Put forth their sons to seek preferment out;
Some to the wars, to try their fortune there;
Some to discover islands far away;
Some to the studious universities.
The ‘sons of the manse’ are found filling positions of eminence in every walk of life.
With all this excellence of character and achievement, the clergy of Scotland have maintained an individuality which has strongly marked them as a class among the other professions of the country. This peculiarity is well exemplified in the innumerable anecdotes which, either directly or indirectly connected with clergymen, form so large a proportion of what are known as ‘Scotch Stories.’ If we seek for the cause of the prominence of the clerical element in the accepted illustrations of Scottish humour, we shall hardly find it in any exceptional exuberance of that quality among the reverend gentlemen themselves, taken as a body, though many of their number have been among the most humorous and witty of their countrymen. As they were long drawn from almost every grade in the social scale of the kingdom, they have undoubtedly presented an admirable average type of the national idiosyncrasies, though they are now recruited in diminishing measure from the landed and cultured ranks of society. Their number, their general dispersion over the whole land, their prominence in their parishes, the influence wielded by many of them in the church-courts and on public platforms, and the free intercourse between them and the people, have all helped to draw attention to them and to their sayings and doings. Moreover, since dissent from the National Church began, the clergy have been greatly multiplied. In each parish, where there was once only one minister, there are now two or even more.
CLERICAL CHARACTERISTICS
A Scots proverb avers that ‘A minister’s legs should never be seen,’ meaning that he should not be met with out of the pulpit. So long as he remains there, he stands invested with ‘such divinity as doth hedge a king’: unassailable, uncontradictable, and wielding the authority of a messenger from God to man. The very isolation and eminence of this position call attention to any merely human qualities or frailties which he may disclose in ordinary life. His parishioners, though inwardly glad if he can shed upon them ‘the gracious dew of pulpit eloquence,’ at the same time delight to find him, when divested of his gown and bands, after all, one of themselves; and while they enjoy his humour, when he possesses that saving grace, they are not unwilling sometimes to take his little peculiarities as subjects for their own mirthful but not ill-natured remarks. He may thus be like Falstaff, ‘not only witty himself, but the cause that wit is in other men.’ Hence the clerical stories may be divided into two kinds: those in which the humour is that of the ministers, and those in which it is that of the people, with the ministers as its object. In the first series, there is perhaps no particular flavour different from that characteristic of the ordinary middle-class Scot, though of course the many anecdotes of a professional nature take their colour from the calling of those to whom they relate. In the second division, however, a greater individuality may be recognised. Whether it be from a sort of good-humoured revenge for his incontestible superiority in the pulpit, there seems to be a proneness to make the most of any oddities in the minister’s manners or character. The contrast between the preacher on Sunday and the same man during the week—it may be absent-minded, or irascible, or making mistakes, or getting into ludicrous situations—appeals powerfully to the Scotsman’s sense of humour. He seizes the oddity of this contrast, expresses it in some pithy words, and thus, often unconsciously, launches another ‘story’ into the world. His humour, as in Swift’s definition,
Is odd, grotesque, and wild,
Only by affectation spoiled;