FOOTNOTE:
[1] Of the value of this find Prof. Adolf Harnack says: "As the text is almost completely preserved, this Syrus Sinaiticus is one of the most important witnesses; nay, it is extremely probable that it is the most important witness, for our gospels."
CHAPTER X.
From England to Scotland—Eastern Route.
Edinburgh, August 23, 1902.
The Land of the Mountain and the Flood.
Soon after leaving Newcastle-on-Tyne, the marked change in the scenery of the country through which we were passing apprised us of the fact that we had crossed the border, and were now in Scotland. Instead of the level or gently undulating fields tilled like gardens, and the fine oaks and other trees here and there, giving the country a park-like aspect, there were bold hills on every hand, intensely green, without a tree as far as the eye could reach, and dotted only with white sheep. And, instead of the tame rivers, winding lazily through wide meadows, such as we had seen everywhere in England, there were brawling brooks dashing down the ravines with an energy that made them fit symbols of the strenuous activity of the race whose land we were entering. Nothing in a Scottish landscape is more striking to the American eye than the uniform absence of trees on the hills and mountains. There are some forest-clad mountains and ravines, The Trossachs, for instance, as readers of Scott will remember, but in most cases there are only grass, ferns, and heather. This has the effect of throwing the shape of the mountains into much sharper outline to the eye than is the case with our American mountains, with their dense forests.
If we had had the choosing of the conditions under which we should enter Scotland, we would not have changed them in any particular. The afternoon sun was pouring golden light over the hills. The sky was as blue as that of Italy, save occasional masses of snow-white clouds towards the horizon—what one of our party calls "Williams' shaving soap clouds"—and the air, with its abundance of ozone, had an exhilarating and tonic effect such as I have never known anywhere else in midsummer.
The Wizard of the North.
When we left the train at Melrose, and took up our quarters in the Abbey Hotel, we found that our good fortune continued, as our rooms looked right down upon the lovely ruins, and, as we sat watching them, the moon rose slowly over the Tweed, so that we had the opportunity to obey literally the poet's counsel in the Lay of the Last Minstrel—
"If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight."
To one who, like myself, regards Sir Walter Scott as the greatest novelist that ever lived, the opportunity to visit his home at Abbotsford, and his grave at Dryburgh a second time, and to drink in the exquisite beauty of the Tweed Valley at this point, is one to be thankful for indeed.
SIR WALTER SCOTT'S SEAT IN MELROSE ABBEY.
Scott was a reactionary and a royalist, a Tory politically, and a toady socially. He had an unreasoning reverence for kings and courts. He never was in sympathy with his countrymen in their long and bloody, but finally successful, struggle against the tyranny of the church and the state. In Old Mortality, and elsewhere, he slandered the heroic Covenanters, who won the freedom of Scotland. In Woodstock and elsewhere, he caricatured Cromwell and the heroic Puritans, who won the freedom of England. But, with all this, he never wrote anything dirty or degrading, like so much of our latter day fiction. He uniformly exalted bravery, and purity, and honor. Nor should it ever be forgotten that towards the close of his life, when he was overwhelmed by the disaster that befell the publishing house with which he was connected, and when he was thus plunged from independence and affluence into poverty and debt, he gave the world a splendid object lesson of personal honesty, by setting to work, in his old age, to discharge his obligations by continuous, laborious, exhausting work with his pen. He succeeded, but the effort cost him his life. He has given a larger amount of innocent and wholesome pleasure to the reading world than any other writer that ever lived. The unceasing stream of pilgrims to his home at Abbotsford is but one of many indications of his unwaning popularity.
Temporary Residence in Auld Reekie.
Edinburgh at last! No. 4 Atholl Crescent. It was delightful to settle down here, in our rented apartments, after long toil at home and long travel abroad, for a real rest, with just enough walking and hill-climbing daily in and around the city to give us a keen appetite for our meals. Round the bowl of yellow Scotch earthenware, in which our oatmeal porridge was served every morning, ran these lines from Burns:
"Some hae meat that canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it.
But we hae meat an' we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit."
And, as our appetites sharpened more and more, with the snell air of the German Ocean, and the abundant exercise on the heath-clad hills, and the exemption from wearing responsibilities, we entered more and more fully into the sentiment.
By the way, the famous definition given by Dr. Samuel Johnson, in his Dictionary, runs thus, "Oats: A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." "Aye," said a Scotchman, when he heard it, "and see what horses they have in England, and what men we have in Scotland." Dr. Johnson, who, by the way, owes his immortal fame to a Scotchman, affected a dislike for Scotland, and said, among other uncomplimentary things, that the only good road in Scotland was the road that led to England.
Our feeling is exactly contrary to that, and we are so charmed with what a good friend of mine calls "God's country north of the Tweed," its wonderful beauty, its matchless romance, its heroic history, the thronging memories of its unsurpassed services to the causes of religion, liberty, and letters, that we shall find it difficult to tear ourselves away, and take the road to England at all.
But before undertaking to say anything of the vast and fascinating themes just mentioned, let me set down, in the remaining space of this letter, my impressions of certain features of the present-day customs of the Scottish people in their public worship.
Public Worship in Scotland.
In a number of particulars the church usages among Presbyterians in England and Scotland differ from ours in America. It is the universal custom, when entering a pew at the beginning of the service, to bow for a moment or so in silent prayer. Likewise, at the close of the service, when the minister pronounces the benediction upon the standing congregation, all the people bow again in silent prayer before leaving the church. They then rise, and withdraw in a quieter and more reverential manner than is usual with us. In America it is not infrequently the case that the moment the minister says "Amen," at the close of the benediction, the organist pulls out all the stops of his instrument, sweeps the keyboard with might and main, and fills the building with a crashing tempest of sound, apparently a very lively march, not to say a waltz, to the jubilant strains of which the people move down the aisles, while, instead of the subdued greetings that seem more suitable to the sanctuary, they are straining their voices to make themselves heard over the uproar of the music.
Organ, Choir and Congregation.
Even in Scotland, however, the custom of a rather lively postlude from the organ as the people are retiring is growing, as in Free St. Georges, Edinburgh, which has the best organist I have heard in Great Britain, Mr. Hollins. He is blind, but I have never heard a man pour such melody from an organ, or lead a singing congregation more judiciously and effectively with an instrument. At times he leaves the organ quite silent in the midst of the hymn, beating time with his hand, and throwing out the voices of the people themselves. The organ, as he uses it, is not a crutch for a lame congregation to lean on, but a vaulting pole for an active one to spring with. And the singing is magnificent. Happy the church with two ministers such as Dr. Alexander Whyte and the Rev. Hugh Black, and an organist such as Mr. Hollins! Little wonder that the great building is crowded to the doors at every service, and that if one wishes to be sure of a seat he must come a half hour before the time for the service to begin. This is quite easy for us to do, as the apartments which we have occupied for a month are but a few doors above the church. The church music in Scotland is generally far superior to ours in America. Solos and quartettes are almost unknown. The choirs are large, and sit in front of the congregation, just under the pulpit, and regard it as their business, not so much to display their talents in rendering difficult choir pieces as to lead the congregation in this important part of the worship of God. And the people sing, generally and heartily, rolling up to heaven a great volume of praise. I am struck with the fact that the Scotch Presbyterians have continued to use some of the most majestic and uplifting of the ancient hymns, such as the Te Deum, which we in America have in many places ceased to use, substituting for these great hymns of the ages the ephemeral jingles which make up too large a part of our so-called "Gospel Hymns." There is more both of dignity and variety of the right sort in the Scottish church music, secured by the free use of close metrical versions of the Psalms, paraphrases of other parts of Scripture, and anthems of the best type—all sung, mark you, by the whole congregation, and not by the choir only.
Bibles in The Churches.
There is another thing about the Scotch churches that I would like to see introduced into every church in America, and that is the use of the Bible by the people. A book-board is affixed to the back of every pew, running the whole length of it, and on this are laid a sufficient number of hymn-books and Bibles for all the people in the pew behind. When the preacher is about to read his Scripture lesson (there are always two at the morning service, one from the Old Testament, and one from the New), he announces the book and chapter, then pauses a minute while the people turn to the place, and, as he reads, they follow. So, too, when he announces his text. It is an excellent custom. It would be difficult to overstate the value of it. It is not unconnected with the fact that the Scotch people, as a whole, know more about the Bible than any other people in the world.
The International System of Sunday-school Lessons has done more to promote knowledge of the Bible than any other system ever generally used since the modern Sunday-school came into existence, notwithstanding the sweeping and indiscriminating strictures made upon it by some good brethren of late. But that system is certainly capable of improvement. One of the unfortunate results charged to the use of the lesson sheets of the International series is the neglect of the Bible itself. The children, it is said, do not bring their Bibles with them, and do not become familiar with them, as a whole, in the Sunday-school. It is too true in many cases. But are not their seniors equally indifferent about having Bibles in the regular service? How can ministers expect to bring about the desired revival of expository preaching unless they can get Bibles into the hands of the people during the service? Suppose that, like the Scotch, we had an adequate supply of Bibles as a regular part of the equipment of our churches and Sunday-schools, would not this difficulty about the neglect of the Bible, which so many charge to the use of the lesson leaves, be effectually met? Why should there not be at least as good a supply of Bibles in a church as of hymn-books? Never were Bibles so cheap as now.
CHAPTER XI.
Some English and Scotch Preachers.
Edinburgh, August 25, 1902.
London Preachers.
I once received a letter from the late Rev. Dr. William S. Lacy, saying that he had been trying to make use of a certain work in one of the departments of theological study, and asking if I could suggest something "less fearfully jejune," an expression which I have ever since regarded as a masterpiece of characterization. The first sermon I heard in Europe, preached in a cathedral, in 1896, by a clergyman of the English Church, reminded me of it, for it gave me an intense craving for something "less fearfully jejune." One of my ministerial companions remarked that it was about such a discourse as one would expect from a member of the junior class in Union Seminary, which I thought was rather hard on the juniors. The other five sermons that I heard from ministers of the Church of England that year, preached respectively by Canon Holland, Dean Farrar, Dr. Wace, Rev. H. R. Haweis, and Mr. Gray, of Heidelberg, were certainly not jejune, whatever else may be said of them. At Heidelberg we had the good fortune to meet Prof. Gildersleeve, of Baltimore, who is quite at home in the German university towns, and who was very kind to us in every way. He took us to the English Church there. Mr. Gray is a quiet, thoughtful, and edifying preacher—the right kind of man, I should say, for a community of that sort. Canon Holland—a man of far more freshness and vigor—preached in St. Paul's, and, though powerfully built, and with a resonant and well-managed voice, could be heard by only a small portion of the large congregation. It is said that the late Canon Liddon, the foremost preacher of the English Church in his time, broke himself down prematurely by the extraordinary exertions he made to project his voice to the limits of the great crowds which gathered in that vast building to hear him. I have an eccentric friend in New England who calls the cathedrals "Gothic devils," because they hinder the preaching of the gospel. St. Paul's is not Gothic, of course, but it is worse, perhaps, in point of acoustics than any Gothic church whatsoever.
Dean Farrar.
We had the singular good fortune, in 1896, to hear Dean Farrar one evening in Westminster Abbey in a discourse which displayed, to the best possible advantage, the exceeding opulence of his rhetoric. He was trying to raise money for the restoration of Canterbury Cathedral in a manner worthy of its approaching thirteen hundredth anniversary, and his discourse was a review of the work of the English Church and the English nation during these thirteen centuries. What a combination of man and subject and place that was! The most rhetorical eminent preacher of the day, discussing with all the exuberance of his splendid diction such a subject as "England," ecclesiastical and civil, for the last thirteen hundred years, in such a place as Westminster Abbey, surrounded by the tombs and statues of England's mighty dead, the wearers of her crown, and the possessors of her genius, her soldiers, and sailors, and statesmen, her painters, and poets, and philosophers, and preachers—
"Those dead but sceptered sovereigns
Whose spirits still rule us from their urns."
The rich music, the soft light, the dim arches, the white statues, the stirring theme, the sympathetic voice, the luxuriant rhetoric—as the preacher referred, for instance, to "the sea which England has turned from an estranging barrier into an azure marriage ring for the union of the nations"—all conspired to make a unique impression. Dean Farrar's ornate style cloys on the taste sometimes when one reads his books, but when listening to his sermons it was not so. He was a very effective preacher, and, in the notable discourse to which I have just referred, he did not once overlay his thought too thickly with glittering verbiage. As for the other parts of the service I have only to say again that it is an unspeakable pity that a noble service like that of the Church of England (in which, as to its essence, all evangelical people can heartily unite) should be so commonly made a mere matter of mechanical routine, and artificial and absurd recitation.
Mr. Haweis and Dr. Wace.
Mr. Haweis looked like a small edition of the late Henry Ward Beecher—long hair, smooth face, large mouth, but with a peculiar, penetrating voice, and an abrupt, jerky manner. He was unconventional and racy to the last degree, and cut a good many "monkey shines" in the pulpit, which were all the more startling because of his elaborate white clerical vestments—such as resting his elbow on the desk, with his chin in his hand, for the space of five minutes, talking all the time as fast as Phillips Brooks, except for the peculiar "ah! ah!" which he interjected between sentences from time to time, as if unable to find the word he wanted—then letting himself down, and hanging over the pulpit on his armpits, with his arms in front and his body behind. His sermon didn't have anything to do with his text, so far as I could see. He was a Broad Churchman, as broad as Dean Stanley. In fact, he was like the dog of which the train man said, in answer to an inquiry as to the dog's destination, "I don't know, an' 'ee don't know, an' nobody don't know. 'Ee's et his tag."
Dr. Wace, in whom I was interested as one of the stoutest knights who have recently measured lances with the agnostics, preached a well written sermon, in a dull and lifeless way, to a handful of people at Lincoln's Inn Chapel. But we should not forget that there are many Presbyterian ministers who, as one of our secretaries of foreign missions once said, "carry a load of dogmatic theology into the pulpit, and dump it on the people, laboring all the time under the delusion that in so doing they are preaching the gospel."
Spurgeon, Parker and Hughes.
Some years ago a child was asked, "Who is the Prime Minister of England?" and replied, not unnaturally, "Mr. Spurgeon." That Spurgeon has been called up still higher, but in the great Metropolitan Tabernacle, which he built in London, thousands of people still gather Sunday after Sunday to hear the gospel preached by his son and successor, the Rev. Thomas Spurgeon. Of course, he cannot bend the bow of Ulysses. But, for that matter, there is no preacher living who can. Still he is a clear, earnest, effective preacher. We were at the opposite end of the church from him, but heard every word distinctly.
Another dissenting minister, who continues to draw great crowds in London, is Dr. Joseph Parker, and he is probably the ablest preacher in the city, though on the day I first heard him, in 1896, he was so indistinct in his utterances at times that I found it almost impossible to follow him. There was an air of self-importance about him which I trust was only apparent. We heard him again the other day, when he occupied his pulpit for the first time after a long illness. He was quite feeble, and there were only occasional brief flashes of the volcanic fires which used to flame and thunder through his preaching.
I heard the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes also, the leading Methodist preacher of London, in a faithful and striking exposition of Haggai, an excellent expository sermon, just what I did not expect from him, as he has at times been charged with sensationalism.
The Moravians, as is well known, lead the whole Christian world in zeal and liberality in the cause of Foreign Missions. At the Moravian chapel in Fetter Lane we heard a clear and helpful sermon from Mr. Waugh, the minister in charge. After the service he kindly showed us all through the Mission House, the centre of that unique propaganda which, with comparatively small resources, has given the pure gospel to so many remote and needy portions of the globe, and set the pace for all the churches in the work of carrying out the Great Commission. This chapel has some associations with John Wesley; and, remembering the obligations under which he lay to these earnest, evangelical Christians of the Unitas Fratrum, and the part since played by the great Methodist Church in the evangelization of the world, we felt that the Moravian Mission House was an appropriate place in which to recall the character and services of that rightly venerated epoch-maker and man of God who said, "My parish is the world."
I heard a number of rich sermons from Dr. John Hunter, Gipsy Smith, Dr. Thornton, Rev. R. J. Campbell, and Mr. Connell. But the strongest, most spiritual and most comforting sermon I heard in London was preached by the Rev. J. Monro Gibson, D. D., pastor of St. John's Wood Presbyterian Church. That also was an expository sermon, as the best preaching so often is.
General Booth.
The only other man of mark whom I heard in the metropolis was General Booth, organizer, leader, and absolute monarch of the Salvation Army, an old man of spare frame, with shaggy, grisled hair and beard. His voice is not a good one, but he commands perfect attention, and his sermon, which was evidently well thought out, and which, if I remember aright, had but one undignified remark in it, showed the true nature of sin, and laid hold of the conscience with power. When we entered Exeter Hall, which was already nearly full of people, we saw on the platform a band of sixty musicians, in scarlet uniforms, leading the multitude with violins, cornets and drums, in a hymn sung lustily to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne." When the General came on the platform a few minutes later, they received him with a cheer. His sermon was followed by the usual uproarious proceedings. With these, of course, I have no sympathy, nor with the absolute despotism of General Booth, but the Salvation Army has done a vast deal of good among "the submerged tenth." The census taken this year by the London News shows, however, that the Salvation Army is on the decline in that city, and the reason assigned for it is the lack of a body of trained preachers.
But Scotland is the land of preachers. The greatest Scotchman that ever lived was a preacher, and to him, John Knox, Scotland is more indebted for what she is to-day than to any other man.
What Sir Walter Said.
"The Scotch, it is well known, are more remarkable for the exercise of their intellectual powers than for the keenness of their feelings; they are, therefore, more moved by logic than by rhetoric, and more attracted by acute and argumentative reasoning on doctrinal points than influenced by the enthusiastic appeals to the heart and to the passions, by which the popular preachers in other countries win the favor of their hearers." So wrote Sir Walter Scott, and no doubt there is truth in it; but we must not underestimate the quickness and depth of their feelings. It was an apparently hard-natured Scotchman of our own day who wrote the following more balanced estimate, "It's a God's mercy I was born a Scotchman, for I do not see how I could ever have been contented to be anything else. The little, plucky, dour nation, set in her own ways, and getting them, too, level-headed and shrewd, and yet so lovingly weak, so fond, so led away by song or story, so easily touched to fine issues, so real, so true." Carlyle said Burns was the æolian harp of nature against which the rude winds of adversity blew, only to be transmuted in their passage into heavenly music. But no people without tender and strong feelings could have produced or appreciated such a poet as Burns. (By the way, I was astonished to discover, in 1896, that there were more than thirty thousand visitors annually to the birthplace of Burns, as against only twenty thousand to the birthplace of Shakespeare.) Moreover, no people without the right kind of feeling, and plenty of it—aye, and of enthusiasm, too—could have accomplished what Scotland has done. With a rigorous climate and a small country, much of it wild and untillable mountain and moor, and with fewer people in the whole country than in the city of London, Scotland—
"On with toil of heart and knees and hand,
Through the long gorge to the far light hath won
Her path upward and prevailed,"
and to-day she wields an influence in the world out of all proportion to her population and resources. In fact, the Scotch are in many respects the greatest people of modern times.
Dr. Marcus Dods.
But I have wandered from my subject, which was Scotch preaching and preachers. I heard four eminent men in Edinburgh, on my first visit there six years ago—Prof. A. B. Davidson, Prof. Marcus Dods, Dr. Alexander Whyte, and Dr. George Matheson. Prof. Davidson's voice, manner and style were much better adapted to a small class-room, with its detailed linguistic and exegetical methods, than to popular preaching in a large church. But if there was some disappointment in regard to the preaching of the learned and famous author of the Hebrew grammars, and the father of the whole liberal, not to say radical, movement in Biblical Criticism, which has swept all Scotland into its vortex, there was none in regard to that of his brilliant colleague, Dr. Dods. Many of my readers are familiar with the late Dr. Henry C. Alexander's high estimate of Dr. Dods' work on New Testament Introduction, which he used as a textbook in Union Seminary, and with the general excellence of his luminous and suggestive commentaries, though some of them are unfortunately marred by the obtrusion of views which are not altogether satisfactory. But probably few readers, even of his best books, would have expected from him a sermon so sane, and sound, and spiritual as that which I heard from him. It was fully written, and very quietly read, with absolutely no action, and with a modest and even diffident manner, but before he had uttered half a dozen sentences, the originality and power of the thought, and the freshness and vigor of the language, laid the hearer under the spell of a master, and, as he proceeded, first with keen analysis and irrefutable argument, and then with those considerations which can never be adduced save by a man who has had experience, who knows sin, and struggle, and salvation, your sense of the preacher's power was succeeded, or rather accompanied, by a sense of his sympathy, and you were ready to accompany him to his high practical conclusion, and left the church assured that he had, under God, given you a real and abiding spiritual uplift.
Dr. George Matheson.
The only other man who impressed me deeply, on my former visit to Edinburgh, was Dr. Matheson. He is antipodal to Prof. Dods in his style of preaching. He is blind, as you know, and was led in from the vestry to the pulpit, a large man, with gray hair and beard, and a ruddy and radiant face, despite his sightless eyes, as though he walked continually in the white vision of the Invisible. His short, fervent, pointed prayers seemed to put every earnest hearer into sensible communion with the Father of our spirits, and his sermon on the great disappointments and mysteries of life was most satisfying and comforting, and was delivered with rare animation and unction, the rich fancy and glowing language justifying the remark made to me afterwards by an eminent Scotchman, that Matheson was a poet as well as a preacher. I must add that some of my friends who went to hear him afterwards, on the ground of my enthusiastic recommendation, were disappointed, saying that his exegesis was illegitimate, and that he treated his text after the manner of Origen and the Allegorizers. But we must remember that even Spurgeon was often guilty of that. This does not excuse it, of course. It only shows that a man may sometimes do it, and yet be a great preacher.
Dr. Whyte and Mr. Black.
Dr. Whyte, of Free St. George's, is reckoned by many the ablest preacher in Edinburgh. I was in his church on my former visit to Scotland, when he preached a deeply moving sermon in connection with a communion service. Unfortunately for us, he was absent from the city during the whole of our stay this time. But his brilliant young associate, the Rev. Hugh Black, leaves one no ground for complaint as to the quality of the preaching in Edinburgh in the summer. He is a very highly cultivated man, and an original and suggestive preacher, but with no special advantages of manner. He is slender, pallid, nervous, with a rather pleasing voice in its lower tones, but of limited range, breaking if he attempts to raise it. This shuts him out from some of the best oratorical effects. But what he lacks in voice and manner he makes up in richness of matter, and finish of style. He is well known as the author of Friendship and Culture and Restraint, two books which have had a wide circulation in America. We have made his church our regular place of worship, and have been drawn away from it only occasionally by the desire to hear such well-known veterans as Dr. McGregor, of St. Cuthbert's Established Church, and Dr. Hood Wilson, the retiring pastor of Barclay Free Church. This last, by the way, is a curious, but rather striking stone building, with the most hideous interior I have ever seen. It is a night-mare of bad taste.
We have heard at other times Prof. Orr, author of various works of value in the department of Dogmatic Theology, the Rev. P. Carnegie Simpson, of Glasgow, author of The Fact of Christ, and the Rev. Thomas Burns, F. R. S. E., author of a unique and sumptuous work on Old Scottish Communion Plate.
The Inevitable Subject.
To Mr. Burns I am indebted for an introduction to Prof. Sayce, of Oxford, and for a delightful hour at tea with the famous archæologist and author in his house at Edinburgh, where he spends most of the summer. He generally lives on a houseboat on the Nile in winter, and the weather in Edinburgh this summer has been such as to make him long for that houseboat, and that soft Egyptian climate more than ever. When we reached the city a month ago, we found much the same kind of weather that greeted Mary Queen of Scots on her return from France, and of which John Knox wrote as follows, "The very face of heaven did manifestlie speak what comfort was brought to this country with hir—to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness and all impiety—for in the memorie of man never was seen more dolorous face of the heavens than was at her arryvall ... the myst was so thick that skairse micht onie man espy another; and the sun was not seyn to shyne two days befoir nor two days after." We had mists a plenty, but it was the cold weather and the rain that interfered most with our plans. It actually did rain nearly every day, and often four or five times a day, not mere showers, but drenching rains. In fact, the kind of weather we had nearly all the time, not only in Edinburgh, but throughout Scotland and England, gave us a keen appreciation of the following story of the London weather which we find in the Manchester Guardian:
"The scene was a Strand omnibus. A leaden sky was overhead, the rain poured down uncompromisingly, mud was underfoot. A red-capped Parsee, who had been sitting near the dripping driver, got down as the conductor came up. 'What sort o' chap is that,' asked the driver. 'Don't yer know that,' answered the conductor. 'Why, that's one o' them Indians that worship the sun!' 'Worships the sun?' said the shivering driver. 'I suppose 'e's come over 'ere to 'ave a rest!'
"This recalls the reply given on one occasion by an Eastern potentate to Queen Victoria, who asked him whether his people did not worship the sun. 'Yes, your Majesty,' said the Oriental, 'and if you saw him you would worship him also.'"
However, if I begin to write about Scotch weather, I shall never get back to my proper subject, which is Scotch preaching.
CHAPTER XII.
Echoes of a Spicy Book on Scotland.
Edinburgh, August 26, 1902.
Unique Prayer for Prince Charlie.
The mention of St. Cuthbert's, where we heard an excellent coronation sermon by Dr. McGregor, reminds me of the prayer offered in St. Cuthbert's by the Rev. Neill McVicar, in 1745, just after the Young Pretender had won the battle of Prestonpans. A message was sent to the Edinburgh ministers, in the name of "Charles Prince Regent," desiring them to open their churches next day as usual. McVicar preached to a large congregation, many of whom were armed Highlanders, and prayed for George II., the reigning monarch, and also for Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, in the following terms, "Bless the king! Thou knowest what king I mean. May the crown sit long upon his head! As for that young man who has come among us to seek an earthly crown, we beseech thee to take him to thyself, and give him a crown of glory!"
One of our pleasant excursions, of which we have made many since coming to Edinburgh, was to the field of Prestonpans, where the Young Pretender won his delusive victory, a field made familiar to many by the vivid description in Waverley. An aged tree, now supported and braced by iron rods and wires, is pointed out as that under which the Pretender stood during part of the engagement. Under this tree, in the tall wheat, overlooking the peaceful fields and the shining sea, our photographers insisted that a picture should be taken of some of the party, weary and dusty, and I fear untidy as we were. Half a mile away, and within a few feet of the railway, stands the monument to Col. Gardiner, who was killed in this battle, and of whom Scott gives such a striking account in the first of his immortal romances.
Church-going in Edinburgh.
But there I go again, instead of finishing the subject of church services. In Kate Douglas Wiggin's sparkling volume, entitled Penelope's Progress, there is an amusing description of the perplexity of a young woman from America, on noticing from her window the great crowds of people on the streets of Edinburgh on Sunday morning, her speculations as to the cause—"Do you suppose it is a fire?"—and her amazement at discovering that they were all going to church. And truly the Scotch people are great church-goers. Nothing like it is ever seen on our side of the ocean, except in the predominantly Scotch cities of Canada.
"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.
The Bibles.
"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.
DRILL OF HIGHLANDERS, EDINBURGH CASTLE.
"The text is read twice clearly, and another rhythmical 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 (the pulpit) lest he flee when he meets those searching eyes.
The Sermon.
"The Edinburgh sermon, though doubtless softened in outline in these later years, is still a more carefully built discourse than one ordinarily hears outside 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 subheads, firstlies and secondlies and finallies my brethren, there seems to be the old framework underneath the sermon, and every one 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.
"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 Scotch dames used to make a practice of 'cheengin' the fit,' as they stood devoutly through it. 'When the meenister comes to the "ingatherin' o' the Gentiles," I ken weel it's time to change legs, for then the prayer is jist half dune,' said a good sermon-taster of Fife.
The Music.
"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."
Jenny Geddes and her Stool.
Ah! yes. Jenny Geddes. Of course, we made a point of attending service frequently in St. Giles, where that redoubtable assailant of "the papists and their apists" hurled her memorable missile. I trust the story is well known to many of my readers, especially our young people, but perhaps all are not familiar with the extremely racy version of it written by the late Professor Stuart Blackie, one of the most brilliant and versatile men of the age, and given to me by a kinswoman of his, whose charming hospitality I once had the privilege of enjoying for two weeks; so I will embody that version of it in my letter.
The Song of Mistress Jenny Geddes.
Tune: "The British Grenadiers."
Some praise the fair Queen Mary, and some the good Queen Bess,
And some the wise Aspasia beloved by Pericles;
But o'er all the world's brave women, there's one that bears the rule,
The valiant Jenny Geddes that flung the three-legged stool.
Chorus: With a row dow, at them now—
Jenny, fling the stool!
'Twas the 23rd of July in the 1637,
On Sabbath morn, from high St. Giles the solemn peal was given;
King Charles had sworn that Scottish men should pray by printed rule,
He sent a book, but never dreamt of danger from a stool.
Chorus: With a row dow, yes I trow,
There's danger in a stool.
The Council and the Judges, with ermined pomp elate,
The Provost and the Bailies, in gold and crimson state,
Fair silken vested ladies, grave Doctors of the School,
Were there to please the king and learn the virtue of a stool.
Chorus: With a row dow, yes I trow,
There's virtue in a stool.
The Bishop and the Dean cam' in, wi' mickle gravity,
Right smooth and sleek, but lordly pride was lurking in their e'e,
Their full lawn sleeves were blown and big like seals in briny pool,
They bare a book, but little thought they soon would feel a stool.
Chorus: With a row dow, yes I trow,
They'll feel a three-legged stool.
The Dean, he to the Altar went, and with a solemn look,
He cast his eyes to heaven and read the curious printed book;
In Jenny's heart the blood upwelled, with bitter anguish full,
Sudden she started to her legs, and stoutly grasped the stool.
Chorus: With a row dow, at them now—
Firmly grasp the stool!
As when a mountain wildcat springs on a rabbit small,
So Jenny on the Dean springs with gush of holy gall—
"Wilt thou say mass at my lug, ye popish-puling fool?
Ho! no!" she said, and at his head she flung the three-legged stool.
Chorus: With a row dow, at them now—
Jenny, fling the stool!
A bump! a thump! a smash! a crash! Now, gentlefolks beware!
Stool after stool, like rattling hail, came tirling thro' the air,
With "Well done, Jenny! Bravo, Jenny! That's the proper tool!
When the Deil will out and shows his snout, just meet him with a stool."
Chorus: With a row dow, at them now—
There's nothing like a stool.
The Council and the Judges were smitten with strange fear,
The ladies and the Bailies their seats did deftly clear,
The Bishop and the Dean went in sorrow and in dool,
And all the popish flummery fled when Jenny showed the stool.
Chorus: With a row dow, at them now—
Jenny, fling the stool!
And thus a radiant deed was done by Jenny's valiant hand,
Black prelacy and popery she drove from Scottish land,
King Charles, he was a shuffling knave, Priest Laud a meddling fool,
But Jenny was a woman wise, who beat them with a stool.
Chorus: With a row dow, yes I trow,
She beat them with a stool.
The Disruption in 1843.
Of course, too, we visited St. Andrew's Church, in the newer part of the city, on the other side of the great, picturesque ravine which divides the old town from the new, because it was the scene of another epoch-making event in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland, viz., the Disruption of 1843. Unable to abolish the patronage of livings, by which certain heritors or patrons could appoint any minister they wished to a vacant pastorate, without the consent of the congregation, Dr. Chalmers and his party decided to take a very bold step in order to preserve the freedom of the church. When the Assembly met in St. Andrew's Church, in the presence of a great body of spectators, while a vast throng outside awaited the result with almost breathless interest, though not really believing that any large number of the ministers would relinquish their homes and salaries for the sake of a "fantastic principle," all expectations were surpassed when the Moderator, after reading a formal protest signed by one hundred and twenty ministers and seventy-two elders, left his place, and was followed first by Dr. Chalmers, and then by four hundred and seventy men, who marched in a body to Tanfield Hall, and there organized 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!" Well might the Scottish minister remind his American visitor of Lord Macaulay's remark that the Scots had made sacrifices for the sake of religious opinion for which there was no parallel in the annals of England. Many of my readers are familiar with the exceedingly impressive appearance of this Disruption Assembly, from the well-known engraving, a copy of which hangs in the Reading Room of the Spence Library, at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond.
A Sermon-taster with a Nippy Tongue.
It would never do, when speaking of church matters in Edinburgh, to omit Penelope's account of her landlady's breezy comments on the different preachers.
"It is to Mrs. McCollop that we owe our chief insight into technical church matters, although we seldom agree with her 'opeenions' after we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does she confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but roves from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life, often, however, according to her own account, getting a particularly indigestible 'stane.'
"She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she is making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large and impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the 'meenistry' creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's sermon-taster a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now see that she is truth itself.
"'Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?' suggested Mrs. McCollop, spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. 'Wha did he hear the Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A.? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been there for fifteen years and mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon—off an' on!' with an emphasis showing clearly that in her estimation the times when he is 'off' outnumber those when he is 'on.'... 'Ye have na heard auld Dr. B. yet?' (Here she tucks in the upper sheet tidily at the foot.) 'He's a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B., forbye he's growin' maist awfu' dreich in his sermons, though when he's that wearisome a body canna heed him withoot takin' peppermints to the kirk, he's nane the less, at seventy-sax, a better mon than the new asseestant. Div ye ken the new asseestant? He's a wee bit finger-fed mannie, ower sma' maist to wear a goon! I canna thole him, wi' his lang-nebbit words, explainin' and expoundin' the gude Book as if it had jist come oot! The auld doctor's nae kirk-filler, but he gi'es us fu' measure, pressed down an' rinnin' over, nae bit pickin's like the haverin' asseestant; it's my opeenion he's no sound, wi' his parleyvoos and his clishmaclavers!... Mr. C.?' (Now comes the shaking and straightening and smoothing of the first blanket.) 'Ay, he's weel eneuch! I mind ance he prayed for our Free Assembly, an' then he turned roun' an' prayed for the Established, maist in the same breath—he's a broad, leeberal mon, is Mr. C.!... Mr. D.? Ay, I ken him fine; he micht be waur, though he's ower fond o' the kittle pairts o' the Old Testament; but he reads his sermon from the paper, an' it's an auld sayin', If a meenister canna mind [remember] his ain discoors, nae mair can the congregation be expectit to mind it.... Mr. E.? He's my ain meenister.' (She has a pillow in her mouth now, but though she is shaking it as a terrier would a rat, and drawing on the linen slip at the same time, she is still intelligible between the jerks.) 'Susanna says his sermon is like claith made o' soond 'oo [wool] wi' a' gude twined thread, an' wairpit an' weftit wi' doctrine. Susanna kens her Bible weel, but she's never gaed forrit.' (To 'gang forrit' is to take the communion.) 'Dr. F.? I ca' him the greetin' doctor. He's aye dingin' the dust oot o' the poopit cushions, an' greetin' ower the sins o' the human race, an' eespecial'y of his ain congregation. He's waur syne his last wife sickened an' slippit awa'. 'T was a chastenin' he'd put up wi' twice afore, but he grat nane the less. She was a bonnie bit body, was the third Mistress F.! E'nbro could 'a' better spared the greetin' doctor than her, I'm thinkin'.
'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away according to his good will and pleasure,' I ventured piously, as Mrs. McCollop beat the bolster and laid it in place.
'Ou ay,' responded that good woman, as she spread the counterpane over the pillows in the way I particularly dislike; 'ou ay, but whiles I think it's a peety he couldna be guidit!'"
Scottish and American Repartee.
Finally, I cannot refrain from quoting Francesca's account of the peppery conversation she had with the young Scottish minister with whom she was destined to fall in love. She returned from the dinner, at which she had met him, all out of sorts:
"How did you get on with your delightful minister?" inquired Salemina.... "He was quite the handsomest man in the room; who is he?"
"He is the Reverend Ronald Macdonald, and the most disagreeable, condescending, ill-tempered prig I ever met!"
"Why, Francesca!" I exclaimed. "Lady Baird speaks of him as her favorite nephew, and says he is full of charm."
"He is just as full of charm as he was when I met him," returned the girl nonchalantly; "that is, he parted with none of it this evening. He was incorrigibly stiff and rude, and oh! so Scotch! I believe if one punctured him with a hat pin, oatmeal would fly into the air!"
"Doubtless you acquainted him, early in the evening, with the immeasurable advantages of our sleeping-car system, the superiority of our fast-running elevators, and the height of our buildings?" observed Salemina.
"I mentioned them," Francesca answered evasively.
"You naturally inveighed against the Scotch climate?"
"Oh! I alluded to it; but only when he had said that our hot summers must be insufferable."
"I suppose you repeated the remark you made at luncheon, that the ladies you had seen in Princes Street were excessively plain?"
"Yes, I did," she replied hotly; "but that was because he said that American girls generally looked bloodless and frail. He asked if it were really true that they ate chalk and slate pencils. Was'n't that unendurable? I answered that those were the chief solid articles of food, but that after their complexions were established, so to speak, their parents often allowed them pickles and native claret to vary the diet."
"What did he say to that?" I asked.
"'Oh!' he said, 'quite so, quite so'; that was his invariable response to all my witticisms. Then, when I told him casually that the shops looked very small and dark and stuffy here, and that there were not as many tartans and plaids in the windows as we had expected, he remarked, that as to the latter point, the American season had not opened yet! Presently, he asserted that no royal city in Europe could boast ten centuries of such glorious and stirring history as Edinburgh. I said it did not appear to be stirring much at present, and that everything in Scotland seemed a little slow to an American; that he could have no idea of push or enterprise until he visited a city like Chicago. He retorted that, happily, Edinburgh was peculiarly free from the taint of the ledger and the counting-house; that it was Weimar without a Goethe, Boston without its twang!"
"Incredible!" cried Salemina, deeply wounded in her local pride. "He never could have said 'twang' unless you had tried him beyond measure!"
"I dare say I did; he is easily tried," returned Francesca. "I asked him, sarcastically, if he had ever been in Boston. 'No,' he said, 'it is not necessary to go there! And while we are discussing these matters,' he went on, 'how is your American dyspepsia these days—have you decided what is the cause of it?'"
"'Yes, we have,' said I, as quick as a flash; 'we have always taken in more foreigners than we could assimilate!' I wanted to tell him that one Scotsman of his type would upset the national digestion anywhere, but I restrained myself."
"I am glad you did restrain yourself—once," exclaimed Salemina.
And so on, with Francesca's characterization of the Forth Bridge as the national idol, her inability to tell which way to turn a drawing of it so as to make the bridge right side up, his asking her if doughnuts resembled peanuts, and his telling her he had heard that the ministers' salaries in America were sometimes paid in pork and potatoes, his comments on international marriages, and her conclusion, as she retired that night, "I doubt if I can sleep for thinking what a pity it is that such an egotistic, bumptious, pugnacious, prejudiced, insular, bigoted person should be so handsome!"
That is an excellent little volume to give one an idea of the kind of international clashes that are continually occurring in Edinburgh nowadays. But we, being more intent upon getting into the more ancient atmosphere of Scotland, give most of our evenings to the reading aloud, in the family circle, of Rob Roy, and the like, in preparation for our proposed tour of the Highlands, while the older members of the party acquaint themselves afresh with the Heart of Midlothian, The Monastery, The Abbot, and the other works of the Wizard of the North, whose scenes are laid at or near "Edina, Scotia's darling seat."
CHAPTER XIII.
Is the Scottish Character Degenerating?
Edinburgh, August 27, 1902.
"Mine Own Romantic Town."
Our stay in Edinburgh has come to an end. It has been a delightful month in spite of the weather. Claudius Clear says, "Edinburgh is so beautiful that, for love of her face, she is forgiven her bitter east winds," adding that "there is a keenness, a rawness, a chilliness in the air, which you do not find in South Britain." So there is, and yet we have been out of doors a great deal, and have threaded her streets and closes, and climbed her heights in every direction—Arthur's Seat, Salisbury Crags, Calton Hill, The Castle, Corstorphine, The Braid Hills, The Pentlands—and made excursions to the Forth Bridge, Hawthornden, Rosslyn, Duddingston (where the minister most kindly showed us, between showers, everything of interest in and around the little church in which Sir Walter Scott was once an elder), Craigmillar Castle, Musselburgh, North Berwick, Bass Rock (the dungeons of which were once filled with Covenanters, whose only offence was adhering to the form of religion which the king had bound himself by his coronation oath to maintain), Tantallon Castle, with its memories of Marmion, and Rullion Green, with its memories of the Martyrs, and, of course, within the city, Greyfriars Churchyard, The Grassmarket, Holyrood and the rest. What a wealth of beauty and history and romance!
The Seamy Side of Edinburgh.
Yet there are some very criticizable things about Edinburgh, such as the unseemly billing and cooing of lovers of the servant class in public places, for instance the Princes Street Gardens, where they may be seen at almost any hour of the day embracing each other in the most unblushing manner, apparently oblivious of the passing multitude. There may be just as much of this going on in the parks of other cities, but the peculiar position of these lovely gardens in the great, green hollow in the very centre of the city, in plain view of the most crowded streets, and the most popular hotels, makes this impropriety more obtrusive here than it is anywhere else.
PRINCES STREET, EDINBURGH.
But worse than this are the ever-present proofs of the poverty, wretchedness and degradation of great numbers of the people. The slums of Edinburgh are more constantly in evidence than those of any other city in the world. The reason for this is not that the slums are more populous or worse than those of other cities, but that the parts of Edinburgh which are of the greatest interest to visitors, viz., the High Street, from the Castle to Holyrood, and the adjacent districts, where the great families once lived, and where the most memorable events of the city's history occurred, the parts made familiar to all readers by the writings of Sir Walter Scott and the historians of Scotland, have long since been abandoned by the better classes, and are now occupied by the poorest and most degraded. So that every reading person who visits Edinburgh is brought face to face, day after day, with all this squalor and misery; and it is so different from what one naturally expects to find in Scotland, and especially in this ancient and wealthy seat of learning, that it makes a very strong impression upon the imagination—an impression so strong that it is scarcely counterbalanced, even by long sojourn in the scrupulously clean residential sections, on either side of this filthy and festering centre.
Cause of her Wretchedness.
Why should there be such a plague spot in the heart of Edinburgh? The explanation cannot be found in any lack of native ability on the part of Scotchmen to overcome the conditions that bring about abject poverty. It is universally conceded that in the qualities which make for success in life the Scots are well-nigh unrivalled. Mr. Andrew Carnegie is a pre-eminent example, but the thrift of Scotchmen in general is a proverb. [2]
Nor can the explanation of the dire poverty and wretchedness seen in Scotch cities be found in their disregard of the Sabbath rest and the Sabbath worship, as in the case of some other European peoples, though there seems to be of late some relaxation of their rigid sabbatarianism. Their strictness in this matter has been the subject of many a good story. One is told of a little girl in Aberdeen, who brought a basket of strawberries to the minister's, very early Monday morning.
"Thank you, my little girl, they are very nice,", said the minister; "but I hope you did not pick them yesterday, for it was Sunday, you know."
"No, sir," replied the child, "but," she added, with some dismay, "they were growing all day yesterday."
A devout Scottish minister once stopped at a country inn, in the northern part of his native land, to pass the Sunday. The day was rainy and close, and toward night, as he sat in the little parlor of the inn, he suggested to his landlady that it would be desirable to have one of the windows raised, so that they might have some fresh air in the room.
"Mon," said the old woman, with stern disapproval written plainly on her rugged face, "dinna ye ken that ye can hae no fresh air in this hoose on the Sawbath?"
Another is related by Dr. Thomas Guthrie, in his autobiography. It was Sunday morning, and Guthrie was preaching, away from home. After breakfast, he asked his host for a cup of hot water to shave with. "Whist, whist," was the response; "if ye wanted hot water for your toddy, 'twould be all right; but if this congregation kenned that ye called for water to shave with, there wad nae be a soul in the kirk to hear ye."
The Curse of Strong Drink.
This last incident brings us in sight of the true explanation of Edinburgh's misery. The great curse of Scotland is drunkenness. The real cause of the deplorable change that seems to be taking place in the character of her people is intemperance. Mr. Charles E. Price, of the well-known firm of McVittie & Price, who is the prospective Liberal candidate for the Central Division of Edinburgh, in a recent address, made after a visit to our country, says he was struck with the general sobriety of the American people. He did not see eight persons drunk on the streets during his three months' tour, and he contrasts this showing with the gross drunkenness seen on the streets of Edinburgh. He quotes the startling figures in the letter of Lord Balfour of Burleigh, to the Lord Provost of Glasgow, taken from the annual report of the Commissioners of Prisons, according to which the number of commitments during the twelve months, 1900-1901, was, for England, 571 per hundred thousand of the population, and for Ireland, 793, and for Scotland, 1,402! That is, nearly twice as many for Scotland as for Ireland, and nearly three times as many for Scotland as for England. "Ah!" I said to myself sorrowfully, "whiskey again." Such was the comment of Mr. John A. Steuart, the Scottish author and social reformer, when this shocking official statement appeared in the newspapers; and, referring to Lord Balfour of Burleigh's declaration, that the time has come when it is necessary to consider whether a large new prison should not be erected, he adds, "That is the commentary of your Secretary of State on the morality of the countrymen of John Knox." Mr. Steuart goes on to show that the national drink bill, direct and indirect, amounts to the enormous sum of £300,000,000. "Three hundred millions sterling and one hundred thousand human lives, that is the yearly expense of maintaining the publican. The South African war cost us altogether 20,000 lives; during the period it lasted the drink traffic cost us upwards of 250,000, that is to say, for every soldier who died in South Africa, from wounds or disease, twelve men and women in Britain perished miserably from strong drink. Let Christian people think of it.... Nothing is more certain than this, that religion and the drink traffic cannot flourish together, and one of them is flourishing terribly now.... If the church does not gird herself promptly and vigorously to dispose of the drink traffic, the drink traffic will assuredly dispose of the church." In an American journal I find the statement that, in writing to Dr. T. L. Cuyler recently, sending him a generous contribution to the National Temperance Society, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, after expressing his deep interest in the temperance cause, added, "The best temperance lecture I have delivered lately was my offer of ten per cent. premium on their wages to all employees on my Scottish estates who will abstain from intoxicating liquors."
What Mr. Carnegie Thinks.
Speaking still more recently, at an entertainment at Govan, Scotland, Mr. Carnegie said "he wished his countrymen would take to their hearts that the one blot upon the people of Scotland was that they often fell from true manhood through the use of intoxicating liquor. There was a saying in America that a totally abstaining Scotsman could not be beaten, and wherever a Scot has fallen, it was, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, the result of intemperance. Every Scotsman at home or abroad had in his keeping part of the honor of Scotland, and Scotland having so much more honor per man than other lands, it followed that every Scot carried a greater load of honor than the man of other lands. He wished that every word of his to workmen in Scotland would cause them to reflect upon that, and to resolve that henceforth they would never disgrace either themselves or the land that gave them birth. The only defect of the Scot, compared with the man of other lands, was that of intemperance, which, however, he rejoiced to know, was steadily decreasing."
A Lesser Menace.
One other ominous feature of present day conditions in Scotland I find referred to in the following clipping from a British journal:
"In Edinburgh of late the Jesuits have been showing unwonted activity. Owing partly to the unsettling effect of Biblical criticism upon the average mind, and partly to some utterances by some of the leading ministers in the Scottish churches, the Society has evidently deemed the moment opportune for pressing the claims of Rome upon the Scottish people. In their spokesman, Father Power, who addresses a great gathering every Sabbath evening in the open, they have an instrument well fitted for their purpose. Of fine presence, manifest learning, and no mean orator, he is bound to make an impression on some minds. Here is one sentence from his last lecture. After referring to the utterance of a noted Scottish divine in the General Assembly, reflecting on some passage in the Confession of Faith, he said, 'So that fundamental basis being removed (the Confession), the Presbyterian Church collapsed like a house of cards. And hence I say that the Catholic Church has an opportunity, let us hope a God-given one, for entering the field once occupied by our late lamented sister.'"
But he would be a sanguine man, indeed, who could believe that the people of Scotland generally would ever become Roman Catholics. For one thing, there is too much printing there. For the Vicar of Croyden was a true prophet when he said, in the early days of the Reformation, "We must root out printing, or printing will root out us."