We are often amused, when in Scotland, at the large number, some twenty or so, of ways of being a Presbyterian. Yet, looking into these variations of belief, we find that, whereas in other countries these would simply be different schools or parties in the same denomination, they gave rise in Scotland to separate ecclesiastical organizations. Nearly all these differences turn on minor matters, such as psalmody, patronage, and relations to civil government.
The tremendous earnestness, scrupulous conscientiousness, and stubbornness, which clothe these minor questions with the dignity and grandeur of fundamental principles, are highly amusing to an outsider. Yet, in reality, they are but the shadows of a great virtue, for religion in Scotland is something taken quite seriously. Looking more profoundly under the surface of the wavelets of difference between the sects, one finds that the deep-sea currents meet and flow into a unity of resistless movement. Instead of antagonism, there is harmony; and one must acknowledge that, in the main, Scotland is marked for a type of manly, sturdy, God-fearing, solid, persevering type of Christianity.
While Scotsmen are musing on what is deepest in man, the fires of devotion burn brightly and the soul utters itself in song, so that Scotland is not least among the nations in its repertoire of either poetry or music.
“Why are the Scotch so different from the English?” is a question often asked. In my view the roots of the difference are best discerned in a critical study of the Reformation. In Scotland this great movement of the human mind was far more consistent and radical than in England, and it therefore affected all classes more thoroughly. Even more than a knowledge of racial elements does an examination of religion—the deepest thing in man’s soul—explain the peculiarities of Scottish as compared with English life, character, and temperament. England is politically free, but is socially aristocratic. Scotland is democratic in church and society.
These historical facts are worth remembering, especially when we reflect that the Lowlanders were of Teutonic stock, like the English. In England politics controlled religion. In Scotland religion controlled politics. Hence common schools were more general. The leading figure was neither a bishop nor a king, but a plain presbyter, John Knox. In England, Cranmer, who may be called the father of the English Book of Common Prayer, was timid, cautious, and conservative. Knox, the father of the public schools of Scotland, was bold, fearless, and uncompromising. It is true that in England royalty was an almost resistless force, while in Scotland it was but the shadow of feudalism. During these times that tried men’s souls, England had a wise queen, both forceful and successful, while Scotland’s sovereign was a woman as remarkable for her blunders as for her beauty and her misfortunes.
Though the Scottish renascence of learning was not so noticeable as in some other countries, yet Scotland, like the Netherlands, had its Erasmus. George Buchanan, educated in Paris, was the tutor in Greek and Latin to Mary Queen of Scots, and her son James. Yet, though learned, Buchanan sympathized with the people. In his famous book, “De Jure Regni apud Scotas,” he did but preach in advance the principles of the American Declaration of Independence, that “governments exist for the sake of the governed.” The paper on which this truth was printed was burned in Oxford during the Restoration period under Charles II, together with those works of John Milton on “Government” which fed the faith of our fathers in the right of the people to govern themselves. Yet no fire has ever yet been kindled which can destroy the truth on which the Constitution of the United States rests. For the intellectual bases of their freedom, Americans owe a debt to Scotland quite as great as to Holland or England.
CHAPTER XXIV
INVERGOWRIE: IN SCOTTISH HOMES
We have many times and in many countries proved the measure of truth that is contained in the quatrain which William Shenstone wrote upon the window of a hostel:—
“Whoe’er has travell’d life’s dull round,
Where’er his stages may have been,