“Well, you see, Alan,” said he, “what you call the ‘English’ Church is not the English Church at all; the Episcopalians are really and truly the representatives of the Christians of long ago who first brought the gospel into this country. You’ve read in your school history about St. Columba coming over from the north of Ireland in his ‘curragh’ and settling with his followers on the island of Iona, haven’t you?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Lindsay, but the maister told us that he was exactly like oor ain ministers, and that he had nae bishops in his kirk, and nane o’ the forms and ceremonies that the Papists and Prelatists hae nooadays.”
“Weel, I canna juist speak as decidedly and dogmatically as Mr. Angus does; but I am sure o’ one thing—Columba and his Culdees used the same kind o’ prayer book that was used at that time all over Europe, and ony reader of church history kens that it spak’ o’ a three-fold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons; and they used the same kind of forms for baptisms, marriages, burials, and for the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; and a’ the records that hae come down frae these Culdees show that they kept Christmas, and Easter, and a’ the rest of the great festivals, just as the Episcopalians do. So you see, the original form of Christianity in this country was the same as in England.”
“Weel, but why do they ca’ the Presbyterian the ‘Auld Kirk’? Surely the kirk which had bishops was the auldest kirk!”
“Aye, noo ye’ve hit the mark—that’s just what it is. For a lang time the Christianity planted by St. Columba and his followers was simple and primitive and pure, but sometime before what we call the ‘Middle Ages’ the church began to get a great deal of power, even in civil matters; abuses crept in. The Bishop of Rome was allowed to usurp authority in this land, which never belonged to him. In the sixteenth century the papal power ruled everywhere—and in Scotland the corruptions in discipline which it brought about were worse than in any other part of the west. The bishops and clergy came actually to be held in contempt among the people, who really tried to be religious. Then came what we call the Protestant ‘Reformation.’ Things were so bad in Scotland that it seemed to the reformers of no use to try and purify the old system; they resolved to bring in a new order of things altogether; and so by an act of parliament passed in Edinburgh in 1560 they destroyed the old church and in its place put an entirely new church, invented by themselves, and established by themselves. The bishops who were put down must have been poor successors of the Apostles, for they submitted with a feeble show of protest. For more than a hundred years those who still clung to the old ways had to do without bishops, and it is to the credit of many that they kept their allegiance to the ways of the Primitive Church, as individuals and small communities, when there was so much to tempt them to go with the crowd.”
III. The Old Aumrie
IN the rural districts of Scotland, forty years ago, the parish schools had no summer vacation; autumn was the holiday season. We schoolboys envied the lot of the lads who had returned from college and were enjoying all the fishing and fun of the first summer days; eagerly we watched the ripening of the fields of oats and barley, and when Jeemes Dewar, the village oracle, proclaimed to the worthies in smithy assembled that Hillton would begin reaping on the following Monday, you may be sure we spread the news like wildfire. When school prayers were over on Wednesday morning we waited breathlessly for the announcement of the vacation. And we were not disappointed.
“You may tell your parents that the holidays will begin on Monday, and the closing exercise will take place on Friday of this week.”