SACRED BARDS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
“O happy saints! rejoice and sing!
He quickly comes, your Lord and King!”
—W. D. MACLAGAN, D.D., _Abp. of York_.
The religious Highlander of the present day is known to be stubbornly
opposed to the use of hymns of human authorship in public worship.
His prejudice was deepened and played upon recently in connection
with a Union controversy between two well known ecclesiastical
bodies. One result has been that many of the southern Highlanders
who were in the habit of using the translated Scripture Paraphrases
have discontinued the practice. But notwithstanding the prejudices
of many Highlanders against hymns, all the writers of sacred poetry
have been very popular among them. There were many authors of
religious poetry whose compositions did not become much known until
the beginning of this century. To this class belonged _John Ban Maor_
and _Bean a’ Bharra_, under whose names a good deal of verse appears
in a collection by Duncan Kennedy of Melfort, who plays a rather
unenviable part in the Ossianic controversy. The names of other two
authors also occur in the volume—Macindeor and Mackeich. Macfadyen,
a Glasgow student, published a volume of hymns in 1770, but nothing
more is known of him or his work.
WILLIAM MACKENZIE.
This poet was born at Balvicphadrick, on the estate of Culduthel,
near Inverness. His father, who was a farmer at Borlum, bestowed some
pains on the education of William, who, after his marriage, rented
successively the farms of Bailedubh, in Tordarroch, and that of
Cnocbui, in the parish of Daviot. He afterwards gave up farming, and
was appointed by the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge to
teach one of their schools at Leys, in the parish of Croy, some three
miles from Inverness. He laboured there as teacher and evangelist for
forty years. He died in 1838 at the advanced age of ninety, and was
buried in the churchyard of Dunlichity. Mackenzie appears to have
been a man of fair culture and was well read. His poetry, although
not first-class, has a masculine, sensible ring about it. A good
deal of it consists of excellent sermon matter, expressed in clear
natural language and smooth and flowing verse. Scripture history and
the usual evangelical doctrines of Christianity with an underlying
practical application, constitute his general theme. He has also
composed several elegies and addresses to persons. The poet deals
thus with a certain class of religious professors:—
Bheir iad cuireadh dhuitse dh’òl
Le daimh is mòran carthannas;
’S bidh iad cho cràbhach an àm,
’S gu’m feum thu’n dràm a bheannachadh.
ENGLISH:
They will invite thee to the drink
As friends each hour grow thicker;
And then each one seems so devout
That thou must bless the liquor.
DONALD MACRAE.
If not the most powerful, this bard is certainly the keenest and
subtlest that the Highlands have produced. His father was a native
of Glenalchaig, in Kintail; but Donald was born in the parish of
Petty, Inverness-shire, the date of his birth being 11th November
1756. His parents were poor people in humble life, and their son
got no education whatever. But Christian teaching and Biblical
knowledge became a deeply cultivating power in his case. He earned
his livelihood by labouring at his loom, when he lived as a cottager
on the estate of the Earl of Moray in his native parish of Petty. He
lived to the good age of eighty-one, his death taking place in 1837.
He was buried in the churchyard of Petty, where a small tombstone
points out his grave. He got his poems published in Inverness some
time before he died, under the title of _Spiritual Songs_. He has
composed a considerable quantity of poetry, the most of which is
first-class when the bard’s theme is of more than local interest. He
combines the spiritual insight and holy sympathies of George Herbert
with the subtlety of Shelley. He is the only bard that distinctly
illustrates the tendency to mysticism in Highland religion manifested
in some quarters. His profound self-analysis may be seen the poem
_Luireach_:—
Bha ’n inntinn dhiomhain riamh mar tha,
Aig spionadh tràth na h-ùmhlachd,
Mar eun aig itealaich gu h-àrd,
’Snach gabhadh tâmh ’san dùthaichs’.
Is coslach mi ri madadh tàir’
Le lotaibh grannd a’ bùraich,
Ach le a theangaidh a rinn slàn
Na leòin a ta ’ga chiurradh,
ENGLISH:
The mind of vanity e’er so
Obedience true o’er-riding,
Like birds on flight in highest heaven
And ne’er on earth abiding.
I am so like that dog despised
That with sore wounds is moaning,
But with his tongue has healed his hurts
That caused his painful groaning.
MARY CLARK.
This poetess—_Bean Torra dhamh_—who was the daughter of Ewen
Macpherson, schoolmaster in Laggan, Badenoch, appears to have been a
woman of great piety. She began first to compose in English, but her
husband, whose name was Clark, persuaded her to compose in Gaelic. At
the beginning of this century she went to Inverness to get her poems,
some thirty in number, written, she herself being at that time blind,
and also to publish them. Her works appeared some time ago, anew
edited and very well translated by the Rev. John Kennedy. Mrs Clark
is a natural and intelligent singer, but without much freshness or
originality. The warmth of her religious feelings renders her pieces
more readable than they would otherwise be. She died at Perth at an
advanced age.
MARGARET CAMPBELL.
Margaret Campbell was born at the farm of Clashgour in Glenorchay.
Her father’s name was Peter Campbell. She was married a second
time to a Cameron at Fort-William, when she became much reduced in
circumstances. She published a little volume of songs in 1785; a
second edition, which relieved her embarrassments a little, in 1805.
Her _Laoidhean Spioradail_ appeared in Edinburgh in 1810, a volume
which seems to have escaped Reid’s notice. The hymns are thirty-four
in number. An English appendix gives an abstract of the themes with
which the hymns are occupied. The metre is not always very regular,
but a few of the pieces show some poetic vigour.
REV. PETER GRANT.
Next to Dugald Buchanan, the author whose hymns are best and most
widely known, is the late Peter Grant, a Baptist minister in
Strathspey, who published the first edition of his hymns as early as
1813. As he tells us in one of his poems, he was deeply impressed
with the extent of practical heathenism among the Highlanders. He
complains, as Bishop Carsuel in the sixteenth century did before
him, that the Highlanders loved the tales of Fingal and Ossian
more than the Gospel, and that they spent all their spare time in
the recital of these vain heathen stories. Carsuel gave his own
generation a liturgy, and Grant to his a series of Gospel hymns; and
it need scarcely be asked which of them was the more successful. The
hymns became immediately widely popular, and edition after edition
was called forth, and they have maintained their popularity to the
present day. Grant is not a powerful poet, but he is a very sweet
singer. His hymns and poems have a holy fragrance about them that
is quite captivating. The simplicity of the conception and the
naturalness of the style at once affect and enchain the heart. Grant
succeeds where a hymnist of more ambition and power would fail. The
warmth of his earnest nature is felt in every stanza he has written.
He died full of years and honours, beloved by all who knew him. A
sweet poem of his begins with the experience of a child emerging in
heaven:—
’S leanabh solasach mi
Gle og chaidh á tim;
Chaidh mo threorach o’n chich do’n uaigh;
’S ged bu ghoirid mo thim
Gabhail fradbarc do’n tir,
’S mor th’agam ri innse do’n t-sluagh.
ENGLISH:
A child joyful, beloved,
Early from time removed,
From the breast to the grave they bore me;
Though brief was that state
I have much to relate
To the many I see before me.
REV. JAMES MACGREGOR, D.D.
Macgregor (1759-1830), sent by the General Associate Synod to Nova
Scotia in 1786, has written hymns (1819) which have been highly
valued by sections of Highlanders at home and abroad. He was a native
of St. Fillans, in Perthshire, and wrote and spoke Gaelic with
greater purity and elegance than the natives of that county in the
present day are able to do. The University of Glasgow conferred on
him the degree of D.D. in recognition of his arduous and successful
labours in the Colonies among his countrymen. His poetry, although
not of the first order, is yet sweet and natural—metrical effusions
in which the simple truths of the Gospel are rehearsed with
earnestness and freshness. The following verses are translated from
his poem on _The Resurrection_:—
Great must be that might,
Keen must be that sight,
That so wisely all parts exhume;
All the craven and brave,
The master and slave,
He shall call from the dust of the tomb.
Widely scattered though be
Heads and bodies, yet He
Reunites them in one again;
Then forth shall be hurled
From the graves of the world
All the ashes of slaughtered men.
The bones that are placed
On the hill or wild waste,
In the desert, or pit, or shore;
In the ocean deep,
’Neath the river’s sweep—
To life he shall then restore.
When the earth shall be shaken
All classes shall waken—
The poor, and the king, and the brave;
Then forth shall be rolled
The young and the old,
The maiden, and lover, and slave.
Some will rise in great fear
When the Lamb shall appear,
The just from the evil to sever;
Some will wake with delight
In garments all bright,
As the heirs of the kingdom for ever.
Macgregor’s grandson, the Rev. George Patterson, D.D., has written
his life, much of which is founded on an autobiographical sketch.
REV. JOHN MACDONALD, D.D.
Dr Macdonald, of Ferintosh, as “The Apostle of the North,” is
a household word in the Highlands. As an orator, preacher, and
evangelist, no man of his day was the instrument of greater good
to his countrymen, by whom his memory will be warmly cherished for
generations. In _The Gaelic Messenger_ (1829-30) appeared the first
and the best of his poems, which have been the delight of more than
one generation of Highlanders. This was a poem of three parts—_The
Christian on his Journey to, at, and beyond Jordan_. Some of his
other poems are biographical. His poetical works were published in
a neat volume in 1846. Here are a few verses translated from the
“Christian’s Journey:”—
ON THE WAY TO JORDAN.
He often sought for special grace
At mercy’s fountain free,
To keep up aye a cheerful face
Hard though the heart might be;
And by that smile of happiness—
That fragrance sweet he found—
He helped a holy cheerfulness
In all the saints around.
He hated all hypocrisies,
The silent face of gloom,
The moaning and the plaintive sighs
That savour of the tomb.
But the sweet breath of life he knew
Amidst the tainted air;
Heart-brokenness that came to view
Would have his tender care.
ON THE BANKS OF JORDAN.
I hear the floods of Jordan roll,
My flesh is seized with dread;
But shame shall ne’er approach my soul,
By hope of heaven led.
That hope the Rock of Ages showed
To those who went before,
Who safely trod the sacred road
That leads to Canaan’s shore.
My spirit trembles with affright
As down to death I go;
Around me glide the shades of night,
And weary doubtings grow.
Before is an eternity
Unreckoned by our years;
The shoreless and the boundless sea
That wakens shrinking fears.
But on the Christ my eye doth rest,
I trust his gracious power;
He succoured me when sore distressed,
And He will save that hour.
Yea, He a help will yet provide,
While I am on this shore;
The waters great He will divide,
Till Jordan I am o’er.
BEYOND JORDAN.
That Christian who once fearful stood
Where high the waters swell’d
Lamenting there before the flood,
Corruption still unquell’d,
Has entered now into that rest
Whose light aye filled his eye;
His spirit now in glory drest
Surrounds the throne on high.
The popular and living character of Macdonald’s preaching genius
is everywhere apparent in his hymns. Sweetness, elegance, and
genial, broad spiritual-mindedness, have rendered his compositions
universally pleasing. He will probably ever remain the chief type of
the Highland preacher.
REV. DUNCAN MACDOUGALL.
The name of this sacred bard was once very popular in the South-West
Highlands and Isles, and his memory is still green with many aged
Christians particularly in the island of Tiree, where he laboured
with success as a Nonconformist minister. His hymns—_Laoidhean
Spioradail_—appeared in 1841, and for many years continued to be
great favourites in certain circles. Macdougall and Peter Grant
belong to the same order of simple bard-evangelists who have always
been a spiritually elevating force in humble quarters where more
ambitious labours have been failures. Their productions have been
sermons in verse which the common people have received with greater
gladness than has been accorded to the more elaborate and ambitious
utterances of the regular pulpit.
JOHN MORRISON.
Morrison, originally a blacksmith to trade, and latterly a Free
Church catechist in Harris, is one of the most powerful and
ingenious of the bards. I do not know in any language a poem like
his _Duin og is seann Duin’ agam_ in its subtlety of conception, its
felicity of expression, and its cunning weavings and turnings of
verses. Its theme is the “holy war” in the Christian soul, which he
treats not at all in the style of Bunyan, but in quite an original
fashion. It was published in 1835, again in America along with many
of his other poems. His poetry shows that he was profoundly exercised
and interested in the spiritual problems and difficulties of the
Christian life. Few men ever obtained a deeper insight into the
human heart, and fewer still possessed equally great poetic gifts
for uttering what has been seen and felt. A good edition of his
whole works is much required; and it was once hoped that his son,
Dr Morrison of Edinburgh, would satisfy the wishes of his father’s
admirers. The bard died in 1852, sixty-two years of age, before any
of his works in book-form appeared.
Usquba has been the theme of frequent laudations by the secular
bards; the following verses are from a preaching poem of a very
different strain:—
Ye friends whom I cherish, nurse not in your mind
That I sing in this song from a motive unkind;
My theme is the drink-plague—that ill-unconfined,
That feeds on our ravage and ruin.
Ye cannot dislike though the satire be keen;
For disgrace, woe, and want are where’er it has been;
And spirits immortal enslaved may be seen
Its road to the devil pursuing.
Degraded is he who delights in its breath,
For its trade has been plann’d in the regions beneath;
Its curse has been wed to consumption and death
In bodies’ and souls’ undoing.
REV. DUNCAN MACCALLUM.
This was an able minister of the Church of Scotland, who was for
some time settled at Arisaig. _Collath_ is a poem of the heroic
kind, which Mackenzie had inserted in “The Beauties” as a specimen
of ancient poetry! Mr MacCallum published it first anonymously, as
he did another booklet in which he acknowledged himself to be the
author of _Collath_. His poetry shows fair poetic gifts. We meet with
MacCallum again as the author of a Church History.
REV. DUNCAN MACLEAN.
The late Free Church minister of Glenorchy, Mr MacLean, was a
religious poet of great power and originality. Buchanan, Morrison,
and he are poets of the first order. The “Gaelic Hymns” of MacLean
appeared in 1868 in a small closely-printed volume. The pieces
in this volume are rather religious poems than hymns. A keenly
æsthetical spirit pervades all that MacLean has written; and he
has written more than any of the first-class religious bards. He
is exceedingly rich in poetic illustration, and very profound in
thought. He was a man of wide general culture, and he brought the
power and fruits of it with him into the sphere of Gaelic religious
poetry. But though his countrymen highly appreciated his able
ministrations in that language in the pulpit, they do not appear to
be ready to understand that they have such a deep mine of fresh and
original thought in his poetry. The thoughtful reader, however, will
at once feel that MacLean is a man of great culture and a poet of a
high order, in full sympathy with man and the works of creation. Like
Morrison of Harris, he is too profound for the present popular taste.
Here are some translated verses of one of his best poems, on the
scenery of his native place:—
As I sit on the knoll, on the steep scarpy height,
And lonely survey all that falls ’neath my sight,
My crowding thoughts, stirred in their slumber, fast roll
In currents resistless all over my soul.
Loch Tay there I see with a beautiful shade
On its bosom that’s pure as the breast of a maid;
Like a child in sweet rest, in its fairy bed laid,
Touch gently its locks ere its glory will fade.
Oh fair is the vision before me outspread!
Kind nature’s bright face that awakens no dread,
The green woods where songsters attune on each tree
Their throats for sweet warbling—beloved of me.
The Dochart is rushing to Lochy’s domain
To meet her, good woman, so gentle and plain;
When they have embraced and are wed into twain
His fierceness forsakes him, he yields to her strain.
Glen Dochart, Glen Lochy, are bright to the view,
With their corries of green when their dress they renew;
With the shadowy nooks where the streamlet fast rushes,
Where you hear the gay chorus of robins and thrushes.
All changeless I see them, hill, river, and road,
But where are the people that once there abode?
Some rest in their graves ’neath the slumberous sod,
But the many are scattered o’er ocean abroad.
The smoke rises high from our house as before,
In volumes encircling the same as of yore;
But where is that father so kindly nursed me,
And, gentlest of mothers—O, where now is she?
The schoolhouse, unaltered, stands there all alone,
But where the young friends of my bosom are gone?
The schoolhouse is there still, but where are the boys
With whom I oft tasted of innocent joys?
The church there I see on the desolate street,
But where are the crowds that I there used to meet?
The minister, too, who had won my regard?
The answer of echo is, “Under the sward.”
MacLean was a scholarly man and possessed rich gifts for preaching
to his fellow-countrymen. His style was concise and suggestive, his
matter well-arranged and weighty, while the inspiring spirit invested
all with a heavenly force and meaning which greatly delighted all the
more thoughtful Highlanders.
MINOR RELIGIOUS POETS.
The Hymns of John Morrison of Skye (1828), are now scarcely read.
Others also published religious poems and hymns; but there is none
of them of any particular merit. They are just sermons and Christian
experiences put in respectable verse. They, however, helped no doubt
to propagate, especially in some parts of the west, the earnest
evangelical teaching of the authors. _The Gaelic Elegies_, published
in 1850 by the Rev. W. Findlater of Durness, do not show much poetic
freshness either; but owe much of their interest to their religious
character and Christian sentiments. Two of the elegies are on Dr
Macdonald of Ferintosh, and on the Rev. A. Stewart of Cromarty.
MacEachern of Eisdale (1866) scarcely reaches mediocrity. The Rev. A.
Farquharson, a native of Perthshire, who spent the most of his life
in Tiree, also published a good deal of religious poetry, scarcely
equal in merit to Macdougall’s. He died a few years ago. The Rev.
Malcolm MacRitchie, a native of Lewis, wrote a good many poems
and hymns, which were published upwards of 30 years ago. They are
superior to those already mentioned in poetic vigour and freshness
of expression. A small volume by Cameron of Uist is just published
(1891). Hendry of Arran and D. Macdougall have both composed a
quantity of religious poetry; as also Alexander Cook, a native of
Arran, who was a lay preacher of great ability. The writer published
a poem of considerable merit by Cook in _Bratach na Firinn_ in
1873. Macquarrie and Macintyre, both of Ross and Mull, the former
a Baptist preacher and the latter a farmer, have both composed
religious poems and hymns. It would be needless to catalogue the
names of others whose names have never taken the smallest hold of
public attention. It is very remarkable that men of powerful genius
in all countries have often sunk to mediocrity whenever the theme
was purely religious. There are not, it appears, many hymns in any
language, with the exception of the Psalms, that can be described as
first-class poetry.
COLLECTIONS OF RELIGIOUS POETRY.
Many laudable attempts have been made to bring the power of the
sacred muse to bear on Highland life. Principal Daniel Dewar, D.D.,
published a considerable collection of hymns in 1806 for public
worship. It was translated wholly from English, and consisted of
paraphrases and hymns then current in the English language. Another
collection by John Munro appeared in 1819, printed by D. Mackenzie,
Glasgow. This is made up chiefly of translations from Watts’s hymns,
and many of them are well rendered. Another appeared in 1832,
published by John Reid. This tiny volume is neatly printed, and
consists mainly of translations from the Olney hymns. Some of the
compositions in Kennedy’s collection have been referred to already.
The “Sacred Poetry of the North,” edited by John Rose, and published
in 1851, is the most valuable collection of sacred poems yet given
to the Highlanders. The authors whose works are contained in this
volume have been already brought before the reader in chronological
order. In more recent times many of the hymns of our own day,
translated by Archibald Macfadyen, Rev. Dr John MacLeod, and others,
were published by Duncan Campbell in 1874. A new edition of the same
is just published, the collection being in request among Baptists
who have always encouraged more hymn-singing in public worship than
their Presbyterian neighbours. The latter, however, are beginning to
cultivate more liberty in this respect. A few of the hymns sung in
Scotland by Mr Sankey in 1874, were translated by the Rev. Alexander
MacRae of Clachan, and were received with much appreciation. The
first part of “The Highland Hymnal,” by the writer, was published in
1886. In connection with Highland hymnology, ancient and modern, Mr
Lachlan MacBean, Mr Stewart of Killin, and Mr Alexander Carmichael
have done good work in exhibiting some of the treasures of the Gaelic
sacred muse. Still a good volume of Church Praise with music has
never yet been given to the Highland Gael.
SCRIPTURE PARAPHRASES.
These were first translated by the Rev. Alexander Macfarlane of
Kilmelfort and Kilninver. Forty-five of them were published in
1753. They were afterwards revised and remodelled, and published
in complete form by the Rev. John Smith, D.D., to whom also we
are indebted for the best version of the Psalter. During the
second and third generations of this century, the Paraphrases,
through no lack of life or poetic merit, fell into disrepute in
some Highland districts, particularly in the north-west, through
theological controversies in whose train rather mechanical theories
of inspiration began to be introduced. These views, hitherto unknown
among the Gaels, now followed out to their logical issues, led to the
rejection of all hymns of mere human authorship in public worship.
This result, however, is only temporary; and in its operations
confined to certain circumscribed districts.
THE PSALTER.
The first fifty Psalms were published in 1684 by the Rev. Robert Kirk
of Balquidder. A version by the Synod of Argyle appeared in 1694.
Several other attempts were made in the eighteenth century to produce
a good translation of the Psalms in metre, chiefly under the auspices
of the Synod of Argyle. At last there appeared in 1783 a version
which has been generally received by all good judges of Gaelic idioms
and poetry as the best. The author of this version of the Psalter
was the elegant Dr John Smith, who received the unanimous thanks of
the Synod of Argyle for “executing it in so faithful and beautiful a
manner.”
An effort was made to force upon the Churches another translation of
the Psalter by the Rev. Dr Ross of Lochbroom, a man of considerable
ability and distinguished for his knowledge of Gaelic. This version,
however, is marred by obsolete phrases and idioms, and has never
obtained universal circulation in the Highlands.
[Illustration: (decorative end-of-chapter icon)]