CHAPTER IV
THE PULPIT AND THE PEW
When discoursing on the humours of old Scotch divines, I designedly recounted only such anecdotes as revealed the minister holding the “heft end” of the argument. In the present paper, which is wider in its scope, the honours will be found more equally divided, and the illustrations of the national character and humour laid under contribution will, on that account, prove not less entertaining and amusing.
To “get the better” of the minister has always meant fame of a kind—largely because of the rarity of such an achievement—and one can imagine how the parish would ring during the proverbial “nine days” with the fame of the old dame who, when her spiritual adviser called at her house to enquire of her the reason why recently she had suddenly turned “Seceder,” retorted, “Weel, ye just took a hale fortnicht to put Jonah into the whawl’s belly, and anither hale fortnicht to tak’ him oot; and what sort o’ fool’s preachin’ d’ye ca’ that?”
A Fifeshire laird, in a somewhat similar way, scored heavily against the minister of his parish. The latter had called on the laird to solicit a subscription from him to aid in putting a stove in the church, which, he said, the congregation found very cold. “Cauld, sir, cauld?” snorted the chief heritor; “then warm them up wi’ your doctrine, sir. John Knox never askit for a stove in his kirk.”
Equally pungent was the retort which issued from a country pew on the north of the Tay. “Ye’re sleepin’, John,” said the minister, pausing in the middle of a humdrum discourse, and looking hard in the direction of the drowsy member thus addressed—“Tak’ a snuff, John.” “Put the snuff in the sermon,” grunted John; and the broad grin that scampered over the upturned faces of the congregation showed how much the suggestion was deemed fit. But it is seldom the sleeper is found so wide-awake, if the expression will be allowed. His mental condition for the time being acts against the ready exercise of wit, and he is generally caught napping in a double sense. And, indeed, many who are popularly termed “pillars of the kirk,” might with equal appropriateness be termed sleepers. In a certain church in Forfarshire, there was no worse offender in this way than the minister’s own wife. One Sabbath she was actually asleep before the text was given out, a fact which her husband was not slow to observe. The minister had a quiet humour of his own; and the passage chosen for treatment that day had more than its original meaning to many present, when, “fixing his glassy eye” on the family pew he said, “The words, my brethren, to which I wish to direct your particular attention at the present time, are these—‘He giveth His beloved sleep.’”
Some folks apparently make a mistake in not taking their nightcaps to church with them. It has been told of a Dumbartonshire cattle-dealer that, going to hear (?) a young minister of repute who was preaching for a day in the parish kirk at Bonhill, immediately after the opening devotional services and the reading of chapter, he spread his hands on the book-board, forming them into a temporary pillow, on which he laid his drowsy head and prepared to enjoy a comfortable “snooze.” The preacher’s voice was powerful, and the style of his declamation such as to admit of considerable grandiloquence. Accordingly, after some minutes, minister and people were attracted by Bauldy raising his head just a little, and saying, quite audibly, “Ye’re just fully lood for me—ay, fully lood.” He laid down his head again, and the preacher, proceeding, waxed more eloquent and more vociferous as he warmed with his theme. At length, after a grand burst which closed some great passage, Bauldy sat right bolt up, and looking up at the minister, said, “Hang it! ye’re far ower lood. There’s nae mortal man could sleep wi’ a noise like that.”
It is frequently only one step from the sleeping to the wide-awake members, and, the latter being preferable company, we will now see how some of those have conducted themselves. Perhaps the prejudice against read sermons lingered longer in Scotland than anywhere else; and, of course, it was among the class that distinguished clearly between the legitimate uses of a pew and a bed that the individuals who concerned themselves in these matters were found.
“Eh, he’s a grand preacher!” whispered an old spinster to her sister, as they listened for the first time to a young minister.
“Wheesht! Bell,” was the reply, “he’s readin’!”
“Readin’, is he?” said the eulogist, changing her tone. “The paltry fellow! We’ll gang hame, Jenny, and read our Book.”