I have already referred to the singing of the day, and will only add that the singing of the concluding psalm—cxxii., verses 6–9, to the tune of “St. Paul’s”—
“Pray that Jerusalem may have
Peace and felicity;
Let them that love thee and thy peace
Have still prosperity”—
was grand. The evening’s collection made the day’s offering amount altogether to over £38. I have dwelt at more length than I intended on this subject, but it was a great event for a little place. Very possibly I have overdrawn the picture; but had you mingled with the companies of the worshippers as they walked homewards, you would have heard Mr. Barrie’s oldest hearers say he never preached like that in his life before, and strangers that they had no idea that Mr. Barrie could preach like that,—“he was a man of immense ability,—the best sermon they had ever heard,—it’s a wonder he had been so long in Blinkbonny.”
FRIENDS IN DEED.
The attendance at the Annie Green on the first Sabbath of June was as large as on the previous Sabbath, and the services had special reference to the struggles of the Covenanters and the battle of Drumclog. Old George Brown was highly satisfied. “I have often,” said he, “spoken to Mr. Barrie about saying ower little about thae Cath’lics, and that he should raise his testimony against Prelacy and Popery; but he aye said that even if he was speakin’ to Cath’lics, he wad preach the plain gospel, an’ no scare them away by denouncin’ baith them an’ their system, or settin’ them against the truth by no’ speakin’ it in love; and for his ain people, it would ‘minister questions rather than godly edifying,’ as he thocht that runnin’ doon the Cath’lics was apt to make folk think because they werena Cath’lics that they were a’ richt, an’ beget spiritual pride. An’ he wasna far wrang. But his subject led him on the day, and I was uncommon pleased to hear him speak as he did o’ the auld worthies, Knox and Melville, and Cameron an’ Peden, and my forbear Brown, an’ let this backslidin’, worldly-minded generation ken hoo far behint their ancestors they were in courage an’ piety, in thocht, word, an’ deed.”
There was a congregation of the United Secession, now the United Presbyterian, Church in Blinkbonny, and Mr. Morrison, the minister, and his session had generously offered to accommodate the Free Church, as far as lay in their power, with the use of their church, as the largest hall in the village was too small for the congregation. Mr. Morrison was a diligent student, conscientious and minute in his preparations for the pulpit: he wrote these carefully out, and spent the last two days of the week in committing them to memory. He was an estimable man, an excellent scholar, had been a great reader, and was well versed in general science; but he had an affluence of words and a Johnsonian style of composition that injured him as a preacher. His matter was good, sound, unexceptionable, but his manner of conveying it was verbose, often a mere recasting of the grand old English of the Bible into a laboured and profuse style of expression. He seldom used the terse old Saxon words if he could get a word of grander sound derived from another language, but used “plenitude” instead of “fulness,” “capacitate” for “fit,” and “salubrious” for “healthy.” His voice was good, but the long, involved sentences made it appear monotonous, and justified the critique of old Robert Gunn: “Vera gude matter, nae doubt, but tedious, a wee tedious. He has lang ‘heids,’[7] an’ disna aye gi’e them ower again in the same words, which fickles[8] the young folk that have to tell the ‘heids an’ particulars’ when they gang hame; for if, as is gey an’ often the case, the first ‘heid’ is, ‘The persons mentioned in the text,’ we’re almost sure to hear when he’s done with it, ‘Having thus considered, in the first place, the individuals to whom reference is made in the deeply interesting and highly instructive passage which I have selected as the subject of this morning’s exposition,’ which is baith confusin’ an’ tedious.”
[7] Divisions of a sermon.