Leaving the college, we ascend High Street, and after reaching the top of the hill, a little to the right, we see before us the "High Kirk," or rather the old cathedral of Glasgow, one of the finest remains of antiquity, surrounded by a vast church-yard, containing many rich and ancient monumental tombs, and the mouldering bones of many by-gone generations. It has a superb crypt, "equalled by none in the kingdom,"—once used as a place of worship, but now as a place for burying the dead. The author of Waverley has invested it with additional interest by making it the scene of a striking incident in Rob Roy. The whole edifice has a most commanding appearance.
At the north-east end of the cathedral the spot is yet to be seen where papal bigotry and superstition lighted the fires of religious persecution. There in the year 1538, Jerome Russel, a member of the convent of Franciscan friars, in Glasgow, a man of considerable talents, and John Kennedy, a young man from Ayr, of high family, only about eighteen years of age, were burned for having embraced the doctrines of the infant Reformation. They sustained the terrible ordeal through which they passed to glory with a becoming dignity and fortitude. "This is your hour and power of darkness," said Russel, "now you sit as judges, and we are wrongfully condemned, but the day cometh which will clear our innocency, and you shall see your own blindness to your everlasting confusion—go on and fulfil the measure of your iniquity." Is it surprising that the reaction of reform which followed such proceedings should occasionally have gone to unjustifiable lengths, and that the people should have torn down "the rookeries," which sheltered those birds of prey, as the papal tyrants of that day might well be termed? Never were a nobler or more heroic set of men than the martyrs and confessors of that trying time! Knox, Melville, and Wishart might be stern, but they were men of godlike temper and heroic zeal, of whom the world was not worthy; and whatever poetasters and novelists, sentimental journalists, and infidel historians may say of them, they will be found at last, occupying an honored place, at God's right hand.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Necropolis—Jewish Burial Place—Monument to John Knox—Monuments of William Macgavin and Dr. Dick—Reminiscences—Character and Writings of Dr. Dick—Pollok and 'the Course of Time'—Grave of Motherwell—Sketch of his Life—His Genius and Poetry—'Jeanie Morrison.'—'My Heid is like to rend, Willie.'—'A Summer Sabbath Noon.'
East of the Cathedral, a few steps, lies the Necropolis, on the brow of a hill which overlooks the city and the surrounding regions. We pass over the "Bridge of Sighs," so named from its leading to the Cemetery, and consisting of a handsome arch, spanning the "Molendinar Burn," a brawling rivulet, whose waters, collected into a small basin, dash over an artificial cascade into the ravine below. The Necropolis covers the rocky eminence formerly crowned with dark firs, and supposed, in ancient times to have been a retreat of the Druids, who here performed their fearful rites. But how sweet and peaceful now, ornamented with fine trees and shrubbery, shady walks, and beautiful monuments, a serene retreat for the peaceful dead. In point of situation and appearance, the Necropolis is superior to "Pere la Chaise," though certainly inferior to "Greenwood" and "Mount Auburn," in our opinion the most attractive burying-places in the world. Still, each of these has a beauty of its own, well fitted to soften and subdue those feelings of grief and horror naturally excited by death and the grave. Such sweet and attractive places of burial are in harmony with the genius of the Gospel. The ancient Greeks, from their very horror of death and their ignorance of futurity, endeavored to invest the tomb with festal associations. Why, then, should not we, upon whom the light of immortality has descended, lay those we love in scenes of quiet beauty, where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest?" Does not Holy Writ declare, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord?" It is therefore meet to place their bodies only in scenes which remind us of rest, of hope, and of Heaven.
"The Dead cannot grieve,
Not a sob nor a sigh meets mine ear,
Which compassion itself could relieve.
Ah, sweetly they slumber, nor love, hope, or fear;
Peace! peace is the watchword, the only one here."
Let affection, then, bury her dead and build her tombs amid the trees and the flowers, which preach to us of the resurrection-morn and the paradise of God.
"The first tabernacle to Hope we will build,
And look for the sleepers around us to rise!
The second to Faith which insures it fulfilled;
And the third to the Lamb of the great sacrifice,
Who bequeathed us them both when he rose from the skies!"