struck a student would be to become a boy again. The one is always
ready to go on fire, and the other is sometimes at hand with a jug of
cold water. Dr. Smith counts a hundred before he starts, while the
minister of Free St. George's is off at once at a gallop, and would
always arrive first at his destination if he had not sometimes to turn
back. He is not only a Gladstonian, but Gladstonian; his enthusiasm
carries him on as steam drives the engine. Dr. Smith being a critic,
with a faculty of satire, what would rouse the one man makes the other
smile. Dr. Whyte judges you as you are at the moment; Dr. Smith sees
what you will be like to-morrow. Some years ago the defeated side in a
great Assembly fight met at a breakfast to reason itself into a belief
that it had gained a remarkable moral victory. Dr. Whyte and Dr. Smith
were both present, and the former was so inspiriting that the breakfast
became a scene of enthusiasm. Then Dr. Smith arose and made a remark
about a company of Mark Tapleys--after which the meeting broke up.
I have a curious reminiscence of the student who most frequently
accompanied me to church in Edinburgh. One Sunday when we were on our
way up slushy Bath Street to Free St. George's he discovered that he
had not a penny for the plate. I suggested to him to give twopence next
time; but no, he turned back to our lodgings for the penny. Some time
afterward he found himself in the same position when we were nearing
the Free High. "I'll give twopence next time," he said cheerfully. I
have thought this over since then, and wondered if there was anything
in it.
The most glorious privilege of the old is to assist the young. The two
ministers who are among the chief pillars of the Free Church in
Edinburgh are not old yet, but they have had a long experience, and the
strength and encouragement they have been to the young is the grand
outstanding fact of their ministries. Their influence is, of course,
chiefly noticeable in the divinity men, who make their Bible classes so
remarkable. There is a sort of Freemasonry among the men who have come
under the influence of Dr. Smith. It seems to have steadied them--to
have given them wise rules of life that have taken the noise out of
them, and left them undemonstrative, quiet, determined. You will have
little difficulty, as a rule, in picking out Dr. Smith's men, whether
in the pulpit or in private. They have his mark, as the Rugby boys were
marked by Dr. Arnold. Even in speaking of him, they seldom talk in
superlatives: only a light comes into their eye, and you realize what a
well-founded reverence is. I met lately in London an Irishman who, when
the conversation turned to Scotland, asked what Edinburgh was doing
without Dr. Smith (who was in America at the time). He talked with such
obvious knowledge of Dr. Smith's teaching, and with such affection for
the man, that by and by we were surprised to hear that he had never
heard him preach nor read a line of his works. He explained that he
knew intimately two men who looked upon their Sundays in the Free High,
and still more upon their private talks with the minister, as the
turning-point in their lives. They were such fine fellows, and they
were so sure that they owed their development to Dr. Smith, that to
know the followers was to know something of the master. This it is to
be a touchstone to young men.
There are those who think Dr. Smith the poet of higher account than Dr.
Smith the preacher. I do not agree with them, though there can be no
question that the author of "Olrig Grange" and Mr. Alexander Anderson
are the two men now in Edinburgh who have (at times) the divine
afflatus. "Surfaceman" is a true son of Burns. Of him it may be said,
as it never can be said of Dr. Smith, that he sings because he must.
His thoughts run in harmonious numbers. The author of "Olrig Grange" is
the stronger mind, however, and his lines are always pregnant of
meaning. He is of the school of Mr. Lewis Morris, but an immeasurably
higher intellect if not so fine an artist: indeed, though there are
hundreds of his pages that are not poetry, there are almost none that
could not be rewritten into weighty prose. Sound is never his sole
object. Good novels in verse are a mistake, for it is quite certain
they would be better in prose. The novelist has a great deal to say
that cannot be said naturally in rhythm, and much of Dr. Smith's blank
verse is good prose in frills. It is driven into an undeserved
confinement.
The privilege of critics is to get twelve or twenty minor poets in a
row, and then blow them all over at once. I remember one who despatched
Dr. Smith with a verse from the book under treatment. Dr. Smith writes
of a poet's verses, "There is no sacred fire in them, Nor much of
homely sense and shrewd;" and when the critic came to these lines he
stopped reading: he declared that Dr. Smith had passed judgment on
himself. This is a familiar form of criticism, but in the present case
it had at least the demerit of being false. There is so much sacred
fire about Dr. Smith's best poetry that it is what makes him a poet;
and as for "homely sense and shrewd," he has simply more of it than any
contemporary writer of verse. It is what gives heart to his satire, and
keeps him from wounding merely for the pleasure of drawing blood. In
conjunction with the sacred fire, the noble indignation that mean
things should be, the insight into the tragic, it is what makes "Hilda"
his greatest poem. Without it there could not be pathos, which is
concerned with little things; nor humor, nor, indeed, the flash into
men and things that makes such a poem as "Dr. Linkletter's Scholar" as
true as life, as sad as death. If only for the sake of that noble piece
of writing, every Scottish student should have "North-Country Folk" in
his possession. The poem is probably the most noteworthy thing that has
been said of northern university life.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Minor punctuation errors were corrected.
The following typographical errors were corrected:
Page 50: Changed Calderwod to Calderwood.
Page 111: Changed civiliaztion to civilization.
Page 128: Changed litle to little.