ECCLESIASTICAL.
Sectarian feeling--Typical anecdotes--Music and
religion--Ethical teaching in schools--The Moderates--A savoury
book--The Sabbath--"The Men of Skye"--The auldest kirk--The
Episcopal Church--An interlude of metre--The Christian
Brethren--Drimnin in Morven--Craignish--A model
minister--Ministerial trials in olden times--An artful
dodger--Some anecdotes from Gigha--Growing popularity of Ruskin.
SECTARIAN FEELING.
In a small country township, all the influences that operate to divide
men into sects and parties are keenly and continuously felt. To a
dweller there, it is well-nigh impossible to keep out of the arena of
strife. Now that there is so much confusion and division in religious
matters, strong feeling is more easily stirred on any secular subject
that may happen to arise for discussion. If the Wee Frees, for example,
desire a new road in a certain direction, the United Frees will probably
deride the scheme and unanimously petition against it. Their antipathy
to each other becomes envenomed by their persistent proximity: if you
are a villager, you cannot get away from your adversary--in the morning,
when looking out of the window, you see him tilling his croft, mending
his nets, or washing his face in a tub at his front door. The fact that
he is there is an obstacle to your peace of mind. If you did not see
him so often, you would more readily come to believe that he possessed a
conscience and some shred of principle and decent doctrine.
In a distant seaside town a library had been procured, and (though
doctrine was not at stake at all) a most virulent debate at once arose
as to where it should be housed. The United Frees voted for the school;
the Wee Frees called aloud for the post-office. It would require the pen
of Dean Swift (who did such justice to the strife between the
Big-Endians and Little-Endians) to recount in appropriate style the
intrigues and stratagems of the rival religionists. The local teacher
did not wish the books in school _because_ the proposal came from the
enemy. He was powerfully supported by all the young fellows of the
place, whose reverence for him, born of recent severe whackings, was
limitless. This teacher had an eloquent and vitriolic tongue, and
delivered himself thus: "What have I not done for the island? What have
these reprobates ever done? Who was it that got the frequent Macbrayne
connection with the mainland? _I did._ Who got up the concert to buy
seats for visitors coming north from Glasgow? And yet for every blessing
I give them, I get ten curses. _But I'll choke them yet._" It was
needless for the United Frees to demand a plebiscite--or, as they called
it, a _ple-biscuit_--the dominie was too forceful, persistent, and
phraseful for them, and at the public meeting he laughed down a teetotal
opponent by singing out: "Sit down on your seat, man; _it's the drink
that's speaking, no' you!_"
No matter what the subject may be, there is usually a smack of
ecclesiasticism in the ordinary give-and-take of conversation. I cannot
illustrate this better than by giving the Lewis man's reply to an
enquiry as to _how his wooden leg was behaving_. The enquirer was a
newly-elected United Free elder, while he of the timber toes was a
staunch Disruptionist. "Well," said the latter, "my wooden leg is not
unlike a U. F. elder; it's not exactly perfection, but, considering
everything, we must just be putting up with what we can get." This was
said at a time when the Wee Frees were in a big majority in certain
parts of the Highlands, and when, as a consequence, United Free elders
had to be selected out of diminished congregations.
TYPICAL ANECDOTES.
The venerable Lord Halsbury, so well known for his judgment in the great
Church case, resided, shortly after the decision, in the neighbourhood
of Forres. Men plucked each other by the sleeve as he passed along the
street, and pointed with awe to the keen-witted lawyer who had caused
such a kick-up in the realm. His most innocent doings were watched. One
day he went into a book-shop and made a purchase. When he came out, in
rushed a brace of theologians to enquire what he had bought. It turned
out that he had purchased a copy of _Comic Cuts_. The news was all round
Forres in an hour's time, and caused much consternation. "What great men
do, the less will prattle of," and it is so difficult for the former to
act up to their heroic rôle.
How thoroughly our dear native land has enjoyed its theological battles!
Will there ever be a truce to the long wars of faith? One cannot see
much ground for a too sanguine hope. After a library had been given to a
little village in the West, I paid the usual visit to the place, and
requested a free expression of views as to the suitability of the books
that had been given. One venerable old native, with eyes of fire, called
out: "_This Paisley Library has one fatal lack: it contains no works on
controversial divinity._" I ventured to hint that perhaps the omission
was intentional, but that he absolutely refused to believe.
Coming through the Sound of Mull one blustery November day, I heard a
most animated discussion on the question "Has the Deity unlimited Free
Will?" The disputants had all the appearance of sensible crofters--they
certainly talked more intelligibly than most commentators on Kant. Some
of the ship's crew joined in the talk in such a way as to show that they
understood perfectly well the question at issue. Every member of the
ring was wet (the rain was coming down in torrents during the whole
argument), but neither "Ayes" nor "Noes" would admit defeat. When the
boat touched the terminus of Tobermory, much still remained to be said,
and the amateur theologians retired to sum up in a local bar-room. The
incident is characteristic, and could have happened in no other country
but Scotland. Presbyterianism has made the Scot somewhat too
disputatious, but it is surely better to see a man interested in
religion than in nothing at all.
Talking of the union of the Free and U.P. Churches, I am reminded of a
laughable tale told of a Hebridean minister. "Themselves and their
Union, I say, themselves and their Union," he remarked; "I will have
nothing to do with it. I was born Free, ordained Free; I have lived
Free, and I will die Free." "But what about the stipend, Angus?" said
his wife, douce and cautious woman. "Ah, the stipend! Well, if I lose my
stipend, you will have to put on a short petticoat, strap a creel on
your back, and sell _fush_." "And what will you do, Angus, when I'm away
selling _fush_?" "Oh, I will stay at home and pray for a blessing on
your efforts."
The use of Scriptural expressions undoubtedly gives great force to the
language of every-day life. As is well known, certain classes in cookery
have recently been established in a few northern villages. A Highland
minister, in publicly commending these classes, remarked, with a rueful
grimace: "I _do_ wish such classes as these had been in existence when
my wife was young; for, as it is, every dinner she serves up to me is
either a _burnt offering or a bloody sacrifice_!"
The following story comes from a minister in the neighbourhood of Loch
Awe. "A clergyman of my acquaintance was stationed in a poor parish near
my own, and he called on the local laird for financial aid to help on
some of the church schemes. This laird was a well-known philanthropist,
but the call was made at the wrong psychological moment, for he chanced
on this particular day to be in a very bad humour. He listened to the
minister with great impatience, and at last, bounding to his feet and
pointing to the door, he shouted: 'Silver and gold have I none, but such
as I have, give I unto thee: in the name of Beelzebub, rise and
_walk_!'"
It was my unfortunate experience to witness a great amount of sectarian
strife in the north and west during my various visits. Sometimes my
prospective chairman was unable to preside, owing to his having taken
part in a doctrinal scuffle, and having his coat torn, and his church
captured. These fantastic doings are in no way edifying, and are
extremely shocking to our national pride.
Theologically, many districts of the Highlands have not advanced beyond
the stage occupied by Lowland Scotland in the time of Burns. In certain
parishes, the communion is dispensed in the open air, in the way
familiar to readers of the "Holy Fair." Sky overhead, grassy turf
beneath, solemnity, sobs, and sighs all around, certainly make up a most
impressive whole. The sermon is unmercifully long--two hours, at least:
probably, if translated into English, and shorn of repetitions, it could
be given in one-fourth of the time. If you or I, dear Lowlander, should
stand on the outside of the crowd, and appear more curious than devout,
we should certainly be alluded to in the sermon as _those wicked
people_. The discourses are no gilt-edged harangues dealing with the
"larger hope," and larded with quotations from Tennyson and Browning.
They are, on the contrary, full of Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
and rich in grotesque illustrations, of which this is a sample: "My
friends, crowds of loathsome fiends are sent by the Prince of the Power
of the Air to tempt us to our destruction. They hang over us waiting for
their opportunity, just like a regiment of black crows hovering over a
potato-field."
I am afraid that crude Calvinism, as preached in certain parts of the
north, is nothing less than monstrous. The good God, beneficent Father
of us all, is unrecognizable when eternal reprobation is represented as
the inevitable fate of the vast majority of His children. In time, no
doubt (and the sooner the better), the results of modern theological
thought will penetrate into the uttermost nooks of the land.
MUSIC AND RELIGION.
It is not easy to see why religion should be associated with gloom and
disheartening ugliness. The long-drawn music of an Old Testament psalm
is not without a certain doleful impressiveness, but the human soul
needs occasional stimulus, even on Sundays, of something less
lugubrious. Certain congregations hate hymns: they consider them carnal
and uninspired. As for organ-music in a church, that would be _praising
God by machinery_, a preposterous and intolerable approximation to
Popery. Not long ago, a poor crofter in a Hebridean township, came to
his minister, requesting that good man's offices for the christening of
a child. The crofter in question was the possessor of an asthmatic old
concertina, and the clergyman, before the rite of admission to the
visible church could be performed, insisted on the annihilation of the
ungodly instrument of music. The minister, in person, visited the croft,
and disabled the concertina with a hammer. The child was then
christened, and the clerical zany strode off victorious, feeling he had
done a good day's work for Heaven. "Who ever heard of the Apostle Paul
playing on an organ?" was the question once propounded by Dr. Begg. The
argument was a splendid _reductio ad absurdum_, and resembles the old
reason for the reluctance of the peasantry to eat potatoes, because no
mention was made of them in Holy Writ. But songs and music are filtering
into the glens, in an official way, by the agency of the Scotch
Education Department. Musical drill is a feature of the school-room, and
it is a joy to think that such is the case. Some of the old folk,
however, look on astounded and shocked; they shake their heads, and
would, if they could, abolish such frivolity. "Why all this singing and
tramping?" said a Skyeman to me once. "What good will all the songs of
the world do to a man when he comes to his death-bed? I would rather,
this very moment, sit down in a public-house, and drink till I was
intoxicated, than screech and howl these worldly airs." Life was not so
absurd in the days of the Catholic ascendency. But human nature is
slowly asserting itself, and the days of the glum tyrannical zealot are
assuredly numbered.
ETHICAL TEACHING IN SCHOOLS.
In some districts of the North, the inspectors have considerable trouble
with certain teachers of the devout type who, from conscientious
scruples, refuse to read to the children anything in the nature of a
fairy tale. While examining a class in a remote Sutherland school, an
inspector requested the schoolmaster to narrate to the children, in
Gaelic, the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and get them thereafter to
put it into English. But the teacher most emphatically refused: "No, no,
I cannot do that: it is all a lie; wolves do not speak; _no animal
speaks_." The inspector, to refute him, unwisely alluded to the
Scripture account of Balaam's ass in the twenty-second chapter of
Numbers; whereupon, the dominie nearly swooned at the impiety of
comparing that inspired animal with a secular beast like Grimm's wolf.
For some time after, the inspector was bombarded with anonymous letters,
accusing him of habitually _sitting in the scorner's chair_. He was
terrified lest some Member of Parliament, eager for a grievance, should
be got to move the adjournment of the House of Commons, with the
righteous object of directing the attention of Government to Little Red
Riding Hood and the naughty inspector of schools.[17]
The question of religious teaching in schools is capable of an easy
solution, and we in the south have come pretty near solving it. The best
solution is to have no dogma at all in the school-room. The Catechism
and Prayer-book are excellent in their way, but the school is no place
for them. We have a very complete and extensive organisation of churches
in the land, and an army of officials ordained to teach doctrines and
tenets: let them take up the inculcation of creeds and rites, but don't
let us perplex the school children with catechisms and metaphysical
definitions. It is easy to make a distinction between morality and
doctrine--a distinction which is alike clear and reasonable. Morality is
an earthly and secular affair, and has to do with matters of elementary
honesty such as every responsible citizen of a free country ought to
practice. Religion is a higher affair, dealing with our relationship to
the unseen: it is outside the province of the teacher, and should not be
thrust into the school programme along with history and geography and
grammar. Morality is of this world: religion of the next. Let everything
be kept in its proper place. As to that division of duty which deals
with right conduct, there is no controversy whatever. _Thou shalt not
steal_; _thou shalt not bear false witness_--these, and the like
elementary rules of conduct, are universally admitted to be right, for
they are the groundwork of society. Take these away, and the world
lapses into chaos. The following virtues are capable of being taught in
schools:--(1) a strict adherence to the truth; (2) the application of
the golden rule; (3) cheerful obedience at the call of duty; (4)
reverence and respect for everything noble and great in the history of
the world. These can all be taught, and are actually taught, by every
conscientious teacher in the country. They constitute not the whole of
duty, indeed, but the most difficult part of it--certainly all that need
come into the realm of pedagogy.
[17] How differently the items in the Sacred Canon are regarded
in scholastic circles in the South! A Glasgow teacher, discussing
the Origin of Evil with a Government official, expressed great
resentment at the loss of paradise through Adam's sin, and added:
"It comes specially hard on me, seeing that I don't care a
_docken_ for apples."
THE MODERATES.
_Ami lecteur_, have you ever heard of the _Moderates_? If, by chance,
you have dipped into the interminable controversies that gyrated round
the Disruption year, it is probable you may have heard more than enough
of them. One gets the impression that they were an unimpassioned,
easy-going, anti-brimstone, but highly estimable body of men. They were
blamed for preaching morality and not the penetrating mysteries of the
faith. In "The Holy Fair," Burns gives us an inimitable picture of the
moral philosopher in the pulpit:--
"But hark! the tent has changed its voice,
There's peace an' rest nae langer,
For a' the real judges rise--
They canna sit for anger.
Smith opens out his cauld harangues
On practice and on morals,
An' aff the godly pour in thrangs
To gie the jars an' barrels
A lift that day.
"What signifies his barren shine
Of moral powers an' reason?
His English style and gesture fine
Are a' clean out o' season.
Like Socrates or Antonine,
Or some auld pagan heathen,
The moral man he does define,
But ne'er a word o' faith in
That's richt that day."
I confess to a certain liking for Smith. He knew what was good for the
Holy Willies and the other "chosen samples" and "swatches o' grace" in
his auditory. Like a sensible man, and like the Apostle James, he laid
more stress on "practice and on morals" than on lip-worship and faith.
"Faith without works is dead" is a dictum that needs to be incessantly
emphasised, and nowhere more than in certain ultra-orthodox localities
of Scotland at the present day.
The Established Church is, with few exceptions, a negligible
denomination in the Hebrides. For some reason it is regarded as the
modern representative of the Moderate or Broad type of Calvinistic
Christianity, and, as such, an abomination to the zealots. To show what
a poor hold the Establishment has in Lewis, it is enough to remark that
there are in that island only 183 Auld Kirk communicants out of a
population of 32,947. Figures almost equally striking could be given for
the Presbyteries of Uist, Skye, and Glenelg. The chief occupation of
some parish ministers in insular Scotland must be that of killing time.
I once met one of these reverend gentlemen in one of the hotels in
Stornoway. He seemed to take a pleasure in running contrary to all the
darling prejudices of the islanders. Dancing he approved of; he did not
believe in prefacing his prayer or homily with a sanctimonious whine;
and he actually was willing to admit that a few Catholics might get to
heaven. An equally glaring fault--in the eyes of bigotry, I mean--was
that he _dropped into poetry_ at stated times, and sent his Gaelic
verses to one of the Highland newspapers. The Parish Church buildings,
in many localities of the West Highlands, are in a woeful state of
disrepair. They have a prevailing odour of must and damp; the seats are
hard deal, unkind to the human anatomy; doors and windows rattle and
shake during the service; creeping things move along the walls;
sometimes the floors are nothing but the uneven and unconcealed Scottish
earth. In such churches, there is some credit in being devout.
A SAVOURY BOOK.
An outstanding member of the clan Macdonald, for some time minister at
Applecross, deserves a cordial vote of thanks for a savoury book he has
written on the social and religious condition of the Highlands. He is
not a bit scared by the Darwinian theory of evolution. "We have a good
deal in common," he says, "with the brute creation, and have no cause to
feel ourselves degraded on that account. The lower animals, not
excluding the much-despised monkey, are specimens of divine workmanship
which _reflect the highest honour on the skill and power of the Maker_."
Could any admission be more handsome or candid than that?
I have learned a great deal from Mr. Macdonald's cheery and broad-minded
volume. He is strong in history, and has had, it would seem, access to
information that is closed to the general eye. There is a glorious
simplicity in his views on Caledonian ethnology. A roguish prince,
Gathelus, son of the king of Greece, migrated to Egypt, and married
Scota, daughter of that Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites. The
various plagues "that o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung," terrified
Gathelus, and he flitted in hot haste to Spain, and called his followers
Scots, to please his wife. Later in life, he sent his son Hiber to
Ireland, where the lad settled, and named the island after his noble
self, Hibernia. Scots continued to pour into Ireland, _viâ_ the Bay of
Biscay, and finally, under Simon Brek, subdued the entire extent of the
Green Island. In 360 A.D., they came over to Argyllshire, and aided the
indigenous Picts (who were also Celts) against the legions of Rome. This
is so compact and clear an account, that I wish it were true. The way in
which sacred and profane history are blended strikes me as singularly
able.
Mr. Macdonald has an intimate knowledge of Celtic superstitions, and
always castigates the right thing. Certain diseases of the brain were,
till quite recently, believed to be curable if the afflicted man could
procure a suicide's skull and take a drink out of it. Mr. Macdonald
rightly dwells upon the absurdity of such a specific, but confesses that
one might as well try to "bale out the Atlantic" as eradicate the
foolish pagan notions that still linger in the glens.
Ministers have a great deal of captious criticism to stand, if we may
judge by Mr. Macdonald's anecdotes. They are blamed for terminating
their discourses _with a silver tail_ (_i.e._, intimating a special
collection). The sermon itself is not immune from cruel jests, as the
following report of a parishioner's criticism will show: "A minister is
like a joiner. The joiner takes a piece of wood and shapes it roughly
with the axe. Then he applies his rough plane, and smooths it down a
bit. After that, he takes his fine plane; and, lastly, he rubs it with
sandpaper, and finishes it with polish till he makes it appear like
glass. And so with the minister: he works his sermon, from sheet to
sheet, with pen and ink, till he makes it at last so smooth _that a
flea could not stand on it_."[18]
[18] Ministers, being public men, are, of course, as Mr.
Macdonald means to point out, exposed to the criticism,
frequently so absurd, that eminence entails. I recently examined
the bye-laws of a literary association in Ross-shire, of which
the president is a sheep-farmer, and the secretary, a postman. It
is a rule of this association that no minister is ever to be
president, the reason assigned being that ministers would try to
elevate the natives _too hurriedly_. The people do not object to
be elevated, but they wish the process to be performed without
unnecessary haste.
THE SABBATH.
I was not a little surprised during my attendance at Highland churches
to hear the ministers devoting much strong rhetoric to the sin of
Sabbath-breaking. Taking the air on the first day of the week for quiet
meditation and the good of one's health, has always seemed to me a
laudable practice, but in many Highland parishes, a Sunday stroll
implies ungodliness, even although the stroller may have attended one or
more diets of worship earlier in the day. Such a state of matters is
preposterously absurd, and, to my thinking, quite irreligious--it at
least tends to make hypocrites. Some years ago, I spent a week in a
typical insular village, lodging in the local inn. It was noticeable
that on Sundays, the front blinds of the house were never drawn up. When
the church-bells tolled the hour for public worship, the solemn devotees
could be seen (through holes in the blind) pacing along, looking fixedly
at the toes of their boots. The landlord of the house thought it no sin
to observe the passers-by, so long as he could do so in a clandestine
way. He had no desire to mend the blind.
The restfulness and peace of a British Sunday is a blessed thing, as
every Briton who has been long resident abroad, will readily admit.
There is, however, a reasonable medium to be found between the unnatural
Calvinistic Sabbath (with its limited view of the world through a torn
blind) and the Continental Sunday, gay with skipping and junketing.
Within recent years, to some extent owing to the bicycle and motor-car,
the Sabbath has become rather too animated and bustling. The change is
perhaps not entirely regrettable. The terrible Sunday dulness of some of
our large towns has been, of late years, rendered less oppressive by the
opening of museums and art galleries. I heard a man of fifty confess
that in his boyhood he prayed fervently once, and only once, a week: the
prayer in question was said on Sunday evening, and consisted of a
heartfelt ejaculation of thanks to Heaven that the holy day was over for
another week.
Church-going is a splendid and salutary practice, and every man who does
not base his life on some religious sanction, is leading a mutilated
life. There is such a thing, however, as ecclesiastical dyspepsia, a
disease engendered by forced attendance at too many religious services
when one is young. The disease is unfortunately apt to develop in mature
years, into complete indifference to doctrine of all kinds.
After all, doctrine is largely useful as a mental exercise, and may
easily become divorced from practical honesty. Not once but fifty times
have I been told that the village experts in theology were precisely the
men who needed most watching in mundane matters. "So-and-so is a
specialist on the millennium: _beware of him_." "Old Duncan is the
strictest Sabbatarian in the island, but on Monday he's worth keeping an
eye on." "Many a man that keeps the fourth commandment is not so
particular about the others." Such are the phrases one is perpetually
hearing, and they go far to prove how inoperative are ritual,
profession, and form, in the life of some Christians.
To keep the ten commandments, or rather, I should say, the eleven, is no
easy matter for either Celt or Saxon. It is far easier to be
ostentatiously religious than scrupulously moral, to say prayers than to
pay debts, to split hairs of doctrine than to love your enemies. I never
read a more markedly scriptural book than _The Men of Skye_, nor one
that displays such intolerance to the school of Laodiceans. I am not
insensible to the intense enthusiasm of the author for the memory of the
illiterate catechists who went round the island preaching to the people
in a homely and graphic way. The unlovely feature of the book is the
antagonism displayed towards those who wish to bring about a union of
the Presbyterian bodies. "Not all the cement outside of heaven," one man
says, "could bring about a union of the Free and U.P. Churches." The
Declaratory Act, secular teaching in schools, instrumental music, and
such like, all come in for severe treatment or ironical reference.
_THE MEN OF SKYE._
The book to which I have referred (_The Men of Skye_) gives a wonderful
insight into the religious psychology of the Celtic zealot. It was in
Portree that I first got a look at the little work, which consists of a
series of biographies of outstanding lay preachers. I enjoyed the
perusal of it immensely, and I am afraid the pious author will regard me
as little better than one of the wicked when I say that I had many a
hearty laugh at its contents. I am very unwilling to seek gaiety in
pious books, very averse to laugh at honest, heart-felt beliefs, but the
author of _The Men of Skye_ was too many for me. His quaint metaphors,
droll tenses and unlicensed syntax, were a perpetual feast of nectared
sweets.
The language in which the book is written is not Gaelic, though it has
not quite reached the stage of English. The following extract is a
typical one: "John Mackenzie lived at Galtrigil, was a God-fearing man,
and professed religion, and his conduct was worthy of his profession,
consistent in all its parts. He was employed as fishcurer to Dr. Martin.
When he would be busy in the store, on the shore, his wife would go down
with his food. He had a large heap of salt beside him, but he was so
scrupulously conscientious that when she took down an egg, she would
need also to bring from his own house the grain of salt he would put in
it. He would not take so much as a grain of salt that was not his own.
He was careful about what belonged to the cause of Christ, and would
like to know that those who took up a profession of religion had
undergone what he termed a _clean conversion_."
Some of the stories told of Angus Macleod, are altogether unique: "He
was one day entrusted with the herding of the minister's cattle, but
while he prayed, the cattle made their way into the corn. The minister
came out and began to advise and rebuke him, but Angus said, 'Let the
righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it
shall be an excellent oil which shall not break my head.'" (Psalm cxli.
5.) I consider that story and the two which follow quite equal, in their
diverting pointlessness, to any of those told by Cicero in _De Oratore_,
Book ii. At one time it was thought advisable to teach Angus how to
read, but he never could be got to master the alphabet. He would utter
aloud the following reflections: "_A_ _b_, _ab_: Ah! that is but dry.
There is no food there for my soul. There is no word about Christ or God
there, no word about forgiveness of sin. I would rather be at the back
of a dyke where I would get a moment of the presence of the Lord." As
Angus usually replied to his associates by a text of Scripture, he must
have had a good ear for Holy Writ. "His father was one day repairing a
dyke. Angus tried to assist him and broke the spade. His father's temper
was roused, and he ran after his son to punish him. Angus ran away
calling out, 'Oh, Lord, avenge me of mine adversary.'" On one occasion,
when asked why he had refused to pray in public, he replied that it was
out of his power to do so at the time. "Why," said his interlocutor,
"Jonah was able to pray even in the whale's belly." "Yes, yes," said
Angus, "but I was in a worse state than Jonah: for the whale was in my
belly."
It may not be unnecessary to state that the word Men in the title of the
book is to be understood as meaning "men of exceptional piety." The word
is a technical one in that sense. All the _men_ I have read about were
fervid Frees, many of them being elders and catechists in that body.
After the Disruption, there was a wonderful crop of these men produced
in the Highlands, and through their means, _religion became a very real
and forcible affair_. Their attitude to life and general outlook on the
world are quite unlike anything to be found among the luke-warm
believers of the Laodicean South. We read of one zealot devoting a whole
winter to the task of combating shinty and tobacco. It is impossible to
withhold some measure of admiration from Christians so staunch, logical,
and uncompromising. _Logical?_ Well, here at least is a gem of
ratiocination. What, for example, was the cause that forced so many
Skyemen to emigrate to the Canadian plains and the Australian bush? The
fathers of Skye believed that the crofters, having insufficiently
appreciated the unique opportunities of divine worship at home, were
driven by a wrathful deity over the water to a land where there were
_few or no Presbyterian Churches_.
THE AULDEST KIRK.
There are some parts of Scotland that the Reformation seems never to
have reached. I have been told that up till this day no Protestant
minister ever preached in Morar (the delightful spot, with lake of same
name, near Mallaig), and that in consequence Catholics call it "Blessed
Morar" (_Morar Bheanaichte_). There is a Catholic strip of country,
extending right through the heart of Scotland, along the Caledonian
Canal; aristocrats, chiefs, and crofters there boast that their
ecclesiastical history goes back, uncontaminated by schisms and private
judgment, right to the time of Ninian and Columba.
It appears evident that the iconoclastic Parliament of 1560, which made
it unlawful to obey the Pope or say mass, pretty effectually paralysed
the Catholic Church in the land. Only in secluded districts, such as
Uist, Barra, Morar, Arisaig, and Glengarry, were the faithful safe from
prosecution. The organisation of the Church was maimed and broken, and
hundreds of priests took to flight. To use the cruel words of Milton--
"Then might ye see
Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tossed
And fluttered into rags; then relics, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls--
The sport of winds."
Having visited a fair number of Catholic districts in the West of
Scotland, I have given myself the pleasure of reading, as far as is
available, the historical records of the Pope's faithful adherents
there. _These are most interesting as showing the pertinacity of
religious faith among the most hostile surroundings._ The Scots College
at Rome, founded by Clement VIII., supplied a large number of priests,
who spread themselves abroad in the glens, and kept the old faith from
completely perishing. The Roman Catholic College at Scanlan, on the
Braes of Glenlivet, was a turf-built erection, dating from 1712. It was
often compulsorily closed and the students dispersed. The most important
school for priests in the West was at Buorblach, near Morar. Here the
aspirants for priesthood studied for a year or two, after which they
proceeded to some one of the Scots colleges abroad--such as Paris,
Ratisbon, Valladolid, or Rome. Those students who received the whole of
their instruction at home, and got ordained without going abroad, were
styled _heather priests_.
The best-known Catholic township of the West Highlands at the present
time is undoubtedly Arisaig, a charming spot, where the mild air allows
the wild flowers to spring in profusion and where the fuchsia thrives
better than anywhere else in Scotland. There is a strikingly elegant
Catholic Church here, built on a commanding site that dominates the bay.
In September, 1904, I addressed a meeting in the Astley Hall of Arisaig,
under the genial chairmanship of the Clerk of the House of Commons. The
audience was overwhelmingly Catholic, and it was quite evident that all
were keenly appreciative of the library that had recently been sent to
the district. It gave me no ordinary pleasure to note that the literary
society of the place was made up of both Catholics and Protestants, and
that all the inhabitants, forgetting their religious differences, could
assemble together as friends on the common meeting-ground of literature.
Such an amalgamation is bound to mitigate the sectarian rancour that
too often works like a pestilence in small villages and rural
communities. It is an excellent feature, too, in such places as Arisaig,
that the local priest gives every encouragement to his people to read
and study secular books of an elevating character. It would be strange
indeed if the representative of a Church which in mediæval times gave
such splendid encouragement to art and letters, should deem it a duty to
prohibit his people from availing themselves of the means of culture.
It undoubtedly comes as a surprise to a Lowlander, who is prone to think
that every born Scot is necessarily a born Protestant, to find in remote
nooks of his native country, home-grown specimens of the faith that was
once prevalent everywhere. He has to sit down and muse on the hillside
over the matter, and, if he is imaginative, he will see by fancy's eye
the skiff of St. Columba breasting the breakers on its way from Ireland
to Iona.
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
Of all the Churches or sects in Scotland, probably the most remarkable
is the Episcopalian. Many Englishmen settle in the Lowlands for purposes
of trade, and, in most cases, bring their religion with them. Such
immigration explains the numerous Episcopal chapels in the towns of
southern Scotland. But no such cause can explain the presence of scores
of small Episcopal congregations in the rural districts of Aberdeen and
Banff. These have not been imported from over the Border, but in reality
have a long history behind them. Many of them date from the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. The Stuart kings never liked Presbyterianism,
and James I. tried to make the Scotch Church as like the English one as
possible: in 1610, indeed, he managed to bring about the consecration of
a certain number of Scotch bishops. The Episcopalians in the North
showed a warm affection for the Stuarts during the distresses of that
royal house, and such Jacobitism did the scattered congregations a deal
of harm. The number of Episcopal chapels throughout the land is fairly
high, but the total of the communicants is relatively small. The clergy
are a most estimable and cultured body of men, and perform their duties,
which are often very laborious, in an eminently exemplary fashion. Their
stipends are ridiculously poor, and the scene of their labours is
frequently the reverse of lively. Very often, in the bleak moors and
glens of north-east Scotland, I have spent pleasant and memorable
evenings in the village rectory. The modes of speech and general
atmosphere of a Scotch rectory differ piquantly from those of the manse.
It is certain that a clergyman who is in constant touch with the
Anglican ritual, develops a special turn of talk and a characteristic
set of mannerisms.
I am convinced that, in learning and culture, the Episcopal clergy
compare very favourably with those of the other Churches. Some of them
have written, both in the departments of theology and general
literature, works of outstanding and permanent value. In spite of all
that, however, it does not seem probable that they will make many
converts to their creed. Presbyterianism has a firm grip on the
country: symbol and ritual do not thrive well in the cold air of the
North. Once upon a time, in the Black Isle, as the records of the
Arpafeelie Episcopal Church show, there was a strong feeling of
antagonism to Presbyterianism; but that was in 1711, and was probably
more political than religious.
It is a well-known fact that a large proportion of the aristocracy and
landed-gentry of Scotland are Episcopalians. This is due, not so much to
the leisure they have for studying theological problems, as to the fact
that most of them have been educated in English public schools.
How pleasant it is to contemplate the broad-mindedness of the greatest
of our Scotch Episcopalians, Sir Walter Scott, as seen in the
thirty-seventh chapter of _Guy Mannering_! Speaking of religious
differences, he makes Pleydell say: "_A plain man may go to heaven
without thinking about them at all_." Even at the present day, there is
a most regrettable lack of such urbanity in the disputes of educated
theologians. I picked up a book not long since, which amused as well as
shocked me greatly. It purported to be a history of _the_ Church in
Scotland. The author was a facetious Episcopalian, for his history made
no mention of either the Free, the Established, or the United
Presbyterian denominations. The Episcopal sect alone had the honour of
being dubbed a Church. Now, if a writer ever took it on him to write a
history of the Church in England, he ought to devote space to _all_ the
bodies, and be careful not to omit mention even of the Plymouth
Brethren. I rather think that the Plymouth Brethren should have the
lengthiest treatment of all, seeing that no shred of the Church
resembles so closely the original type of Christianity.
AN INTERLUDE OF METRE.
I have often endeavoured to fix discourses from the Highland pulpits by
embodying in metre (I do not say poetry) the leading thought or most
striking illustration that I carried away. For the sake of variety and
to prevent this chapter from appearing too frivolous, I, at this point,
give one or two "moderate" sermons in little.
I.
When heavy-laden Christian, panting sore,
Had gained the home of the Interpreter,
He saw a sorry fellow with great stir
Ply a vile muck-rake on a filthy floor;
And the more mire the churl raked, the more
He smiled, although a winged messenger
Floating aloft was eager to confer
On him the crown that in her hands she bore.
So is it with those fools that waste their days
In raking stores of dross and minted gear,
Oblivious of the crown of deathless rays
That God is offering freely to them here.
Miser! your stay on earth is short indeed,
Renounce the dross and choose the heavenly meed.
II.
He that is wise will not in haste decide,
But look and think before believing aught;
Then, having long reflected, will confide
To no breast but his own his finished thought,
Until experience warrants every jot.
Man! Suffer not thy soul to yield to pride
Of intellect. Small is thy mortal lot
Of wisdom. Others seek the truth beside
Thyself. Behold aloft in air there fly
Fowls diverse all in nature, strength of wing
And keenness: even so the men who hie
On the soul's quests. In genius differing,
They all some twinkling sparks of truth may see,
But the whole flaming round is hid from them and thee.
III.
Thou who in folly thinkest Heaven's King
Has sent thee into this fair world to gain
As many guineas as, with toil and pain,
In threescore years thine avarice can wring
From poorer men, be warned! With tiger-spring
Fell death will leap upon your life amain
And rive you from your opulence, though fain
To tarry. Then the jovial heir will fling
To the four winds of heaven thy gathered hoard
In flaunting joys and unrestricted glee,
While costly dishes glitter on the board
And the wine flows in ruddy runnels free.
Thou, meanwhile, in the shady realms below
A bloodless ghost, wilt wander to and fro.
IV.
I.
Though lilies on their graceful stalk
Droop, fade, and die,
Earth's still renewing forces mock
Death's cruelty.
II.
For roots and seeds within the mould
Will thrust again
Their sheathed beauties manifold
Up to the plain.
III.
Though flowery hopes of dazzling gleam
Wither and die,
New hopes in the soul's garden teem
Unceasingly.
V.
O Lord of light, disperse my baffling fears,
Give me a look but for a moment's space
Upon the tranquil glory of Thy face,
To serve as force to fight the chilling years.
Clouds hide Thee from me, and the bitter tears
Run down my cheek in floods. Out of Thy grace
Let my heart's chamber be a dwelling-place
For Thee. Come for a little space. Mine ears
Strain for the hearing of a word divine
Straight from Thy holy lips. No single task
Can I at all accomplish or design
Without the full assurance that I ask
This, namely, that my soul is one with Thee,
And Thou dost work Thy purposes by me.
THE CHRISTIAN BRETHREN.
It would be well-spent labour if some sympathetic historian could find
time to write a short account of the Plymouth Brethren, giving details
of the origin, tenets, divisions, and influence of the sect. I am
surprised that Mr. Barrie in his notable excursions into Scotch life and
religion, has never portrayed such a fine specimen of the working-man
turned theologian.
It must not be supposed that only the rich and the leisurely have what
is called religious experiences and shadowed souls. The finest
developments, doubtless, of the religious sense require time and money.
That leisurely groping after tendencies, that introspective analysis of
the sins of omission and commission, that delightful perception of the
falling away from righteousness of your brethren and sisters--all these
choice sweets are, if they are to be adequately enjoyed, compatible only
with a minimum of £300 a year. The religious sense and the musical are
in many points alike. If you wish to develop an initially melodious
soul, it means expense: you must go to professors, study counterpoint,
practice many hours daily, and attend concerts of the most exclusive and
expensive kind. Similarly with religion in its finest flower. You need
slaves to cook and wash for you if you mean to ecstaticise and see
beatific visions: you must get the most fashionable and picturesque
specialists to come and feel your religious pulse, and you must on no
account neglect the subscription lists. But only those rich enough to be
hypochondriac can afford such luxuries. Now, in the toiling classes
there are often good ears for music, and exquisite responsiveness to
religious sensations. What satisfies such natures and such wants must be
cheap. The Plymouth Brethren (I ought rather to say _Christian_
Brethren), have no General Assembly, little or no pedantry of a costly
kind, and yet, I believe, they supply all the exhilaration of schisms,
splits, counter-splits, and heresy-hunts. Every man his own General
Assembly! There may be a lack of the finer touches in such a system, but
what is lacking in elegance is fully made up in clearness of view and
rombustious vigour.
In many of the fishing villages on the east coast of Scotland, there are
large congregations of these worthy men raising their Ebenezers, and
making a joyful noise on the first day of the week. I have a good deal
of sympathy with their democratic and direct style of worship. In
Scotland, when a man gets converted, he feels constrained to _do
something_, but very often there is little outlet for his energy in the
calm routine of the fashionable churches--hence the necessity for
bethels and mission-houses. At their revivals, let me add, one is in
presence of that mysterious awakening to which every religion owes its
birth.
In the autumn of 1906, I had an interesting talk with the minister of a
seaside village on the shore of the Moray Firth, and was distressed to
find that he was sorely harassed by the lively sect I have mentioned.
Every now and again a wandering evangelist comes along the coast,
pitches a tent, and begins a series of gospel services. Those who are
converted, neglect the church and all its ordinances, and begin
preaching on their own account; nay, they even buttonhole the minister
and preach to _him_, accusing him of being an unjust steward, a
hireling, and no shepherd, and so on. Such conduct creates a very
painful situation. With a good deal of detail, the long-suffering
clergyman gave me an account of a visit he had paid to an old woman
recently converted. The narrative of her conversion as told by herself
was quaint and touching: "They were a' gettin' it," she said, "and I
wasna gettin' it. So I jist went to the door and steekit my e'en, and
raised them to the lift, and _I got it_. Isn't that the way o't, auld
man?" "Aye, aye, that's the way o't, auld wife," chimed in the husband.
The latter then took up the wondrous tale: "When she came in and tell't
me she had got it, I went doon on my knees to thank the Lord jist at the
fireside, and lo and behold, when I opened my e'en, I was at the street
door. The Spirit had taken me there, unbeknown to me. So I lifted up my
voice and called on God's people. And in five minutes the room and
kitchen were filled wi' saved folk, a' singing hymns, because my auld
wife had got it at last."
I also remember meeting an old thatcher of eminent talents who seemed to
me to be on the straight road for Zion, for he fulfilled the Scriptural
injunction to be fervent in spirit as well as not slothful in business.
James had at one time been precentor in one of the regular churches, but
owing to some cantankerous criticism of his melody, he seceded to the
Brethren, who fearlessly accepted his services gratis. James was
specially lyrical on the roof, and it was a treat to hear him sing
"_There is rest for the weary_," as he pushed the thatch into its long
home:--
"There is rest for the weary,
There is rest for the weary,
There is rest for _you_" (with a forceful thrust).
I must not omit to mention (and with reverence be it spoken) that James
had a reputation far and wide in the country-side, for the vigour and
extreme unction of his grace before meat. Though giving a humble tenor
to the initial phrases and using the tar-brush on himself, and the
hungry company as putrid sinners unworthy even of the least of the
mercies, he always contrived to reassure everyone by sunnily rounding
off the matter with some rich and racy allusions to the gracious and
ample promises of Holy Writ. One could have felt quite comfortable even
in a slight excess of gluttony after such introductory words of
blessing. You felt that the occasion had been met, that something like
perfection had been attained. James was willing to admit shortcomings in
thatching, or in any department of human activity, so long as his
superiority in pre-prandial supplication was admitted. But it so
happened that Fate, whose delight it is to imperil even the stablest
reputations, sent his way a South-country Brother with a gift in prayer
truly appalling. At a gathering at which James was present, this
stranger was honoured by being asked to say grace. In the process, he
soared to such heights of oratory and supplicatory fervour, that the
uniform opinion of the guests, as evinced by looks, demeanour, and even
congratulation, was that James had at last been beaten on his own
ground. Supreme dejection settled on the thatcher, and neither bite nor
sup could dislodge the settled melancholy of his soul. After long
pondering with chin on chest in a corner of that pious throng, he had an
idea. Sidling up to the matron of the house, he, with a terrible whisper
of earnestness, addressed her in these words: "Mistress, before we gang
hame, doon wi' a whang o' cheese and a farl o' cake--it'll no' cost ye
much--and _I'll ha'e a tussle wi' him for't yet_." She gladly complied
with his request. His excitement gave him inspiration, and over that
cheese and oatcake, he delivered himself of such a grace as had never
before proceeded from his lips. A murmur of involuntary admiration
greeted the conclusion. James was comforted, and once more held his head
erect.
To talk of the Evolution of Religion to men like James would be a
complete waste of time. Such men regard themselves as the acme of the
process: whatever modifications may supervene after their day will be
deteriorations. It is quite impossible to persuade an enthusiast that he
is a mere phenomenon of development, and not, actually and now, the roof
and crown of things. Even if persuasion were possible, it would be a
cruelty to disillusionise these happy wights,--men who, with such
sublime confidence, can read their title clear to mansions in the sky.
They have a complete key to the universe, and are as happy as if they
had seen the whole vast circle of truth.
DRIMNIN IN MORVEN.
How many of my readers know where Drimnin is? If I should say, "In the
parish of Morven," it is possible the majority of them would not be
greatly edified, unless they had acquaintance with the saintly Macleod's
_Reminiscences of a Highland Parish_. Well, Drimnin is on the mainland,
nearly opposite the entrance to the haven of Tobermory. The _Chevalier_
nears into the coast when anyone wishes to land, and two boatmen,
obeying a signal, pull out from shore into the open, and the passenger
leaps, as gracefully as circumstances permit, into their arms--amid the
cheers of those left on the steamer.
The clergyman of Morven ministers to a parish that has over a hundred
miles of seaboard, and, strange to say, there have been only three
incumbents in it during the last hundred and thirty years, himself being
the third, with twenty-six years' ministry to his credit so far. These
facts procured him an extraordinary reception in America, where he spent
a holiday recently. The Americans, with whom change is the permanent
element, looked with amazement on a minister who came from a parish with
such a record. They thronged round his hotel to get shaking hands with
him, while he blushed to think that homage was being paid to the
longevity of his predecessors. It is no treat to be a lion in Maine.
The visitor to Drimnin should return to Oban by driving to Lochaline,
where there is a pier. A mere glance up that inlet of Lochaline is
sufficient to prove the unerring accuracy of Sir Walter's description:
"Fair Lochaline's woodland shore." Scott had a marvellous eye for
scenery, and having once seen a locality, could describe it better than
a native could do who had lived in the neighbourhood from youth
upwards.[19]
[19] I may here refer to a pleasant three hours spent in rowing
on Lochaline in the company of Mr. Hugh Macintyre, an old
gentleman full of Scott and well versed in the lore of the
locality. He was a policeman in Glasgow for thirty-five years
(latterly as guardian of the Kelvingrove Picture Gallery), and
now, in the enjoyment of good health and a pension, spends his
time reading and doing good in his native district. Mr.
Macintyre's earliest recollection is of his father being evicted
from a small holding, at the head of the loch, in the "forties."
Tennyson and Palgrave were visitors at Ardtornish, as Mr. Lang
tells us, but made no special impression on the natives, who
styled them respectively _Tinman_ and _Pancake_.
CRAIGNISH.
At Craignish (two miles _or so_ from Ardfern, next pier to Luing on the
way from Crinan to Oban) I was astonished to find what I think is unique
in Scotland, an old clergyman, born in 1824, still, without any aid
whatever, performing all the duties of a parish minister in one of the
wildest parts of Argyllshire. I refer to the Rev. Mr. M'Michael, who was
chairman at the lecture. The old gentleman, who is remarkably hale in
body and never melancholy at meal-time (as he slyly puts it), is prone
to speak by preference of the events of "auld lang syne." He gave me a
most vivid account of Professor John Wilson (whom, as I do not now live
in Paisley, I may safely venture to call Paisley's _greatest_ son), who
was one of his teachers, and who, as "Christopher North," wrote so many
witty and solid articles that undeservedly perished in _Blackwood's
Magazine_ at the beginning of last reign. I have rarely had such a treat
as my talk with this hale-hearted octogenarian. His charming daughters
keep house for him, and employ their leisure time weaving at a loom of
their own. The sheep that graze on the glebe supply the wool, and the
intermediate stages between the back of the sheep and the woollen
overcoat on the back of the needy are all supervised by these dexterous
daughters of the manse.
The coach to Craignish passes through a bit of Scotland that, in the
leafy month of June, must be glorious to behold. I passed along in a
fierce and chilling blizzard of sleet and snow. If a poet could keep
warm, thought I, this would be the spot for him to get impressive scenes
for his word-pictures. At one part, the road ziz-zags up a hill for
three miles, alongside a furious burn, to a height of six hundred feet;
from which eminence one sees, on the right, great bare crags and steep
heights, and, on the left, an inlet of the Atlantic foaming wildly
below. Ye gentlemen of the cloth, whose lot is cast in towns and who sit
at home in ease, think of the trials of your rural brethren in their
attempts to drive in winter through drifting snow to a presbytery
meeting fourteen miles away![20]
[20] I could mention another rural parish, considerably further
north, where, two winters ago, the roads were so badly blocked
with snow that for five consecutive weeks no church services
could be held! Both minister and congregation were overcome with
grief.
A MODEL MINISTER.
Not far from the city of Aberdeen is a little village of seafaring folk,
and the worthy minister, the Rev. Mr. Pollock, is guide, philosopher,
and friend to the entire community. Up to his manse, which is a mile
from the uneven and fishy streets, there is a constant _va-et-vient_ of
parishioners. One old widow wishes him to write to her son at the
Yarmouth fishing, herself being ignorant of English spelling; this old
man, painfully hobbling uphill on his stick, and muttering to himself as
he goes, desires the faithful pastor to come and cheer a bed-ridden wife
who is failing fast; that young fisher-lass will blush as she tells that
her young man is on the way home to claim her as his own, with the
Church's aid. Mr. Pollock is the confidential repository of all their
secrets: nothing in their lives is hidden from him; he knows all of
comic and tragic in their lowly careers. Along with his wife, he visits
every house in the place, and from intimate knowledge can tell you,
nodding his head to this or that house as he walks along, the worth or
worthlessness of every native of the village. His time is so fully taken
up with pure religion and undefiled, that he has no time to waste on the
Higher Criticism.
A tout for some wandering minstrels recently came over from Aberdeen,
meaning to leave one of his red-and-yellow bills (announcing a
performance) in each of the local shops. The minister saw him as he
distributed the bills, and closely followed up on his trail. Mr. Pollock
entered each shop and said to the shopkeeper: "Please let me see the
bill you have there in the window." On getting it, he would scan it, and
request to get keeping it. In no shop was he refused, so that by the
time he got to the end of the village, he was carrying two dozen large
concert placards, while the tout, merrily whistling, and all unconscious
of the nullity of his labours, was on his way back to Aberdeen. "Lead us
not into temptation," said the minister, as he thrust the garish
announcements into his study stove. None of Mr. Pollock's flock were at
the concert that night. Perhaps, if any had gone, little harm would have
been done. The minister, however, thought they were better at home, or
at the local prayer-meeting.
Mr. Pollock's predecessor was a thin, unemotional man--a geologist--who
spent an important percentage of his time chipping rocks and looking for
fossils. Owing to this mania, his flock were forgotten, and came to
forget _him_. No wonder if the church attendance dwindled! _Ab uno disce
omnes_, as Virgil says. One day this ordained geologist had agreed to
baptize a child in a hamlet some miles away, and set forth to walk to
the place in good time. Unhappily, by the roadside, there was a quarry,
into which, by instinct, the minister glided, keen and eager-eyed. He
stayed therein for four hours, and forgot all about the infant
(squalling, no doubt, in special robe, and impatient for the
christening), the waiting relatives, the inevitable decanter, and the
thick cuts of indigestible bun. The minister, I say, trudged home with
his treasure-trove of petrified ferns and foot-marked shale--a greater
fossil than any under his own cases of glass. His memory was stirred by
his wife's catechising, but it was too late to undo the mischief.
MINISTERIAL TRIALS IN OLDEN TIMES.
In modern times, ministers are badly paid, considering the expenses of
their training and long education, but they are better paid than they
used to be. In 1756, the minister of Ferintosh, a big, active man, with
the object of adding something to his stipend, leased the meal-mill of
Alcaig from the laird of Culloden. The combination of miller and
minister did not please his parishioners. It never occurred to these
clowns that the occupation of miller is singularly adapted for
reflection: spiritual and bodily nourishment (thought of together) might
well form a field of thought fertile in instructive metaphors; "the dark
round of the dripping wheel," the work of separating husks and flour,
the topics of dearth and abundance, might all come to have a homiletic
value to a serious-minded teacher of religion. But a cry of scandal,
directed not against themselves for underpaying their minister, but
against that worthy man for being an _ordained miller_, arose in the
parish. A member of the congregation was deputed to give a gentle hint
to the minister that the two occupations were incompatible. The
interview took place on the high road. "What news this morning, Thomas?"
said the minister. "Have you not heard of the fearful news?" said
Thomas. "No, what is it?" "Well, everybody's saying," said Thomas, with
a whisper of affected horror, "that _the minister's wife has taken up
with the big miller of Alcaig_." The delicacy of this hint was such that
the minister resigned his lease.
The trials of ministers long ago were truly great. Witches had to be
reckoned with, as the aforementioned Ferintosh minister, who was their
foe, knew to his cost. By their incantations they caused him to be
afflicted with somnolency. As this sleepy fit usually came on in church
between the first psalm and the prayer, it can be easily seen how awful
were the reprisals of these Satanic hags.
AN ARTFUL DODGER.
The Rev. Mr. Rogers, minister of a parish in Fife, was, like many
another worthy man, in sore financial straits at one period of his life.
He was a widower, and probably this fact accounts for his displenished
exchequer. With supreme audacity he touched the bell of a rich old
maiden lady, and on entering her boudoir he bluntly admitted his lack of
funds, and said, "Give me £200 and I'll marry you." She gave him the
money, and for months after never saw his face. Finally she wrote asking
an interview. He came, and she tartly said, "Did you not say, Mr.
Rogers, that if I gave you £200, you would marry me?" "Certainly I did,"
said the cunning minister, "and _I'm ready to marry you whenever you
produce your man: where is he_?" This anecdote shows the difficulty of
being unambiguous when speaking English, and furnishes an argument for
the adoption of French as the language of courtship as well as of
diplomacy.
The same foxy ecclesiastic wished two things, both of which his heritors
flatly refused: (a) a new manse, and (b) a site with a wide
prospect. Finding them intractable, he professed humility, and craved
merely a species of scaffolding to buttress up one of the walls of the
old manse. The heritors marvelled a little at the strange request, but,
glad of being saved from the cost of a new building, authorised the
buying of some sturdy joists to prop up a wall that the minister averred
was off the plumb. No sooner was the buttressing timber in position than
Mr. Rogers appeared with a violent complaint in the Sheriff Court,
declaring that the manse was like to fall about his ears, and that the
heritors had palpably admitted the danger by erecting a scaffold. The
Sheriff expressed strong disapproval of the heritors' stinginess, and
ordered them to get a new manse built for the minister. Now as to the
site! To spite Mr. Rogers, the heritors determined to deprive him of a
good view, and directed the St. Andrews builder to erect the new manse
down in the valley on a broad bank by a burnside. The master-builder
placed pegs and marks in the ground at the prescribed place and returned
to St. Andrews, telling his workmen to proceed next day to begin the
work, and mentioning that they would know the site by marks he had
placed there. At cockcrow the minister was afoot, busy transferring the
pegs to the summit of a lovely knoll. The tradesmen came out to the
country, and looking for the site found it on the hill-top and began
their work. After they had been a week or more on the walls, out from
St. Andrews came the master to see how his men were progressing. He came
near a complete collapse when he saw his men on the hill instead of in
the valley. He spoke winged words to them, but it was too late. In such
fashion did Mr. Rogers outwit his heritors. I regret that no literary
relics of this acute divine are to be had. He seems to have been in his
way a kind of Higher Critic judging from a remark he made on the Ark:
"How did you manage," he said, as if addressing Noah in person, "how did
you manage to keep the first plank of your boat from getting rotten
before the last was nailed on, if you actually took 120 years to put the
whole thing together?"
SOME ANECDOTES FROM GIGHA.
The late minister of Gigha, a small island community of 360 souls off
the coast of Kintyre was a cleric of great humour and full of stories.
His church was the only one in the island, a fact of which he was proud.
At a communion service, a minister from the mainland, struck off a
monumental phrase in one of his prayers. He said "Thou hast shown, O
Lord, Thy confidence in Thy servant, the devout minister of Gigha, for
lo! out of the plentitude of Thy great mercy Thou has seen fit _to give
him an island all to himself_." I have heard and do in part believe it,
that the effect of such a supplication in Gaelic is overpoweringly
strong.
This same minister "of the island," whose digestion I may say, was so
perfect that he could triumphantly absorb strong tea and poached eggs as
a regular midnight meal, told me one night over this collation, the
story of a fisherman in one of the Western Islands, whose prayer before
going to sea was of a singular character. He invariably addressed the
Deity as _Sibshe_ (You) instead of the ordinary _Thusa_ (Thou). On one
occasion, when the weather was squally and danger was anticipated, he
prayed thus: "O Lord God, my Beloved, if You would be so good as to take
the care of Mary and Jessie, my daughters; but that She-Devil, my wife,
the daughter of Peter Macpherson, I am indifferent about her: she will
have another husband before I am eaten by the crabs!"
Here follows another well-known story from the same authority. A
Lowlander, taking a week's sail on one of Macbrayne's cargo-boats
stepped ashore, on Sunday morning, at a remote insular port, to attend
church, as was fit and proper. The text was the well-known verse "Can
the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" The minister,
strange to say, preached a long and painfully vivid sermon on _leprosy_.
The tourist waited, after sermon, in order to talk with the minister and
quietly remonstrate with him. He said: "You gave us an excellent
discourse to-day, but do you think it followed quite appropriately from
the text: surely you are aware that a _leopard_ and a _leper_ are two
different things." The minister, eying the tourist with a look of
indignant scorn for a second, lifted up his voice and denounced him
thus: "Out of my sight with you: I know what you are; you are one of
these pestilent fellows called Higher Critics. Begone!"
In the Long Island, it is an article of fixed belief among the stricter
Presbyterians that Catholics are outside any scheme of salvation.
Episcopalians, too, are regarded as being in an extremely dubious
position. Any stick, however, is good enough to beat the partisans of
the Pope. "Brethren," said a minister near Stornoway, "I have forgotten
my sermon to-day: but _I'll just say a word or two against the
Catholics_." Such a philippic, he seemed to think, could never be out of
season.
Denunciation has always been a favourite method of the religious bigot.
If the various sects of the Christian Church, could go on their way,
ameliorating the world, and leaving each other in peace, the millennium
would be within reasonable distance. I heard a U.F. say to a Wee Free:
"Donald, you'll no' gang to Heaven, _because I'm bad_." The sentence is
good enough for an epigram. Unfortunately, too many of our sectaries
think it the prime virtue of their faith to run down their neighbours.
GROWING POPULARITY OF RUSKIN.
One of the most cheerful features in the present-day thought of
Scotland, and one from which we may anticipate excellent results in
every department of social and religious life, is the growing popularity
of the great apostle of the nineteenth century, John Ruskin. Though
dead, he continues to speak; and from close inspection of the registers
that show in detail the nature of the books asked for, at the various
village libraries, I have noted, with no small pleasure, that Ruskin's
works are eagerly read all over the Highlands and islands of Scotland.
This is something quite new, and will, I am certain, work immense good.
For Ruskin's work in the department of religion, no words can be too
commendatory. His genius was in thorough accord with the spirit of the
Biblical writers, and his modes of speech and illustration perpetually
reminiscent of Scripture. He loses no opportunity of dwelling on the
culturing influence of the Bible. There is also a fine tolerance in his
religious teaching, which is alike helpful and suggestive. His is that
variety of teaching which we find most effectively outside of the ranks
of professional commentators, and which comes through the keen flashes
of genius that accompany the insight of the literary artist. He has
pointed out to us with great eloquence that, while specific doctrines
take at various epochs very different degrees of importance, and aspects
of rite, ceremony, and all that, appeal with changing force to different
generations, the essence of religious feeling, without which dogma
becomes harsh and rite insipid, hardly varies at all; seeing that in the
musings of the great minds of all ages, we have oftenest the pure gold
of devotion, mingled, though it may sometimes be, with the adhesive
dross of superstition. He also warns us of the danger of mistaking
pugnacity for piety, and earnestly urges that, at every moment of our
lives, we should be trying to find out, not in what we differ from other
men, but in what we agree. Ruskin considers this to be the correct
spirit in which to approach ancient as well as modern religion,
believing that if a reader cannot understand a spiritual agency, or
thinks that the best of ancient men were not dominated by any such, the
understanding of the very alphabet of history will be endangered. It
would tend greatly to salvation from arid formalism, if ministers would
teach that Plato, Sophocles, Browning, Carlyle, are all apostles of
religion. A living word from an intuitionist like the last-named not
unfrequently vivifies with new force the dark sayings of a Hebrew seer,
in much more direct fashion than half-a-score of mutilated Pentateuchs
made in the delirium of the Higher Criticism.
In spite of his unsystematic procedure, Ruskin deserves to be numbered
among the men who have earned the gratitude of their fellows, by
translating some of the ever-vital aspects of religion into the
vocabulary of the hour. The language of religious discourse is liable to
a subtle kind of pedantry, requiring a vigorous intellect adequately to
dissolve. New illustrations, novel forms of definition, are often
helpful in expelling the dreariness of outworn and meaningless phrases.
Ruskin's task is facilitated by the nice balance of his intellectual and
imaginative endowments, by the fact that his words are not mere symbols
of definite connotation, but marvellous centres of emotional force.
Happily he did not seek to elaborate any system of religion: but now
here, now there, in his books, one comes upon the pure gold of religion,
enshrined in exquisite jewelries of diction, which glimmer on (if I may
say so) to the utmost verge of emotion, and more successfully than any
formal harangue, work out their intended function. Such works as _Unto
this Last_ and _Munera Pulveris_, however keen the mental antagonism
they may initially provoke, mark a period in the spiritual life of the
reader: no matter what the prepossessions of a man may be, these books
will modify them. He is reverent, but, like Plato, he is dynamic. You
can't sit at ease as you read his pages, for they are charged as much
with defiance as with guidance.