“There’s naething in the Herald about Louiss Napoleon,” said the farmer, “nor the Italians neither—no that I put much faith in thae Italians; they’ll quarrel amang themselves when there’s naebody else to quarrel wi’—though I’m no saying onything against Cavour and Garibaldi. The paper’s filled full o’ something mair immediately interesting—at least, it ought to have mair interest to you wi’ a son that’s to be a minister. Here’s three columns mair about that Dreepdaily case. It may be a grand thing for popular rights, but it’s an awfu’ ordeal for a man to gang through,” said big Colin, looking ruefully at his son.
“I was looking at that,” said Lauderdale. “It’s his prayers the folk seem to object to most—and no wonder. I’ve heard the man mysel’, and his sermon was not bad reasoning, if anybody wanted reasoning; but it’s a wonderful thing to me the way that new preachers take upon them to explain matters to the Almighty,” said Colin’s friend reflectively. “So far as I can see, we’ve little to ask in our worship; but we have an awfu’ quantity of things to explain.”
“It is an ordeal I could never submit to,” said Colin, with perhaps a little more heat than was necessary. “I’d rather starve than be set up as a target for a parish. It is quite enough to make a cultivated clergy impossible for Scotland. Who would submit to expose one’s life, all one’s antecedents, all one’s qualities of mind and language to the stupid criticism of a set of boors? It is a thing I never could submit to,” said the lad, meaning to introduce his doubts upon the general subject by this violent means.
“I dinna approve of such large talking,” said the farmer, laying down his newspaper. “It’s a great protection to popular rights. I would sooner run the risk of disgusting a fastidious lad now and then, than put in a minister that gives nae satisfaction; and if you canna submit to it, Colin, you’ll never get a kirk, which would be worse than criticism,” said his father, looking full into his face. The look brought a conscious colour to Colin’s cheeks.
“Well,” said the young man, feeling himself driven into a corner, and taking what courage he could from the emergency, “one might choose another profession;” and then there was a pause, and everybody in the room looked with alarm and amazement on the bold speaker. “After all, the Church is not the only thing in Scotland,” said Colin, feeling the greatness of his temerity. “Nobody ventures to say it is in a satisfactory state. How often do I hear you criticising the sermon and finding fault with the prayers? and, as for Lauderdale, he finds fault with everything. Then, look how much a man has to bear before he gets a church as you say. As soon as he has his presentation the Presbytery comes together and asks if there are any objections; and then the parish sits upon the unhappy man; and, when everybody has had a turn at him, and all his peculiarities and personal defects and family history have been discussed before the Presbytery—and put in the newspapers, if they happen to be amusing—then the poor wretch has to sign a confession which nobody—”
“Stop you there, Colin, my man,” said the farmer, “that’s enough at one time. I wouldna say that you were a’thegither wrong as touching the sermon and the prayers. It’s awfu’ to go in from the like of this hill-side and weary the very heart out of you in a close kirk, listening to a man preaching that has nothing in this world to say. I am whiles inclined to think—” said big Colin, thoughtfully—“laddies, you may as well go to your beds. You’ll see Colin the morn, and ye canna understand what we’re talking about. I am whiles disposed to think,” he continued after a pause, during which the younger members of the family had left the room, after a little gentle persuasion on the part of the mistress, “when I go into the kirk on a bonnie day, such as we have by times on the lock baith in summer and winter, that it’s an awfu’ waste of time. You lose a’ the bonnie prospect, and you get naething but weariness for your pains. I’ve aye been awfu’ against set prayers read out of a book; but I canna but allow the English chapel has a kind of advantage in that, for nae fool can spoil your devotion there, as I’ve heard it done many and many’s the time. I ken our minister’s prayers very near as well as if they were written down,” said the farmer of Ramore, “and the maist part of them is great nonsense. Ony little scraps o’ real supplication there may be in them, you could get through in five minutes; the rest is a’ remarks, that I never can discriminate if they’re meant for me or for the Almighty; but my next neibor would think me an awfu’ heathen if he heard what I’m saying,” he continued, with a smile; “and I’m far from sure that I would get a mair merciful judgment from the wife herself.”
The mistress had been very busy with her knitting while her husband was speaking; but, notwithstanding her devotion to her work, she was uneasy and could not help showing it. “If we had been our lane it would have been naething,” she said to Colin, privately; “but afore yon man that’s a stranger and doesna ken!” With which sentiment she sat listening, much disturbed in her mind. “It’s no a thing to say before the bairns,” she said, when she was thus appealed to, “nor before folk that dinna ken you. A stranger might think you were a careless man to hear you speak,” said Mrs. Campbell, turning to Lauderdale with bitter vexation, “for a’ that you havena missed the kirk half a dozen times a’ the years I have kent you—and that’s a long time,” said the mother, lifting hers soft eyes to her boy. When she looked at him she remembered that he too had been rash in his talk. “You’re turning awfu’ like your father, Colin,” said the mistress, “taking up the same thoughtless way of talking. But I think different for a’ you say. Our ain kirk is aye our ain kirk to you as well as to me, in spite o’ your speaking. I’m well accustomed to their ways,” she said, with a smile, to Lauderdale, who, so far from being the dangerous observer she thought him, had gone off at a tangent into his own thoughts.
“The Confession of Faith is a real respectable historical document,” said Lauderdale. “I might not like to commit myself to a’ it says, if you were to ask me; but then I’m not the kind o’ man that has a heart to commit myself to anything in the way of intellectual truth. I wouldna bind myself to say that I would stand by any document a year after it was put forth, far less a hundred years. There’s things in it naebody believes—for example, about the earth being made in six days; but I would not advise a man to quarrel with his kirk and his profession for the like of that. I put no dependence on geology for my part, nor any of the sciences. How can I tell but somebody might make a discovery the morn that would upset all their fine stories? But, on the whole, I’ve very little to say against the Confession. It’s far more guarded about predestination and so forth than might have been expected. Every man of common sense believes in predestination; though I would not be the man to commit myself to any statement on the subject. The like of me is good for little,” said Colin’s friend, stretching his long limbs towards the fire, “but I’ve great ambition for that callant. He’s not a common callant, though I’m speaking before his face,” said Lauderdale; “it would be terrible mortifying to me to see him put himself in a corner and refuse the yoke.”
“If I cannot bear the yoke conscientiously, I cannot bear it at all,” said Colin, with a little heat. “If you can’t put your name to what you don’t believe, why should I?—and as for ambition,” said the lad, “ambition! what does it mean?—a country church, and two or three hundred ploughmen to criticise me, and the old wives to keep in good humour, and the young ones to drink tea with—is that work for a man?” cried the youth, whose mind was agitated, and who naturally had said a good deal more than he intended to say. He looked round in a little alarm after this rash utterance, not knowing whether he had been right or wrong in such a disclosure of his sentiments. The father and mother looked at each other, and then turned their eyes simultaneously upon their son. Perhaps the mistress had a glimmering of the correct meaning which Colin would not have betrayed wittingly had it cost him his life.
“Eh, Colin, sometime ye’ll think better,” she cried under her breath—“after a’ our pride in you and our hopes!” The tears came into her eyes as she looked at him. “It’s mair honour to serve God than to get on in this world,” said the mistress. The disappointment went to her heart, as Colin could see; she put her hands hastily to her eyes to clear away the moisture which dimmed them. “It’s maybe naething but a passing fancy—but it’s no what I expected to hear from any bairn of mine,” she said with momentary bitterness. As for the farmer, he looked on with a surprised and inquiring countenance.