“It is not to be wondered at, that, at such a period, many of the results should have followed which appear in Europe to have actually ensued. Some, we know, ran into the wildest extravagancies of innovation. Again, the fierce and obstinate opposition of others to every change—besides the malevolent passions thus called into play—appears to have driven many of the reformers to still greater excesses, or to have hardened them into greater pertinacity. And, moreover, many, frightened at the prospect of extravagant innovations, or weary of perpetual change, seem to have resolutely stopped short before they had fairly followed out their own just principles of a complete reformation; or even relapsed into the prejudices they had renounced, embraced anew the errors which had been exploded, and returned to the corrupt systems, which were standing, as it were, with their gates open to receive them.
“Our founders, on the other hand, after they had received the salutary stimulus, were removed out of the way of most of these evils by their retirement hither. Withdrawn from persecution and oppression, and furious controversy and religious wars, they were secured in a great measure from the fanaticism and the unchristian bitterness of spirit which these are so often found to generate. They were kept out of the way, again, of all temptation to return to the corrupt systems they had renounced, since no example of these remained among them; and were left calmly and peaceably to make trials of the application of their principles in practice, and to modify at leisure those principles according to the dictates of experience.”
[Such is the substance of the conversation that passed on these subjects. The language is of course altered, in this and in the other conversations recorded, in order to render it more readily intelligible. It is, indeed, almost a translation that is given; not, indeed, from a foreign tongue, but from a peculiar dialect of English.
The greater part of what was said by the travellers, except what was necessary to make the answers intelligible, has been omitted, for the reasons already stated.]
CHAPTER XIII.
Preachers.—Divine Service.—Divisions of the Bible.—Funeral Service.—Burial in Cities.—Absurd Interments.—Monuments.—Private Mausoleums.—Harmless Absurdities.—Church Endowments.—State of the Clergy.—Religious Communities.—Admission Fees to Institutions.—Ecclesiastical Societies.
It happened in the earlier part of their visit, when the travellers were less familiar with the peculiarities of the Southland phraseology, that they were inquiring one day whether there was in the neighbourhood where they then were any preacher of more than ordinary celebrity, and were surprised at being answered that there were no preachers within two hundred miles. As they had, before this, attended public worship, they perceived at once that there must be some misapprehension. They found that “a preacher” denotes—according to its primitive sense—what we understand by a missionary among the heathen. “Expounding,” “lecturing,” “discoursing,” are the terms used by them to denote what we call “preaching.”
When the difficulty was surmounted which they felt at first in following what was said, from the novelty to them of the dialect, they were very well pleased with some discourses they heard, which appeared to them sensible, pious, and instructive; but they never heard any one who came up to the idea of what we call “a fine preacher,” or “a very nice man,” for the reason already mentioned in the notice of their parliamentary debates.
The strangers were at first puzzled by another peculiarity which they met with in their attendance on divine service. The minister referred, not to the chapter and verse of any book of Scripture, but to the page and line, or rather to what are called pages and lines; that is, certain equal divisions, which are indeed the actual pages and lines of their large editions of the Bible, but of course do not correspond with those of a different size. These artificial pages and lines, as they may be called, are marked by horizontal (P. 25,
─) and vertical (L. 5.
│) lines, respectively. The origin of the custom, it seems, was, that their first edited translation having been paged, and subsequent editions being, for some time, fac-similes of it in point of size, the custom grew up,—indeed there is reason to think it was designedly encouraged,—of making the references to pages and lines; and these same arbitrary divisions were accordingly retained in subsequent editions. Generally, though not always, the chapters and verses are marked in the margin, for the convenience of scholars who may wish to consult some of the old editions of the Bible in the learned languages, or who may be reading, in old editions, some works of the earlier divines containing references to those divisions. For their own use, they consider their method as preferable to ours, inasmuch as their divisions are exactly equal; serve perfectly for the use intended,—that of facility of reference;—and carry on the face of them a plain indication that they are designed for no other use, and therefore cannot mislead the reader into the notion of their having a connexion with the sense, and being the work of the sacred writers, or designed by editors as a suitable distribution of the matter.
The funeral service varies in a slight degree in the rituals of the several churches; but in one point they all agree,—that in the prayers used, and in any discourse delivered on the occasion, no allusion is made to the particular individual deceased. The shortness and uncertainty of life generally,—a future state, and the requisite preparation for it,—with other such general topics, are the only ones allowed to be introduced. Any mention of, or allusion to a particular individual, in the way of panegyric or otherwise, on such an occasion, would be regarded as invidious and highly indecorous.