"Reason'd high
Of providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate--
Fix'd fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute;
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost."
A plain Scotsman present seemed much interested in these matters, and having expressed himself as not satisfied with the explanations which had been elicited in the course of discussion on a particular point regarding predestination, one of the party said to him that he had observed a minister, whom they all knew, in the adjoining compartment, and that when the train stopped at the next station a few minutes, he could go and ask his opinion. The good man accordingly availed himself of the opportunity to get hold of the minister, and lay their difficulty before him. He returned in time to resume his own place, and when they had started again, the gentleman who had advised him, finding him not much disposed to voluntary communication, asked if he had seen the minister. "O ay," he said, "he had seen him." "And did you propose the question to him?" "O ay." "And what did he say?" "Oh, he just said he didna ken; and what was mair he didna care!"
I have received the four following admirable anecdotes, illustrative of dry Scottish pawky humour, from an esteemed minister of the Scottish Church, the Rev. W. Mearns of Kinneff. I now record them nearly in the same words as his own kind communication. The anecdotes are as follow:--An aged minister of the old school, Mr. Patrick Stewart, one Sunday took to the pulpit a sermon without observing that the first leaf or two were so worn and eaten away that he couldn't decipher or announce the text. He was not a man, however, to be embarrassed or taken aback by a matter of this sort, but at once intimated the state of matters to the congregation,--"My brethren, I canna tell ye the text, for the mice hae eaten it; but we'll just begin whaur the mice left aff, and when I come to it I'll let you ken."
In the year 1843, shortly after the Disruption, a parish minister had left the manse and removed to about a mile's distance. His pony got loose one day, and galloped down the road in the direction of the old glebe. The minister's man in charge ran after the pony in a great fuss, and when passing a large farm-steading on the way, cried out to the farmer, who was sauntering about, but did not know what had taken place--"Oh, sir, did ye see the minister's shault?" "No, no," was the answer,--"but what's happened?" "Ou, sir, fat do ye think? the minister's shault's got lowse frae his tether, an' I'm frichtened he's ta'en the road doun to the auld glebe." "Weel-a-wicht!"--was the shrewd clever rejoinder of the farmer, who was a keen supporter of the old parish church, "I wad na wonder at that. An' I'se warrant, gin the minister was gettin' lowse frae his tether, he wad jist tak the same road."
An old clerical friend upon Speyside, a confirmed bachelor, on going up to the pulpit one Sunday to preach, found, after giving out the psalm, that he had forgotten his sermon. I do not know what his objections were to his leaving the pulpit, and going to the manse for his sermon, but he preferred sending his old confidential housekeeper for it. He accordingly stood up in the pulpit, stopped the singing which had commenced, and thus accosted his faithful domestic:--"Annie; I say, Annie, we've committed a mistak the day. Ye maun jist gang your waa's hame, and ye'll get my sermon oot o' my breek-pouch, an' we'll sing to the praise o' the Lord till ye come back again." Annie, of course, at once executed her important mission, and brought the sermon out of "the breek-pouch," and the service, so far as we heard, was completed without further interruption.
My dear friend, the late Rev. Dr. John Hunter, told me an anecdote very characteristic of the unimaginative matter-of-fact Scottish view of matters. One of the ministers of Edinburgh, a man of dry humour, had a daughter who had for some time passed the period of youth and of beauty. She had become an Episcopalian, an event which the Doctor accepted with much good-nature, and he was asking her one day if she did not intend to be confirmed. "Well," she said, "I don't know. I understand Mr. Craig always kisses the candidates whom he prepares, and I could not stand that." "Indeed, Jeanie," said the Doctor slily, "gin Edward Craig were to gie ye a kiss, I dinna think ye would be muckle the waur."
Many anecdotes characteristic of the Scottish peasant often turn upon words and ideas connected with Holy Scripture. This is not to be considered as in any sense profane or irreverent; but it arises from the Bible being to the peasantry of an older generation their library--their only book. We have constant indications of this almost exclusive familiarity with Scripture ideas. At the late ceremonial in the north, when the Archbishop of Canterbury laid the foundation of a Bishop's Church at Inverness, a number of persons, amid the general interest and kindly feeling displayed by the inhabitants, were viewing the procession from a hill as it passed along. When the clergy, to the number of sixty, came on, an old woman, who was watching the whole scene with some jealousy, exclaimed, at sight of the surplices, "There they go, the whited sepulchres!" I received another anecdote illustrative of the same remark from an esteemed minister of the Free Church: I mean of the hold which Scripture expressions have upon the minds of our Scottish peasantry. One of his flock was a sick nervous woman, who hardly ever left the house. But one fine afternoon, when she was left alone, she fancied she would like to get a little air in the field adjoining the house. Accordingly she put on a bonnet and wrapped herself in a huge red shawl. Creeping along the dyke-side, some cattle were attracted towards her, and first one and then another gathered round, and she took shelter in the ditch till she was relieved by some one coming up to her rescue. She afterwards described her feelings to her minister in strong language, adding, "And eh, sir! when I lay by the dyke, and the beasts round a' glowerin' at me, I thocht what Dauvid maun hae felt when he said--'Many bulls have compassed me; strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.'"