Penelope's Progress / Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland

by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

there is a certain ascetic fervor in it that seems to me the perfection of worship. It may be that my Puritan ancestors are mainly responsible for this feeling, or perhaps my recently adopted Jenny Geddes is a factor in it; of course, if she were in the habit of flinging fauldstules at Deans, she was probably the friend of truth and the foe of beauty, so far as it was in her power to separate them.

There is no music during the offertory in these churches, and this, too, pleases my sense of the fitness of things. It cannot soften the woe of the people who are disinclined to the giving away of money, and the cheerful givers need no encouragement. For my part, I like to sit, quite undistracted by soprano solos, and listen to the refined tinkle of the sixpences and shillings, and the vulgar chink of the pennies and ha'pennies, in the contribution-boxes. Country ministers, I am told, develop such an acute sense of hearing that they can estimate the amount of the collection before it is counted. There is often a huge pewter plate just within the church door, in which the offerings are placed as the worshipers enter or leave; and one always notes the preponderance of silver at the morning, and of copper at the evening services. It is perhaps needless to say that before Francesca had been in Edinburgh a fortnight she asked Mr. Macdonald if it were true that the Scots continued coining the farthing for years and years, merely to have a piece of money serviceable for church offerings!

As to social differences in the congregations we are somewhat at sea. We tried to arrive at a conclusion by the hats and bonnets, than which there is usually no more infallible test. On our first Sunday we attended the Free Kirk in the morning, and the Established in the evening. The bonnets of the Free Kirk were so much the more elegant that we said to one another, "This is evidently the church of society, though the adjective 'Free' should by rights attract the masses." On the second Sunday we reversed the order of things, and found the Established bonnet much finer than the Free bonnets, which was a source of mystification to us, until we discovered that it was a question of morning or evening service, not of the form of Presbyterianism. We think, on the whole, that, taking town and country congregations together, millinery has not flourished under Presbyterianism,—it seems to thrive better in the Romish atmosphere of France; but the Disruption, at least, has had nothing to answer for in the matter, as it appears simply to have parted the bonnets of Scotland in twain, as Moses divided the Red Sea, and left good and evil on both sides.

I can never forget our first military service at St. Giles'. We left Breadalbane Terrace before nine in the morning and walked along the beautiful curve of street that sweeps around the base of Castle Rock,—walked on through the poverty and squalor of the High Street, keeping in view the beautiful lantern tower as a guiding star, till we heard

"The murmur of the city crowd;
And, from his steeple, jingling loud,
St. Giles's mingling din."

We joined the throng outside the venerable church, and awaited the approach of the soldiers from the Castle parade-ground; for it is from there they march in detachments to the church of their choice. A religion they must have, and if, when called up and questioned about it, they have forgotten to provide themselves, or have no preference as to form of worship, they are assigned to one by the person in authority. When the regiments are assembled on the parade-ground of a Sunday morning, the first command is, "Church of Scotland, right about face, quick march!"—the bodies of men belonging to other denominations standing fast until their turn comes to move. It is said that a new officer once gave the command, "Church of Scotland, right about face, quick march! Fancy releegions, stay where ye are!"

Just as we were being told this story by an attendant squire, there was a burst of scarlet and a blare of music, and down Castle Hill and the Lawnmarket into Parliament Square marched hundreds of redcoats, the Highland pipers (otherwise the Olympian gods) swinging in front, leaving the American female heart prostrate beneath their victorious tread. The strains of music that in the distance sounded so martial and triumphant we recognized in a moment as "Abide with me," and never did the fine old tune seem more majestic than when it marked a measure for the steady tramp, tramp, tramp, of those soldierly feet. As "The March of the Cameron Men," piped from the green steeps of Castle Hill, had aroused in us thoughts of splendid victories on the battlefield, so did this simple hymn awake the spirit of the church militant; a no less stern, but more spiritual soldiership, in which "the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace."

As I fell asleep on that first Sunday night in Edinburgh, after the somewhat unusual experience of three church services in a single day, three separate notes of memory floated in and out of the fabric of my dreams: the sound of the soldiers' feet marching into old St. Giles' to the strains of "Abide with me;" the voice of the Reverend Ronald ringing out with manly insistence: "It is aspiration that counts, not realization; pursuit, not achievement; quest, not conquest!"—and the closing phrases of the Friar's prayer: "When Christ has forgiven us, help us to forgive ourselves! Help us to forgive ourselves so fully that we can even forget ourselves, remembering only Him! And so let his kingdom come; we ask it for the King's sake, Amen."

X

Even at this time of Assemblies, when the atmosphere is almost exclusively clerical and ecclesiastical, the two great church armies represented here certainly conceal from the casual observer all rivalries and jealousies, if indeed they cherish any. As for the two dissenting bodies, the Church of the Disruption and the Church of the Secession have been keeping company, so to speak, for some years, with a distant eye to an eventual union. In the light of all this pleasant toleration, it seems difficult to realize that earlier Edinburgh, where, we learned from old parochial records of 1605, Margaret Sinclair was cited by the Session of the Kirk for being at the Burne for water on the Sabbath; that Janet Merling was ordered to make public repentance for concealing a bairn unbaptized in her house for the space of twenty weeks and calling said bairn Janet; that Pat Richardson had to crave mercy for being found in his boat in time of afternoon service; and that Janet Walker, accused of having visitors in her house in sermon-time, had to confess her offense and on her knees crave mercy of God and the Kirk Session (which no doubt was much worse) under penalty of a hundred pounds Scots. Possibly there are people yet who would prefer to pay a hundred pounds rather than hear a sermon, but they are few.