How ought the teaching of both to be received?—With an humble, teachable disposition of mind.
Does God teach the animal species?—Yes; he teaches them by putting what is called natural instincts in them.
Seeing that the human species have not only an animal body but also a rational soul, how does God teach them?—He teaches them by nature and revelation.
How does God teach them by nature? He teaches them by nature, by putting natural instincts in them, though not to the same extent as in animals.
How does God teach them by revelation?—By putting spiritual instincts in them. The unconverted have no spiritual instincts, are entirely influenced by a depraved nature, under the power of sin and Satan. But when God teaches them, he destroys the power of sin, puts spiritual instincts in them; they get an unction from the Holy One. The spiritual instincts of the converted differ as much from those of the unconverted as the natural instincts of the sheep differ from those of the wolf.
The same God who by instinct taught the ewe and the moor-hen to love their young and to care for them; the same God by instinct has taught the mother to love her child and to care for it. And as the same God by instinct has taught the former a language to express their kindness which by instinct their young can comprehend; so in like manner he has taught a language to mothers to express their kindness, which the instinct and ultimately the reason of their offspring can comprehend. The native languages of the Highlands and Lowlands are as much the languages of nature, of what nature taught them, as the bleating of sheep or the lowing of cattle. God has given the best languages to beasts and birds that could be given to them. The Gaelic (and I say the same of the broad Scotch) is the best that could be given to Highlanders in all the relations of life, and for keeping them a united, a happy, and a contented people. Yes, and the best medium for conveying the knowledge of God our Saviour to their minds. This, then, is the language which a gracious God in great kindness gave unto them.
But there is another great being—man—who frequently sets himself up in opposition to the great God, as if he were wiser and disposed to be kinder than what he is. He also must give a language of his own making, which he has made up in a great measure from dead languages. He looks upon his own language as greatly superior to theirs—more learned, more refined, more respectable, and more genteel. Sets his extraordinary machinery agoing, gets schools and schoolmasters established all over the kingdom to teach, not one word of the languages which God taught the people, but his own; gives prizes to his scholars, and rewards the best of them by giving them honorary titles—Bachelor of Arts, and Master of Arts, &c.—puffing them up to the very skies. Thus the artificial English comes in direct opposition to the native languages of the country, calling them vulgar. God their author might as well be called so.
It comes and ingratiates itself with the pride and the vanity of the higher class of society. They were too high before, but it gives them their heart’s desire, it exalts them to the very clouds. It comes, and instead of bringing a blessing in its train, brings a curse; instead of regenerating, actually degenerates society. It found people united—the rich and the poor, the high and the low—in a society of brotherhood, knit together by the same language. The Highlanders by their Gaelic and the Lowlanders by their broad Scotch, living together in mutual friendship, the one looking upon the other’s language as that which the God of nature taught them. But the great man comes with his pure English and snaps the link in the chain asunder that united the rich and the poor, the high and the low together—puts a complete separation between them—removes the former from the common brotherhood, and exalting them as high above their heads as if they were a race of foreigners and not of the same species at all. There is your handiwork, proud man, who would be as gods. Those who have received the language you have prepared for them are exalted, many of them, above common mortals, as if they were gods. Yet they shall die like men. Both parties are injured, but especially the Englified, the genteel, and the fashionable. They are puffed up with pride—filled with a vain conceit of their own superiority—their feelings of affection are dried up, being so far removed from the commonality as to have no sympathy with them. The others are injured also, being disheartened and discouraged from a conviction and a feeling of shame arising from it, that they are despised and treated with disrespect. This was not the case in former times. I knew proprietors in my younger days who not only spoke the Gaelic, but spoke it even better than the common people, and who, when they spoke English, spoke it in broad Scotch. At that time they were the men of the people, standing on a common level with them as regarded the language, and entered into their feelings. But how is the case now? All the answer that I will give to the question is, “God be merceful to my countrymen when foreigners are their proprietors!” Who has produced the melancholy change? Has it been brought about by God’s teaching, either by nature or revelation? Not at all; it is the doing of vain man, by introducing his artificial language. Is it not possible for men to receive all the benefits from the English which it is calculated to give without renouncing their own language and choosing it as the language of society.
Nature’s teaching and man’s teaching come contrary, the one to the other, in another respect. Nature teaches a beautiful variety, but the master of arts a dull uniformity. I have already referred to the beautiful varieties of the Gaelic, as spoken in the different parts of the Highlands. There is also the same variety in the different counties where the broad Scotch is spoken; but the master of arts comes with his artificial English, and with its rolling waves disfigures and spoils the whole, and leaves nothing but his own dull uniformity on their ruins. I believe that the time has come when God, as the great author of nature, and consequently as the author of the native languages of Scotland, shall say to the proud waves of man’s language, “Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther,” and “Here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” May all hearty Highlanders and all hearty Scotchmen say, “Amen, God grant it.” The great man does not duly set himself against the great God by going to the languages of nature and bringing a language out of them, which he sets up in opposition to the native languages as better and more genteel, but he must set himself up in opposition to Him likewise, as if he were wiser than he, by going to the other fountain of God’s teaching, Revelation, and bringing a creed and confession out of it, to be set up as the best and the most fashionable, and brands as a heretic every man who would differ from him. What do all the denominations of Christians attempt but to bring a creed and a confession out of Revelation as a bond of union and uniformity. But nature teaches a very different lesson. It teaches union and not uniformity, but union and variety. It teaches it in the human countenance, the human race, in trees and plants, four-footed clean animals, clean birds; in the Gaelic, broad Scotch, and, I am sure, in the French. Revelation teaches the same—a Trinity in unity. The bond of union amongst Highlanders is their Gaelic, and still there is no uniformity, but a beautiful variety. The bond of union amongst Christians is their Christianity. Christianity cannot exist without Christians. Christian union cannot exist amongst men without Christianity, and a real unity cannot exist amongst Christians without a glorious variety. This lesson nature teaches with perfect inspiration. Let Christians then treat Christianity as Highlanders treat the Gaelic. Let them follow their own views of it conscientiously and allow others to do the same, without attempting to set up their views as a confession of faith to others. Let the people of God then separate themselves from the unconverted world, and let this principle of nature’s Divine teaching be admitted by them, namely, unity and a glorious variety—unity as it regards the great essentials of Christianity, and variety as it regards the non-essentials. In that way, and in that way alone, shall they be properly united; in that way alone shall they enjoy one another, and, instead of living in the cold, narrow cell of sectarian selfishness, they will live in the expansive, the benign, the benevolent region of a glorious variety, and their minor differences, instead of detracting from, will actually add to the pleasure, the harmony, and the happiness of the whole.
There is a text which I would give to all the ministers in Scotland as the subject of their discourse on the first Sabbath of January, 1869—“Doth not nature itself teach you.”—1 Cor. xi., 14.