The way in which the acceptance of a material heaven and hell shows itself in ordinary conversation, might be illustrated by many anecdotes. One or two examples may here suffice. About forty years ago a well-known wealthy iron-master gave a dinner-party at his country house. Among his guests was an old friend of mine, from whom he had purchased a portion of his estate. The conversation turned on the great changes that had taken place in the district within the memory of those present,—the dying out of old families and the incoming of new, the making of railways, the laying out of roads, the growth of villages, and so forth,—when my friend remarked, ‘Ah, me! I dare say I would see just as much change again if I were to come down sixty years hence.’ Whereupon the host instantly ejaculated from the other end of the room, ‘What’s that ye say? Come down! Tak’ care ye haena to come up.’
Of similar character is another Ayrshire story which has been told of a man who built a large and ostentatious tomb for himself and family, of which he was so proud that he boasted to the gravedigger that it would last till the day of judgment, when they might have some trouble to get up out of it. As the man’s reputation was none of the highest, the gravedigger replied, ‘I’m thinkin’ ye needna be wonderin’ how ye’re to come up, for if they knock the bottom out o’t ye’ll aiblins gang doun.’
A country doctor, who was attending a laird, had instructed the butler of the house in the art of taking and recording his master’s temperature with a thermometer. On repairing to the house one morning he was met by the butler, to whom he said: ‘Well, John, I hope the laird’s temperature is not any higher to-day?’ The man looked puzzled for a moment, and then replied: ‘Weel, I was just wonderin’ that mysell. Ye see he deed at twal’ o’clock.’
A clergyman’s son had taken to drink, and had given great trouble and pain to his worthy father. On one occasion, after a debauch of several days, he returned to the manse in the evening, and found that there had been a presbytery dinner in the house, and that the reverend fathers who had dined were now engaged over their toddy and talk in the study. He made for the room, and was immediately welcomed by his father, who tried to put the best face he could on the situation. He asked the young man where he had been. ‘In hell,’ was the answer. ‘Ah, and what did you find there?’ ‘Much the same as I find here: I couldna see the fire for ministers.’
‘IT MICHT HAE BEEN WAUR’
In a country parish in the West of Scotland the minister’s man was a noted pessimist, whose only consolation to his friends in any calamity consisted in the remark, ‘It micht hae been waur.’ One morning he was met by the minister, who told him he had had such a terrible dream that he had not yet been able to shake off the effects of it. ‘I dreamt I was in hell, and experienced the torments of the lost. I never suffered such agony in my life, and even now I shudder when I think of it.’ The beadle’s usual consolatory remark came out, ‘It micht hae been waur.’ ‘O John, John, I tell you it was the greatest mental distress I ever suffered in my life. How could it have been worse?’ ‘It micht hae been true,’ was the reply.
Cases of religious mania have been common enough in Scotland, where questions of theology have for centuries been keenly debated among all classes of the community. It has been said that ‘the worst of madmen is a saint run mad.’ Whether this dictum be true or not there would appear to have been always cases where brooding upon some one doctrine of the Christian faith has led to mental aberration more or less serious. An instance of this kind occurred in the north of Ayrshire, where a man, who had lost his wits over theological speculation, would sometimes accost a stranger on a quiet country road, and taking him by the button-hole would abruptly ask him, ‘What do you think of effectual calling? Isn’t it a damned shame? Good day to you.’ And off the poor fellow marched, ready to propound the same or some similar problem to the next passenger he would meet.
A less pronounced case of the same tendency was that of a countryman who felt much aggrieved by the story of the fall of man as told in the Book of Genesis. ‘And it comes specially hard on me,’ he would complain, ‘for I never could byde apples raw or cooked a’ my days.’