter on a rugged hillside! A barley-bannock to ward-off the attacks of hunger! A vessel of clear spring-water to slake their thirst! Above all else, the Book of Life!” This was the Tabernacle.
With the passing of the older saint, however, this happy state of affairs was brought to an end. But upon the foundation that old John had laid in young John’s heart there was to rise up an edifice of great power to the glory of God’s name. The story of how the young John Brown walked over 24 miles to the town of St. Andrew to purchase the Greek New Testament that he had toiled and saved to buy, is one of the classic stories of the Christian Church. The incredulous bookseller in that town took one look at the young herd-boy from the Perthshire hills, and would probably have chased him from his premises but for the intervention of some of the town’s University Professors who happened to be browsing in the shop at the particular time. “Bring him the book,” they declared, “and if he can read it, he shall have it free as a present from us.” Thereupon, young John opened the book, and in fluent Greek read the desired portions and obtained his prize.
This thirst for knowledge with which to glorify his God went on unabated. And when he was called to his life’s work at Haddington, the one who had never known the inside of a Divinity Hall, save for that rustic establishment in the Perth hills, was later to combine his pastorate with a Professorship of Theology. He was expert in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and could hold his own with Arabic, Syriac, Persic, Ethiopic, as well as with the modern languages, of French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and German. And yet, his language and learning were always that of the Tabernacle: “There is no language, ancient or modern,” he used to say, “like that of the grace of God … no history like that of Jesus Christ … no science like that of beholding the Word made flesh ….” “I would not exchange the learning of one hour’s fellowship with Jesus Christ,” he said, “for all the liberal learning of then thousand universities.”
The goal of all his seeking, and searching, and storing, and accumulating is summed-up in what he told his sons near the end of his life; “Commend Jesus,” he told them, “there is none like Christ; there is none like Christ.”