I cannot suppose anything more imposing, and better calculated to excite the imagination, than the meetings of these Cameronians or hill-men. They are still vividly under my view: the precipitous and green hills of Durrisdeer on each side—the tent adjoining to the pure mountain stream beneath—the communion table stretching away in double rows from the tent towards the acclivity—the vast multitude in one wide amphitheatre round and above—the spring gushing solemnly and copiously from the rock, like that of Meribah, for the refreshment of the people—the still or whispering silence when Fairly appeared, with the Bible under his arm, without gown, or band, or any other clerical badge of distinction—the tent-ladder, ascended by the bald-headed and venerable old man, and his almost divine regard of benevolence, cast abroad upon a countless multitude—his earnestness in prayer—his plain and colloquial style of address—the deep and pious attention paid to him, from the plaided old woman at the front of the tent to the gaily dressed lad and lass on the extremity of the ground—his descent, and the communion service—his solemn and powerful consecration prayer, over which the passing cloud seemed to hover, and the sheep on the hill-side to forego for a time their pasture—his bald head (like a bare rock encompassed with furze) slightly fringed with grey hairs, remaining uncovered under the plashing of a descending torrent, and his right hand thrust upward, in holy indignation against the proffered umbrella;—all this I see under the alternating splendours and darkenings, lights and shadows, of a sultry summer's day. The thunder is heard in its awful sublimity; and whilst the hearts of man and of beast are quaking around and above, Fairly's voice is louder and more confirmed, his countenance is brighter, and his eye more assured, and stedfastly fixed on the muttering heaven. "Thou, O Lord, art ever near us, but we perceive Thee not; Thou speakest from Zion, and in a still small voice, but it is drowned in the world's murmurings. Then Thou comest forth as now, in thy throne of darkness, and encompassest thy Sinai with thunderings and lightnings; and then it is, that like silly and timid sheep who have strayed from their pasture, we stand afar off and tremble. This flash of thy indignant majesty, which has now crossed these aged eyes, might, hadst Thou but so willed it, have dimmed them for ever; and this vast assemblage of sinful life might have been, in the twinkling of an eye, as the hosts of Assyria, or the inhabitants of Admah and Zeboim; but Thou knowest, O Lord, that Thou hast more work for me, and more mercy for them, and that the prayers of penitence which are now knocking hard for entrance and answer, must have time and trial to prove their sincerity. So be it, good Lord! for thine ire, that hath suddenly kindled, hath passed; and the Sun of Righteousness himself hath bid his own best image come forth from the cloud to enliven our assembly." In fact, the thunder-cloud had passed, and under the strong relief of a renewed effulgence, was wrapping in its trailing ascent the summits of the more distant mountains.
"I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
From whence doth come mine aid:
My safety cometh from the Lord"——
These were the notes which pealed in the after-service of that memorable occasion from at least ten thousand hearts. Nor is there any object in nature better calculated to call forth the most elevated sentiments of devotion, than such a simultaneous concordant union of voice and purpose, in praise of Him "who heaven and earth hath made."
"All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord"——
So says the divine monitor; but what says modern fashion and refinement? Let them answer in succession for themselves. And first, then, in reference to fashion. When examined and duly purged, she deposeth that the time was when men were not ashamed to praise their God "before his people all;" when they even rejoiced with what tones they might to unite their tributary stream of praise to that vast flood which rolled, in accumulated efficacy, towards the throne on high; when lord and lady, husbandman and mechanic, learned and unlearned, prince and people, sent forth their hearts in their united voices towards Him who is the God over all and the Saviour of all. She further deposeth that the venerated founders of our Presbyterian Church were wont to scare the curlew and the bittern of the mountain and the marsh by their nightly songs of solemn and combined thanksgiving and praise; and that, with the view of securing a continuance of this delightful exercise, our Confession of Faith strictly enjoins us, providing, by the reading of "the line," against cases of extreme ignorance or bodily infirmity; and yet she averreth that, in defiance of law and practice, of reason and revelation, of good feeling and common-sense, hath it become unfashionable to be seen or to be heard praising God. It is vulgar and unseemly, it would appear, in the extreme, to modulate the voice or to compose the countenance into any form or expression which might imply an interest in the exercise of praise. The young Miss in her teens, whose tender and susceptible heart is as wax to impressions, is half betrayed into a spontaneous exhibition of devotional feeling; but she looks at the marble countenance and changeless aspect of Mamma, and is silent. The home-bred, unadulterated peasant would willingly persevere in a practice to which he has been accustomed from his first entrance at the church stile; but his superiors, from pew and gallery, discountenance his feelings, and indicate by the carelessness—I had almost added the levity—of their demeanour, that they are thinking of anything, of everything, but God's praise; whilst the voices of the hired precentor and of a few old women and rustics are heard uniting in suppressed and feeble symphony. Nay, there is a case still more revolting than any which has been hitherto denounced—that, namely, of our young probationers and ministers, who, in many instances, refuse even in the pulpit that example which, with their last breath, they were perhaps employed in recommending. There they sit or stoop whilst the psalm is singing, busily employed in revising their MS., or in reviewing the congregation, in selecting and marking for emphasis the splendid passages, or in noting for observation whatever of interesting the dress or the countenances of the people may suggest. So much for fashion; and now for the deposition of refinement on the same subject.
Refinement has indeed much to answer for; she has brushed the coat threadbare; she has wiredrawn the thread till it can scarcely support its own weight; and in no one instance has her besetting sin been more conspicuous than in her intercommunings with our church psalmody. The old women who, from the original establishment of Presbytery, have continued to occupy and grace our pulpit stairs, are oftentimes defective in point of sweetness and delicacy of voice; in fact, they do not sing, but croon, and in some instances they have even been known to outrun the precentor by several measures, and to return upon him a second time ere the conclusion of the line. What then?—they always croon in a low key; and if they are gratified, their Maker pleased, and the congregation in general undisturbed, the principal parties are disposed of. There is no doubt something unpleasing to a refined ear in the jarring concord of a rustic euphony, when, in full voice, of a sacramental Sabbath evening, they are inclined to hold on with irresistible swing. But what they want in harmony, they have in good-will; what they lose in melody, they gain in the ringing echo of their voices from roof and ceiling. And were it possible, without silencing the uninstructed, to gratify and encourage the refined and the disciplined, then were there at once a union and a unison of agreeables; but as this object has never been effected, or even attempted, and as refinement has at once laid aside all regard for the humble and untrained worshipper, and has set her stamp and seal upon a trained band of vocal performers, it becomes the duty of all rightly constituted minds to oppose, if they cannot stem the tide—to mark and stigmatize that as unbecoming and absurd which the folly of the age would have us consider as improvement. It is of little moment whether the office of psalm-singing be committed to a select band, who surround, with their merry faces and tenor pipes, the precentor's seat, or be entrusted to separate parties scattered through the congregation; still, so long as the taught alone are expected to sing, the original end of psalm-singing is lost sight of, the habits of a Presbyterian congregation are violated, and manner being preferred to matter—an attuned voice to a fervent spirit—a manifest violence is done to the feelings of the truly devout.
No two things are probably more distinct and separate in the reader's mind than preaching and fishing; yet in mine they are closely associated.
And is not fishing or angling with the rod a most fascinating amusement? There is just enough of address required to admit and imply a gratifying admixture of self-approbation; and enough, at the same time, of chance or circumstance, over which the fisher has no control, to keep expectation alive even during the most deplorable luck. Hence a real fisher is seldom found, from want of success merely, to relinquish his rod in disgust; but, with the spirit of a true hill-man of the old school, he is patient in tribulation, rejoicing in hope. "Meliore opera" is written upon his countenance; and whilst mischance and misfortune haunt him, it may be, from stream to stream, or from pool to pool, he still looks down the glen and along the river's course; he still regards in anxious expectation the alluring and more promising curl, the circulating and creamy froth, the suddenly broken and hesitating gullet, and the dark clayey bank, under which the water runs thick and the foam-bells figure bright and starry. He knows that one single hour of successful adventure, when the cloud has ascended and the shadow is deep, and the breeze comes upwards on the stream, and the whole finny race are in eager expectation of the approaching shower—that one single hour of this description will amply repay him for every discouragement and misfortune.
And who that has enjoyed this one little hour of success would consider the purchase as dearly made? Is it with bait that you are angling?—and in the solitude of a mountain glen can you discover the stream of your hope, stretching away like a blue pennant waving into the distance, and escaping from view behind some projecting angle of the hill? Your fishing-rod is tight and right, your line is in order, your hook penetrates your finger to the barb; other companions than the plover, the lark, and the water-wagtail you have none. This is no hour for chirping grasshopper, or flaunting butterfly, or booming bee; the overshaded and ruffled water receives your bait with a plump; and ere it has travelled to the distance of six feet, it is nailed down to the leeward of a stone. You pull recklessly and fearlessly, and flash after flash, and flap after flap, comes there in upon your hull the spotted and ponderous inmate of the flood! Or is it the fly with which you are plying the river's fuller and more seaward flow? The wide extent of streamy pool is before you, and beyond your reach. Fathom after fathom goes reeling from your pirn, but still you are barely able to drop the far fly into the distant curl. "Habet!" he has it; and proudly does he bear himself in the plenitudes of strength, space, and freedom. Your line cuts and carves the water into all manner of squares, triangles, and parallelograms. Now he makes a few capers in the air, and shows you, as an opera dancer would do, his proportions and agility: now again he is sulky and restive, and gives you to understand that the vis inertiæ is strong within him. But fate is in all his operations, and his last convulsive effort makes the sand and the water commingle at the landing-place.
The resort of the fisher is amidst the retirements of what, and what alone, can be justly denominated undegraded nature. The furnace, and the manufactory, and the bleaching-green, and the tall red smoke-vomiting chimney are his utter aversion. The village, the clachan, the city, he avoids: he flies from them as something intolerably hostile to his hopes. He holds no voluntary intercourse with man, or with his petty and insignificant achievements. "He lifts his eyes to the hills," and his steps lie through the retired glen, and winding vale, and smiling strath, up to the misty eminence and cairn-topped peak. He catches the first beams of the sun, not through the dim and disfiguring smoke of a city, but over the sparkling and diamonded mountain, above the unbroken and undulating line of the distant horizon. His conversation is with heaven, with the mist, and the cloud, and the sky; the great, the unmeasured, the incomprehensible are around him; and all the agitation and excitement to which his hopes and fears as a mere fisher subject him, cannot completely withdraw his soul from that character of sublimity by which the mountain solitude is so perceptibly impressed.