Religion in Edinburgh is a theory, a convention, a fashion (both humble
and aristocratic), a sensation, an intellectual conviction, an emotion,
a dissipation, a sweet habit of the blood; in fact, it is, it seems to
me, every sort of thing it can be to the human spirit.
When we had finished our church toilettes, and came into the
drawing-room, on the first Sunday morning, I remember that we found
Francesca at the window.
“There is a battle, murder, or sudden death going on in the square
below,” she said. “I am going to ask Susanna to ask Mrs. M'Collop what
it means. Never have I seen such a crowd moving peacefully, with no
excitement or confusion, in one direction. Where can the people be
going? Do you suppose it is a fire? Why, I believe... it cannot be
possible... yes, they certainly are disappearing in that big church on
the corner; and millions, simply millions and trillions, are coming in
the other direction,--toward St. Knox's.”
Impressive as was this morning church-going, a still greater surprise
awaited us at seven o'clock in the evening, when the crowd blocked the
streets on two sides of a church near Breadalbane Terrace; and though
it was quite ten minutes before service when we entered, Salemina and I
only secured the last two seats in the aisle, and Francesca was obliged
to sit on the steps of the pulpit or seek a sermon elsewhere.
It amused me greatly to see Francesca sitting on pulpit steps, her Paris
gown and smart toque in close juxtaposition to the rusty bonnet and
bombazine dress of a respectable elderly tradeswoman. The church
officer entered first, bearing the great Bible and hymn-book, which he
reverently placed on the pulpit cushions; and close behind him, to
our entire astonishment, came the Reverend Ronald Macdonald, evidently
exchanging with the regular minister of the parish, whom we had come
especially to hear. I pitied Francesca's confusion and embarrassment,
but I was too far from her to offer an exchange of seats, and through
the long service she sat there at the feet of her foe, so near that
she could have touched the hem of his gown as he knelt devoutly for his
first silent prayer.
Perhaps she was thinking of her last interview with him, when she
descanted at length on that superfluity of naughtiness and Biblical
pedantry which, she asserted, made Scottish ministers preach from
out-of-the-way texts.
“I have never been able to find my place in the Bible since I arrived,”
she complained to Salemina, when she was quite sure that Mr. Macdonald
was listening to her; and this he generally was, in my opinion, no
matter who chanced to be talking. “What with their skipping and hopping
about from Haggai to Philemon, Habakkuk to Jude, and Micah to Titus, in
their readings, and then settling on seventh Nahum, sixth Zephaniah,
or second Calathumpians for the sermon, I do nothing but search the
Scriptures in the Edinburgh churches,--search, search, search, until
some Christian by my side or in the pew behind me notices my hapless
plight, and hands me a Bible opened at the text. Last Sunday it was
Obadiah first, fifteenth, 'For the day of the Lord is near upon all the
heathen.' It chanced to be a returned missionary who was preaching on
that occasion; but the Bible is full of heathen, and why need he have
chosen a text from Obadiah, poor little Obadiah one page long, slipped
in between Amos and Jonah, where nobody but an elder could find him?”
If Francesca had not seen with wicked delight the Reverend Ronald's
expression of anxiety, she would never have spoken of second
Calathumpians; but of course he has no means of knowing how unlike
herself she is when in his company.
To go back to our first Sunday worship in Edinburgh. The church officer
closed the door of the pulpit on the Reverend Ronald, and I thought I
heard the clicking of a lock; at all events, he returned at the close of
the services to liberate him and escort him back to the vestry; for the
entrances and exits of this beadle, or 'minister's man,' as the church
officer is called in the country districts, form an impressive part
of the ceremonies. If he did lock the minister into the pulpit, it is
probably only another national custom, like the occasional locking in
of the passengers in a railway train, and may be positively necessary in
the case of such magnetic and popular preachers as Mr. Macdonald, or the
Friar.
I have never seen such attention, such concentration, as in these great
congregations of the Edinburgh churches. As nearly as I can judge, it
is intellectual rather than emotional; but it is not a tribute paid to
eloquence alone, it is habitual and universal, and is yielded loyally to
insufferable dulness when occasion demands.
When the text is announced, there is an indescribable rhythmic movement
forward, followed by a concerted rustle of Bible leaves; not the rustle
of a few Bibles in a few pious pews, but the rustle of all of them in
all the pews,--and there are more Bibles in an Edinburgh Presbyterian
church than one ever sees anywhere else, unless it be in the warehouses
of the Bible Societies.
The text is read twice clearly, and another rhythmic movement follows
when the books are replaced on the shelves. Then there is a delightful
settling back of the entire congregation, a snuggling comfortably into
corners and a fitting of shoulders to the pews.--not to sleep, however;
an older generation may have done that under the strain of a two-hour
'wearifu' dreich' sermon, but these church-goers are not to be caught
napping. They wear, on the contrary, a keen, expectant, critical look,
which must be inexpressibly encouraging to the minister, if he has
anything to say. If he has not (and this is a possibility in Edinburgh,
as it is everywhere else), then I am sure it is wisdom for the beadle to
lock him in, lest he flee when he meets those searching eyes.
The Edinburgh sermon, though doubtless softened in outline in these
later years, is still a more carefully built discourse than one
ordinarily hears out of Scotland, being constructed on conventional
lines of doctrine, exposition, logical inference, and practical
application. Though modern preachers do not announce the division of
their subject into heads and sub-heads, firstlies and secondlies and
finallies, my brethren, there seems to be the old framework underneath
the sermon, and every one recognises it as moving silently below the
surface; at least, I always fancy that as the minister finishes one
point and attacks another the younger folk fix their eagle eyes on him
afresh, and the whole congregation sits up straighter and listens more
intently, as if making mental notes. They do not listen so much as if
they were enthralled, though they often are, and have good reason to be,
but as if they were to pass an examination on the subject afterwards;
and I have no doubt that this is the fact.
The prayers are many, and are divided, apparently, like those of the
liturgies, into petitions, confessions, and aspirations; not forgetting
the all-embracing one with which we are perfectly familiar in our native
land, in which the preacher commends to the Fatherly care every
animate and inanimate thing not mentioned specifically in the foregoing
supplications. It was in the middle of this compendious petition, 'the
lang prayer,' that rheumatic old Scottish dames used to make a practice
of 'cheengin' the fit,' as they stood devoutly through it. “When the
meenister comes to the 'ingetherin' o' the Gentiles,' I ken weel it's
time to cheenge legs, for then the prayer is jist half dune,” said a
good sermon-taster of Fife.
The organ is finding its way rapidly into the Scottish kirks (how can
the shade of John Knox endure a 'kist o' whistles' in good St. Giles'?),
but it is not used yet in some of those we attend most frequently.
There is a certain quaint solemnity, a beautiful austerity, in the
unaccompanied singing of hymns that touches me profoundly. I am often
carried very high on the waves of splendid church music, when the
organ's thunder rolls 'through vaulted aisles' and the angelic voices
of a trained choir chant the aspirations of my soul for me; and when
an Edinburgh congregation stands, and the precentor leads in that noble
paraphrase,
'God of our fathers, be the God
Of their succeeding race,'
there is a certain ascetic fervour in it that seems to me the perfection
of worship. It may be that my Puritan ancestors are mainly responsible
for this feeling, or perhaps my recently adopted Jenny Geddes is
a factor in it; of course, if she were in the habit of flinging
fauldstules at Deans, she was probably the friend of truth and the foe
of beauty, so far as it was in her power to separate them.
There is no music during the offertory in these churches, and this, too,
pleases my sense of the fitness of things. It cannot soften the woe
of the people who are disinclined to the giving away of money, and the
cheerful givers need no encouragement. For my part, I like to sit, quite
undistracted by soprano solos, and listen to the refined tinkle of
the sixpences and shillings, and the vulgar chink of the pennies and
ha'pennies, in the contribution-boxes. Country ministers, I am told,
develop such an acute sense of hearing that they can estimate the amount
of the collection before it is counted. There is often a huge pewter
plate just within the church door, in which the offerings are placed as
the worshippers enter or leave; and one always notes the preponderance
of silver at the morning, and of copper at the evening services. It is
perhaps needless to say that before Francesca had been in Edinburgh
a fortnight she asked Mr. Macdonald if it were true that the Scots
continued coining the farthing for years and years, merely to have a
piece of money serviceable for church offerings!
As to social differences in the congregations we are somewhat at sea.
We tried to arrive at a conclusion by the hats and bonnets, than
which there is usually no more infallible test. On our first Sunday
we attended the Free Kirk in the morning, and the Established in the
evening. The bonnets of the Free Kirk were so much the more elegant that
we said to one another, “This is evidently the church of society, though
the adjective 'Free' should by rights attract the masses.” On the
second Sunday we reversed the order of things, and found the Established
bonnets much finer than the Free bonnets, which was a source of
mystification to us, until we discovered that it was a question of
morning or evening service, not of the form of Presbyterianism. We
think, on the whole, that, taking town and country congregations
together, millinery has not flourished under Presbyterianism,--it seems
to thrive better in the Romish atmosphere of France; but the Disruption
at least, has had nothing to answer for in the matter, as it appears
simply to have parted the bonnets of Scotland in twain, as Moses divided
the Red Sea, and left good and evil on both sides.
I can never forget our first military service at St. Giles'. We left
Breadalbane Terrace before nine in the morning and walked along the
beautiful curve of street that sweeps around the base of the Castle
Rock,--walked on through the poverty and squalor of the High Street,
keeping in view the beautiful lantern tower as a guiding-star, till we
heard
'The murmur of the city crowd;
And, from his steeple, jingling loud,
St. Giles's mingling din.'
We joined the throng outside the venerable church, and awaited the
approach of the soldiers from the Castle parade-ground; for it is
from there they march in detachments to the church of their choice. A
religion they must have, and if, when called up and questioned about it,
they have forgotten to provide themselves, or have no preference as to
form of worship, they are assigned to one by the person in authority.
When the regiments are assembled on the parade-ground of a Sunday
morning, the first command is, 'Church of Scotland, right about face,
quick march!'--the bodies of men belonging to other denominations
standing fast until their turn comes to move. It is said that a new
officer once gave the command, 'Church of Scotland, right about face,
quick march! Fancy releegions, stay where ye are!'
Just as we were being told this story by an attendant squire, there was
a burst of scarlet and a blare of music, and down Castlehill and the
Lawnmarket into Parliament Square marched hundreds of redcoats, the
Highland pipers (otherwise the Olympian gods) swinging in front, leaving
the American female heart prostrate beneath their victorious tread. The
strains of music that in the distance sounded so martial and triumphant
we recognised in a moment as 'Abide with me,' and never did the fine
old tune seem more majestic than when it marked a measure for the steady
tramp, tramp, tramp, of those soldierly feet. As 'The March of the
Cameron Men,' piped from the green steeps of Castlehill, had aroused in
us thoughts of splendid victories on the battlefield, so did this simple
hymn awake the spirit of the church militant; a no less stern but more
spiritual soldiership, in which 'the fruit of righteousness is sown in
peace of them that make peace.'
As I fell asleep on that first Sunday night in Edinburgh, after the
somewhat unusual experience of three church services in a single day,
three separate notes of memory floated in and out of the fabric of my
dreams; the sound of the soldiers' feet marching into old St. Giles' to
the strains of 'Abide with me'; the voice of the Reverend Ronald
ringing out with manly insistence: 'It is aspiration that counts, not
realisation; pursuit, not achievement; quest, not conquest!'--and the
closing phrases of the Friar's prayer; 'When Christ has forgiven us,
help us to forgive ourselves! Help us to forgive ourselves so fully
that we can even forget ourselves, remembering only Him! And so let His
kingdom come; we ask it for the King's sake, Amen.'