George Lawson of Selkirk. V: Pastor in Selkirk

George Lawson took his his pastorate with great earnestness - and he was blessed in it. The second child brought to him for baptism was a little boy, son of the Park family. They named the lad Mungo, and Lawson watched the boy become a man, and the man become a missionary to Africa who brought the Gospel to lands where no European had ever been before. And George Lawson heard at last that the boy he had baptized had laid down his life for the sake of Christ. What minister could have asked for a better ‘first-fruits’ of his ministry?
Lawson could be seen daily making his pastoral visits around the winding streets of Selkirk and in the scattered hill-farms round about. The rest of his time he spent in his study, and his congregation found those hours in the study were as much for them as the hours he spent visiting.
Lawson could also be rather an absent-minded and meditative man, sometimes losing himself in thought. One day in later life he was going out, and his daughter had hung her bonnet on the peg on which he usually hung his hat. Lawson took down the bonnet and put it on! Fortunately for him one of the family spotted the mistake before the people of Selkirk were treated to the sight of the town’s Secession minister walking through the streets with a woman’s bonnet on!
On another occasion the kitchen chimney of his manse caught fire. The servant, understandably alarmed by this, ran into the study yelling that the chinmey was on fire. Lawson looked at her and said sternly: “Go and tell your mistress; you know I have no charge of household matters.” It is said that Sir Walter Scott, whose mansion at Abbotsford was not far from Selkirk and who was a local magistrate who often sat in the noble courthouse in Selkirk’s marketplace, based the character of an eccentric minister in his novel ‘St. Ronan’s Well.’ The cap certainly fits!
He was a great preacher; his books (all of which are really volumes of sermons) are enough evidence of that. But his ability with the Word of God was remarked on in his own day. We shall, God willing, continue with his Selkirk ministry next time.