Even at this time of Assemblies, when the atmosphere is almost
exclusively clerical and ecclesiastical, the two great church armies
represented here certainly conceal from the casual observer all
rivalries and jealousies, if indeed they cherish any. As for the two
dissenting bodies, the Church of the Disruption and the Church of the
Secession have been keeping company, so to speak, for some years, with
a distant eye to an eventual union. In the light of all this pleasant
toleration, it seems difficult to realise that earlier Edinburgh, where,
we learned from old parochial records of 1605, Margaret Sinclair was
cited by the Session of the Kirk for being at the 'Burne' for water on
the Sabbath; that Janet Merling was ordered to make public repentance
for concealing a bairn unbaptized in her house for the space of twenty
weeks and calling said bairn Janet; that Pat Richardson had to crave
mercy for being found in his boat in time of afternoon service; and that
Janet Walker, accused of having visitors in her house in sermon-time,
had to confess her offence and on her knees crave mercy of God AND the
Kirk Session (which no doubt was much worse) under penalty of a hundred
pounds Scots. Possibly there are people yet who would prefer to pay a
hundred pounds rather than hear a sermon, but they are few.
It was in the early seventeen hundred and thirties when Allan Ramsay,
'in fear and trembling of legal and clerical censure,' lent out the
plays of Congreve and Farquhar from his famous High Street library. In
1756 it was, that the Presbytery of Edinburgh suspended all clergymen
who had witnessed the representation of Douglas, that virtuous tragedy
written, to the dismay of all Scotland, by a minister of the Kirk. That
the world, even the theological world, moves with tolerable rapidity
when once set in motion, is evinced by the fact that on Mrs. Siddons'
second engagement in Edinburgh, in the summer of 1785, vast crowds
gathered about the doors of the theatre, not at night alone, but in the
day, to secure places. It became necessary to admit them first at three
in the afternoon and then at noon, and eventually 'the General Assembly
of the Church then in session was compelled to arrange its meetings with
reference to the appearance of the great actress.' How one would have
enjoyed hearing that Scotsman say, after one of her most splendid
flights of tragic passion, 'That's no bad!' We have read of her dismay
at this ludicrous parsimony of praise, but her self-respect must have
been restored when the Edinburgh ladies fainted by dozens during her
impersonation of Isabella in The Fatal Marriage.
Since Scottish hospitality is well-nigh inexhaustible, it is not
strange that from the moment Edinburgh streets began to be crowded
with ministers, our drawing-room table began to bear shoals of engraved
invitations of every conceivable sort, all equally unfamiliar to our
American eyes.
'The Purse-Bearer is commanded by the Lord High Commissioner and the
Marchioness of Heatherdale to invite Miss Hamilton to a Garden Party at
the Palace of Holyrood House, on the 27th of May. WEATHER PERMITTING.'
'The General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland admits Miss
Hamilton to any gallery on any day.'
'The Marchioness of Heatherdale is At Home on the 26th of May from a
quarter-past nine in the evening. Palace of Holyrood House.'
'The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland is
At Home in the Library of the New College on Saturday, the 22nd of May,
from eight to ten in the evening.'
'The Moderator asks the pleasure of Miss Hamilton's presence at a
Breakfast to be given on the morning of the 25th May at Dunedin Hotel.'
We determined to go to all these functions impartially, tracking thus
the Presbyterian lion to his very lair, and observing his home as well
as his company manners. In everything that related to the distinctively
religious side of the proceedings we sought advice from Mrs. M'Collop,
while we went to Lady Baird for definite information on secular matters.
We also found an unexpected ally in the person of our own ex-Moderator's
niece, Miss Jean Dalziel (Deeyell). She has been educated in Paris,
but she must always have been a delightfully breezy person, quite too
irrepressible to be affected by Scottish haar or theology. “Go to the
Assemblies, by all means,” she said, “and be sure and get places for the
heresy case. These are no longer what they once were,--we are getting
lamentably weak and gelatinous in our beliefs,--but there is an
unusually nice one this year; the heretic is very young and handsome,
and quite wicked, as ministers go. Don't fail to be presented at the
Marchioness's court at Holyrood, for it is a capital preparation for the
ordeal of Her Majesty and Buckingham Palace. 'Nothing fit to wear'?
You have never seen the people who go or you wouldn't say that! I even
advise you to attend one of the breakfasts; it can't do you any serious
or permanent injury so long as you eat something before you go. Oh no,
it doesn't matter,--whichever one you choose, you will cheerfully omit
the other; for I avow, as a Scottish spinster, and the niece of an
ex-Moderator, that to a stranger and a foreigner the breakfasts are
worse than Arctic explorations. If you do not chance to be at the table
of honour--”
“The gifted Miss Hamilton is always at the table of honour; unless she
is placed there she refuses to eat, and then the universe rocks to its
centre,” interpolated Francesca impertinently.
“It is true,” continued Miss Dalziel, “you will often sit beside a
minister or a minister's wife, who will make you scorn the sordid
appetites of flesh, but if you do not, then eat as little as may be, and
flee up the Mound to whichever Assembly is the Mecca of your soul!”
“My niece's tongue is an unruly member,” said the ex-Moderator, who was
present at this diatribe, “and the principal mistakes she makes in
her judgment of these clerical feasts is that she criticises them as
conventional repasts, whereas they are intended to be informal meetings
together of people who wish to be better acquainted.”
“Hot bacon and eggs would be no harm to friendship,” answered Miss
Dalziel, with an affectionate moue.
“Cold bacon and eggs is better than cold piety,” said the ex-Moderator,
“and it may be a good discipline for fastidious young ladies who have
been spoiled by Parisian breakfasts.”
It is to Mrs. M'Collop that we owe our chief insight into technical
church matters, although we seldom agree with her 'opeenions' after
we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on
a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does she
confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but roves
from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life,--often,
however, according to her own account, getting a particularly
indigestible 'stane.'
She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she is
making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large and
impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the 'meenistry'
creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's sermon-taster
a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now see that she is
truth itself.
“Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?” suggests Mrs. M'Collop,
spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. “Wha did ye hear the
Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been there
for fifteen years an' mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon--AFF AN' ON!” with an
emphasis showing clearly that, in her estimation, the times when he is
'aff' outnumber those when he is 'on'... “Ye havena heard auld Dr. B
yet?” (Here she tucks in the upper sheet tidily at the foot.) “He's
a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B, forbye he's growin' maist awfu'
dreich in his sermons, though when he's that wearisome a body canna
heed him wi'oot takin' peppermints to the kirk, he's nane the less, at
seeventy-sax, a better mon than the new asseestant. Div ye ken the new
asseestant? He's a wee-bit, finger-fed mannie, ower sma' maist to wear
a goon! I canna thole him, wi' his lang-nebbit words, explainin' an'
expoundin' the gude Book as if it had jist come oot! The auld doctor's
nae kirk-filler, but he gies us fu' meesure, pressed doun an' rinnin'
ower, nae bit-pickin's like the haverin' asseestant; it's my opeenion
he's no soond, wi' his parleyvoos an' his clishmaclavers!... Mr. C?”
(Now comes the shaking and straightening and smoothing of the first
blanket.) “Ay, he's weel eneuch! I mind aince he prayed for oor Free
Assembly, an' then he turned roon' an' prayed for the Estaiblished,
maist in the same breath,--he's a broad, leeberal mon is Mr. C!... Mr.
D? Ay, I ken him fine; he micht be waur, though he's ower fond o' the
kittle pairts o' the Old Testament; but he reads his sermon frae the
paper, an' it's an auld sayin', 'If a meenister canna mind [remember]
his ain discoorse, nae mair can the congregation be expectit to mind
it.'... Mr. E? He's my ain meenister.” (She has a pillow in her mouth
now, but though she is shaking it as a terrier would a rat, and drawing
on the linen slip at the same time, she is still intelligible between
the jerks). “Susanna says his sermon is like claith made o' soond 'oo
[wool] wi' a guid twined thread, an' wairpit an' weftit wi' doctrine.
Susanna kens her Bible weel, but she's never gaed forrit.” (To 'gang
forrit' is to take the communion). “Dr. F? I ca' him the greetin'
doctor! He's aye dingin' the dust oot o' the poopit cushions, an'
greetin' ower the sins o' the human race, an' eespecially o' his ain
congregation. He's waur sin his last wife sickened an' slippit awa'.
'Twas a chastenin' he'd put up wi' twice afore, but he grat nane the
less. She was a bonnie bit body, was the thurd Mistress F! E'nboro could
'a' better spared the greetin' doctor than her, I'm thinkin'.”
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, according to His good will
and pleasure,” I ventured piously, as Mrs. M'Collop beat the bolster and
laid it in place.
“Ou ay,” responded that good woman, as she spread the counterpane over
the pillows in the way I particularly dislike,--“ou ay, but whiles I
think it's a peety he couldna be guidit!”