RECOLLECTIONS OF OUR DEPARTED BROTHER
WE are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. The Head of the body, when in the flesh, was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, nevertheless, "The chosen of God and precious." Is it any wonder that the members should share the fate of the Head? I have learned from good authority that on Matamoros's last visit to Paris he was received by French Christians with coldness. This was owing, I believe, to unkind reports and suspicions then current in England, which, in his enfeebled condition, he felt acutely, and he came to Lausanne to die of a broken heart. Thank God, he is now far above the strife of the tongues of men. God has given a faithful picture of the children of Adam in the third of Romans, and the longer we live the more we prove the truth of that word. He there says, "Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood.”
But we have the satisfaction of knowing that if Matamoros had enemies he also had many good friends, who loved, esteemed, and valued him as he deserved. Among these Dr. Cappadose, of Holland, and a Christian lady at Amsterdam, hold a foremost place. On my way to London in July I visited these friends in passing through Rotterdam, and found that the Lord had very graciously directed my steps to the houses of both these saints, and by his help I was enabled to comfort them when they received the sad intelligence of Manuel's death. I had left, for their perusal, a diary which Matamoros gave me on his death-bed, and I soon after received a letter from the lady, from which I extract the following: —
“Many, many thanks for your kindness in lending it to me. I only wish I had had it in England last year, when I was hunting for justifying evidences and proofs to vindicate our friend's integrity and honor. But it was not to be, and Matamoros had to bear to the last a cross which was the most painful of all to the uprightness of his soul—that of being misunderstood and misjudged by his brethren in the faith. It was the kind of martyrdom he would least have chosen, but that which his heavenly Father appointed as the purifying process by which he was to be made fit for the holiness and happiness of heaven. And now the diamond, being thoroughly polished, is set as a precious jewel in his Master's crown. He has gone straight to his heavenly home, and who among us could wish to call him back `? Oh no, rather let all the good purposes of God's infinite love be made manifest to him as soon as he was able to bear the weight of glory and felicity prepared for the beloved child: the faithful servant of a righteous Master, who deemed that his task was finished and that he was ready to enter into the joy of his Lord. If we could have been present and felt the raptures of his soul when brought into the presence of his Savior, how we should wonder and adore!”
M. Roger Hollard, of Paris, an eminent Christian writer, has given to his countrymen some interesting details of Matamoros in an article which appeared in Le Chretien Evangelique of the 20th Sept. 1866, published at Lausanne by M. G. Bridel: from it we make some extracts. These further details of his conversion are not general known in England: —
“When at Gibraltar he was engaged in some literary pursuits that gained for him general approbation and marked applause at the theater. His mind was preoccupied with a poem which he had been asked to write on a given subject, and while walking one evening in the principal square at Gibraltar he heard the church bell summoning to worship. He at first felt disposed to enter, for from his infancy he had been taught both by father and mother to respect religion; nevertheless his literary pursuits seemed to take the upper place in his mind, when he heard the bell ring a second time. And when that solemn sound was heard the third time he could no longer resist. He entered the church, which to his great astonishment he found was a Protestant one, in which English Christians supported the preaching of the Gospel in Spanish. He was quite surprised with all he saw and heard, for he had strong prejudices against the Protestants, who, up to that time, were in his mind classed with the Jews. What produced the strongest effect on him was the prayer of M. Ruet, the Spanish evangelist; and what most impressed him in the preaching was the advice given to search the Scriptures. He immediately procured a New Testament, and read it all that night in bed; and when the cannon of the Rock announced the dawning of a new day, a new day had also begun to shine in his heart. Soon after this he had the pleasure of seeing many members of his family join with him in believing in the Gospel of Jesus, to which he bore, ever after his conversion, such a faithful testimony in the midst of his own people.”
M. Hollard commences his article, which I strongly recommend to my readers, by saying—
“Manuel Matamoros, one of the most powerful and loving Christian individualities which has appeared in our midst for a long period of time, is lost to us. Even among our religious men, Matamoros was little understood. When death came and called him away at thirty-two years of age he was already for many only a reminiscence. They remembered him indeed as the young Spanish soldier converted some eight years before to the Gospel, and who had suffered in the dungeon for the ardent zeal he displayed for the faith he had embraced. They knew that, condemned to the galleys, after three years of close confinement, he had seen, through the intervention of a deputation of all evangelical Europe, his sentence changed into that of exile. Nor were they ignorant that he had, while confessing his faith before the tribunal, displayed a courage which called to mind that of the early martyrs of the Christian Church, and that when called upon to retract he determined to write with his own hand the expression of his faith, that is to say, to write his own condemnation. But what was Matamoros at heart? Born of persecution, the hero of a day, and one whose heroism would die with him? Or a man, a Christian, born to leave an unmistakable footprint wherever he passed? What was he in exile? What effect will his death produce? This is known only to a comparatively small circle, and is that of which I wish to convey some idea.
“It was not difficult to know him; it was sufficient to love him; and it was so easy to love him. There was an indescribably noble, yet child-like, candor in him that was irresistibly attractive. He met men and circumstances with the fresh confidence of a child, and faced them with the brave determination of a strong man, who has found in his religious faith an immovable foundation. All that he had to suffer did not shake his confidence, and it is needless to add, that trial appeared only to strengthen his determination. We have often admired how many dangers Matamoros was preserved from by the candor of his nature and of his faith. We do not mean by this to allude to the trials he underwent in his persecution; they were not the greatest he met with; but in religious matters how happily did he avoid the many rocks that he might so easily have been dashed against. Perhaps it was the natural reaction against the ecclesiastical system in whose bosom he had been educated, or, perhaps the affection that he owed, and with good reason, to Christians of different denominations who sustained him in his captivity or received him in exile. But the fact remains the same: his faith enabled him to preserve to the end his own peculiar style, as well as his original and apostolic simplicity. And the same may be said of his private character. Over those in Spain who shared his convictions Matamoros had acquired a moral ascendancy, the measure of which we shall be able to appreciate by and by. He was received in his exile by numerous tender, powerful, sympathizing hearts, and in all this there was for him a double danger. But overall he triumphed gloriously, for he was as humble in what for lack of a better word we might call success, as he had been strong in the midst of persecution and obscurity. This is saying much. But I express now not merely a personal conviction, but that of those who were most intimately acquainted with this great witness for the gospel, but who at first asserted that because his danger was great, his fall was certain.”
M. Hollard continues his interesting account by giving an extract from a letter of Manuel's noble mother, whom the son resembled both in appearance and in heart: —
"This lady, in a letter to Dr. Cappadose, says:
‘With joy do I watch treading that thorn covered path, which the enemies of Jesus have prepared for my son; but I see him strong and unmovable in his career: I see with infinite satisfaction that he is aiming at nothing short of the crown of life; and forgetting his sufferings, I rejoice with him. Had I beheld him weak or wavering, then his poor mother would have died, not from the fear of his imprisonment but of his ultimate salvation."'
On one occasion, the director of the prison found Matamoros's mother in tears by the sick bed of her son. The report had been spread that his powerful enemies had poisoned him, and the director had come to hold an inquest.
"You weeping?” he said to his mother.
"How can I help it," she replied, "when my son is sick and nigh unto death?”
"If your son," replied the director, "was not as bad a son to you as he is to his mother the Church of Rome, it would be easy for him to dry your tears.”
At these words his mother arose quickly, and left the prison, remarking, "If my son were to deny his Savior, Jesus Christ, I, in my turn, would deny him as my son.”
The director, not a little surprised, turned to Matamoros and said, "You have a noble mother.”
Further on M. Hollard remarks,-" There was one joy that Matamoros could not do without, the joy of being understood and loved-both himself and his cause, for they were inseparable. Alas, even in his exile he was sometimes deprived of this joy. He came to us out of prison full of confidence and hope, doubting not but that soon he would have inspired us all with pity for his poor country, and inflamed us with love for the work he lived for. Matamoros knew little about us; he did not understand that one of the misfortunes and one of the first impulses of a generation without heroes, is to look with suspicion on heroism wherever it appears.
“They called him imperious: he was only determined to sacrifice all to his mission, beginning by sacrificing himself. He was accused of imprudence: he had faith. They said he confided too easily: he only loved. But let us be silent about all these miseries. They were more painful to him than his captivity or his exile, and caused him to shed many a tear; but no uncharitable wish or word escaped his lips. Let us call to mind sweeter thoughts. We have said that he lived to be loved; and he was loved, and deeply. If there was anything on earth that could have caused him to forget his exile, undoubtedly it was the sympathy that he enjoyed in his last days. Above all, there was one little spot to which he clung with deep affection. He thus wrote, a year before his death, to some of the best friends he had during his exile.
"'As far as I am concerned,' he said to M. Louis Bridel, do what you think best; I will go where you say, and do what you like. But withal, Lausanne has been to me such a consolation, so pure and so holy in times past, and has answered so completely all the wants of my spirit, that just as, if in Spain, I should choose Malaga as the spot for my tomb, so, out of Spain, I would select Lausanne.' And in June, 1866, he wrote to Mme. Bridel, On the day that your poor adopted son shall leave this world, gather around you all the others of your adopted family, and make them sing a song of eternal thanksgiving. My tomb must not be watered by tears, but compassed with a song of triumph. My tomb will only be a shadow, a dream. I myself shall live in the midst of that joy unceasing, of that peace and of that love, that I have sought in vain on earth. And though I have experienced it with a few of those noble beings who love me, and whom I have loved with a heavenly love, yet even then, here below it has been ever watered by tears of separation and of suffering.'
"Such was the man we lament. The void that he leaves in the hearts of his friends is deep, and that which he has left in the heart of his Spanish brethren is immeasurable; but when men like Matamoros fall, broken down by labor and suffering, they not only leave behind them a great void, but also a great work which cannot perish; a great example, more needed to-day than ever. And what they find in the presence of that God whom they have served, is—a great repose, the very thought of which dries the tears of those whom the affliction had caused to mourn.”
I may safely let the curtain fall at this part of my narrative. He has fought a good fight; he has finished his course; in a Laodicean and degenerate age witnessed a good confession; and, by God's grace, he has left us an example well worth imitating. "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.”
May God bless my little book. May He make it acceptable to those of His blood-bought flock who shall read it. May they be stirred up by it to live a little nearer to Jesus, and to pray and labor a little more for Spain.