used to call dissenters in the early days of New England. I have not
yet had time to study the question, but as I lack all knowledge of the
other two branches of Presbyterianism, I am enabled to say
unhesitatingly that I belong to the Free Kirk. To begin with, the very
word "free" has a fascination for the citizen of a republic; and then
my theological training was begun this morning by a gifted young
minister of Edinburgh whom we call the Friar, because the first time
we saw him in his gown and bands (the little spot of sheer whiteness
beneath the chin, that lends such added spirituality to a spiritual
face) we fancied that he looked like some pale brother of the Church
in the olden time. His pallor, in a land of rosy redness and milky
whiteness; his smooth, fair hair, which in the light from the
stained-glass window above the pulpit looked reddish gold; the
Southern heat of passionate conviction that colored his slow Northern
speech; the remoteness of his personality; the weariness of his
deep-set eyes, that bespoke such fastings and vigils as he probably
never practiced,--all this led to our choice of the name.
As we walked toward St. Andrew's Church and Tanfield Hall, where he
insisted on taking me to get the "proper historical background," he
told me about the great Disruption movement. He was extremely
eloquent,--so eloquent that the image of Willie Beresford tottered
continually on its throne, and I found not the slightest difficulty in
giving an unswerving allegiance to the principles presented by such an
orator.
We went first to St. Andrew's, where the General Assembly met in 1843,
and where the famous exodus of the Free Protesting Church took
place,--one of the most important events in the modern history of the
United Kingdom.
The movement was promoted by the great Dr. Chalmers and his party,
mainly to abolish the patronage of livings, then in the hands of
certain heritors or patrons, who might appoint any minister they
wished, without consulting the congregation. Needless to say, as a
free-born American citizen, and never having had a heritor in the
family, my blood easily boiled at the recital of such tyranny. In 1834
the Church had passed a law of its own, it seems, ordaining that no
presentee to a parish should be admitted, if opposed by the majority
of the male communicants. That would have been well enough could the
State have been made to agree, though I should have gone further,
personally, and allowed the female communicants to have some voice in
the matter.
The Friar took me into a particularly chilly historic corner, and,
leaning against a damp stone pillar, painted the scene in St. Andrew's
when the Assembly met in the presence of a great body of spectators,
while a vast throng gathered without, breathlessly awaiting the
result. No one believed that any large number of ministers would
relinquish livings and stipends and cast their bread upon the waters
for what many thought a "fantastic principle." Yet when the Moderator
left his place, after reading a formal protest signed by one hundred
and twenty ministers and seventy-two elders, he was followed first by
Dr. Chalmers, and then by four hundred and seventy men, who marched in
a body to Tanfield Hall, where they formed themselves into the General
Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. When Lord Jeffrey was told of
it an hour later, he exclaimed, "Thank God for Scotland! There is not
another country on earth where such a deed could be done!" And the
Friar reminded me proudly of Macaulay's saying that the Scots had made
sacrifices for the sake of religious opinion for which there was no
parallel in the annals of England. On the next Sunday after these
remarkable scenes in Edinburgh there were heart-breaking farewells, so
the Friar said, in many village parishes, when the minister, in
dismissing his congregation, told them that he had ceased to belong to
the Established Church and would neither preach nor pray in that
pulpit again; that he had joined the Free Protesting Church of
Scotland, and, God willing, would speak the next Sabbath morning at
the manse door to as many as cared to follow him. "What affecting
leave-takings there must have been!" the Friar exclaimed. "When my
grandfather left his church that May morning, only fifteen members
remained behind, and he could hear the more courageous say to the
timid ones, 'Tak' your Bible an' come awa' mon!' Was not all this a
splendid testimony to the power of principle and the sacred demands of
conscience?" I said "Yea" most heartily, for the spirit of Jenny
Geddes stirred within me that morning, and under the spell of the
Friar's kindling eye and eloquent voice I positively gloried in the
valiant achievements of the Free Church. It would always be easier for
a woman to say "Yea" than "Nay" to the Friar. When he left me in
Breadalbane Terrace I was at heart a member of his congregation in
good (and irregular) standing, ready to teach in his Sunday-school,
sing in his choir, visit his aged and sick poor, and especially to
stand between him and a too admiring feminine constituency.
When I entered the drawing-room, I found that Salemina had just
enjoyed an hour's conversation with the ex-Moderator of the opposite
church wing.
"Oh, my dear," she sighed, "you have missed such a treat! You have no
conception of these Scottish ministers of the Establishment,--such
culture, such courtliness of manner, such scholarship, such
spirituality, such wise benignity of opinion! I asked the doctor
to explain the Disruption movement to me, and he was most interesting
and lucid, and most affecting, too, when he described the
misunderstandings and misconceptions that the Church suffered in those
terrible days of 1843, when its very life-blood, as well as its
integrity and unity, was threatened by the foes in its own
household; when breaches of faith and trust occurred on all sides,
and dissents and disloyalties shook it to its very foundation! You
see, Penelope, I have never fully understood the disagreements
about heritors and livings and state control before, but here is the
whole matter in a nut-sh--"
"My dear Salemina," I interposed, with dignity, "you will pardon me, I
am sure, when I tell you that any discussion on this point would be
intensely painful to me, as I now belong to the Free Kirk."
"Where have you been this morning?" she asked, with a piercing
glance.
"To St. Andrew's and Tanfield Hall."
"With whom?"
"With the Friar."
"I see! Happy the missionary to whom you incline your ear,
_first_!"--which I thought rather inconsistent of Salemina, as she had
been converted by precisely the same methods and in precisely the same
length of time as had I, the only difference being in the ages of our
respective missionaries, one being about five and thirty, the other
five and sixty. Even this is to my credit after all, for if one can be
persuaded so quickly and fully by a young and comparatively
inexperienced man, it shows that one must be extremely susceptible to
spiritual influences or--something.
IX
Religion in Edinburgh is a theory, a convention, a fashion (both
humble and aristocratic), a sensation, an intellectual conviction, an
emotion, a dissipation, a sweet habit of the blood; in fact, it is, it
seems to me, every sort of thing it can be to the human spirit.
When we had finished our church toilettes, and came into the
drawing-room, on the first Sunday morning, I remember that we found
Francesca at the window.
"There is a battle, murder, or sudden death going on in the square
below," she said. "I am going to ask Susanna to ask Mrs. M'Collop what
it means. Never have I seen such a crowd moving peacefully, with no
excitement or confusion, in one direction. Where can the people be
going? Do you suppose it is a fire? Why, I believe ... it cannot be
possible ... yes, they certainly are disappearing in that big church
on the corner; and millions, simply millions and trillions, are coming
in the other direction,--toward St. Knox's."
Impressive as was this morning church-going, a still greater surprise
awaited us at seven o'clock in the evening, when the crowd blocked the
streets on two sides of a church near Breadalbane Terrace; and though
it was quite ten minutes before service when we entered, Salemina and
I only secured the last two seats in the aisle, and Francesca was
obliged to sit on the steps of the pulpit or seek a sermon elsewhere.
It amused me greatly to see Francesca sitting on pulpit steps, her
Paris gown and smart toque in close juxtaposition to the rusty bonnet
and bombazine dress of a respectable elderly tradeswoman. The church
officer entered first, bearing the great Bible and hymn-book, which he
reverently placed on the pulpit cushions; and close behind him, to our
entire astonishment, came the Reverend Ronald Macdonald, evidently
exchanging with the regular minister of the parish, whom we had come
especially to hear. I pitied Francesca's confusion and embarrassment,
but I was too far from her to offer an exchange of seats, and through
the long service she sat there at the feet of her foe, so near that
she could have touched the hem of his gown as he knelt devoutly for
his first silent prayer.
Perhaps she was thinking of her last interview with him, when she
descanted at length on that superfluity of naughtiness and Biblical
pedantry which, she asserted, made Scottish ministers preach from
out-of-the-way texts.
"I've never been able to find my place in the Bible since I arrived,"
she complained to Salemina, when she was quite sure that Mr. Macdonald
was listening to her; and this he generally was, in my opinion, no
matter who chanced to be talking. "What with their skipping and
hopping about from Haggai to Philemon, Habakkuk to Jude, and Micah to
Titus, in their readings, and then settling on seventh Nahum, sixth
Zephaniah or second Calathumpians for the sermon, I do nothing but
search the Scriptures in the Edinburgh churches,--search, search,
search, until some Christian by my side or in the pew behind me
notices my hapless plight, and hands me a Bible opened at the text.
Last Sunday it was Obadiah first, fifteenth, 'For the day of the Lord
is near upon all the heathen.' It chanced to be a returned missionary
who was preaching on that occasion; but the Bible is full of heathen,
and why need he have chosen a text from Obadiah, poor little Obadiah
one page long, slipped in between Amos and Jonah, where nobody but an
elder could find him?" If Francesca had not seen with wicked delight
the Reverend Ronald's expression of anxiety, she would never have
spoken of second Calathumpians; but of course he has no means of
knowing how unlike herself she is when in his company.
To go back to our first Sunday worship in Edinburgh. The church
officer closed the door of the pulpit on the Reverend Ronald, and I
thought I heard the clicking of a lock; at all events, he returned at
the close of the services to liberate him and escort him back to the
vestry; for the entrances and exits of this beadle, or "minister's
man," as the church officer is called in the country districts, form
an impressive part of the ceremonies. If he did lock the minister into
the pulpit, it is probably only another national custom, like the
occasional locking in of the passengers in a railway train, and may be
positively necessary in the case of such magnetic and popular
preachers as Mr. Macdonald or the Friar.
I have never seen such attention, such concentration, as in these
great congregations of the Edinburgh churches. As nearly as I can
judge, it is intellectual rather than emotional; but it is not a
tribute paid to eloquence alone, it is habitual and universal, and is
yielded loyally to insufferable dullness when occasion demands.
When the text is announced, there is an indescribable rhythmic
movement forward, followed by a concerted rustle of Bible leaves; not
the rustle of a few Bibles in a few pious pews, but the rustle of all
of them in all the pews,--and there are more Bibles in an Edinburgh
Presbyterian church than one ever sees anywhere else, unless it be in
the warehouses of the Bible Societies.
The text is read twice clearly, and another rhythmic movement follows
when the books are replaced on the shelves. Then there is a delightful
settling back of the entire congregation, a snuggling comfortably into
corners and a fitting of shoulders to the pews,--not to sleep,
however; an older generation may have done that under the strain of a
two-hour "wearifu' dreich" sermon, but these church-goers are not to
be caught napping. They wear, on the contrary, a keen, expectant,
critical look, which must be inexpressibly encouraging to the
minister, if he has anything to say. If he has not (and this is a
possibility in Edinburgh, as it is everywhere else), then I am sure it
is wisdom for the beadle to lock him in, lest he flee when he meets
those searching eyes.
The Edinburgh sermon, though doubtless softened in outline in these
later years, is still a more carefully built discourse than one
ordinarily hears out of Scotland, being constructed on conventional
lines of doctrine, exposition, logical inference, and practical
application. Though modern preachers do not announce the division of
their subject into heads and sub-heads, firstlies and secondlies and
finallies my brethren, there seems to be the old framework underneath
the sermon, and everyone recognizes it as moving silently below the
surface; at least, I always fancy that as the minister finishes one
point and attacks another the younger folk fix their eagle eyes on him
afresh, and the whole congregation sits up straighter and listens more
intently, as if making mental notes. They do not listen so much as if
they were enthralled, though they often are and have good reason to
be, but as if they were to pass an examination on the subject
afterwards; and I have no doubt that this is the fact.
The prayers are many, and are divided, apparently, like those of the
liturgies, into petitions, confessions, and aspirations; not
forgetting the all-embracing one with which we are perfectly familiar
in our native land, in which the preacher commends to the Fatherly
care every animate and inanimate thing not mentioned specifically in
the foregoing supplications. It was in the middle of this compendious
petition, "the lang prayer," that rheumatic old Scottish dames used to
make a practice of "cheengin' the fit," as they stood devoutly through
it. "When the meenister comes to the 'ingetherin' o' the Gentiles,' I
ken weel it's time to cheenge legs, for then the prayer is jist half
dune," said a good sermon-taster of Fife.
The organ is finding its way rapidly into the Scottish kirks (how can
the shade of John Knox endure a "kist o' whistles" in good St.
Giles'?), but it is not used yet in some of those we attend most
frequently. There is a certain quaint solemnity, a beautiful
austerity, in the unaccompanied singing of hymns that touches me
profoundly. I am often carried very high on the waves of splendid
church music, when the organ's thunder rolls "through vaulted aisles"
and the angelic voices of a trained choir chant the aspirations of my
soul for me; but when an Edinburgh congregation stands, and the
precentor leads in that noble Paraphrase,
"God of our fathers, be the God
Of their succeeding race,"
there is a certain ascetic fervor in it that seems to me the
perfection of worship. It may be that my Puritan ancestors are mainly
responsible for this feeling, or perhaps my recently adopted Jenny
Geddes is a factor in it; of course, if she were in the habit of
flinging fauldstules at Deans, she was probably the friend of truth
and the foe of beauty, so far as it was in her power to separate
them.
There is no music during the offertory in these churches, and this,
too, pleases my sense of the fitness of things. It cannot soften the
woe of the people who are disinclined to the giving away of money, and
the cheerful givers need no encouragement. For my part, I like to sit,
quite undistracted by soprano solos, and listen to the refined tinkle
of the sixpences and shillings, and the vulgar chink of the pennies
and ha'pennies, in the contribution-boxes. Country ministers, I am
told, develop such an acute sense of hearing that they can estimate
the amount of the collection before it is counted. There is often a
huge pewter plate just within the church door, in which the offerings
are placed as the worshipers enter or leave; and one always notes the
preponderance of silver at the morning, and of copper at the evening
services. It is perhaps needless to say that before Francesca had been
in Edinburgh a fortnight she asked Mr. Macdonald if it were true that
the Scots continued coining the farthing for years and years, merely
to have a piece of money serviceable for church offerings!
As to social differences in the congregations we are somewhat at sea.
We tried to arrive at a conclusion by the hats and bonnets, than which
there is usually no more infallible test. On our first Sunday we
attended the Free Kirk in the morning, and the Established in the
evening. The bonnets of the Free Kirk were so much the more elegant
that we said to one another, "This is evidently the church of society,
though the adjective 'Free' should by rights attract the masses." On
the second Sunday we reversed the order of things, and found the
Established bonnet much finer than the Free bonnets, which was a
source of mystification to us, until we discovered that it was a
question of morning or evening service, not of the form of
Presbyterianism. We think, on the whole, that, taking town and country
congregations together, millinery has not flourished under
Presbyterianism,--it seems to thrive better in the Romish atmosphere
of France; but the Disruption, at least, has had nothing to answer for
in the matter, as it appears simply to have parted the bonnets of
Scotland in twain, as Moses divided the Red Sea, and left good and
evil on both sides.
I can never forget our first military service at St. Giles'. We left
Breadalbane Terrace before nine in the morning and walked along the
beautiful curve of street that sweeps around the base of Castle
Rock,--walked on through the poverty and squalor of the High Street,
keeping in view the beautiful lantern tower as a guiding star, till we
heard
"The murmur of the city crowd;
And, from his steeple, jingling loud,
St. Giles's mingling din."
We joined the throng outside the venerable church, and awaited the
approach of the soldiers from the Castle parade-ground; for it is from
there they march in detachments to the church of their choice. A
religion they must have, and if, when called up and questioned about
it, they have forgotten to provide themselves, or have no preference
as to form of worship, they are assigned to one by the person in
authority. When the regiments are assembled on the parade-ground of a
Sunday morning, the first command is, "Church of Scotland, right about
face, quick march!"--the bodies of men belonging to other
denominations standing fast until their turn comes to move. It is said
that a new officer once gave the command, "Church of Scotland, right
about face, quick march! Fancy releegions, stay where ye are!"
Just as we were being told this story by an attendant squire, there
was a burst of scarlet and a blare of music, and down Castle Hill and
the Lawnmarket into Parliament Square marched hundreds of redcoats,
the Highland pipers (otherwise the Olympian gods) swinging in front,
leaving the American female heart prostrate beneath their victorious
tread. The strains of music that in the distance sounded so martial
and triumphant we recognized in a moment as "Abide with me," and never
did the fine old tune seem more majestic than when it marked a measure
for the steady tramp, tramp, tramp, of those soldierly feet. As "The
March of the Cameron Men," piped from the green steeps of Castle Hill,
had aroused in us thoughts of splendid victories on the battlefield,
so did this simple hymn awake the spirit of the church militant; a no
less stern, but more spiritual soldiership, in which "the fruit of
righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace."
As I fell asleep on that first Sunday night in Edinburgh, after the
somewhat unusual experience of three church services in a single day,
three separate notes of memory floated in and out of the fabric of my
dreams: the sound of the soldiers' feet marching into old St. Giles'
to the strains of "Abide with me;" the voice of the Reverend Ronald
ringing out with manly insistence: "It is aspiration that counts, not
realization; pursuit, not achievement; quest, not conquest!"--and the
closing phrases of the Friar's prayer: "When Christ has forgiven us,
help us to forgive ourselves! Help us to forgive ourselves so fully
that we can even forget ourselves, remembering only Him! And so let
his kingdom come; we ask it for the King's sake, Amen."
X
Even at this time of Assemblies, when the atmosphere is almost
exclusively clerical and ecclesiastical, the two great church armies
represented here certainly conceal from the casual observer all
rivalries and jealousies, if indeed they cherish any. As for the two
dissenting bodies, the Church of the Disruption and the Church of the
Secession have been keeping company, so to speak, for some years, with
a distant eye to an eventual union. In the light of all this pleasant
toleration, it seems difficult to realize that earlier Edinburgh,
where, we learned from old parochial records of 1605, Margaret
Sinclair was cited by the Session of the Kirk for being at the Burne
for water on the Sabbath; that Janet Merling was ordered to make
public repentance for concealing a bairn unbaptized in her house for
the space of twenty weeks and calling said bairn Janet; that Pat
Richardson had to crave mercy for being found in his boat in time of
afternoon service; and that Janet Walker, accused of having visitors
in her house in sermon-time, had to confess her offense and on her
knees crave mercy of God _and_ the Kirk Session (which no doubt was
much worse) under penalty of a hundred pounds Scots. Possibly there
are people yet who would prefer to pay a hundred pounds rather than
hear a sermon, but they are few.
It was in the early seventeen hundred and thirties when Allan Ramsay,
"in fear and trembling of legal and clerical censure," lent out the
plays of Congreve and Farquhar from his famous High Street library. In
1756 it was that the Presbytery of Edinburgh suspended all clergymen
who had witnessed the representation of "Douglas," that virtuous
tragedy written, to the dismay of all Scotland, by a minister of the
Kirk. That the world, even the theological world, moves with tolerable
rapidity when once set in motion, is evinced by the fact that on Mrs.
Siddons' second engagement in Edinburgh, in the summer of 1785, vast
crowds gathered about the doors of the theatre, not at night alone,
but in the day, to secure places. It became necessary to admit them
first at three in the afternoon, and then at noon, and eventually "the
General Assembly of the Church then in session was compelled to
arrange its meetings with reference to the appearance of the great
actress." How one would have enjoyed hearing that Scotsman say, after
one of her most splendid flights of tragic passion, "That's no bad!"
We have read of her dismay at this ludicrous parsimony of praise, but
her self-respect must have been restored when the Edinburgh ladies
fainted by dozens during her impersonation of Isabella in "The Fatal
Marriage."
Since Scottish hospitality is well-nigh inexhaustible, it is not
strange that from the moment Edinburgh streets began to be crowded
with ministers, our drawing-room table began to bear shoals of
engraved invitations of every conceivable sort, all equally unfamiliar
to our American eyes.
"The Purse-Bearer is commanded by the Lord High Commissioner and the
Marchioness of Heatherdale to invite Miss Hamilton to a Garden Party
at the Palace of Holyrood House, on the 27th of May. _Weather
permitting_."
"The General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland admits Miss
Hamilton to any gallery on any day."
"The Marchioness of Heatherdale is At Home on the 26th of May from a
quarter past nine in the evening. Palace of Holyrood House."
"The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland
is At Home in the Library of the New College on Saturday, the 22d May,
from eight to ten in the evening."
"The Moderator asks the pleasure of Miss Hamilton's presence at a
Breakfast to be given on the morning of the 25th of May at Dunedin
Hotel."