Chaplain
Chaplain
Rev Doug Campbell – School Chaplain
REV DOUG CAMPBELL SCHOOL CHAPLAIN
With geological hammer and notebook
Born in 1802, in the small village of Cromarty in the north of Scotland, Hugh Miller would become one of the foremost scientists of his generation. Miller’ s path to scientific standing was by no means straightforward nor was it inevitable. Miller received his formal education at the local parish school in the village, where it seems he was an avid reader and would become a published poet. As he was an orphan, he had to leave school at 17 which prevented him from enjoying a formal tertiary education.
Miller began an apprenticeship as a stonemason and worked in the local quarries. However, from childhood he was a passionate naturalist. Later, as he worked among the stone and as he continued his explorations along the Cromarty Firth coast, he was fascinated by the geological formations he encountered.
By careful examination and reading voraciously on the subjects, Miller tried to understand more of the world in which he lived. He came up with questions and wrestled to understand why things were the way they were. It is said that wherever Miler went he always took his geological hammer and notebook. Having qualified as an accountant and while working in a local bank, Miller produced a series of influential books on geology. His writings were particularly insightful. The title of his best known work, The Old Red Sandstone, actually became a term to collectively describe sedimentary rocks deposited as a result of the Caledonian orogeny in the late Silurian, Devonian and earliest part of the Carboniferous period.
Miller had other scientific interests to his bow. He was also intrigued by fossils, and gathered a huge private collection that is now stored in the National Museum of Scotland. He was no mere collector, as his discoveries were so significant that he had one fossil fish named after him. Moreover, he wrote on palaeontology with such freshness and enthusiasm that others were captivated by his
descriptions of these prehistoric fish. He seemed to make these fossils come alive.
Boasting no academic credentials, Miller is today considered one of Scotland’ s premier palaeontologists. And yet sadly he remains almost completely unknown in his homeland.
Yet it was not science which propelled Miller into the consciousness of the Scottish people in the mid-nineteenth century. From 1840, Miller was most famous as the editor of The Witness, a paper produced by the evangelicals within the Church of Scotland which wrestled with the main theological and social issues of the day.
His editorials regularly criticised the contentious issues of patronage, whereby the landlords appointed the parish minister in a congregation, sometimes against the will of the church members. The evangelicals in the Church of Scotland saw the practice as unbiblical, unconstitutional and leading to an alienation between the people and the church.
Miller was scathing of the practice and adamant that change was needed. He was a passionate and effective campaigner. Yet he was also a visionary, and was clear in his belief that ordinary people had the ability to make good choices with regard to their ministers. After all, Scotland’ s greatest poet( Robbie Burns), greatest inventor( James Watt) and greatest geologist / palaeontologist were ordinary men with the ability and the right to choose. By extension, Miller argued cogently that women, too, had the right to choose their minister. His logical arguments helped convince the new denomination, the Free Church of Scotland, to empower the women members of the church.
Miller was a great scientist who was a committed Christian. This ordinary man’ s scientific writings were ground-breaking and scientifically important. His editorials in The Witness helped convince many in Scotland to challenge the ecclesiastical status quo and support the Disruption in 1843, and the formation of the Free Church of Scotland.
He saw no dichotomy between science and faith. He wrote passionately about both with reverence for the Creator and care for the creation. He examined the fossils and the Scriptures with the same care and dedication, and could communicate as one common man to another.
At the recent opening of the Sir Zelman Cowen Centre for Science, we were reminded that science was an important part of Scotch’ s life from its very beginning. The Rev James Forbes requested an accomplished teacher to teach science, and a suitable building was constructed for the physical sciences. Forbes, who was almost certainly influenced by Miller’ s theological writings, was also convinced of the complementarity between the Christian faith and science.
Miller continued the pattern that saw a coherent synthesis between Bible and creed, Genesis and geology and palaeontology and preaching. It was in Jesus Christ, God made flesh, that Miller’ s geology and theology met and so he followed his Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer.
I am sure that Hugh Miller would have loved to be able to study in the wonderful setting of the Sir Zelman Cowen Centre for Science. The environment is conducive to first rate scientific learning and research. Yet I like to think that Miller would leave the Centre for Science enthused, wander the banks of the Yarra armed with notebook and hammer, and return with questions and theories that would touch on the branches of science and on other fields as well. May the curious minds of Scotch blaze new scientific paths and share their findings to the benefit of all.
RIGHT: PORTRAIT OF HUGH MILLER( SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY)
6 Great Scot Number 149 – December 2016