I
It is a lovely Sunday afternoon in the early summer of the year 1690.
The graceful and heathery path that winds its way along the banks of the
Tweed, from the stately ruins of Melrose to the crumbling gables of
Dryburgh, is in its glory. The wooded track by the waterside is
luxuriating in bright sunshine, glowing colors and soft shadows. We are
traversing one of the most charming and romantic districts that even
Scotland can present. Here 'every field has its battle, every rivulet
its song.' More than a century hence, this historic neighborhood is
destined to furnish the home, and fire the fancy, of Sir Walter Scott;
and here, beneath the vaulted aisle of Dryburgh's ancient abbey, he will
find his last resting-place. But that time is not yet. Even now,
however, in 1690, the hoary cloister is only a battered and
weatherbeaten fragment. It is almost covered by the branches of the
trees that, planted right against the walls, have spread their limbs
like creepers over the mossy ruins, as though endeavoring to protect the
venerable pile. And here, sitting on a huge slab that has fallen from
the broken arch above, is a small boy of ten. His name is Ebenezer
Erskine; he is the son of the minister of Chirnside. Like his father, he
was born here at Dryburgh; and to-day the two are revisiting the
neighborhood round which so many memories cluster. This morning the
father, the Rev. Henry Erskine, has been catechizing a group of children
at the kirk. He selected the questions in the Shorter Catechism that
relate to the Ten Commandments; and the very first of the answers that
his father then taught him has made a profound impression on Ebenezer's
mind. The forty-third question runs: '_What is the preface to the Ten
Commandments?_' And the answer is: '_The preface to the Ten Commandments
is in these words: "I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of
the Land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage._"' Other questions
follow, and they, with their attendant answers, have been duly
memorized. But they have failed to hold his thought. This one, however,
refuses to be shaken off. He has, quite involuntarily, repeated it to
himself a hundred times as he pushed his way through the heather to the
mossy abbey. It sounds in his ears like a claim, a challenge, an
insistent and imperative demand.
_I am the Lord!_
_I am thy God!_
_The Lord! Thy God!_
It is his first realization of the fact that he is not altogether his
own.