Alexander Cruden, A Genius, and Yet!
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“Few of those who consult a Concordance of the Scriptures will think of seeking for entertainment from a life of the author; and fewer still would imagine that a man who could confine himself for year to such an employment could be the subject of that waywardness of mind which frequently attends the higher powers of genius, and excites the sympathies of mankind. Yet Alexander Cruden was one of those who trod the path of life on the verge of that awful abyss where the hopes and happiness of so many great minds have been engulfed. And if madness was, in his case, softened into eccentricity … he was probably indebted, for his escape, to that absorption of mind which such a work as this must have occasioned. What would have been to others intolerable drudgery, was a sedative to his agitated mind; and the labour, which would have wasted the energies of a happier man, was the balm of his wounded spirit.”

So runs an early paragraph in the introductory sketch of the life of Alexander Cruden which prefaces the famous Concordance of the Holy Scriptures which bears his name. Born in Aberdeen in the year 1701, Alexander Cruden was one of those who, “Crossed by hopeless love,” tumbled into the depths of mental instability, out of which he never fully recovered himself. The object of his overwhelming desire was the young daughter of an Aberdeen Minister whose hand in marriage he sought with great earnestness, but without success. Completely broken and deranged through distress and disappointment he was committed to a mental institute, and the pattern of confinement and release that was to characterise his life thereafter was set.

In 1727, following his first release from such an institute, he settled in London holding down the office of “Corrector to the press,” and, later on, in 1735, as “Bookseller to Queen Caroline, consort of George the Second.” Two years later, on completing the first edition of his Concordance, which he had methodically and labouriously compiled, he presented it to the Queen, by whose hand it found a ready acceptance. Her promise was that she would “not fail to remember the author,” but within a short sixteen days the Queen was taken from this earth and Alexander Cruden's hopes of success and encouragement appeared to descend to the grave with her.

Overwhelmed by such an apparent tragic turn in events, the poor author of the Concordance was inconsolable, and was committed to Bethnal Green private asylum from which he tried to escape on several occasions until he was finally chained to his bed and handcuffed. On his release he delivered a scathing attack in the form of a pamphlet on the conditions existing in the country's mental homes of that time and was instrumental in bringing about some moderate reforms and laying the foundation for others.

His life was passed, as the short sketch on his life indicates, “in a kind of happy and harmless lunacy, which left him sufficiently in possession of his rational faculties, to perform the duties of his arduous occupation (the correcting and improving of his Concordance) and to exercise himself in the execution of the commission, with which he fancied himself intrusted …”. This “commission, with which he fancied himself intrusted,” was that of “Corrector of the People,” to which he hoped to lay claim by an Act of Parliament! Parliament was not forthcoming, however, but, quite undeterred by that the self-appointed Corrector waged war against the abuses of his times. “To a young clergyman who he thought too conceited and modern, he very gravely and formally presented … The Mother's Catechism, Dedicated to the Young and Ignorant.” While one of his favourite “adherents” to his causes was one, Earl Paulett, who says Cruden himself, was “goutish on his feet, and could not run away from the Corrector, as others were wont to do.”

These few eccentricities apart, however, (and were they eccentricities to such a troubled mind?) Alexander Cruden lived so as to become the gospel which he had embraced and the Saviour whom he loved. “In 1762,” we are told, “one Richard Potter, a poor ignorant sailor, was tried and convicted at the old Bailey, of forging, or uttering knowing it to be forged, a seaman's will. Mr Cruden was in the court and was so fully convinced of his being merely the tool of some designing villain, that he determined to interfere on his behalf, and endeavour to move the Royal clemency. For this purpose he visited him in Newgate, conversed with him on religious subjects, exhorted, instructed, and prayed with him. The man was awakened to his sense of his condition as a sinner, and appeared to be truly converted to God. Encouraged by this success, Mr Cruden began to take measures for saving his life. By repeated applications to Lord Hallifax, Secretary of State, he obtained a change of the sentence, from death to transportation. As an acknowledgement of his obligations to Lord Hallifax, he presented him with a copy of the Second Edition of his Concordance, to which he prefixed an elegant manuscript Latin dedication, acknowledging his Lordship's interference on behalf of Potter.”

During this time, Cruden became interested in the fate of those confined within the prison, and with some friends paid regular visits for the distribution of gospel literature; at the same time, working for those prison reforms that were to become more apparent in the work of Elizabeth Fry. His work among young children, whom he dearly loved and cherished for Christ, is also noted, but it appears that it was in the realms of personal witness and testifying to the truth of the gospel that he was most at home. On one occasion, returning home late at night, he was accosted by “a woman of the streets;” after admonishing her in the name of Christ, he exhorted her to turn from her old life and seek life eternal in Christ. The woman said she would do this if she had somewhere to turn that night, but Cruden dismissed her and told her to come back to his home the next day if she was of the same mind. The seed that he had planted by the Holy Spirit of God proved to have taken hold on firm ground, for the next day the woman returned, still penitent and still seeking the way of life that he had told her of. He took her into the service of his home, and there she remained until his death showing forth the praises of Him Who had called her out of darkness into His marvellous light.

Even his death had a little of the genius of eccentricity about it and was not marked by any great death-bed sayings, or any such thing – and yet! His maid rang the bell to summon him to breakfast; on his failure to appear, she then made her way to his room, but found it empty. The most obvious place for him to be, then, was the small closet adjoining his room where he always went for prayer. There she found him – or at any rate, she found his body; his soul had winged its way to eternal day to praise his Saviour with a mind set free from all adversity, but he had left his body in a posture of praise, as well; bent over the chair where he had died praying his last earthly prayer to the God whom he adored.