THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 Kate Gtordon Moore
 
 a.— 
 
 SCOTTISH NATIONALITY 
 
 AND OTHER PAPERS.
 
 MOHRISON AND OIBB, EDINBURGH, 
 
 PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.
 
 SCOTTISH NATIONALITY 
 
 an^ otbcr papers. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 Eev. JOHX KEE, D.D., 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'the PSALMS IN HISTORY AND BIOURAPHY, 
 ' SERMONS,' ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, 
 
 530 Broadway.
 
 DA 
 
 PR'EFACE. 
 
 The following papers, from the pen of the late Dr. 
 John Ker, are chiefly reprints ; one article only, the 
 ' Canadian Letters,' appears for the first time. As 
 many of the papers cannot now be obtained, it has 
 been judged advisable to issue them in this collected 
 form. 
 
 At a time when our Scottish nationality is develop- 
 ing fresh life, and is showing a power to conserve all 
 that is best in the past while laying deep its founda- 
 tions for progress in the future, it is thought that the 
 article bearing this title has not inappropriately been 
 placed first. The variety of subjects contained in the 
 other papers will testify to the fact that the author, 
 though a true patriot, was as broad in his sympathies 
 as he was deep in his affections. 
 
 892357
 
 VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Best thanks are due to Mr. C. L. Wright (Glasgow), 
 Mr. James Gemmell (Edinburgh), and Messrs. W. 
 Isbister & Co. (London), for permission to reprint 
 the papers respectively published by them; and to 
 Senator Boyd, a distinguished member of the Canadian 
 Parliament, for Notes appended to the 'Canadian 
 Letters.' 
 
 The Hermitage, Murratfield, 
 Edinburgh, March 15, 1887.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SCOTTISH NATIONALITY, 1 
 
 JOHN KNOX, . 23 
 
 THE EEVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES, . 36 
 
 THE ERSKINES: EBENEZER AND RALPH, . . 64 
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF GLASGOW, . . . .109 
 
 A DAY IN THE UPPER WARD OF CLYDESDALE, . 144 
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS 160 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D., 218 
 THE REV. W. B. ROBERTSON, D.D., . . .239
 
 SCOTTISH NATIONALITY.' 
 
 These reprints belong to a period of our history which 
 marks very strongly the character of the people, and 
 which has done much to fix it; and it may not be out 
 of place, in this Introduction, to make some remarks 
 on Scottish Nationality, as to how it took its rise and 
 came to be what it is, both socially and religiously. 
 
 "While we believe in an overruling guidance which 
 divides to the nations their inheritance, and moulds 
 their character, we can see that it makes use of means 
 to gain the result. The features of the country have, 
 no doubt, had their influence. The brown moorlands 
 and misty hills are in harmony with the grave, and 
 sometimes sombre, temperament of the people ; and 
 the sweet romantic dells and hidden nooks of beauty 
 that surprise one, ever and again, in the midst of the 
 barest stretches, are reflected in the tenderness and 
 picturesqueness of the national lyrics, and in the 
 latent poetry which breaks the hard surface of prevail- 
 
 ^ Written as an Introiluction to Miss Jean L. Watson's Lives of 
 Peden and Renvklc (James Geniniell, Kdiubiirgli), in wliieh reprints 
 are given of some of the .sermons and letters of these worthies.
 
 2 SCO TTISH NA TIONALITY. 
 
 ing reserve among the country population, wherever 
 they are found in their old simplicity. Yet it is easy 
 to make too much of this. The magnificent scenery 
 of Switzerland has produced no great poet, no outbreak 
 of song and romance, even equal to what has come 
 from the flats of the Xetherlands and the saudy 
 downs of Denmark. 
 
 The mixture of races that has gone to form the 
 Scottish people might be made use of to account for 
 many of their characteristics ; but here, too, it is 
 possible to exaggerate. Some generalizing historians, 
 for example, have laid it down as a rule that the 
 Teutonic nations must necessarily be Protestant, and 
 the Celtic, Eoman Catholic ; but the reverse might be 
 argued as plausibly. Scotland, which is more Celtic 
 than Enoland, is more intenselv Protestant, and no 
 part of it more markedly so than that which contains 
 the pure Celtic element. It was the Saxon Wilfrid, 
 and, later, the English Margaret, Queen of Malcolm 
 Canmore, who helped to supersede the simpler system 
 of the Culdees by the government and ritual of Piome. 
 If the Celts of Ireland have l)ecome the ardent 
 retainers of the Papal chair, the Celts of Wales, a 
 kindred branch of the same great stock, have shaken 
 off its influence more thoroughly than their English 
 neighbours ; and if Brittany is devoted to the Mass, 
 nowhere, in England proper, is there a population 
 more hostile to it than their kinsmen of Armoric 
 blood in Cornwall. The truth is that many of these
 
 SCOTTISH NATIONALITY. 3 
 
 generalizations are based upon selecting half the facts. 
 The two districts in Scotland that stood most sternly 
 to the Covenanted cause were probably Galloway and 
 Fife — the one of Celtic race, the other of Teutonic. 
 There may be a portion of truth in the theory tliat 
 the ' very fervid genius ' of the Scots, spoken of by 
 Buchanan, comes from the Celtic subsoil in the 
 nation, and that the stubborn perseverance, the cool 
 determination, is from Scandinavia, — lianie fusing iron, 
 — but even to this many exceptions would need to be 
 taken. The fiery Knox came from the Saxon Lothians ; 
 the calm, scholarly Buchanan from the Highland 
 border ; and, in later times, the Celtic Mackintosb, 
 with his philosophic balance, is a marked contrast to 
 the lurid genius of Carlyle. On the whole, while 
 natural scenery and blood have their influence on 
 national character, there is an agency more powerful 
 than either — that of history. The determining factor 
 in the sphere of humanity is not materialistic, but a 
 free personality, working under the arrangements of 
 a Divine Providence. 
 
 In the dawn of history, the country we inhabit was 
 on the remotest verge of the known world. AVlien 
 the conquering Eomans entered the island, those who 
 were not disposed to submit were driven northward, 
 and forced to stand at bay. "With their back to the 
 sea, and their home among the hills, the first rudi- 
 ments of character began, and the historian Tacitus 
 has traced tlic outlines of it. The walls of Hadrian
 
 4 SCOTTISH NATIONALITY. 
 
 and Antoninus, built to hold the unsubdued races in 
 check, are the still-existing witnesses. It was like air 
 compacted into a power of resistance by force of 
 pressure, and the national spirit of antipathy to 
 foreign domination was probably laid in that first 
 struggle. Once begun, successive contests came to 
 strengthen it. The Saxon, the Danish, the Norman 
 invasions overflowed the southern part of the island, 
 but failed in securing any general or permanent hold 
 upon the North. All these elements entered the land, 
 and champed and elevated the social condition of the 
 people ; but they came as friendly guests. The efforts 
 which they frequently made to gain a lodgment by the 
 armed hand, and their failure, confirmed the obstinate 
 antipathy to foreign rule. The change of the old 
 Celtic tongue into the Saxon of the Lowlands, and the 
 entrance of the Norman feudalism, were accomplished 
 peacefully, under the rule of native monarchs. These 
 are facts entirely untouched by the monkish legends 
 of over-lordship on the jmrt of the English kings 
 insisted on by Palgrave and Ereeman. 
 
 These events in the dim porch of history were a 
 preparation for the bitter and decisive struggle which 
 made Scotland a nation, and put one conscious heart 
 and will into its separate races. This struggle was 
 the war for Scottish independence, under Wallace and 
 Bruce, against the Anglo-Norman domination attempted 
 by the Edwards. It was, above all, the spirit formed 
 by Wallace, and the loving memory of his name and
 
 SCO TTISH NA TIONALIT\. 5 
 
 self-devotion, whicli began the nationality that has 
 continued from that time to this, in the varied forms 
 of political, religious, and literary life. He was a man 
 of the people, and, so far as can be inferred, neither 
 Saxon nor Norman, but of the old native race ; no 
 savage bandit, nor mere chivalrous swordsman, but 
 possessed of heart and brain, as well as force and 
 courage — a general and a statesman. No less a man 
 could have left the impress he did on the history of 
 his country, and all the traces we have of him in 
 authentic documents bear out this view. We are far 
 enough now from the time when it was customary to 
 speak of our ' auld enemies of England ' to be able to 
 estimate what the success of that stru^ole did for 
 England as well as for Scotland — how it prepared the 
 way for an equal and honourable union, wliich has left 
 no grudge, which has made England strong in the 
 attachment of tlic old Xorthern Kingdom, while it has 
 made the British Empire richer by all the contribu- 
 tions of literature and social character which a separate 
 history has enabled Scotland to give. It has been a 
 barrier to the spread of that system of centralization 
 which is not only dangerous to liberty, but detrimental 
 to healthy progress, and yet it has not weakened the 
 United Kingdom by any divided allegiance. A great 
 people is stronger, and more permanently fertile, from 
 the variety of its component parts, and from the 
 friendly play of the electric currents that have their 
 origin in a diversity that is held in friendship. Some
 
 6 SCO TTISH NA TIONAL ITY. 
 
 flippant London journalists, and a few denationalized 
 Scotchmen who cultivate their good opinion, may 
 express the belief that it would have been better if 
 the Edwards had succeeded ; but candid and liberal 
 Englishmen now look on the result at Bannockburn 
 as a benefit to England itself, while Scotsmen, on 
 their part, can share in their admiration of the stout 
 yeomen who conquered, though with little fruit, at 
 Cressy and Poictiers. 
 
 These truths are coming to be admitted, but less 
 attention has been bestowed on the bearing which 
 tliis struggle had on the religious history of Scotland. 
 It was the preservation of its independence that pre- 
 pared the way for the development of the Eeforma- 
 tion principles in the form they have taken in the 
 Northern Kingdom. The two periods are in close, 
 one may say logical, connection, and the men who 
 filled them had the same spirit and sinew. AVallace 
 made a nation and Knox a people. The one secured 
 the soil on which the other built up the church polity, 
 and in which he implanted the religious principles 
 that have since been associated with the name of 
 Scotland wherever it is known, and that have given 
 it a place in the world out of all proportion to its 
 extent, or population, or material resources. But for 
 the war for national independence, the battle for 
 spiritual freedom would have been fought at a great 
 disadvantage, and we should now have been among 
 those in England who are struirgling with an over-
 
 SCOTTISH NATIONALITY. •} 
 
 mastering prelatic establishment which denies to all 
 outside of it the most common rights of citizenship, 
 and sends off its recruits in increasing numbers to the 
 Church of liome. Any one who knows how our fore- 
 fathers defied the Papal interdict in 1317, when it was 
 used against their just rights, or who has read the 
 memorable letter of the barons to the Pope, will discern 
 the same spirit which came out in the Solemn League 
 and Covenant, when the "Word of God had opened to 
 the Commons of Scotland the conception of a higher 
 freedom than had been fought out, centuries before, 
 by their forefathers on many a bloody field. The true 
 inheritors of the old Scottish chivalry, who held out on 
 the grim edge of despair till native endurance con- 
 quered, were the Camerons and Cargills, who wandered 
 in the very haunts of Ayrshire and the Torwood where 
 Wallace had his retreats ; and the Lauderdales and 
 Piotheses, the Middletons and Claverhouses, were the 
 successors of the recreant nobles who betrayed their 
 country and its liberty to the foreigner and the tyrant. 
 There are, of course, men among us who regret the 
 turn that history then took, — the followers of Laud 
 and Strafford cannot well do otherwise, — but those who 
 set some value on the great principles of civil and 
 religious freedom can never regard the men of the 
 Scottish Eeformation but with admiration and grati- 
 tude. It was Knox, as Carlyle and Froude have 
 shown, who saved England from the league against 
 her, headed by Philip II. ; it was the attitude of the
 
 8 SCO TTISH NA TIONALITY. 
 
 Covenanters which roused the opposition of the Long 
 Parliament to the arbitrary schemes of Charles I. ; and 
 it was the long-drawn-out agony of twenty-eight years 
 of suffering in Scotland that made the people of 
 England so weary of the profligate despotism of the last 
 of the Stuarts, and so ready to welcome the arrival of 
 William III. When one remembers how the relifdon 
 of Scotland has aided the noble English Noncon- 
 formists, and even the Evangelical party in the Church 
 of England, how it has given to the British Govern- 
 ment in Ireland its one loyal foothold, how it has told 
 upon the United States and our Colonies, with their 
 many thousands of Presbyterian churches, we begin 
 to feel the importance of tlie separate citadel that was 
 maintained in Scotland, first for national, and then for 
 spiritual independence. Such considerations may, at 
 least, be allowed to have some weight with those of us 
 to whom the principles of freedom, the rights of the 
 Christian people, and the simplicity of the Gospel of 
 the Xew Testament, are more interesting than the 
 virtue of apostolical succession, the difference between 
 copes and chasubles, and the grand distinction of 
 lighted or unlighted candles upon the altar. 
 
 What gave the Scottish Peformation its character, 
 and what has marked it throughout is, that it was, 
 and is, a movement of the people. The sympathies of 
 the men who were its great leaders, and the essence of 
 its truths, carried it straight to the popular heart. It 
 took men at once to the AVord of God, and taught
 
 SCO TTISH NA TIONAL /TV. 9 
 
 them to read their rights as Christians and citizens, 
 with a definite place in the Church and the Common- 
 wealth, and its effect was marvellous in the new spirit 
 it breathed into the old, rude clay of the Scottish 
 nation. But the appeal to the people was in the 
 circumstances a matter of necessity. The Eeformation 
 had to meet the frown of royalty in Mary of Guise, 
 her daughter, and her grandson, and was compelled to 
 speak God's Word to kings without fear. The nobles 
 at first aided the cause, — some, whose names shine out 
 with honour, from conviction, but many more from a 
 love of the broad lands of the old Church, and, when 
 the booty was secured, and persecution arose because 
 of the Word, they soon became offended. The seals of 
 most of those who signed the Covenant in Greyfriars 
 Churchyard are found, after the Eestoration, attached 
 to the document which denounces pains and penalties 
 on all who should remain faithful to it. In the face 
 of these things, the Eeformers had to fall back upon 
 the people for support, to enlighten and animate them, 
 to impress on them what one of themselves has called 
 a 'great awe of God' against the fear of man. 
 Happily they were allowed breathing time for tliis. 
 The old woe to ' the land whose king is a child ' was 
 reversed, for it was the minority, first of Mary, and 
 then of James YL, that gave the opportunity. While 
 the Hamiltons and Mars and Mortons were contending 
 fiercely for place and spoil, there were men busy in 
 the towns and villages, and remotest rural districts.
 
 I o SCO TTISH NA TIONALITY. 
 
 preaching the newly-recovered Gospel with its creative 
 power. Beneath the great names of Knox and Mehdlle 
 there are many, knoM'n to the student of Scottish 
 Church History, who, from Eoss- shire to Galloway, 
 were the lights of their own neighbourhood, and whose 
 memories, without canonization, are still hallowed in 
 the breasts of the people. They succeeded so well 
 that, when the day of trial came, the humblest ranks 
 stood firm amid the defection of those whom they had 
 been accustomed to follow as their natural leaders ; 
 and they could neither be broken by persecution nor 
 beguiled by snares. The manner in which plain 
 countrymen argued from the New Testament struck 
 the Episcopalian historian, Burnet, when he met the 
 people of the western shires to discuss a plan for the 
 settlement of the Church. ' The Episcopal clergy,' he 
 says, 'who were yet in the country, could not argue 
 much for anything, and would not at all argue in 
 favour of a proposition that they hated. The people 
 of the country came generally to hear us, though not 
 in cfreat crowds. We were indeed amazed to see a 
 poor commonalty so capable to argue upon points of 
 government, and on the bounds to be set to the power 
 of princes in matters of religion. Upon all these 
 topics they had texts of Scripture at hand, and were 
 ready with their answers to anything that was said to 
 them. This measure of knowledge was spread even 
 among the meanest of them, their cottagers and their 
 servants.' We may give here the dying testimony of
 
 SCOTTISH NATIONALITY. ii 
 
 one of these cottagers, John Clyde, as an example of 
 the spirit which their religion had breathed into many 
 of the poor commonalty of Scotland at that time : ' I 
 bless the Lord for keeping me straight, I desire to 
 speak it to the commendation of free grace, and this I 
 am speaking from my own experience, that there arc 
 none who will lippen (trust) to God, and depend upon 
 Him for direction, but they shall be keeped straight 
 and right ; but to be promised to be kept from tribula- 
 tion, that is not in the bargain, for He hath said that 
 through much tribulation we must enter the Kingdom. 
 He hath promised to be with us in it, and what needs 
 more ? I bless the Lord for keeping of me to this 
 very hour; for little would I have thought a twelve- 
 month since that the Lord woidd have taken a poor 
 ploughman lad, and have honoured me so highly, as to 
 have made me first appear for Him, and then keep me 
 straight, and now hath keeped me to this very hour to 
 lay down my life for Him.' At the ladder foot he 
 said to his l)rother : ' AVeep not for me, brother, but 
 weep for yourself and the poor land, and seek God, 
 and make Him sure for yourself, and He shall be 
 better to you than ten brethren. Xow, farewell all 
 friends and relations, farewell brother, sister, and 
 mother ; and welcome Lord Jesus Christ, into thy 
 hands I commit my spirit.' And, lifting up the 
 napkin off his face, he said : ' Dear friends, be not 
 discouracred because of the cross, nor at this ve sec in 
 me, and you shall see no more.' One cannot help
 
 12 SCO TTISH NA TIONALI TV. 
 
 thinking of the mean and selfish tyrant who then sat 
 on the throne, with his saying that ' Presbyterianism 
 is not the religion of a gentleman,' when we see the 
 nobility of soul it could bestow on one of the poorest 
 of his subjects. Compare this life and death with 
 that of him who spent the pensions of Louis XIV. on 
 his infamous pleasures, and sought to make atone- 
 ment with the Jesuits' wafer when in extremis. It 
 was this spirit, diffused among numbers of the people, 
 that brought them out victorious from a struggle of 
 more than a hundred years for their religion. ' Let 
 me make the songs of a country,' Fletcher of Saltoun, 
 or some one before him, has said, ' and I care not who 
 makes its laws.' These men were too busy or too 
 earnest to make many songs, and the poetry of the 
 time that has come down to us is from another school ; 
 but the psalm has vanquished the song, and given us 
 the laws under which we live. 
 
 It would be too long to follow the history of 
 Scottish Christianity from that time till now, and its 
 course is known to most. The principle of the New 
 Testament, that there is no sacerdotal class in the 
 Church of Christ, but that all its members belong to 
 the priesthood, and have a right to share in the 
 administration, has asserted itself in the dreariest 
 times of stagnation. Its mode of service, in which 
 instruction from the Bible is meant to be a prominent 
 feature, has been a constant stimulus to the intellect 
 of tlie hearers, and a school of thought about the
 
 SCOTTISH NA TIONALITY. 1 3 
 
 highest and most interesting of all subjects. The 
 saying of a German, that ' theology is the metaphysics 
 of the people,' is largely true of Scotland. The very 
 divisions that have taken place in the history of the 
 Church, much as they are to be regretted otherwise, 
 have had the effect of stirring inquiry. Every seces- 
 sion had to justify itself in the forum of the popular 
 conscience from the Word of God. It has set men to 
 discuss, to take up their ground on reasons of con- 
 vincement, and to be able to defend their position 
 against all comers. It must be admitted that this, 
 like everything else, has not escaped its abuse. It has 
 made numbers of its adherents hard - headed and 
 opinionative, ready to split hairs and mistake points 
 for principles ; but it has made the people, as a whole, 
 intelligent, self-reliant, and energetic, fitted to stand 
 their own in fields of enterprise, at home or abroad, 
 and ready to make sacrifices for what they believe to 
 be the cause of God's truth and man's freedom, that 
 will compare with those of any Church in the world. 
 Buckle has asserted that the two most priest-ridden 
 countries in Europe are Spain and Scotland. It is 
 true that in both the mass of the people have been 
 marked by strong attachment to one prevailing form 
 of faith ; but a philosophical historian might have 
 observed that, in the one case, it is accompanied with 
 the proscription of thought, in the other, with the con- 
 stant stimulus and exercise of it : in the one case, the 
 people are excluded from all share in the government
 
 1 4 SCO TTISH NA TIONALITY. 
 
 of tlie Church ; in the other, the government is fully in 
 their hands. Hence the different spirit of the two 
 countries, and the fact that, while the people of Scot- 
 land are warmly attached to their ministers, they 
 would resent any attempt to interfere with their 
 political judgments, or to deal with them in any way 
 beyond what can be justified by the open charter to 
 which all alike have access — the Word of God. Mr. 
 Buckle, too, might have remembered his own remark, 
 made we believe also by liemusat, that, wherever it 
 has gone, in Prance, Switzerland, Holland, Britain, 
 and America, the Calvinistic faith has shown itself 
 the unfailing friend of constitutional liberty. His- 
 torians have found it difficult to account for this, 
 while they admit its truth. AVc believe it has arisen 
 not merely from the form of government with which it 
 has linked itself, one of ordered freedom, but from the 
 fact that it has always carried its appeal past human 
 authority in religion to the Word of God ; that it has 
 taught men to think for themselves as in his sight, 
 and to seek that personal relation to Him which 
 makes them free with the liberty of his children. It 
 proclaims the grand Divine equality, ' One is your 
 Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren,' out of 
 which are built up again service, and law, and comely 
 order in Church and State, but now tempered by the 
 action of reason and love. It may be said that this is 
 simply Christianity, and so it is ; but there are forms 
 of Christianity more or less pronounced, and, while we
 
 SCOTTISH NA TIONALITY. 1 5 
 
 have great resi:)ect for the contributions that other 
 forms have brought in their own way, we believe that 
 the I'uritans of Engiand, old and new, and the Presby- 
 tcriaus of Scotland have, with all their defects, led the 
 van in tlie cause of human freedom. 
 
 The question may be put : Is Presbyterianism likely 
 to maintain its hold of the Scottish jDeople ? So far as 
 can ])e judged, the different Churches that represent it 
 were never more active in efibrts at extension, and in 
 the cultivation of Christian thought and work, than 
 they are at present. They contain four-fifths of the 
 professed Christianity of the country ; and, while there 
 are some questions that have to be settled among them, 
 there is a growing feeling of brotherhood, and tokens 
 of a period coming when the divisions of past genera- 
 tions are to l)e repaired. Tlie course of events will 
 probably settle, ere very long, whether this is to be on 
 the old lines of a National Establishment, or on the 
 principle enunciated by Cargill for posterity, ' that they 
 may begin where we end.' On this we shall not 
 enter. But such a union is desirable for two great 
 reasons — that there may be more combined and 
 energetic effort for the reclamation of the large numbers 
 who have been suffered to grow up in ignorance and 
 vice outside of all the Churches ; and, next, for the 
 serious study of the questions that have risen in our 
 day to make numbers of the educated class assume a 
 neutral or half-hostile attitude to our common Chris- 
 tianity. These are arduous matters \ but if we give
 
 1 6 SCO TTISH NA TIONALITY. 
 
 ourselves to them with the faith and courage of our 
 forefathers, we shall with God's help succeed. Things 
 are not so dark as they must have looked to them after 
 Pentland and Bothwell. 
 
 On the whole, we believe that, while Scottish Chris- 
 tianity may widen out, as it has already done, it will 
 maintain the same ^reat centres. It will not forsake 
 the vital truth of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, 
 thougli it may make it prominent and supreme by 
 lowering the importance of minor questions. It will 
 not abandon its old model of government, so strong 
 and liexible, but it w^ill open its heart to all who love 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, and will neither unchristianize 
 nor unchurch them, although they do not admit the 
 office of the rulino; elder and the due subordination of 
 Church Courts. It will cleave to the freedom and 
 simplicity of its mode of worship, while it owns as 
 brethren those who, from custom or constitution, can 
 worship God more profitably through fixed forms. 
 For the devoutness, the reverence, the gentleness of 
 Christianity that is seen in many of these last we 
 cannot but have the deepest esteem ; and we cannot 
 doubt that such men regret, as much as we do, the St. 
 Bartholomew's day of England, and the policy of 
 Sheldon and his creature Sharp. It is unfortunate, 
 however, for good feeling in this direction that the 
 kind of Episcopacy chiefly prevalent in Scotland is 
 that against which our fathers had to contend, and one 
 which is still too little disposed to meet other Churches
 
 SCO TTISH NA TIONALITY. 1 7 
 
 on terms of Christian equality. When it pleads that 
 it is compelled to do so by its theory of what a Church 
 is, we must regret the position of men whose heart 
 cannot but be at war with their head, and we must 
 honour all the more the spirit of such men as the 
 late Bishop Ewing and others, in seeking to grasp 
 the hands of fellow-Christians over such \\\d\\ and 
 narrow walls. This situation is painful, in that it 
 cuts off those who belong to it from the just influence 
 they might otherwise exercise on the national life, and 
 from the aid they might give in bridging across the 
 chasms, already too wide, that divide society. The 
 nobility of Scotland have ceased very nnich, with a 
 few honourable exceptions, to be the Scottish nobility ; 
 and those who follow them in the fashion separate 
 themselves from a share in the most thrilling and 
 invigorating parts of the national history, "\\liere this 
 position is adopted on the conscientious ground that 
 apostolical succession and sacerdotal virtue in the 
 Sacraments are essential to a Christian Church, 
 nothing more can be said ; where it is taken from 
 taste, it is a poor ground in the midst of considerations 
 infinitely more important ; but where, as is too often 
 the case, it is merely to be in the style, and keep aloof 
 from the multitude, it is a hurtful imbecility, and 
 accompanied with this inconvenience, that, if the multi- 
 tude should follow, some other move will require to be 
 made. But, after all, the multitude will not follow. 
 They will be drawn to preachitig, if it be only real and
 
 1 8 SCO TTISH NA TIONA LITY. 
 
 living, more than to ceremonies ; and before it can be 
 otherwise, the nature of the Scottish people must be 
 made over again, their most hallowed associations 
 destroyed, the most heroic pages of their history 
 blotted out, and the last old stone dug up that lifts its 
 head from the grey hillside to tell where martyred 
 dust is sleeping. A nation's life is a continuous 
 growth, and has its roots in the past that it may have 
 its fruit for the future. For larger ends than belong 
 even to Scotland, we must hold fast what is native 
 to the soil. We shall do more for the British Empire 
 as Scotsmen than as mongrel Englishmen, and more 
 for Christianity as good Presbyterians than if, from 
 indifference or affectation, we let slip the stimulating 
 motives that come from such an ancestry. 
 
 In looking back upon the period of the Second 
 Eeformation in Scotland, the lives of Peden and 
 Eenwick call for special notice. These two names were 
 once known to every child in Scotland, and traditions 
 of them are floating all over the south-west ; but 
 we doubt whether, in these days of newspapers and 
 ma!?azines, manv know more of them than the mere 
 names, or what is to be found in the Scots Worthies 
 — a manual of which we would speak with all 
 respect. There is something weird about the history 
 of Alexander Peden. He w^as the John the Baptist of 
 the Scottish Covenant. His lonely life for years, his 
 wild hiding-places, his marvellous escapes, the timely 
 descent of the mist, or ' the lap of the Lord's cloak,'
 
 SCOTTISH NATIONALITY. 19 
 
 as he called it, to screen him from his persecutors, the 
 keen insight of his snyings, which amounted to fore- 
 sight, his burial beneath the gallows at Cumnock and 
 the change of the place thereby to a God's acre, have 
 thrown an air of mystery round his memory in the 
 minds of the people. The sermons that remain arc 
 very fragmentary, like the panting words of a man in 
 the intervals of flight, and are no doubt, besides, very 
 imperfectly reported to us. There was no shorthand 
 writer on the spot ; and sometimes the more eccentric 
 points would be best remembered. The stern Old 
 Testament spirit comes out in Peden more than in 
 any other of the time ; and, if the fierceness occasionally 
 startles us, we must think of the old man with the 
 bloody dragoons of Claverhouse on his trail, a tyran- 
 nical voluptuary on the throne, and the cause of God, 
 for which he was very jealous, trampled in the mire. 
 Charity is good ; yet, with most men, it needs time 
 for reflection, and a little sunshine. But there is a 
 homely picturesqueness about many of his sayings, a 
 pithy proverbiality, and sometimes a deep tenderness. 
 ' I think God has a mind to search Jerusalem with 
 lighted candles, and to go through the whole house 
 to visit all your chambers, and there shall not be one 
 pin within all your gates but God shall know whether 
 it is crooked or even. He will never rest till He be 
 at the bottom of men's hearts. He has turned out 
 some folks' hearts already, and flitted others ; it 
 seems He has a mind to make the inside the outside.
 
 20 SCOTTISH NATIONALITY. 
 
 There was but a weak wind in former trials, and 
 therefore much chaff was sheltered and hid amongst 
 corn ; but God now has raised a strong wind, and yet 
 Christ's own cannot be driven away. He will not 
 lose one hair of his people's heads ; He knows them 
 all by head-mark. Oh, if our hearts and love were 
 blazing after Him, we would rather choose to die 
 believing than to sin by compliance ! ' Or again : 
 ' Death and destruction shall be written with broad 
 letters on our Lord's standard ; a look of Him shall 
 be a dead stroke to any that runs in his gate. It is 
 best for you to keep within the shadow of God's ways, 
 to cast Christ's cloak over your head until you hear 
 Him say, " The brunt of the battle is over, and the 
 shower is slacked." And I am confident the fairest 
 plan to check the way is to spiel (climb) out of God's 
 gate, and keep witliin the doors till the violence of 
 the storm be gone, and begin to ebb, which is not yet 
 full tide. Yet Christ deals tenderly with young plants, 
 and waters them oft ; but they go back. Be praiseful 
 and love not life for the seeking.' It is evident that 
 God and eternity were intense realities to these men. 
 
 If Peden was the John the Baptist of the Covenant, 
 Eenwick was John the Evangelist. There is some- 
 thing so touching in his whole story — so young and 
 fair, so gentle and full of poetry, so devoted in his 
 few brief years, and so firm that, when a word of com- 
 pliance would have saved his life, he could not be 
 induced to speak it — the last of the Scottish martyrs
 
 SCO TTISH NA TIONALIT] '. 2 1 
 
 falling on the threshold of deliverance, and feeling 
 the air that came through the opening door. Dying 
 at twenty - five, exhausted with work and suffering, 
 among his last words were : ' Death is to me as a bed 
 to the weary.' And on the scaffold, in a pause of the 
 beating of the drums, liis voice rose clear to the sky : 
 'I shall soon be above these clouds, I shall soon be 
 above these clouds ; then shall I enjoy Thee, and 
 glorify Thee, my Father ! without interruption, and 
 without intermission, for ever ! ' 
 
 The letters of Eenwick remind one not unfrequently 
 of those of Eutherford, with a vein of melancholy 
 in them, as if from a heart that felt the shadow of 
 an early death. "We shall close this paper with an 
 extract from one addressed to friends in Holland. 
 
 ' Now, right honourable, as to news here, I know 
 that the Lord is still increasing his people in number 
 and spiritual strength ; and many a sacrifice He is 
 taking off their hands ; for there are not many days 
 wherein his truths are not sealed with blood, and that 
 in all places, so that I think within a little there shall 
 not be a moss or mountain in the West of Scotland 
 which shall not be flowered with martyrs. Enemies 
 think themselves satisfied that we are put to wander 
 in dark, stormy nights through mosses and mountains ; 
 but if they knew how we were feasted when others 
 are sleeping, they would gnash their teeth with rage. 
 Oh, I cannot express how sweet times I have had 
 when the curtains of heaven have been drawn ; when
 
 2 2 SCO TTISH NA TIONA LIT V. 
 
 the quietness of all things in the silent watches of the 
 night has brought to my mind the duty of admiring 
 the deep, silent and inexpressible ocean of joy, wherein 
 tlie whole family of the higher house are everlastingly 
 drowned ; each star leading me out to wonder what 
 He must be who is the Star of Jacob, the bright and 
 morning star, who maketh all his own to shine as 
 stars in the firmament ! The greatest wrong enemies 
 can do is to be instrumental in bringing a chariot to 
 carry us to that higher house, and should we not 
 think this the greatest favour ? '
 
 JOHN KNOX} 
 
 Joiix Knox was born at Giffordrate in Haddinsjton, 
 in the county of Haddington, Scotland, in a.d. 1505. 
 His family was of the middle rank, and he had the 
 benefit of a liberal education. He learned Latin at 
 school, and completed his studies at the University of 
 Glasgow, where philosophy and theology were taught 
 by John Mair or Major, a celebrated schoolman. He 
 was early dissatisfied with the hard and barren 
 scholastic method, and found his way to Augustine and 
 Jerome, and afterwards to the original Scriptures. In 
 this spirit he began to teach philosophy in the Uni- 
 versity of St. Andrews, but did not profess himself a 
 Protestant till 1542. He was declared a heretic, and 
 his life was sought ; but he found protection among 
 friends in the south of Scotland, and Ijegan to preach 
 openly to the people of the surrounding districts. 
 
 About this time George Wishart, a man of devoted 
 life and great eloquence, was burnt at the stake by 
 Cardinal Beaton, and the Cardinal was shortly after- 
 wards put to death by some of his political enemies. 
 ' Written for a French Encyclopaedia.
 
 24 JOHN KNOX. 
 
 Knox, though he had no share in their act, was obliged 
 with many others to seek shelter in the strong castle 
 of St. Andrews. After a siege of a year they sur- 
 rendered to Leo Strozzi, who commanded the Papal 
 forces for Mary of Guise, Queen Eegent of Scotland, 
 and the mother of Mary Stuart. It was promised that 
 they should be conveyed to France, and allowed to go 
 to any country except Scotland ; but the stipulation 
 was broken, and Knox with others was sent to the 
 galleys, loaded with chains, and compelled to labour at 
 the oar. In the midst of indignities and cruel suffer- 
 ings, and after a violent fever which threatened his 
 life, he composed his treatise on Prayer, which was 
 afterwards published. He was restored to freedom in 
 1549, as the cause of Pome was considered safe in 
 Scotland when the Parliament consented to the mar- 
 riage of the young princess, Mary Stuart, with the 
 Dauphin, afterwards Francis II. 
 
 As soon as he was released, Knox passed over to 
 England, then under the reforming prince, Edward A'l., 
 and received an appointment to preach at Berwick, 
 and in the northern counties near Scotland. He 
 laboured with much success, and the pulpits are still 
 pointed out from which he spoke, as they are in his 
 native land. The freedom of his preaching gave 
 offence to the Bishox3 of Durham, and he had to defend 
 himself at London. Such, however, w^as the esteem of 
 Cranmer for him that he had the offer of a bishopric ; 
 but he declined it from his inability to accept the
 
 JOHN KNOX. 25 
 
 principles of the Angiicau Church. The death of 
 Edward VI. stopped the progress of the lieformation 
 in England, and the persecuting reign of Mary drove 
 Knox a second time to the Continent. After wander- 
 ing through France he came to Geneva, and in the 
 society of Calvin resumed his studies with the ardour 
 of youth. He left with regret, and went by invitation 
 to labour among the Protestant refugees at Frankfort. 
 The peace of the community was disturbed by some 
 who wished to introduce the English liturgy, and, 
 though Knox was sustained by a large number, he left 
 and returned to Edinburgh in 1555. His object was 
 to rally the friends of the Eeformation who had been 
 scattered and driven into concealment by the repressive 
 measures of the Queen Eegent. In 1556 he brought 
 about the first of the religious covenants which became 
 so marked a feature in the history of Scotland. It was 
 signed by a number of the nobles and gentlemen at- 
 tached to the Eeformation, and Knox passed from place 
 to place, preaching and administering the sacrament 
 of the Lord's Supper. As the movement took open 
 shape, the Queen Eegent renewed her course of violence, 
 and so threatening did it become that his friends urged 
 him to accept an invitation from tlie English and 
 Scottish exiles in Geneva to become their minister. He 
 returned and spent two years there, the only tranquil 
 period of Ms life, in the intimate friendship of Calvin 
 and Beza, and in constant work and study. At this 
 time, the Directory of Worship, known as tlie order of
 
 26 JOHN KNOX. 
 
 Geneva, was published. It was the form which had 
 been used by Knox at Frankfort, and, being adopted 
 afterwards by the Eeformed Church of Scotland, it has 
 made the French and Scottish form of worship almost 
 the same. At Geneva he was joined by his wife and 
 family, and this season was his refreshment in a life of 
 storms. 
 
 "While absent from Scotland, he had been con- 
 demned to death by fire, and his effigy burned at the 
 cross of Edinburgh ; but a new and pressing entreaty 
 came to him to return. He consulted Calvin and 
 other ministers, and resolved to answer the call. On 
 reaching Dieppe he was met by the intelligence that 
 his Scottish friends had repented of their resolution. 
 Being familiar with the French language, he devoted 
 himself to preaching till things should ripen at home. 
 He is known to have visited Lyons and Eochelle, and 
 he was elected pastor at Dieppe, where, along with 
 Delaporte as fellow-minister, he succeeded in establish- 
 ing a flourishing Protestant community. 
 
 Various appeals to his countrymen were also 
 written and published about this time, when another 
 invitation came from the Scottish Protestants, and he 
 embarked for Leith, where he landed May 2, 1559, 
 henceforth to devote the rest of his life in incessant 
 toil and danger to the cause of the Gospel in his own 
 country. 
 
 It was a time of great excitement, and when wc 
 look back on it, it is seen to be the turning-point in
 
 JOHN KNOX. 27 
 
 the liistory of religion among the men who speak llie 
 EngHsh language throughout the world. The perse- 
 cuting Mary of England had died, and had heeu 
 succeeded hy Elizabeth, The new queen had to 
 contend with a strong reactionary party, who sought, 
 in every way, by secret plots, by attempts at assassina- 
 tion, and by open insurrection, to restore the old 
 religion. The Pope and the Catholic powers of the 
 Continent favoured their intrigues, and were ready to 
 land forces and support them at any favourable 
 opportunity ; an attempt which, after repeated trials, 
 ended and failed in the Spanish Armada of 1588. 
 Scotland was the road by which it was supposed 
 England could be most easily reached. If the Guises 
 could have retained it in the Eomish faith, it would 
 have been a fortified Utc du 2)ont, from which the 
 Papal army could have issued, and struck a fatal blow 
 at the heart of the Pieformation. Such was the 
 situation, and both sides knew it. Mary Stuart landed 
 from France to take possession of the throne of her 
 ancestors on August 21, 15G1. Young, beautiful, 
 possessed of all the accomj)lishments and graces that 
 dazzle and charm, she entered on her reign in a 
 cloudless sunshine of popular favour. Even the Pro- 
 testants were disposed to hope the best. But beneath 
 her enchanting ease of manner she had an inflexible 
 will, and talents of the highest order, which were 
 devoted to the Church of Pome with the bigotry of 
 the blood of the Guises, deepened by the strong recoil
 
 28 JOHN KNOX. 
 
 of her pleasure-loving nature from the severe manners 
 of the new religion. She had the hearts of the 
 unsuspecting people, the adoration of the young 
 nobles, the unswerving fidelity of a large and compact 
 party still attached to the Papacy, and, behind all 
 these, the counsel and gold and auxiliary forces of the 
 strongest powers of the Continent. It was an immi- 
 nent hazard, and it is now admitted by the calmest 
 historians that, under God, it was only the energy and 
 wisdom of Knox which turned the scale, kept Scot- 
 land for the Reformation, saved England from the 
 most critical danger, and thus preserved for Protestant 
 Christianity all the influences that are now going out 
 through the world in the English P)ible and missions, 
 commerce and colonies, and that will, we believe, 
 continue to go out, notwithstanding temporary relaxa- 
 tions and seeming reactions. 
 
 The twelve years that followed Knox's return to 
 Scotland in 1559, until his death, were the crowning 
 period of liis life, to which all his sufferings and 
 labours and wanderings had been leading up. They 
 were crowded with worlc of every kind, preaching to 
 the people in all parts of Scotland, laying the founda- 
 tions and ordering the service of the Church, forming 
 the course of public instruction in the schools and 
 universities, writing practical treatises of religion, 
 watching and opposing the intrigues of the Court, 
 encouraging and organizing the friends of reform in 
 Scotland, and maintaining correspondence with minis-
 
 JOHN KNOX. 29 
 
 ters and statesmen abroad on the then supreme 
 questions of religious truth and freedom. The labour 
 of several lives was compressed into that period ; and 
 it is impossible in so brief a compass as this to 
 indicate even the outlines. Two or three leadintr 
 events may be mentioned. When he returned finally 
 from France in 1559, he was prevented from settling 
 in Edinburgh, through its military occupation by the 
 troops of the Queen Eegent. He therefore made a 
 circuit of the kingdom, disturbed as it was by civil 
 war and faction, and preached in all the chief places. 
 Such was the eftect of his appeals that the people 
 in the chief towns declared for the Keformation, and in 
 July 1560 it was adopted by Act of Parliament. 
 He became minister in Edinburgh, but continued 
 still to have a care of all the churches. The return 
 of Mary Stuart in 1561, already referred to, intro- 
 duced a new danger. She revived the hopes of the 
 Eomanists, and her fascination extended to leading 
 members of the Protestant party. She repeatedly 
 sent for Knox, and the interviews between them form 
 some of the most picturesque scenes in Scottish 
 history, fertile as it is in abrupt contrasts. Wliile 
 respectful to her as his sovereign, he was careful to 
 guard the independence of the Church and the free- 
 dom of his ministerial ofhce ; and his counsels about 
 her soul's interests to the gay, young queen, sur- 
 rounded by her courtiers, remind one of Elijah before 
 the kings and queens of Israel. These interviews
 
 30 JOHN KNOX. 
 
 ]iav3 been charged with insolence by the Eomish and 
 Episcopalian historians, but they were invited by the 
 queen herself, and the earnest words of Knox have a 
 manly tenderness in them tliat can be felt by all, 
 except those who hold that the divine right of kings 
 puts them above the reach of honest advice. The 
 later history of Mary, with all the charm of romance 
 which has gathered round it, is well known, and has 
 been a battlefield ever since for contending parties. 
 Whatever sympathy we may have for the unhappy 
 victim of a passionate nature and an evil education, 
 no lover of God's truth, or of man's freedom, can 
 regret that Knox did not suffer the fate of Wishart, 
 and that the struggle ended in favour of his cause. 
 It was the conflict of conscience and the fear of God, 
 stern and unbending, as was needful in the circum- 
 stances, against the pleasures of the material life and 
 the charms of the sensuous imagination. It pleased 
 God to give the victory to this faithful old man, 
 who had no weapons but the Word of God and an 
 invincible confidence in its divine power. 
 
 In all the troubles of Mary's reign, and the infancy 
 of James VI., Knox had one anxiety, the preservation 
 of Christian truth, and its extension more widely and 
 deeply among the people, through preaching and 
 education. Political events had their chief interest 
 for liim in this connection, and in no other way was 
 he mixed up with them. At length his frame, which 
 like that of his friend Calvin had been subject to
 
 JOHN KNOX. 31 
 
 life-long weakness, sunk under toil and care. The 
 assassination of his friend, the Regent Moray, greatly 
 depressed him, and the news of the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew inflicted a deep wound, for it touched not 
 only his love to the common cause, but the affection 
 he bore to many noble Christians whom he knew 
 and held dear. He had been slightly struck with 
 apoplexy, but continued to preach though he could 
 with difficulty mount the pulpit. When confined 
 through utter weakness to the house, he made his 
 secretary read to him daily the I7th chapter of 
 John's Gospel, the 53rd of Isaiah, a chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Ephesians, with some of the Psalms and 
 one of Calvin's sermons. The week before his death, 
 his colleague, the elders and deacons of his church, 
 and some others came to his room by his request, 
 and he gave them his parting charge. The beginning 
 and the close may be given, as they reveal his life 
 and his heart : ' The day approaches,' he said, ' and is 
 now before the door, for which I have frequently and 
 vehemently thirsted, when I shall be released from my 
 great labours and innumerable sorrows, and shall be M'ith 
 Christ. And now God is my witness, whom I have 
 served in spirit in the Gospel of his Son, that I have 
 taught nothing but the true and solid doctrine of the 
 Gospel of the Son of God, and have had it for my only 
 object to instruct the ignorant, to confirm the faithful, 
 to comfort the weak, the fearful, and the distressed 
 by the promises of grace, and to fight against the proud
 
 32 TOHN KNOX. 
 
 and rebellious by the divine threatenings. I know that 
 
 many have complained of my too great severity ; but 
 
 God knows that my mind was always void of hatred 
 
 to the persons of those against whom I thundered the 
 
 severest judgments. In the meantime, my dearest 
 
 brethren, do you persevere in the eternal truth of the 
 
 Gospel ; wait dihgently on the flock over which the 
 
 Lord hath set you, and which He redeemed with the 
 
 blood of his only-begotten Son, The Lord from on 
 
 high bless you, and the whole Church of Edinburgh, 
 
 against whom, as long as they persevere in the word 
 
 of truth, the gates of hell shall not prevail.' On the 
 
 24th November 1572, his last day on earth, his eyes 
 
 and speech began to fail. He bade them read the 
 
 17th chapter of John's Gospel, ' where he cast his first 
 
 anchor.' ' And now,' he said, ' for the last time, I 
 
 commend my soul, spirit, and body (touching three of 
 
 his fingers) into thy hand, Lord!' About eleven 
 
 o'clock at night he gave a deep sigh, and said, ' Noio 
 
 it is come.' Eicliard Bannatyne drew near, and desired 
 
 him to think upon those comfortable promises of our 
 
 Saviour Jesus Christ which he had so often declared 
 
 to others, and, perceiving that he was speechless, 
 
 requested him to give them a sign that he heard them, 
 
 and that he died in peace. Upon this he lifted up 
 
 one of his hands, and, sighing twice, expired without 
 
 a struggle. 
 
 The life of Knox was too busy and troubled to 
 permit him to be a great writer, even had this been
 
 JOHN KNOX. 33 
 
 his faculty. The best known of his books is the 
 History of the Reformation in Scotland (edited by 
 David Laing, Edinburgh 1846, 2 vols.). It is a 
 picturesque book, written with great vigour and fresh- 
 ness, incisive in thought and expression, full of quaint 
 humour and mother wit, and thereby revealing to us 
 some of the sources of Knox's power over the people. 
 His practical treatises, which are less read, have great 
 fervour of spiritual feeling. His fiery pamphlets are 
 at rest on the shelves of the antiquary — they finished 
 their duty long ago. But the great work Knox left 
 behind him is the country and Church he loved so 
 well, and for which his life was one long labour. He 
 found the Scottish people proud of the national inde- 
 pendence which their great hero Wallace had gained 
 for them, but ignorant, coarse, debased, the prey of 
 rapacious nobles and an immoral priesthood. Ho 
 breathed into them a new life, which made them 
 conscious they had souls, and which put them beyond 
 reach of enslavement again by tyrant or priest, thougli 
 it was often attempted. The Church he reformed 
 has had a chequered existence, and latterly the spirit 
 of independence he breathed into it has proved too 
 powerful for its outward uniformity. The spirit of 
 Knox is the key to the religious history of Scotland, 
 and his influence is seen in the fact that each section 
 of the Presbyterian community claims to possess the 
 larger part of his mantle. Events are at work which 
 paay perfect in all of them the Christian liberty he 
 
 c
 
 34 JOHN KNOX. 
 
 sought, and then may come also the unity which was 
 part of his ideal. To Knox also it is owing that 
 the Churches feel they must find, under God, their 
 strength in the people, or die. In the face of hostile 
 monarchs and a self-seeking class of nobles, he 
 entrenched himself in the national conscience. With 
 the foresight of a statesman, he laid the basis of a 
 wide and high system of education, by which all 
 should be able to read God's Word for themselves, and 
 the sons of the poorest rise, step by step, to the 
 instruction of the universities. The effect of this has 
 been that Scotland has exerted an influence, in the 
 British Empire and its Colonies, far beyond the pro- 
 portion of its population, and has done much, along 
 with the Free Churches of England, to save the 
 English-speaking races from the hierarchical and 
 ritualistic tendencies of the Anglican system. It is 
 through Knox, more than any other, that the stream 
 of the French Eeformation, checked in its own country, 
 has flowed in upon the Anglo-Saxon communities 
 throughout the world. It should not be forgotten, 
 that the English Nonconformists and Wesleyans form 
 essentially one church with the Presbyterians, being 
 agreed, not only in their views of doctrine, but in the 
 main elements of organization. It is for this reason 
 that all these Churches cherish so deep an interest in 
 the Protestantism of France, to which they look as 
 an elder sister, and for whose restoration to them in 
 her ancient strength and beauty they never cease to
 
 JOHN KNOX. 35 
 
 pray. It may be said, finally, that, while the Scottish 
 Eeformer was inferior to Luther and Calvin in several 
 respects, he united qualities that belonged to them 
 both, he performed a work inferior to neither, and his 
 name must take rank with theirs as one of the three 
 mighty men of the great Eeformation. The more his 
 character is examined, the more it becomes clear that, 
 while he was eminent for his energy and courage, his 
 penetration and statesmanlike sagacity, the spring of 
 his entire life-work was a devoted, spiritual earnest- 
 ness. The eulogium over his grave by the Eegent 
 Morton was, ' There lies he who never feared the face 
 of man ; ' but the reason was, that the Gospel had 
 implanted deep in his heart the fear of God. 
 
 The materials for the history of Knox and his 
 times are to be found in the early annals of Scotland, 
 both civil and ecclesiastical, especially Calderwood, 
 Eow, and Wpdrow, in Knox's own writings, and in MSS, 
 in various libraries. These have been brought together 
 with great diligence and skill by Dr. M'Crie, whose 
 Life, of Knox is the standard book on the subject. 
 Some special and very interesting studies of his 
 character have also been made, more lately, by the 
 historians Carlyle and Froude.
 
 THE REVOCATION OF THE EDICT 
 OF NANTES} 
 
 It is well, before the year 1885 has been left far 
 behind, that attention should be turned to an event 
 which took place exactly two centuries previous, but 
 the effects of which have been felt in Europe, and 
 especially in France and Britain, to this day. The 
 rivers of the present flow from the springs of the past. 
 The antecedents of this pregnant and fatal act of Louis 
 XIV. may be briefly glanced at, France promised at 
 one time to be among the first nations of the Reforma- 
 tion, and her whole history would then have been a 
 very different one. Her soil seemed congenial. In 
 the early part of the thirteenth century, the Albigenses 
 were found in large numbers on the border of the 
 Mediterranean and in the valleys that run from the 
 Garonne deep into the Pyrenees. Their memory has 
 been traduced by their persecutors, whose policy it 
 has always been to kill first the life and then the 
 good name ; but we know that they renounced the 
 Pope and loved the Bible — a negative and a positive 
 ' Written for the United Presbyterian Magazine, 1886.
 
 RE VO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 3 7 
 
 pole which settle a whole character. After desperate 
 struggles, their heresy was quenched in blood by the 
 ferocious Simon de Montfort, urged to his crusades by 
 the popes and bishops of the day ; and, for flourishing 
 towns and an industrious and moral population, there 
 remained only smouldering ruins. Three hundred 
 years after, the Gospel was preached in these same 
 regions with wonderful results : ' Truth,' says the 
 Psalmist, ' shall spring out of the earth.' Nowhere, 
 through all France, was there such a turning to the 
 Eeformation li^ht as in the south. But all France 
 was stirred. Lef^vre, who preached the truth of 
 justification by faith before Luther, followed by Farel, 
 Calvin, and Beza, went everywhere, and multitudes 
 embraced the Protestant doctrines. The converts 
 were chiefly of the middle and artisan classes, stretch- 
 ing into the nobility and touching the royal family ; 
 among them ' of devout women not a few.' The sister 
 of Francis I., Marguerite des MargiLerites, ' the pearl of 
 pearls,' as her brother called her, was one of them ; 
 not less gifted, and more devout, was Eenee, Duchess 
 of Ferrara, and daughter of Louis XII. ; and most 
 noble and heroic of all was Joanna D'Albret of 
 Navarre, mother of Henry IV. So wide and strong 
 was the tide that the governors of France hesitated 
 for a time if they should not follow it. But the ruler 
 in whose hand the chief determination lay was 
 Catharine de Medici, the mother of a number of 
 princes who succeeded as minors to the throne, and
 
 38 RE VOCA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 in whose name she governed ; among them, Francis 
 II., the short-lived husband of our Mary Stuart. The 
 character of Catharine — and in this we have the 
 testimony of undisputed history — was a compound 
 of the inordinate love of pleasure and power, so 
 ambitious of rule that she set herself to corrupt the 
 morals of her own sons in order to unfit them for 
 interfering with her, laying the same snares for any 
 man who seemed likely to cross her path. For a 
 while she wavered, or seemed to waver, between the 
 Protestants and the Guises, their irreconcilable enemies, 
 but who again, on their own part, might be her 
 dangerous rivals. At length she decided to crush the 
 Protestants for two weighty reasons : their morals 
 were too severe for her taste, and, as they had begun 
 to think for themselves in religion, they might do the 
 same in politics. Their leading men were invited to 
 Paris under friendly assurances, and the pretext of 
 arranging terms of religious toleration. When all 
 was ready, the houses where they lived being marked, 
 and soldiers and fanatical assassins assigned their 
 work, the bell of St. Germain I'Auxerrois tolled the 
 death signal at twelve o'clock at night, August 24, 
 1572. It was close to the Louvre, and many a tocsin 
 of blood and terror has sounded since around that 
 palace, with a different meaning to its inmates. The 
 doors of the Protestant houses were broken open, and 
 death dealt out by fire and sword, often without 
 distinction of age or sex. When some of the poor
 
 RE VOCATION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 39 
 
 fugitives lied to tlie walls of tlie Louvre for slielter, 
 tliey were fired on by the king, Cliarles IX,, from a 
 window wliich is still pointed out. The massacre 
 extended to the provinces, by orders sent to them, 
 and it is calculated that from 30,000 to 70,000 
 Protestants were murdered ; some raise the number 
 to 100,000. It could never be exactly known, as 
 many fled to mountains and forests, dying of hunger 
 and exposure, and many sought safety in exile. A 
 cry of horror arose through Europe, and John Knox, 
 who was then on a sick-bed, sank under the blow. 
 A number of the victims were his dear personal 
 friends, and he foreboded what might come to Scot- 
 land, if that power against which he had fought all 
 his life were to prevail. Catharine boasted of the 
 deed privately to the Popish courts, and sought to 
 palliate it to the Protestant ones. The Pope, by 
 whom the news had been expected, went in solemn 
 procession, in Eome, to the Church of St. Louis, the 
 patron saint of France, and sang Tc Dcum. Medals 
 were struck by him in commemoration, and a painting 
 by Giorgio Vasari, representing the slaughter in 
 detail, adorns one of the walls of the Vatican at the 
 entrance to the Sistine Chapel, which the Pope passes 
 when he performs his devotions amid the choicest 
 frescoes of Eaphael. The only change made in Vasari's 
 picture by the light of modern time is that the words 
 Strages Huguenottorum, the Slaughter of the Huguenots, 
 which originally stood there, have been removed. But
 
 40 RE VOCA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 why does Eome not efface these witnesses of her 
 complicity with this ferocious past ? For a simple 
 reason. She has never admitted, but always denounced, 
 the rio-ht of the individual conscience, and she cannot 
 admit that she has ever been wrong in her attitude 
 toward it. Whatever single Eoman Catholics may do, 
 this is the doctrine of the Church, and she prefers to 
 let the records stand, and preserve a discreet silence, 
 or seek, by Jesuit advocacy, to cast back the blood- 
 stains on the victims. Those Protestants who would 
 persuade themselves and others that the Church of 
 Eome has altered her \iews are more charitable to her 
 than she is to herself. 
 
 The massacre of St. Bartholomew was a stunning 
 blow to the French Protestants, for they had lost most 
 of their leaders, and, among them, the noble and 
 devout Coligny, who had served his country in many 
 an emergency. Nevertheless they rallied, and a fierce 
 conflict of varying fortune ensued for twenty years, 
 till Henry of Navarre, their chief leader, became heir 
 to the throne of France through the failure of the 
 line of Valois. He was the first of the Bourbon 
 family, as Henry IV. The hopes of the Protestants 
 were high, but they were doomed to a large disap- 
 pointment. Henry conformed to the Eomish faith. 
 He was led to this partly by the fear that he could 
 not otherwise gain the crown, and partly by want of 
 thorough sympathy with the Protestants, from his love 
 of pleasure and the corruption of his morals which
 
 RE VO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 4 1 
 
 had been begun, years before, by Catharine de Medici. 
 He had in him the nature of his grandson, our Charles 
 II., and there is a curious parallel between the conduct 
 of Charles to the Presbyterians and that of Henry 
 to the Huguenots, though, beyond doubt, in other 
 respects, Henry had higher traits of character. It 
 was a deplorable step in many ways. It was a greater 
 check to Protestantism than ten lost battles, for it 
 filled the true men with shame, and led the way 
 among the titled and the wealthy to generations of 
 defection. When the fire slackens, the white ashes 
 gather fast on the top, and a breath carries them 
 away. It was a blow to France and to Henry's own 
 dynasty, for it shook faith in principle, and the 
 apostasy of the first Bourbon prepared the exile of 
 the last. It brought danger to our own country, and 
 helped the ruin of the Stuart line. His daughter, 
 Henrietta, married to our Charles I., strengthened that 
 monarch in his obstinate despotism, and bequeathed 
 the Eomish principles in which she was reared, with 
 her father's love of pleasure, to the men of the later 
 Stuart blood. And it did not secure for Henry 
 himself a peaceful end. He was distrusted by the 
 Jesuits, because he would not be their creature, and, 
 after repeated attempts on his life, he fell at last in 
 the streets of Paris by the knife of Ptavaillac. But 
 Henry, though he had no deep principle, had an idea 
 of state policy, and was not altogether unmindful of 
 his former co-religionists. He was a friend to them,
 
 42 RE VO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 not from sympathy with their religious views, but on 
 the principles of fairness and freedom, as far as these 
 could be acted on at the time. The clergy of the 
 Eomish Church, a large mass of the fanaticized popu- 
 lation, and the city of Paris — which on so many 
 occasions has given law to France — were against every 
 degree of religious liberty. Nevertheless, in 1598, 
 he framed and issued the Edict of Nantes, so called 
 from the city where it was signed. It was not a 
 charter of freedom, but a grant of toleration. The 
 toleration, too, was limited to the places where the 
 Protestants were already possessed of the privilege 
 of worship ; but where they were weak and scattered 
 they were unprotected. They were denied the right 
 of extending their religion, and checked in defending 
 it by argument. They were not allowed to have a 
 church in Paris, and only one in the suburban village 
 of Charenton. In the ninety-two articles of which 
 it consisted there were many provisos and restric- 
 tions through which they could be harassed by an 
 unfriendly Government and a dominant priesthood. 
 Their religion was called in the Edict ' the pretended 
 Eeformed ; ' and, througli all France, while Eomanism 
 was the legal religion, Protestantism was only in some 
 places the permitted one. Yet, such as it was, it 
 cost Henry his life at the hands of the Jesuits ; and 
 the Protestants found, when he was dead, that they 
 had lost a friend. Severe struggles followed, deepen- 
 ing into occasional civil wars, but, on the whole,
 
 RE VO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 43 
 
 Protestantism had a measure of peace and prosperity. 
 Wlieu the Edict was issued, it had 750 powerful 
 congregations in central towns, and four colleges, 
 Sedan, Saumur, Montauban, and Montpellier. Its 
 literary and theological chairs were filled by men of 
 European reputation, and students flocked to them 
 from Switzerland, Germany, Holland, England, and 
 Scotland. They were the means of spreading those 
 views of religious truth and church government 
 known as the Eeformed, in distinction from the 
 Lutheran and Anglican, and which have since pre- 
 vailed so largely among the English Nonconformists, 
 the Scottish and Irish Presbyterians, in the United 
 States, and in our Colonies, not to speak of the 
 Eeformed Churches of Holland, the PJiine provinces, 
 Brandenburg, and Eastern Europe, Between Scotland 
 and France, at that time, there was a close connection. 
 At Saumur and Sedan, Scotsmen were not only students 
 but professors. We have space but to name Robert 
 Boyd and the learned John Cameron, professors at 
 Saumur, both of whom became principals of the Uni- 
 versity of Glasgow, and Andrew Melville, principal 
 of the college of Sedan, whose name stands, amid a 
 roll of his fellow-countrymen, on a tablet in the little 
 Erench Protestant Church which has risen from the 
 wreck left by persecution. He preached for years 
 in the town -church built by the descendants of 
 Godfrey of Bouillon, the crusader, ardent friends of 
 the Eeformation. The church was given over to the
 
 44 REVOCATION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 Pioman Catholics, and no one can tell where Andrew 
 Melville is buried. A succession of ministers illus- 
 trious for learning and eloquence adorns that period ; 
 Jurieu, Amyraut, Eivet, Basnage, Dumoulin, Bochart, 
 Daille, Ancillon, Claude ; Duplessis Mornay has been 
 rarely equalled for Christian chivalry and tender 
 devotion ; and Bernard Palissy, who died as a heretic 
 in the Bastille, just before the Edict of toleration, is 
 a specimen of the genius they brought to art. 
 
 A change took place when Louis XIV. passed from 
 his minority into active rule in 1661 — memorable in 
 Britain as the year of the Stuart Eestoration. His 
 instincts appear to have been at first towards what 
 was good, but they fell into an appetite for the grand, 
 or rather the grandiose, and the glittering. His am- 
 bition was to be sole ruler in France, his motto being, 
 '/ am the State' and to extend this sway through 
 Europe by conquest. Provincial and local government 
 was abolished, and the centralization of France estab- 
 lished in Paris, and in his palace. Such a faith as 
 Protestantism was not likely to find favour with such 
 a monarch. In addition, Louis, like so many of his 
 predecessors, was immoral in life, and his mistresses 
 had him in their keeping, especially the celebrated 
 Madame de IMaintenon, who, as a renegade Protestant, 
 regarded the religion she had left with an implacable 
 hatred. Louis was ignorant of religion, but he was 
 superstitious, and his confessor, Lachaise, whose name 
 is preserved in the Parisian cemetery, led him in the
 
 REVOCATION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 45 
 
 same direction as his mistresses. When his conscience 
 was roused, he was told that the most acceptable 
 amends was the extinction of heresy. The Duke of 
 St. Simon, no friend to the Protestants, writes : ' The 
 king wished to be saved, and, as he had no religion, 
 he found peace by inflicting penance on the Huguenots 
 and Jansenists.' From memoirs which Louis himself 
 has left, called Instructions to his Son, there is a clear 
 view of the course of policy he meant to pursue. He 
 intended, he says, to maintain the Edict of Nantes as 
 far as justice and policy required, but he was deter- 
 mined not to extend any favour beyond its limits. 
 His grace must necessarily be reserved for the faithful 
 subjects who were of his own religion, and he hoped 
 that, by and by, the others would see it to be for 
 their advantage to take the step that would make 
 them sharers of it. He instructed the bishops to 
 work zealously for the conversion of heretics, and to 
 offer such rewards as were fitting to those who 
 had docile minds. Commissaries were appointed 
 to all the provinces to look into the affairs of the 
 Huguenots, to examine the titles they had to churches 
 and privileges, and to carry out the law of restriction. 
 The king's wish was the guide of his servants, and 
 success was the way to promotion. A seeming ilaw 
 in a title caused a church to be pulled down; the 
 presence of Eoman Catholics in the congregation did 
 the same, for this was charged as proselytism ; and 
 when the Protestants met elsewhere for worship, or
 
 46 REVO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 presented a petition, they were dispersed and prosecuted 
 as disturbers of the peace. Gradually measures became 
 more severe. Churches were shut, on the ground of 
 their annoying, by their praise, the worship and feeling 
 of Eoman Catholics ; Protestant children were allowed 
 to renounce the religion of their parents, if they were 
 seven years of age, and were then given over to monks 
 and nuns to be educated ; soldiers were quartered in 
 Protestant districts, and allowed to plunder and work 
 their will. The wretched people were subjected to 
 all kinds of violence in property and person. Every 
 imaginable torture, that was not fatal, was put in 
 requisition. They were kept from sleeping by relays 
 of soldiers beating drums and pricking them with their 
 swords till they were almost unconscious. Missionaries 
 and Sisters of Mercy followed with ensnaring offers, 
 asking them to promise submission to religion as it was 
 in the days of the apostles ; and, when they consented, 
 they were marched off in procession to the cathedral 
 to have Te Deum sung over them, with the penalty of 
 relapsed heretics if they again entered a Protestant 
 church. The effect was the ostensible conversion of 
 o-reat numbers of Protestants, of whom one of the 
 bishops said, ' The parents may be hypocrites, but the 
 children will be brought up good Catholics.' This 
 success was so represented to Louis that there seemed 
 no more reason for delay. There was no need of an 
 Edict of Nantes, since there were no more Protestants 
 in France: and in 1685 Madame de Maintenon per-
 
 REVOCATION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 47 
 
 suaded liim to revoke the Edict, and to unite himself 
 to her by a private marriage. 
 
 It may be worth while to pause and see how these 
 events were regarded by leading men in France outside 
 the Protestant Church. The king's confessor, Letellier, 
 who had succeeded Lachaise, when he put the seal to the 
 Eevocation, broke out into Simeon's words, ' Lord, now 
 lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace,' and ' with 
 right,' says the Jesuit D'Avrigny, ' for he might well con- 
 sider it as the happiest and most glorious event of his 
 life.' The bishops and clergy expended eloquence to 
 extravagance in praise of the deed and the doer of it. 
 ' Touched by so many marvels,' says Bossuet, ' let us ex- 
 pand our hearts in praise of the piety of Louis. Let our 
 acclamations ascend to the skies, and let us say to this 
 new Constantino, this new Theodosius, this new Charle- 
 magne, what the thirty-six fathers formerly said in the 
 Council of Chalcedon : " You have strengthened faith ; 
 you have exterminated heretics ; it is a work worthy of 
 your reign. Thanks to you, heresy is no more. God 
 alone can have worked this marvel. King of heaven, 
 preserve the king of earth : it is the prayer of the 
 Church, it is the prayer of the bishops." ' Massillon 
 followed in the same strain, and Fluchier and the 
 gentle F^nelon. The Abbe Tallemand apostrophized 
 the ruins of the Protestant church of Charenton, which 
 had been demolished amid the tears and despairing 
 cries of its children : ' Happy ruins, the finest trophy 
 France ever beheld ! ' Even the Jansenists, who had
 
 48 RE VOCA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 asserted love to be the only homage God will accept, 
 declared by the lips of Arnauld, 'That the means 
 which had been employed were rather violent but 
 nowise unjust.' They were, ere long, to find these 
 means used against themselves. At Eome, again, as 
 on the day of St. Bartholomew, Tc Deum was sung 
 with unbounded joy, and Innocent XI. sent a brief to 
 Louis in which he gave him the unanimous thanks of 
 the Church. Medals were struck, and the art of the 
 greatest painter of the time employed to decorate the 
 OTeat hall of Versailles with emblems of the ruin of 
 
 O 
 
 heresy. It was the Augustan age of French literature, 
 of Eacine and Moliere and La Bruyere, but not a voice 
 was lifted in protest. Madame de S^vigne wrote of it, 
 ' There is nothing so fine as what this Eevocation con- 
 tains ; and never has any king done, nor will ever do, 
 au"ht so memorable,' — which came true in another sense 
 than this fine lady meant it. There were a few, such 
 as Vauban, the great military engineer, and the Duke 
 of St. Simon, who were bold enough to utter dislike ; 
 and, to the honour of humanity, let it be said there 
 were among the humbler Eoman Catholics not a few 
 instances of relenting and of pitiful help ; but, beyond 
 Louis and Madame de Maintenon, the Church of Eome, 
 as a Church, was guilty from Pope to priest of instiga- 
 tion and approbation, and the majority of the French 
 nation of active assistance or guilty silence. In pro- 
 portion to this fell the retribution. Let us look 
 at it.
 
 RE VOCA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 49 
 
 The slow agony of the j)ersecution, and then the 
 blow of the Eevocation, seemed to paralyse the Pro- 
 testants. But there came a burst of energy, unex- 
 pected by their -oppressors or by themselves. A panic 
 of flight seized all to whom escape was possible. If 
 near the frontiers, they crossed in thousands ; if in the 
 interior, they hid in the woods by day and travelled 
 by night, assuming all possible disguises ; if near the 
 sea, they embarked in the first vessel they could find, 
 hiding in the hold or in barrels, committing themselves 
 to open boats in any kind of weather. They sought 
 homes in all the countries of Europe, from Switzerland 
 to Sweden, but especially in Holland and Great Britain ; 
 they crossed the Atlantic to America, and settled in 
 South Africa and the East. Whole districts of France 
 were left uncultivated, manufacturing towns were 
 diminished in many cases by a third of their popula- 
 tion, and it is no exaggerated calculation that Erance 
 lost by emigration half a million inhabitants. AVhere 
 the Protestants were most numerous, in the centre of 
 France, and where escape was more difficult, they took 
 to arms and maintained for years a despairing conflict 
 among the mountains of the Cevennes. Under skilful 
 and daring leaders, and against overwhelming odds, 
 they defeated, time after time, the armies of Louis ; 
 and it was only by the sacrifice of thousands of his 
 best troops, and a number of his best generals, that he 
 succeeded in restoring quiet. The story of the Church 
 of the Desert, and the wars of the Camisards, is one 
 
 D
 
 so REVOCATION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 of the most thrilling interest, resembling that of our 
 own Covenanters, but on a larger scale and in even 
 darker colours. Besides the works of Felice, Peyrat, 
 and Weiss, there are many of the narratives, local and 
 personal, now being published in France by historical 
 societies, and the perusal of them must have an effect 
 in favour of religious liberty, if not of religious truth. 
 Having given an account of the Revocation, we shall 
 refer to some of the results which can be directly 
 traced to it. The first was great industrial and intel- 
 lectual loss to France. This consisted not merely in 
 the number of the refugees, but in their character. 
 They were the very cream and flower of the middle 
 and working classes, the strength of the social system 
 for intelligence and morality. The amount of wealth 
 which left the country was considerable. Many fled, 
 despoiled of all they possessed, thankful to preserve con- 
 science and life ; but numbers found means of carry- 
 ing off money or its equivalent by the most ingenious 
 methods ; or they concealed their valuables in hiding- 
 places, and afterwards recovered them. This, however, 
 was a trifle compared with what was lost in the exiles 
 themselves. A great part of the skilled labour of 
 France had been in their hands. The historian Weiss 
 gives a long list of the manufactures carried on chiefly 
 by Protestants, and of the towns and districts enriched 
 by them. Woollen and silken stuffs, ribbon-weaving, 
 hats, hosiery, paper, watches, thread, work in iron, 
 steel, bronze, copper, lead, the arts of the armourer,
 
 RE VO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 5 1 
 
 locksmith, cutler, polisher, were theirs in great 
 measure. The very sails of the royal navy of 
 England, before the Revocation, came from France. 
 The fields, gardens, orchards, flowers, and fruits of the 
 Huguenot agriculturists had a verdure and richness by 
 which they could be recognized, and which showed the 
 splendid material for colonization France at that time 
 possessed. All this became the prize of her Protestant 
 neighbours, who welcomed the exiles with open arms, 
 both from sympathy with their sufferings and a sense 
 of their value as citizens. A new era of manufacture 
 and commerce began in the countries where they 
 settled ; and, from being importers, these lands com- 
 peted with and conquered France in her former 
 markets. The Elector of Brandenburg was distin- 
 guished for the liberality of his advances in money to 
 crowds of farmers and mechanics, and he found his 
 reward in the change of the waste sands of tlie Mark 
 into green fields round what is now the capital of the 
 German Empire, and in new industries which turned 
 dull villages into flourishing towns. It was an 
 important element in the growth by which Branden- 
 burg rose into the kingdom of Prussia, the successful 
 rival of France, and the leader in the wars for German 
 unity. Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, even Ptussia, 
 and the lands beyond the Atlantic had their share, but 
 none profited so much as Holland and Britain. 
 Holland, which had made so noble a struggle against 
 the overwhelming power of Philip II. of Spain, was
 
 52 REVO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 beginning to lose its spirit of devotion and self-sacrifice, 
 and the influx of the emigrants and their influence 
 jzave the needed stimulus at the critical time. They 
 crossed the frontier, which was near, in great numl3ers, 
 and brought not only an accession of industry and 
 skill, but of high religious intelligence and ardour. 
 The bigoted folly of Louis XIV. was building up 
 embankments against his own ambition more effectual 
 than any that Dutch determination ever reared against 
 the waters of the ocean. What happened in our 
 own country may be judged of from the fact that in 
 V London alone there were thirty-one French churches ; 
 and all the chief towns of the kingdom had their pro- 
 portion. There was a settlement in Edinburgh, which 
 gave name to Picardy Place ; and French was spoken 
 by those sprung from refugees far on in last century. 
 A prayer meeting which was a descendant of their 
 church is said still to survive in Canonmills, Edin- 
 burgh ; and it would be curious if we could connect 
 this rehc of the Ptevocation with the cradle of the 
 Scottish Disruption. These French artisans brought 
 to Britain"improved modes of work and new industries. 
 The secrets of trade came from Tours and Lyons for 
 silks, and velvets, and various stuffs which had been 
 the pride and monopoly of France. The refugees 
 made for themselves as a whole prosperous homes, 
 after their passage through their Eed Sea ; and perhaps 
 no more striking instance of despotism overreaching 
 and ruininiT itself can be found since that far-off time
 
 RE VO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 5 3 
 
 in Egypt, Then God's hand was raised to strike 
 down the oppressor and open a way to new lands of 
 freedom. In this connection we must not forget to 
 mention another class of exiles who had almost greater 
 influence — the men of thought, of learning, of literary 
 skill and scientific genius. Of preachers may be 
 named Allix, Abbadie, and Saurin, all of them, espe- 
 cially the last, remarkable for their eloquence ; men 
 who gave form and brightness to the old Puritan gold, 
 and introduced a fresh method of preaching, wdiich 
 began with the eighteenth century. The first literary 
 newspaper in Dublin was commenced by one of them, 
 and noted names are to be found in the Irish Pro- 
 testant Churches which tell of their French orisiin. 
 In other departments there were Denis Papin, the 
 inventor of the Digester, which was the forerunner of 
 the steam-engine, and surgeons who gave a perfection 
 to instruments and practice heretofore unlvuown. 
 Others devoted themselves to law, to art, to the con- 
 duct of public business, and names occur in our par- 
 liamentary life and great banking-houses which speak 
 of their talent for finance and politics. Among these 
 are Ptomilly, Lefevre, Latouclie, Chamberlain, Ligonier, 
 Labouchere, Layard, Majendie, Prevost, Thelusson ; but 
 the traces of most of them have been lost througli 
 translation into English, and have disappeared in the 
 great families of P>rowns, Blacks, Whites, and Smiths, 
 which have done so much for every country in the 
 civilized world.
 
 54 I^EVO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 But not less remarkable was the political result. 
 Louis XIV. had in view the establishment of a 
 dictatorship in Europe, and he had in great measure 
 reached it. Germany, then divided, had lost Alsace 
 and Strasburg, and quailed before him. He had seized 
 Flanders (now Belgium), and Holland was expecting 
 the same fate. He had command of the policy of 
 England through Charles II. and James, his creatures 
 and pensioners, both of them Eoman ' Catholics — the 
 one secretly, the other openly. As happens at such 
 tides, conversions among the nobility came floating 
 into the Boman net, and there were Te, Deums and 
 great gladness and hope at the court of Innocent XI. 
 What Philip of Spain failed in was about to be done 
 by Louis, and the Jesuits were to gather up and repair 
 the wreck of the Armada. But, in seeking to extirpate 
 Protestantism in France, the Pope lost his prospect of 
 recovering Britain. The year of the Bevocation was 
 the very year of James's accession to the British tlirone. 
 Tlie thousands of refugees who reached our shores 
 spread the tale of their sufferings, fired the hearts of 
 the people with indignation and pity, with hatred of 
 Bomish tyranny and fear for their own liberties. This 
 was one of the main forces which led to the overthrow 
 of the Stuarts and the Be volution of 1688, which 
 brought relief to the English Nonconformists and the 
 Scottish Presbyterians who had been groaning under 
 the oppression of Anglican High Churchism. One 
 curious incident may be given as an illustration in
 
 RE VO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 5 5 
 
 detail. William of Orange, in 1G88, had not suffi- 
 cient means to equip his army and fleet for his expedi- 
 tion from Holland, till the French refugees came to his 
 aid with the funds they had saved in their flight. 
 They contributed to his little army three regiments of 
 foot and a squadron of cavalry, with 736 veteran 
 officers disposed among his other forces ; and William 
 had as his most skilful and trusted general Marshal 
 Schomberg, the descendant of an old Protestant family 
 which had remained stedfast to its faith amid all the 
 changes of the time. It was remarked that it fell to 
 one refugee officer to order the King of France's 
 ambassador, who was in the plots of the period, to quit 
 London within twenty-four hours ; and another of 
 them accompanied him to Dover to protect him from 
 the wrath of the people. It was one of those inci- 
 dents which makes us feel as if Providence were writing 
 the word justice on human affairs with the sharp 
 point of a sarcasm, and repeating the saying of the 
 ancient patriarch, ' He poureth contempt upon princes.' 
 In the war which followed in Ireland, the refugees 
 bore a distinguished part, and Schomberg and Caille- 
 motte, another gallant French leader, fell in the 
 decisive charge at the battle of the Boyne. After 
 William had secured himself on the throne of Great 
 Britain, he became the leader of a European coalition, 
 and set himself to what had been the aim of his life, 
 to bridle the ambition of Louis XIV., the enemy of his 
 country and his faith. French Protestant officers and
 
 56 REVOCATION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 soldiers, some of whom had Ijeen compelled to renounce 
 the profession of their religion before they could escape 
 from Trance, fought with the most distinguished 
 gallantry under him and Marlborough and Prince 
 Eugene, fired with the desire to wipe out their dis- 
 honour, and to carry, if j)ossible, help and freedom to 
 their co-religionists in French dungeons and galleys. 
 The armies of Louis, the best soldiers in which had 
 been exhausted in the war with the Camisards, were 
 defeated ; his finances, which had suffered through the 
 loss of so many industrious subjects, were ruined ; and 
 the haughty monarch was compelled to sign an 
 ignominious peace. Broken-hearted by his reverses, 
 he died in 1715, when he was vainly seeking to strike 
 a blow at Britain by the secret favour he gave to the 
 Jacobite insurrection under Mar. Seldom can the 
 retributive hand of God's providence be traced more 
 strikingly in cause and effect within the compass of 
 one life. 
 
 But the influence of the Revocation has reached 
 beyond that life into the national history of France. 
 The exile of the Protestants, and the temporary 
 extinction of the Eeformation, left Piomanism as the 
 sole and powerfully dominant religion of the French 
 people. This result, gained by so many crimes, and 
 boasted of as a triumph, proved disastrous both to 
 relio'ion and the State. The Protestants had been a 
 living force in the nation, which kept a large mass of 
 the intelligent classes attached to religion, and thereby
 
 RE VO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 5 7 
 
 to civil right and order. There must always be a 
 number of men in every country who refuse to submit 
 their reason to any religion the State chooses to 
 impose, and who distrust it on the very ground that it 
 is State -privileged and salaried. If religion is to 
 have weight with them in favour of civil order, it 
 must be above the suspicion of Government subsidies. 
 Accordingly much of the intellect of France, which 
 might have remained Christian, became sceptical and 
 destructively critical. The Church of Eome, mean- 
 while, lost not only its race of great orators, who 
 had been stirred to rivalry by Protestantism, but also 
 its moral life, and it found that convenient pillow 
 which is so often near the head of a State Church 
 when there is nothing outside to disturb it. After 
 the suppression of Protestantism and Jansenism, the 
 whole field belonged to the Jesuits, and they were as 
 indulgent to royal and aristocratic vice as it could 
 desire, or as Pascal could portray. Louis XIV. was 
 succeeded by his great-grandson Louis XV., and his 
 sensual excesses and w-asteful extravagances could be 
 paralleled only by the Tiberiuses and Caligulas of the 
 Koman Empire ; while what of conscience he had was 
 soothed by the unbelieving and voluptuous abbes who 
 fluttered round his court. Senseless and shameless 
 luxury, rapidly growing taxation, unsuccessful wars, 
 were subjected to the eyes of a new set of critics. 
 For the God-fearing Huguenots, who had a cure in 
 their hands, there were Voltaire, Diderot, D'Alembert,
 
 58 REVO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 and the men of the Encyclopaedia, who tore open the 
 wounds of the State, and tore off at the same time, 
 in bitter scorn, the mask from the only Christianity 
 which the Ee vocation had left them. Then came the 
 weak, respectable Louis XVI. and the great Eevolu- 
 tion, to which the century from 1685 to 1789 was 
 tlie stride of an earthquake. We all know what has 
 followed : the repeated oscillation for another cen- 
 tury between superstition and atheism, despotism and 
 anarchy, and the heroic efforts of noble men to step in 
 between the living and the dead and stay the plague. 
 We are in one of these intervals, ^lay God prosper 
 it for a happy issue ; but, whatever may come of it, 
 France has suffered irreparable loss. Let us glance 
 at this last. 
 
 Up till the reign of Louis XIV., France had the 
 prospect of becoming the greatest commercial and 
 colonial power in Europe. It had a splendid 
 position on the two main seas of the Old World, a rich 
 soil and beautiful climate, capable of the most varied 
 productions, and a numerous, ingenious, and industrious 
 population. Whatever we may say now of French 
 inability to colonize, it does not seem applicable to 
 that period. Coligny, the most illustrious victim of 
 St. Bartholomew, had a matured plan for colonization 
 in North America, which would have founded a great 
 French Protestant State, instead of the British Puritan 
 one — an empire of free exiles in a new world. His 
 death checked it ; but, even after this, the French
 
 REVOCATION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 59 
 
 had Nova Scotia and all the lands round the mouth 
 of the St. Lawrence, Canada, the great valley of the 
 Mississippi from its head to Louisiana, the larger part 
 of the West Indies, with the commanding points in 
 India and the Eastern Ocean. After the Revocation 
 she lost her internal resources, and the very best 
 material for colonization w^as transferred to other 
 countries ; internal troubles engrossed and convulsed 
 her ; foreign wars cut her off from her possessions 
 beyond the seas, till, stripped of them one by one, 
 almost nothing remained but France itself. Spasmodic 
 attempts are being made to recover ground, but the 
 lands favourable for colonies, and the strategic points 
 which control the world's future, are in the possession 
 of another race and language. French cannot now 
 become the tongue of the empires that are to rule 
 tlie destinies of the American continent and the 
 southern hemisphere, and that are to operate, by 
 civilizing and Christianizing influences, on the south 
 and east of the vast world of Asia. Nearly one 
 hundred millions of people already speak the English 
 language, and, if there is anything certain in the 
 world's future, it will be spoken by hundreds of 
 millions, and will carry with it the laws and literature 
 of Britain, and the prevalence of that religion which 
 Louis XIV. and Innocent XL sought to banish from 
 the soil of France. But is there not yet room and 
 work in the world for France ? Who does not hope 
 and pray that there may be ? The finest soil and
 
 6o l^EVO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 
 
 climate are yet hers. She has a people richly and 
 
 singularly gifted, with a penetrating genius, a bright 
 
 intelligence, a precise and beautiful expression in the 
 
 forms of thought and art. Every country in the 
 
 world has been her debtor, and we not least, even in 
 
 this very act, when, through the folly of her king and 
 
 her own blindness, she enriched us with her best 
 
 heart's blood. Nor let us imagine the French people 
 
 hopelessly frivolous and irreligious. The struggles we 
 
 have glanced at show the reverse. France has had its 
 
 long line of heroes, of saints, of martyrs, unsurpassed, if 
 
 indeed equalled, by any other nation. And still the 
 
 blood is not only in the crimsoned soil, but in the 
 
 veins of Frenchmen, and is giving token that it is in 
 
 sympathy with that which was shed so freely for 
 
 truth and freedom on many a scaffold. The blood 
 
 which cries out of the ground, and from under the 
 
 altar, is finding here and there an answer in souls 
 
 which cannot live in the barren deserts of atheism 
 
 and materialism. The French Protestant Church has, 
 
 within the past generation, given to Christianity 
 
 names of faith and learning and missionary zeal 
 
 beyond all proportion to its numbers ; and, if the hearts 
 
 of the children were once more turned to the fathers, 
 
 there is almost nothing too high to expect from the 
 
 French enthusiasm for great ideas, and French energy 
 
 for arduous enterprises. The late magnificent meeting 
 
 in the Oratoire at Paris in commemoration of the 
 
 Eevocation, and the noble utterances of men like
 
 RE VO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. 6 1 
 
 Pressense and Bersier, responded to Ly an immense 
 audience, show that Protestantism is full of courage 
 and hope. Nothing of this kind was possible, either 
 in spirit or circumstances, a century ago. The news 
 from various districts since tell of the memorial 
 meetings turning into revival movements, and of 
 interest in them extending through the general popula- 
 tion. By many signs we can infer that France is 
 once more at a time of decision on which her future 
 hangs ; and those who are best acquainted with her 
 condition seem to agree that, beneath the widespread 
 and obtrusive scepticism, there is a feeling after a 
 spiritual faith, which gives promise that God is about 
 'in the midst of the years to make known, and in 
 wrath to remember mercy.' 
 
 For ourselves, we have some things to learn. 
 John Henry Newman, in his Apolofjia, gives as the 
 two final determining causes which carried him over 
 to the Church of Ptome — first, the principle involved 
 in the Donatist controversy, and, next, the election of 
 a Protestant bishop to the see of Jerusalem. That 
 deeply devout and keenly subtle mind was able to 
 retire into a mystic cell, and to weave across its mouth 
 a fine dialectic web which concealed the broad and 
 open issues of the question. There are such minds, 
 honest to themselves, but the captives of their own 
 peculiar strength. What an escape it is to rest the 
 case on the broad page of the Bible and the clear 
 utterance of history, two witnesses which the Church
 
 62 REVOCATION OF EDICT OP NANTES. 
 
 of Eome has always sought to keep under her own lock 
 and key ! If any one would know what she has been 
 and would be again, for she has never renounced her 
 past, let him study the records of Spain and the 
 Netherlands, of Italy while the Pope had full control ; 
 let him put the Swiss Protestant Cantons over against 
 the Piomish, the South American States against the 
 great Northern Piepublic, Lower Canada against 
 Upper, or any country where Eomanism has long had 
 entire control against those which have been free 
 from it, and he will have an argument spread over 
 space and time which it will take a good many 
 casuists to answer. One of Louis XIV.'s confessors 
 pressed a Protestant to conform, ' because, unless the 
 king's religion were true, God would never have made 
 him so powerful.' It is a good argument if it be 
 allowed time to work out its conclusions. ' By 
 tlieir fruits ye shall know them.' St. Bartholomew 
 and the Ptcvocation, once chanted by the Piomish 
 clergy as triumphs, are now passed over with a 
 prudent reticence. But we shall indeed be smitten 
 with what Milton calls a ' dazzling blindness at mid- 
 day,' if we do not beware of that tyranny and craft 
 which led one of the finest nations in Europe to the 
 brink of atheism and ruin, and which are persistently 
 straining every nerve to gain points of advantage 
 which may restore their rule over ourselves. There 
 are some who tell us that the way to prevent this is 
 to maintain strong Protestant State Churches. This
 
 RE VO CA TION OF EDICT OF NANTES. (^^ 
 
 at a time when the largest of tliese Churches is the 
 most successful recruiting field for Eomish conversions, 
 and when the existence of any Protestant State Church 
 is the ground for increasing demands on the British 
 treasury, and when it will furnish a plea, ere very 
 long, on the basis of political justice, for a Eoman 
 Catholic Establishment in Ireland — a plea which, in 
 the present temper of our statesmen, they seem too 
 likely to grant. The policy of the great Eobert 
 Bruce was not to leave old feudal castles standing 
 which might become the stronghold of the invader. 
 Freedom and truth fight their battle best in the open 
 field. Let this be added, that these Protestant State 
 Churches are the most fruitful cause of heart-burning 
 and discord among Protestants themselves, and have 
 divided us, politically and socially, all along tlie line 
 into two nations — the Established and Nonconforming. 
 What the interference of the civil power did in France, 
 when it took sides between Romanist and Huguenot, 
 it is doing again, in its measure, among ourselves. 
 It is surely full time for us to learn that peace can 
 follow only in the track of justice, and that the 
 Government sword, in any form, thrust into the domain 
 of conscience, is a constant peril to true religion, and a 
 detriment to the best interests of the State.
 
 THE ERSKINES: EBENEZEB AND RALPH. 
 
 The two brothers, Ebenezer and Ealpli Erskine, lead 
 us to the origin of tlie Secession Church, one of the 
 branches of what is now known as the United Pres- 
 byterian. We may mention, for the sake of the 
 general reader, that the other branch of that Church, 
 the Eelief, had its own founder, Thomas Gillespie, 
 second to none in his day for sincerity of heart and 
 elevation of character ; and that, besides Ebenezer 
 Erskine, there were, at the immediate origin of the 
 Secession, three other men of much force and indi- 
 viduality, — William Wilson, Alexander Moncrieff, and 
 James Eisher, — thus parting the parent stream, like 
 a more ancient river, into four heads. At present, 
 we shall confine our notice to the two Erskines, 
 including brief ulances at the men around them, and 
 the events that have followed, so far as suggested liy 
 their work. 
 
 The Erskines were from several causes urged into a 
 more prominent place, and tliey have, through their 
 writings, left us means of forming a more distinct 
 estimate of their relation to tlicir time, and of their 
 
 I
 
 THE ERSKINES. 65 
 
 bearing on the religious history of Scotland. Tliey 
 belonged to an old and honourable family that draws 
 its name from the parish of Erskine on the Clyde, 
 Ir-isgin, the, green mound, and that carries them to 
 the seat of the ancient British stock which fixed its 
 names on the soil, and lingered there to the dawn of 
 written Scottish history. One of the family took a 
 foremost place in the Reformation, when, along with 
 Argyle and Glencairu, in 1557, Erskine of Dun sub- 
 scribed the Godly Band, or, as we should now call it, 
 the Eeligious Bond, and became one of the Lords of 
 the Congregation. The branch of the family to which 
 the fathers of the Secession belonged was the Erskines 
 of Shieltield, near Dryburgh, and their father was 
 Henry Erskine, a minister whose life was passed in 
 the most troublous times of Scottish Church History. 
 He was settled at Cornhill, in Northumberland, and 
 was one of the Nonconformists ejected on St. Bar- 
 tholomew's Day, 1GG2. He removed into Scotland, 
 and suffered fine, imprisonment, and exile under the 
 Episcopal domination of the time. After the Eevo- 
 lution, he became minister of Whitsome, and then of 
 Chirnside, in Berwickshire, where he died in 169G ; 
 and it was under his ministry that the famous Thomas 
 Boston received his first religious impressions. His 
 death was as remarkable as his life for its Christian 
 faith, and made such an impression on his two sons 
 that they often .spoke of it afterwards as that which 
 
 determined their religious character. The mother of 
 
 E
 
 66 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 Ebenezer and Ealph was Margaret Halcro, from Orkney, 
 of Scandinavian lineage, descended from Halcro, Prince 
 of Denmark, and springing, not very remotely, from 
 the Stuart line, by a grand-daughter of James V. 
 Those who believe in the influence of blood might 
 find a curious union of the Celtic fervour and the 
 Xorse resolution in these fatliers of tlie Secession. 
 
 Ebenezer, the elder brother, was born at Dryburgh. 
 A fragment of the house occupied by his father is 
 pointed out, not far from the venerable Abbey which 
 so many visit to see the last resting-place of Sir 
 AValter Scott, looking down on ' Tweed's fair flood and 
 all o'er Teviotdale.' The year of his birth was 1680, 
 the time of the Queensferry Paper and Sanquhar 
 Declaration, and other appeals to God and man uplifted 
 by the almost despairing remnant that stood at bay 
 after Bothwell, and that were afterwards cast into the 
 hottest of the furnace, known by the persecuted as 
 ' the killing time.' It was just a hundred years later, 
 in 1780, when Moderatism was darkest, that Thomas 
 Chalmers was born, as if God's witnesses, and the 
 Church's children of revival, came into the world at 
 the hour of midnight. 
 
 He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, 
 to which he went when only fourteen ; but he studied 
 for nine years, five in classics and philosophy and 
 four in theology. He was licensed to preach when 
 twenty-three years of age, by the Presbytery of Kirk- 
 caldy, and settled in 1703 at Portmoak, a quiet rural
 
 THE ERSKINES. 67 
 
 parish at the foot of the twin Lomonds, and skirting 
 the shore of the picturesque Lochleven. An island 
 close by had been the seat of the Culdees, another had 
 been the prison-house of Mary, and in the cleft of the 
 hills John Knox had preached and dispensed the sacra- 
 ment. The time also was full of room for thought. 
 It was shaking with the heave of the Pievolution ; the 
 rumours of Jacobite plots filled the air ; William III. 
 had just died ; Anne reigned in his stead, to the great 
 joy of the High Church party ; and the hope was 
 strong of first depriving the Presbyterian Church of its 
 freedom, and then of replacing it by the Church of the 
 Charleses and Jameses. Carstares, the father of the 
 Pievolution Settlement, had left London when he could 
 be no longer useful, and came down to Edinburgh in 
 this year, 1703, to preside over an Assembly full of 
 alarms and forebodings. These things could not fail 
 to exercise the mind of Ebenezer Erskine, and help to 
 form his views, but the result came out afterwards. 
 
 At first he seems to have been occupied chiefly 
 with his ministerial work, and to have felt considerable 
 difficulty in it. His settlement took place heartily in 
 accordance with the law of the time, which was a call 
 from the heritors and elders, with the concurrence of 
 the parishioners, corresponding to the state of things 
 which Dr. Chalmers wished to restore by his celebrated 
 Veto Act. But, though the concurrence was given, 
 there appears to have been little active interest. His 
 sermons were committed closely to memory, and
 
 68 I'HE ERSKINES. 
 
 repeated, for reading was then out of the question. 
 Yet, from the fault either of his memory or feeling, he 
 had such difficulty in preserving his line of thought, 
 that, unless he kept his eyes fixed on a particular 
 stone in the wall ojDposite, he was in terror lest he 
 should break down. But, by degrees, freedom and 
 warmth came to him, and so perceptibly that the 
 hearers experienced a new impression. The reason of 
 the change was in his own spirit. Always sincere and 
 earnest, he had yet known God's truth more with the 
 convincement of the understanding than the realization 
 of the heart ; and a natural consequence was, that its 
 freeness and fulness, as it gathers round Christ, were 
 not clear to him. He had married a woman of great 
 intelligence and spirituality, Alison Turpie, who fell 
 into a depressed state of mind. In dealing with this 
 he was led to more distinct views of the Gospel, and 
 her remarkable character became a stimulatintr inliu- 
 ence in his life. His memory was quickened and 
 flooded by his heart, and his constrained manner 
 changed into ease and vigour. He had the external 
 advantages of a public speaker in liis appearance and 
 voice and native dignitv of bearincr ; but the new 
 jjower of his preaching lay in the conviction he had 
 gained of evangelical truth, and in the central place he 
 gave it in his message. His own people were roused 
 to unwonted attention. Note-taking became a pre- 
 valent practice, and he sought to guide them in it by 
 the way in which lie arranged and announced his plan
 
 THE ERSKINES. 69 
 
 of discourses. The praise of the church took wing 
 witli such fervour that one of the narrators says, — 
 ' Never can I hear such delightful melody till I get to 
 heaven.' A Thursday lecture was commenced, for 
 which masters and servants prepared their affairs so as 
 to be present ; and large audiences attended the diets 
 of examination, which were schools of theology for the 
 people, and the absence of which has not found any 
 proper compensation in our times. If, in some free 
 way, there could be still the ' hearing and asking 
 questions,' which has so high an ancestry, it might help 
 to repair the broken religious knowledge of the Chris- 
 tian Church. Bible instruction, as much as spiritual 
 impression, is a want of the day, and the one cannot 
 be powerful without the other. By all these means 
 there was a revival of the most healthful kind in the 
 parish of Portmoak, and it spread to the districts 
 round about. There were certain centres to which the 
 people of Scotland at that time gathered to attend 
 the sacraments, and Ebenezer Erskine's parish became 
 one of them. They came flocking in thousands, some 
 of them from a distance of sixty miles. We can now 
 form little idea (at least, we in the south of Scotland) 
 of these great occasions, to which they looked forward, 
 as the ancient Israelites did to their seasons of pilgrim- 
 age, and for which the people of the places visited 
 made preparation in their houses and ' meal girnels ' 
 against the inflow of sojourners. No doubt they 
 became subject to abuse in the decline of religious
 
 70 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 feeling at the close of the last century ; but at an 
 earlier period they were seasons of special quickening 
 and ingathering to the churches. There are few finer 
 things than the description given by Blackadder of one 
 of these open-air assemblies in the Merse, in the time 
 of persecution, when 3,200 conmiunicated ; and, for 
 the light it throws even on later times, we shall quote 
 a portion of it. 
 
 ' They had to place picquets of horsemen towards 
 the suspected parts, and single horsemen at greater 
 distances, to give warning, for the Earl of Hume, as 
 ramp a youth as any in the country, had threatened to 
 assault the meeting with his men and militia, and to 
 make their horses drink the communion wine and 
 trample the sacred elements under foot.' ' Every 
 means,' Blackadder continues, ' was taken to compose 
 the multitude, and prevent any affront that might be 
 offered to so solemn and sacred a work, when they had 
 to stay three days together, sojourning hy the lions' 
 dens and the mountains of the IcojKirds. . . . The place 
 where we convened seemed to have been formed on 
 purpose. It was a green and pleasant haugh, fast by 
 the water side (the Whitadder). On either hand there 
 was a spacious brae, in form of a half-round, covered 
 with delightful pasture, and rising with a gentle slope 
 to a goodly height. Above us was the clear blue sky, 
 for it was a sweet and calm Sabbath morning, promis- 
 ing to be indeed one of the days of the Son of man. 
 There was a solemnity in the place befitting the occa-
 
 THE ERSKINES. 71 
 
 sion, and elevating the whole soul to a pure and holy 
 frame. The communion tables were spread on the 
 green by the water, and around them the people had 
 arranged themselves in decent order. But the far 
 greater multitude sat on the brae - face, which was 
 crowded from top to bottom, full as pleasant a sight as 
 was ever seen of that sort. At first there was some 
 apprehension from enemies ; but the people sat undis- 
 turbed, and the whole was closed in as orderly a way 
 as it had been in the time of Scotland's brightest noon. 
 And truly the spectacle of so many grave, composed, 
 and devout faces must have struck the adversaries 
 with awe, and been more formidable than any outward 
 ability of fierce looks and warlike array. AVe desired 
 not the countenance of earthly kings ; there was a 
 spiritual and divine majesty shining on the work, and 
 sensible evidence that the Great Master of assemblies 
 was present in the midst. Though our vows were not 
 offered within the courts of God's house, they wanted 
 not sincerity of heart, which is better than the rever- 
 ence of sanctuaries. Amidst the lonely mountains we 
 remembered the words of our Lord, that true worship 
 was not peculiar to Jerusalem or Samaria, that the 
 beauty of holiness consisted not in consecrated build- 
 ings or material temples. We remembered the ark of 
 the Israelites, which had sojourned for years in the 
 desert, with no dwelling-place but the tabernacles of 
 the plain. "We thought of Abraham and the ancient 
 patriarchs, who laid their victims on the rocks for an
 
 72 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 altar, and burned sweet incense nnder the shade of the 
 green tree. In that day Zion put on the beauty of 
 Sharon and Carmel ; the mountains broke forth into 
 singing, and the desert place was made to bud and 
 blossom as the rose. Tew such days were seen in the 
 desolate Church of Scotland, and few will ever witness 
 the like. There was a rich and plentiful effusion of 
 the Spirit shed abroad on many hearts. Their souls, 
 filled with heavenly transports, seemed to breathe in a 
 diviner element, and to burn upwards, as with the fire 
 of a pure and lioly devotion. The ministers were 
 visibly assisted to speak home to the consciences of the 
 hearers. It seemed as if God had touched their lips 
 with a live coal from off his altar, for they who 
 witnessed declared they carried more like ambassadors 
 from the court of heaven than men cast in earthly 
 mould. The communion was peaceably concluded, all 
 the people heartily offering up their gratitude, and 
 singing with a joyful noise to the Eock of their salva- 
 tion. It was pleasant, as the night fell, to hear their 
 melody swelling in full unison along the hill, the whole 
 congregation joining with one accord, and praising God 
 with the voice of psalms.' 
 
 We have given these extracts at the greater length 
 that the spirit of these gatherings may be understood, 
 so calm in the face of hills and sky, and yet so deep 
 and fervid ; and that it may be seen by what means 
 the love of the Gospel was preserved in so many 
 hearts amid the persecution of the seventeenth century
 
 THE ERSKINES. 73 
 
 and the coldness of the eighteenth. ]\Iore than a 
 century after this communion in the ]\Ierse, Dr. Waugh, 
 speaking of those of the Secession, hekl in a place not 
 far distant, says that ' an angel might have lingered 
 on his errand of mercy to hear the Gospel preached 
 on Stitchel brae.' 
 
 Year after year, to the number of nearly thirty, 
 such occasions took place at Portmoak, and by their 
 means, and his presence nt otlier places, Ebenezer 
 Erskine exercised an influence not to be measured in 
 any way by the quiet spot where he lived. In his 
 diary, in 1714, he speaks of a Sabbath before the 
 sacrament, wlien already, in expectation of the event, 
 there was a great company of people assembled, so 
 that he was oljliged to preach in the open field. ' I 
 was,' he says, ' under great fear as to my through- 
 bearing in the work of the day, before I went forth to 
 public worship, which put me to my knees. But the 
 Lord was pleased graciously to hear and pity, for I 
 never remember that I had more freedom in my life 
 than this day in delivering my Master's message. The 
 Lord gave me a composure of mind, and suggested 
 many things to me in speaking which I had not so 
 much as thought on before. The people heard with a 
 great deal of greediness and attention, so as if they 
 would have drawn the word out of me. I have heard, 
 since the sermon was over, that some were made to go 
 home with vehement longings after Christ.' He 
 remained in Portmoak till the year 1731, notwith-
 
 74 THE ER SEINES, 
 
 standing several strong attempts to remove him to 
 larger spheres. During all this time his name was 
 becoming more widely known, and his influence was 
 increasing. His character had also deepened through 
 severe family afflictions. Child after child was taken, 
 and his wife in 1720. The intercourse between him 
 and his brother Ealpli is, at this time, of a peculiarly 
 touching kind, and his manner of thought and speech 
 may be learned by an extract from a letter in the 
 midst of these trials. 
 
 ' How sweet a balance may it be to our spirits 
 under the loss of such dear relations, to think of the 
 heartsome work they are employed in, the heartsome 
 company they are joined to, and the lightsome house 
 of many mansions wherein they dwell, not as pas- 
 sengers, but as pillars that shall go no more out. Let 
 us u'p with our drooping hearts ; for the same chariot 
 that carried our worthy friends to glory, where they 
 walk with Christ in white, will speedily return to 
 fetch us also ; and, though they and we drop the 
 mantle of the body in the passage, yet we shall receive 
 it again with advantage in the morning of the resur- 
 rection, when these vile bodies shall be made like unto 
 the glorious body of the Lord Jesus.' 
 
 In 1731 he received a call to Stirling, to the 
 church which had been occupied by James Guthrie, 
 one of the most courageous ministers of his time, and 
 the first of those who suffered martyrdom after the 
 restoration of Charles XL The call was left to the
 
 THE ERSKINES. 75 
 
 decision of the presbytery, and lie was sent to Stirling. 
 So strong was the attachment of his people at Port- 
 moak that some of them removed their residence to 
 enjoy a continuance of his ministry. His entrance on 
 his new work promised a large increase of usefulness, 
 but it was to be in another way than was anticipated ; 
 and the training in trial and obscurity was to be, in 
 the language of the prophet, ' a hiding in the shadow 
 of God's hand, to make him a polished shaft.' In 
 order to see how this came about, we must look 
 back. 
 
 John Livingstone, in his interesting letters, tells of 
 an old Covenanter who was so vexed by the appear- 
 ance of declension after the great year of 1638 that 
 he said, ' I think that the Church of Scotland is just 
 like Adam in Paradise, that cannot continue in integrity 
 a moment.' It is probably as true of other Churches 
 as of the Church of Scotland, and it is some ground of 
 consolation that times of declension have always had 
 their witnesses, and also their revivals. It might have 
 been thought that, after the heavy hand of perse- 
 cution was removed in 1688, there would have been 
 a long and happy period of religious progress. But it 
 was not so, and there were causes for it. At the 
 restoration of Charles II., four hundred of the most 
 devoted ministers were expelled from their charges, 
 and their places supplied by a time-serving, ignorant, 
 and often immoral class of clergy. This character is 
 given to them by men who were not their opponents.
 
 76 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 Worthy men remained among ' the indulged,' but they 
 were compromised by their position, and unable or 
 afraid to take a decided stand. For twenty-eight long 
 years the withering curse of an inefficient clergy lay 
 on a great part of Scotland, and a whole generation 
 grew up under it ; for, though the Gospel was faithfully 
 preached on the hills and the scaffolds, it only reached 
 a limited number. When the Eevolution came, only 
 sixty of the ejected ministers remained ; and those 
 who had filled the vacant charges were most of them 
 willing to retain place and pay by compliance. It is a 
 question whether some parts of Scotland ever recovered 
 fully the blight of that time, and it has been felt 
 most where the faithfulness of the Covenant men left 
 the greatest number of empty pulpits. In consequence 
 of this, the old struggle of the seventeenth century 
 had to be renewed in the eighteenth, with this favour- 
 able difference, that the Revolution had brought 
 religious liberty, and that any persecution was more 
 social than political. 
 
 There were two questions that rose as the testing 
 ones of the day, and that touched the old principles 
 which are debated in every age under different forms — 
 truth and freedom. These two questions gave the 
 ])ublic life of the Erskines and their friends that 
 meaning which thev have for us. Let us glance at 
 them. The question of truth was raised in the case 
 of one Professor Simson of Glasgow, in 1714, whose 
 teaching, as far as it can be understood through his
 
 THE ERSKINES. 77 
 
 dim language, was of an Arian kind, and who claimed 
 to have the sympathy of ' the enlightened members of 
 the Assembly.' With him tliere was Professor 
 Campbell of St. Andrews, who, in defending the 
 apostles from what was beginning to be esteemed 
 the odious charge of enthusiasm, denounced such 
 expressions as ' consulting the throne of grace,' ' laying 
 their matters before the Lord, and imploring his light 
 and direction,' as ' terms of art much used by enthu- 
 siasts.' Views entertained by him, that were admitted 
 to strike at the root of revealed religion, w^ere condoned 
 after some loose explanations. Protests against this 
 laxity form part of the struggle of the time. But it 
 took another shape, which had more lasting effects. 
 One day Thomas Boston, when visiting in the house 
 of one of his people at Simprin, found a little old book 
 above the window-head, which he took down and 
 began to read. It was a book that has become famous 
 in Scotland, the Marroiu of Modern Diviniti/. It had 
 been brought from England, many years before, in the 
 knapsack of a soldier who had fought in the Common- 
 wealth wars, and it had lain, like a hidden seed, in 
 that quiet corner. The book had been written, or 
 rather compiled, by one Edward Fisher, the son of an 
 English knight, and a Master of Arts of Oxford. It 
 gave, in the form of a dialogue, the opinions of the 
 leading Eeformers, Luther and Calvin, and of such 
 English divines as Hall and Hooker, on the doctrines 
 of grace and the offer of the Gospel. The object of
 
 78 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 the book was to clear away the barriers which are so 
 often raised betw^een the sinner and Christ, in the 
 shape of certain conditions, — such as repentance or 
 some degree of outward or inward reformation, — and 
 to present Him immediately with the words, ' Whoso- 
 ever will, let him come,' assured that, in heartily 
 receiving Christ, full repentance and a new life will 
 follow. The system of Neonomianism, as it was called, 
 which changed the Gospel into a modified and easier 
 kind of law, had grown up in Scotland, as elsewhere, 
 and this little book became the instrument of a revival 
 of clearer and fuller Gospel preaching. It did what 
 the discovery of Luther on the Galatians in the house 
 of a country schoolmaster has done for Sweden of late 
 years, or, to use a Scripture figure, what the bones of 
 Elisha did for the body of the man cast into his 
 sepulchre, when ' he revived and stood up on his feet.' 
 Such remarkable instances of the vitality of truth over 
 the graves of prophets and preachers occur ever and 
 again in the history of the Church. Boston tells us 
 that he 'rejoiced in the book as a light which the 
 Lord had seasonably struck uj) to liim in his darkness, 
 that he digested its doctrine and began to preach it.' 
 Through him it found its way into the hands of James 
 Hog of Carnock, who republished it, with a recom- 
 mendation, in 1717. It attracted the attention of a 
 number in the Assembly, and especially of Principal 
 Haddow of St. Andrews, who instituted a prosecution 
 against its friends as guilty of Antinomian errors.
 
 THE ERSKINES. 79 
 
 After much controversy, twelve ministers who held to 
 the views so stigmatized were condemned to be rebuked 
 and admonished at the bar, and narrowly escaped 
 deposition. The whole discussion was finding its 
 counterpart at the same time in Germany, in the 
 prosecution of the Pietists, Spener and Francke, by 
 the cold, formal orthodoxy of the period, — for the tides 
 of Church life in different countries have always a 
 connection. It was a tendency to exalt the moral 
 side of the Bible at the expense of the evangelical, 
 which led to a system of naturalism, and in the end 
 deprived morality itself of the deep meaning and 
 motives that distinguish Christianity from a rational- 
 ized paganism. Looked at from our time, the anti- 
 evangelical growth within the Scottish Church was 
 part of that wide movement which produced tlie 
 latitudinarianism of the Church of England, weakened 
 the spirit of Nonconformity, brought down the old 
 Presbyterianism of the Puritans, first to Pelagianism, 
 and then to Socinianism, and in Germany led to the 
 long reign of Eationalism which Pietism retarded but 
 did not prevent. The importance of this survey to 
 our sketch will be seen in the fact that Ebenezer and 
 Ealph Erskine were prominent supporters of the 
 ' Marrow ' theology, that Ebenezer drew up the repre- 
 sentation of its principles which was condemned by 
 the Assembly, and that the view of the Gospel con- 
 tained in it was the basis of the Secession preach- 
 ing, as it has been of the clear and unfettered offer
 
 8o THE ERSKINES. 
 
 of Christ in great seasons of quickening ever 
 since. 
 
 After the question of truth, we come to that of 
 freedom, which has a closer connection with it than 
 may be at first apparent. Certainly in Scotland it is 
 the friends of evangelical doctrine who have always 
 shown themselves the friends of the freedom of 
 the Christian people. At the Eevolution, the choice 
 of the minister was granted to the congregation, 
 though, it must be confessed, in an imperfect way. In 
 1712 lay patronage was introduced in a bill hurriedly 
 carried through the British Parliament by the intrigues 
 of the High Church and Jacobite party. It was in 
 direct opposition to the Treaty of Union, and the 
 whole procedure was treacherous in motive and 
 manner. At first there was a yearly remonstrance by 
 the Assembly against it, but it ceased as doctrinal 
 defection set in ; and ministers began to be forced, 
 under various pretexts, upon unwilling churches. At 
 last, in 1731, an enactment w^as passed by which, in 
 cases where the patron declined to present, the choice 
 of the minister was given to a majority of the heritors 
 and elders being Protestants, without regard to the 
 will of the congregation in any way. In many cases 
 this put the choice of the minister in the hands of 
 the Jacobites and High Church Episcopalians ; yet 
 the Assembly passed it summarily, in violation of the 
 Barrier Act, and refused to hear or heed the protests 
 lodged n gainst it. During all this time the evangelical
 
 THE ERSKINES. 8i 
 
 party had been maintaining a weary battle for popu- 
 lar rights, in the face of an increasing majority, and 
 now the door was closed against remonstrance. It is 
 
 O 
 
 always a dangerous act to shut a safety valve, but a 
 change was coming over the spirit of the times. Old 
 Wodrow, who had written the history of the high- 
 handed persecution of the last century, describes, in a 
 melancholy tone, the flippancy of habits and super- 
 ficial religious training of the ministry of his time, 
 and predicts the evil that is impending from a new 
 quarter. Thomas Boston of Ettrick died just after 
 this Act was put in force, and he finishes his memoirs 
 in sadness, and yet in hope. ' I bless my God in 
 Jesus Christ that ever He made, me a Christian, and 
 took an early dealing with my soul ; that ever He 
 made me a minister of the Gospel, and gave me some 
 insight into his grace. The world hath all along been 
 a step-dame to me, and wheresoever I would have 
 attempted to have nestled in it, there was a thorn of 
 uneasiness laid for me. Man is born crying, lives 
 complaining, and dies disappointed from that quarter. 
 I have waited for thy salvation, Lord ! ' 
 
 Boston died on the 20th of May, and in that same 
 year, October 10, 1732, it fell to Ebenezer Erskine, 
 as moderator, to preach the opening sermon of the 
 Synod of Perth and Stirling. It is another illustra- 
 tion of a living witness being always ready to take 
 the place of the dead. The text he chose was Psalm 
 cxviii, 22, 'The stone which the builders refused is 
 
 F
 
 82 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 become the head-stone of the corner.' There is no 
 tlistinguished power of intellect in the sermon ; the 
 preacher evidently made no effort to reach it. In a 
 plain and fearless way, but without any personalities, 
 he sets forth the defections of the time, claims for 
 Christ that headship in the Church which belongs to 
 Him, and for the people that liberty which is their 
 birthright under his rule. The outspoken honesty of 
 the sermon gave great offence to a number in the 
 Synod, and lie was sentenced to be rebuked and ad- 
 monished. He appealed to the Assembly, and, at its 
 meeting in May 1733, the conduct of the Synod was 
 sustained, and rebuke and admonition again imposed 
 on him. He and three others, William Wilson of 
 Perth, Alexander Moncrieff of Abernethy, and James 
 Fisher of Kinclaven, offered a protest, which, if 
 received, would have relieved conscience, and probably 
 settled the matter for the time. It was refused, but 
 was left lying on the table, or rather accidentally fell 
 from it, and was unheeded, till a fiery member of the 
 Court picked it up and read it. Its contents were 
 simply a claim, in respectful terms, to adhere to the 
 testimony already given, but the reading of it set the 
 Assembly in a flame. The protestors were recalled, 
 ordered to disown it, and, on declaring that they could 
 not, they were handed over to the Commission, with a 
 charge that, if they persisted, they should be sus- 
 pended from office, and, if still unrejientant, visited 
 with a yet higher censure. The case now went on its
 
 THE ERSKINES. 83 
 
 way. When the Commission met, they refused to 
 withdraw their protest, and were first suspended, and 
 then loosed from the congregations where they minis- 
 tered. The ordeal was a very trying one, for they 
 were compelled to plead apart, and subjected to the 
 strongest urgency, threatened by opponents, and be- 
 sought by friends who sympathized with them. But 
 the question was one of conscience, and they knew 
 that if they yielded they would be silenced. There is 
 a tradition in South Queensferry that, when Ebenezer 
 Erskine was on his way home to Stirling from the 
 Commission, he stopped to assist at the communion 
 of his friend James Kidd of Queensferry, who was one 
 of the Marrow men, and who, though he did not join 
 Erskine, always continued his warm friend. The first 
 psalm given out by the silenced minister was — 
 
 ' ]\Ly closed lips, O Lord, by Thee 
 
 Let them be opened ; 
 Then shall thy praises by my mouth 
 Abroad be published.' 
 
 The people at once saw and felt the reference, and 
 the words in due time found their fulfilment. He 
 seems to have had a curious felicity in the selection of 
 his psalms, of which another instance has come down. 
 While there was a strong current of feelin^ throucfh 
 Scotland in favour of the Seceders, there was also a 
 keen counter current that made itself both felt and 
 seen. On one occasion, when he was about to preach 
 at a neighbouring town, the opposition was so strong
 
 84 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 that there was a resolve he should not be heard, and 
 a mob, with frowning looks, waited his appearance. 
 But he was one of those who did not regard 'the 
 company of spearmen, the multitude of the bulls of 
 the people,' any more than he did unjust authority. 
 His calm, dignified look cleared a way for him, and he 
 gave out the psalm — 
 
 ' Against me though an host encamp, 
 My heart yet fearless is.' 
 
 On December 5, 1733, the four brethren met at 
 Gairney Bridge, near Kinross ; and there, after solemn 
 prayer and counsel, the first Associate Presbytery was 
 formed. It was the fountainhead of the Secession 
 Church, which, united with the Belief, now numbers 
 above five hundred congregations in Scotland, has sent 
 large detachments to England, Ireland, the Colonies, and 
 the United States, and has its missions in the four 
 quarters of the world. Before, however, any decided 
 step was taken, an effort was made by the Established 
 Church to recall them to its fold. The mistake which 
 had been committed was seen, and the majority, which 
 had carried matters with so high a hand, stood aside 
 to let the minority hold out the olive branch. The 
 four suspended ministers were released from their 
 sentence, some obnoxious steps were recalled, and 
 Ebenezer Erskiue was chosen Moderator of the Pres- 
 bytery of Stirling. But, after lengthened deliberation, 
 they declined to go back ; and the Assembly, having
 
 THE ERSKINES. 85 
 
 waited for some time, finally and formally deposed them 
 from the ministry in 1740. This refusal on their 
 part was a great disappointment and grief to their 
 friends in the Establishment, and it has been often 
 blamed since by evangelical ministers of the Church 
 of Scotland who admired their first stand, and sym- 
 pathized with their principles. It has been said that, 
 if they had carried their zeal, and the weight of their 
 character, to the help of the evangelical minority who 
 were struggling within the Cliurch, the defection might 
 have been stayed, the long reign of Moderatism pre- 
 vented, and, it may be, the Disruption averted, by a 
 ^ free reformed Church of Scotland in union with the 
 State.' We shall not here discuss the question 
 whether such a vision could ever become a reality, 
 or, if it could, whether it would be desirable — we shall 
 look at it in a way that requires less controversy. 
 And first, I think, it will be granted by fair-minded 
 men that it was not pride or vindictive feeling that 
 influenced them in their refusal. The personal wrong 
 they had sustained was repaired, and honour unasked 
 offered to their leader. They had ties of friendship in 
 the Church that remained unbroken to the last, and 
 they had in many respects a doubtful prospect, in 
 going forth, as they largely did, as pioneers into an 
 untried land. They must have refused from what 
 they believed to be best for the Christian cause in 
 Scotland, and, if there was feeling, it must have been 
 Christian feeling as opposed to the selfishly personal.
 
 86 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 Did they, then, err through a mistaken judgment ? 
 On the contrary, we believe they measured correctly 
 the spirit of the time, and chose wisely the best way 
 of counteracting it. They were aware that the 
 Moderate party had not changed their views, but were 
 merely holding their hand, and biding their time, for 
 prudential reasons. This was very soon proved by the 
 course things took. They knew that the root of the 
 evil, in the action of the Government to the Church, 
 was still there, and its removal meanwhile was 
 beyond their power. They were called to a great 
 work of evangelization in Scotland, and there was a 
 tide of sympathy among masses of the people ready to 
 bear them on. They could meet this only in the path 
 of freedom, unhampered by ecclesiastical limits and 
 restrictions ; and, if tliey neglected it, there was much 
 doubt if it would rise again. The centuries belons: 
 to those who know how to seize the hours. Had 
 they re-entered the Church, and felt themselves com- 
 pelled again to leave, it would have been to meet 
 hesitation and chill of feeling among the people. The 
 question then was, whether more could be done by a 
 few additional evangelicals within the Church, protest- 
 ing and working under constant constraint, or by a 
 compact body outside, free to move through the whole 
 of Scotland, and to meet that longing for the Gospel 
 which prevailed in so many hearts. There are two 
 cases that throw some light on the question. The one 
 is in Germany, where the corresponding movement of
 
 THE ERSKINES. 87 
 
 Spener and Francke died away under the advancing 
 march of Eationalism, — when, so far as we can see, the 
 history of the Protestant Church in that country might 
 have been a very different one, if it had possessed a 
 free Evangelical Church that could have appealed to 
 the people before they were drugged into indifference. 
 The dread of breaking uniformity has been well-nigh 
 the ruin of life and unity. The other case is nearer to 
 us. "Who can think that John Wesley and his friends 
 would have done so much for the cause of Christ in 
 England, and throughout the world, if they had been 
 persuaded to take the step they were once inclined to, 
 and had remained in the Anglican Church ? Long 
 since, the ripples would have closed over their move- 
 ment, instead of those currents that are finding their 
 way to the ends of the earth. Far from the Secession 
 of the Erskines retarding the return of evangelical life 
 in Scotland, we believe it was this above all which 
 helped to preserve it in the National Church, and 
 which stimulated its revival. Had they gone back, it 
 might have prevented the Disruption, but it might 
 have done it at the hazard of something like decay and 
 death. No one can suppose that the forecast of these 
 issues was in the minds of the men who had to make 
 their choice ; but there are inward impulses which in 
 God's hand are in the place of eyes, and there is a 
 breath of freedom on the face which tells the w^ay from 
 prison-houses in the dark. It is one thing to keep 
 men in, even with a good conscience, and another to
 
 83 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 bring them back. The early spring may hold the 
 buds in bonds, folded and reconciled to their constraint ; 
 but when they have broken into flower they cannot 
 be charmed into their old places, for they know that 
 summer is nigh. And when God breathes on his 
 garden, there are spring-times of expansion which lead 
 into the future by a way which men know not. At 
 such seasons witnesses like Luther, and Knox, and 
 Whitefield, and Chalmers hear the cry, ' Zion, that 
 bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high moun- 
 tain : lift up thy voice with strength ; lift it up, be not 
 afraid.' But, to answer it, they must hear that other 
 word, ' Shake thyself from the dust : loose thyself from 
 the bands of thy neck, captive daughter of Zion ! ' 
 That the Erskines heard that voice we, for our part, 
 cannot doubt. 
 
 On the first Sabbath after his deposition, in 1740, 
 Ebenezer Erskine found the doors of the church and of 
 the churchyard made fast against him by the civil 
 authorities, at the instance of the Assembly. With 
 the pulpit Bible in his hands, which it was then the 
 custom to bring from the manse, and surrounded by an 
 immense multitude, he moved to a place still pointed 
 out, on the height just below the ramparts of Stirling 
 Castle, and there held his first service. It is a spot 
 full of wonderful interest to the eye and memory. 
 The precipitous range of the Ochils runs from the 
 edge of the Eorth, like a huge barbican, with tlie deep 
 fosse of Menteith behind it, and beyond, like an inner
 
 THE ERSKINES. 89 
 
 wall, the Grampian range, with the outstanding battle- 
 ments of Ben Ledi and Ben Lomond, the fastnesses of 
 freedom from the days of the Eomans. Seven noted 
 battlefields can be counted from the rock above : on 
 the one side, Stirling Bridge, where Wallace gained the 
 victory which made the final conquest of Scotland 
 impossible, and on the other, the field of Bannockburn, 
 which secured final independence — the two stages in 
 all great conflicts, endurance and triumph. It is not 
 out of keeping to connect the spiritual struggle with 
 these national conflicts. They are links in one chain, 
 and they rise in value as time goes on, reminding us 
 of the promise, ' for brass I will bring gold ! ' 
 
 There is another coincidence worth notice that 
 comes nearer. Eighty years past, in 1660, James 
 Guthrie, one of the most illustrious of our Scottish 
 martyrs, had preached his last sermon in Stirling, not 
 long before his execution. His head was exposed for 
 twenty-seven years on the Netherbow port of Edin- 
 burgh, till Alexander Hamilton, a youth at college, 
 took it down under peril of his life. Many years 
 afterwards, Alexander Hamilton was called to occupy 
 the pulpit and manse of James Guthrie. Examining a 
 closet, he lighted upon some old papers that had lain 
 there he knew not how long, and among them he dis- 
 covered the manuscript of Guthrie's last sermon, in his 
 own hand. Ebenezer Erskine came to be Hamilton's 
 colleague, and, hearing of the sermon, got his consent 
 to publish it. All this is related at length in the
 
 90 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 preface, and the subject is given — ' A sermon 'preached 
 at Stirling hy Mr. James Gutliric, on the Sabbath day, 
 in the forenoo7i, iqjon the 19th day of August 1660, 
 itjJon the 22nd verse of the 14th chapter of Matthew. 
 He did also read the 2ord and 24:th verses of the same 
 chapter; but had no occasion to preach any more: he 
 being imprisoned the Thursday tjiereafter.' The text of 
 Guthrie's sermon, thus interrupted, was, ' And straight- 
 way Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, 
 and to go before Him unto the other side, while He 
 sent the multitudes away.' Now the text of the first 
 sermon which Ebenezer Erslcine preached beneath the 
 ramparts of Stirling, after his deposition, was Matt, 
 viii. 27, ' But the men marvelled, saying, What manner 
 of man is tliis, that even the winds and the sea obey 
 Him ? ' There can be little doubt that, while Erskine 
 avoided Guthrie's text, he sought one kindred to it, and 
 thereby intimated his desire to take up the old line of 
 witness-bearing. It deserves to be noted that most, if 
 not all, of the early fathers of the movement, sprang 
 from the ancestry that had suffered in the persecuting 
 time. The first psalm given out was the noble 60th, 
 which passes through all the moods of dismay and 
 confidence, prayer and praise. 
 
 ' O Loiil, Thou hast rejected us, 
 Anel scattered us abroad ; 
 Thou justly hast displeased been : 
 Return to us, O God.
 
 THE ERSKINES. 91 
 
 And yet a banner Thou hast given 
 
 To them who Thee do fear ; 
 That it by them, because of truth, 
 
 Disjilayed may ajipear. 
 
 That tiiy beloved people may 
 
 Delivered be from thrall, 
 Save with the jaower of thy right hand. 
 
 And hear me when I call.' ^ 
 
 It is natural to pass at this jjart of the sketch to the 
 other brother, and the notice may be more brief as it 
 does not need to deal with the public matters already 
 related. Some have fancifully thought Ebenezer got 
 his name, ' the stone of lielp,' from the Bass Eock, to 
 the prison of which his father had been sentenced, but 
 not committed. It is much mofe likely it was the 
 expression of faith in the midst of the dark time 
 round his birth. lialph got his name in Northumber- 
 land, where it has been a common one from the time 
 of the warlike Percies, and he owed it probably to 
 some friend of his father's. He was born at Moni- 
 laws, within the English border, in IG80, and was 
 thus five years younger than his brother. He studied 
 and took his degree at Edinburgh, was licensed to 
 preach in 1707, and settled in the collegiate charge of 
 Dunfermline, where he spent all the rest of his life, 
 first as a minister of the Established, and then of the 
 Secession Church. Dunferndine, like Stirling, has its 
 
 1 One thing more may be noted, that the venerable Dr. Hay of 
 Kinross, as Moderator, gave the same psalm to be sung at the union of 
 the Secession and Relief Churches in 1S47, and thus commenced with 
 it the United Presbyterian Church. _
 
 92 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 old associations with the history of Scotland. Its 
 romantic dell, and the eminence overhanging it, made 
 it the favourite residence of our early kings. It was 
 a centre of civilizing and Christian influence, when 
 Edinburgh was a rude fortress, looking down on woods 
 and marshes. Malcolm Canmore and the good Queen 
 Margaret founded its once beautiful Abbey, ruined by 
 Edward I. There they sleep together, and the long 
 line of their children ; and there, too, rests Eobert 
 Bruce, his ^ueen, and his nephew, the gallant Ean- 
 dolph. It was the birthplace also of monarchs, of the 
 unfortunate Charles I., and of his sister, the accom- 
 plished and pious Elizabeth of Bohemia, herself dis- 
 crowned, but the mother of our present race of sovereigns. 
 So much * gentle kin ' could scarcely be without its 
 influence, and the people of Dunfermline and its 
 neighbourhood have long been noted for their intelli- 
 gence and public spirit. The town has now grown 
 to large proportions ; but, even in Ealph Erskine's 
 ministry, he speaks of having upwards of 5000 
 examinable persons in the congregation. With his 
 colleague, Mr. James Wardlaw, he visited and examined 
 all the people once a year. He preached not 
 only on Sabbaths, but throughout the week, and 
 had weekly diets of catechizing for the young. His 
 note-books show that he had anticipated much of 
 what we think is modern, and contain his questions 
 and lines of instruction for the children. They bear 
 evidence of his care to improve himself in study and
 
 THE ERSKINES. 93 
 
 reading — lists of his favourite authors, theological and 
 philosophical, arrangements of texts for all varieties of 
 subjects, digests of books of the Bible, large portions of 
 which he committed to memory, and an abridgment 
 of Hebrew grammar for his acquaintance witli the 
 original. There are expressions of regret at frequent 
 interruptions which compelled him to persist in read- 
 ins and writiufj till midnidit, and sometimes till three 
 or four in the morning. All through, there breathes 
 the most devout and prayerful spirit. 
 
 Ealph, as well as Ebenezer, took a deep interest in 
 all the controversies of the time, and he stood by his 
 elder brother's side, though with an independent 
 judgment. He was present at Gaifney Bridge in 1733, 
 as a witness of the formation of the presbytery there, 
 but did not join it till 1737, and was deposed along 
 with the others in 1740. His delay arose from the 
 hope of seeing a better spirit and some attempt at 
 reformation in the Church, but, disappointed in this 
 he threw in his lot with the Seceding brethren. He 
 had not a little struggle in carrying out his determina- 
 tion, for his colleague, a worthy Christian man, was 
 strongly opposed, and a number of the elders were in 
 doubt ; but at last the great majority of them, and of 
 the people, supported him in his resolution. The 
 communions at Dunfermline had already been noted 
 seasons, and now they were attended by still greater 
 numbers. There is a notice of one of them in his 
 journal, shortly after he joined the Secession.
 
 94 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 'Sabbath, July 10, l7o7. — Tlie Sacrament was in 
 Dunfermline ; and I preached half-an-hour before the 
 action (service) began, about half before eight in the 
 morning, upon Matt. iii. 17. The tables began to be 
 .'served a litile after nine, and continued till about 
 twelve at night, there being between four and five 
 thousand communicants. Ministers were well helped, 
 and many people heartened.' 
 
 It may be interesting, and helpful to the under- 
 standing of the time, to give the introduction to one 
 of Ealph Erskine's sermons on a previous occasion. 
 The text is Isaiah xlii. 6, '/ will give, Thee for a 
 covenant of the people.' The sermon, or rather series 
 of sermons, is in a style very different from that of 
 our day, but there is a quaint realism about it, an 
 evangelical glow, and a constant contact with the 
 hearts of the hearers that accounts for his great 
 popularity as a preacher. 
 
 ' My dear Friends, if your ears be open, there are three things 
 that you may hear this day. 1st, You may hear what ministers 
 will say ; but that is a matter of small moment, and it is but a 
 poor errand, if you be only come to hear what a poor, mortal, 
 sinful fellow-creature will say to you. Little matter w-hat we 
 say, if God himself do not speak into your hearts. Therefore, 
 2nd, You may hear what God says to you — this is a matter of 
 great moment, for God's speaking can make us both hear and 
 live, though we were as deaf as stocks, and as dead as stones. 
 He sjaake the old Creation out of nothing, and He can speak a 
 new creation out of us, who are worse than nothing. Indeed, it 
 will be a wonder if He do not speak terrible things in righteous- 
 ness unto us, because of our sins ; and really if He speak to us 
 out of Christ, it will be dreadful. Therefore, Si'd, You may come;
 
 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 95 
 
 to hear what God says to Chi-ist, and this is of the greatest moment 
 of all. To hear wiiat ministers say to the congi-egation is a little 
 thing ; to hear what God says to you is a great thing. But to 
 hear what God saj^s to Christ is one of the greatest things that 
 can be heard. God in his Word si:)eaks to the sons of men, and 
 perliai^s you have noticed that ; l;ut He speaks also to the Son 
 of God, to his eternal Son, and perhaps that is what you have 
 little noticed to this day. Why, what says He to Christ ? Is it 
 anything that we, the peo])le, are concerned with ? Yea, what He 
 says to Christ is of the greatest concern to us, and it is this, / 
 will give Thee for a covenant of the people. Oh, might the great 
 and eternal Father say to his great and eternal Son, who is one 
 God with Him and the eternal Spirit, Yonder is a company cf 
 people meeting in Dunfermline about a communion table, with 
 a view to the sealing of the Covenant ; but their work will be to 
 little purpose if they view not Thee, my beloved Son, to be the 
 siaring, the spirit, the life, the all of the Covenant. Their 
 Covenant will be but a poor bargain without Thee ; and, there- 
 fore, behold, I will give Thee /or a covenant of the people ! 
 Oh, a sweet saying as ever was said in the world ! and no wonder, 
 for 'tis a part of a sermon whereof God himself is the preacher, 
 and Christ is the text, and the Spirit is the voice that conveys 
 it.' 
 
 Tliere is throughout the sermon the same bohhiess 
 of appeal, with deep reverence in the heart of it, 
 touches of pathos, and a lively fancy steeped in Bible 
 language and illustration, which show liow, in the 
 movements of his day, he was such a quickening and 
 persuading preacher. 
 
 His character differed considerably from that of his 
 brother. Some one said of Ebenezer that to hear him 
 was ' to listen to the Gospel presented in its majesty ; ' 
 and he excelled in strength and leading power. But 
 Ealph had more of the orator, and of that subtlety of 
 thought and fervour of emotion which met so remark-
 
 96 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 ably in Samuel Eutherford. In general literature, too, 
 he was far in advance of most of the ministers of his 
 time, and there was, according to tradition, a humanism 
 in his recreations that stumbled the more rigid, but 
 attracted to him the mass of the people. The story of 
 his practice on the ' wee sinful fiddle ' is so well known 
 that we do not repeat it, but there is another, showing 
 the warmth of attachment to Ealph and his preaching, 
 which, so far as we are aware, has never been in type. 
 At West Linton, which was one of the early head- 
 quarters of the Secession south of the Forth, there was 
 a gathering of thousands to a sacrament, and the two 
 brothers were present. The communion took place in 
 the open air, on a beautiful green, beside the little 
 river Lyne. After the services, the ministers, in order 
 to reach the manse, had to cross the stream on step- 
 ping-stones. A countryman from the far north had 
 been so delighted and edified by Ealph's preaching 
 that, to have a few words with him, he marched 
 through the Lyne, step for step, beside him, with the 
 water nearly to his knees. Pulling out a large High- 
 land snuff-horn, he put it in his hand, with the words, 
 ' Oh, sir, take a pinch, it will do you nieikle good.' 
 Ealph readily complied, and, on his returning the horn, 
 the worthy man, not knowing how to show his feeling, 
 refused it, saying, ' Oh, sir, keep it, it will do me meikle 
 good.' On telling the story, and showing the gift at 
 the manse dinner, his brother said, ' Ealph, Ealph, ye 
 hae blawn best, ye've brought away the horn,' with a
 
 THE ERSKINES. 97 
 
 reference to the legend of the knight in the old tale of 
 chivalry. It is a simple story, but it brings the two 
 brothers near us, and lets us see how the time imprinted 
 the little incidents on the memories of the people. 
 
 When, after his deposition, Ealph Erskine could no 
 longer preach in the parish church, a new place of 
 worship needed to be built. He records, with great 
 thankfulness, that 'at least /o?^?' hundred pounds sterling 
 will be gathered in the parish, among the poorer sort, 
 for the most part ; and many that have given declared 
 that, in case of need, they will give as much again.' 
 It was a large sum for those days at the current value 
 of money, proving what Dr. Chalmers called ' the power 
 of littles,' and beginning a new revenue in the Christian 
 Church that has gone on extending ever since among 
 all denominations. A large building was soon raised, 
 capable of containing two thousand people, and here 
 he preached till his death. His difficulty, however, 
 was to abide long by it. His journals, and those of 
 his fellow-ministers, are at this time filled wath notes 
 of their travels through all the middle and south of 
 Scotland, in nearly every case in response to invitations, 
 and with accounts of sermons preached to hundreds 
 and thousands of the assembled people. They had in 
 one year applications for supply of regular preaching 
 from seventy different societies, and could never have 
 met a tenth of the calls, had it not been for the aid 
 of the elders, who took their place when they were 
 absent, and superintended the outlying districts. The 
 
 G
 
 98 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 higher tone thus given to the general body of the 
 eklership was one of the indirect benefits that arose 
 from the Secession. A ' Seceder elder ' was at first 
 a sneer in the mouth of adversaries ; but the part 
 these men took has helped to restore this arm of 
 strength to the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland. 
 The societies which called for preachers were, in 
 numerous cases, fellowship meetings which had come 
 down from the times of persecution, and they formed 
 the centres out of which so many of the Eeformed 
 Presbyterian, Secession, and Eelief churches grew. 
 The people, unable to find spiritual food under the 
 dry, heartless preaching of the moderate clergy, gathered 
 themselves into little bands, and became what the 
 prophet calls ' a dew from the Lord, as the showers 
 upon the grass, that waited not for the sons of men.' 
 But, with that love of stated ordinances which has 
 always marked the best portion of the Scottish people, 
 as soon as Gospel preaching was supplied by a Christian 
 ministry, they flocked to it. The Erskines and their 
 successors did not begin their work a day too soon, and 
 the more their history and the state of the time are 
 studied, the more clear does it become that a great 
 opportunity would have been missed if they had not 
 taken the step they did. One of their chief endeavours, 
 and to this Ealph Erskine greatly contributed, was to 
 train a young ministry, for which they wisely required 
 a full preparatory education. He introduced their 
 first licentiate to the twofold charge of Gateshaw and
 
 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 99 
 
 Stitcliel, in Roxburghshire. At Gateshaw, a site for 
 building was denied them, and they had to meet for a 
 considerable time in a sequestered hollow, through 
 which a small burn runs to join the water of Kale. 
 A tall old tower, called Corbet Tower, now draped in 
 green ivy, seems to guard the entrance to a little 
 amphitheatre where the communions were long held 
 after they had secured a church ; and from the south 
 of Scotland and the north of England, thousands 
 convened to Gateshaw Brae. The first minister, John 
 Hunter, introduced by Ealpli Erskine, was a young 
 man of remarkable promise for talent, piety, and zeal, 
 and was compared by his friends to Samuel Euther- 
 ford ; but, to the great grief of the infant denomination, 
 he died in less than three months after his settlement. 
 Principal Robertson, the historian, when a youth, went 
 to one of the gatherings in East Lothian wdiere Hunter 
 preached, and years afterwards he spoke of the sermon. 
 ' He addressed his audience,' he says, ' in a strain of 
 natural and profound eloquence, and a strong impres- 
 sion was produced. I myself was deeply affected, as 
 well as those around me ; and such was the effect that 
 I recollected more of that sermon than of any I have 
 ever heard. Even yet, when I retire to my studies, 
 the recollection thrills through my mind.' The story 
 is told, that an opponent of the Secession remarked to 
 one of its adherents that ' God appeared to frown on 
 the cause since He had taken away their first licentiate, 
 a man of such gifts/ ' No,' was the reply, ' when God
 
 loo THE ERSKINES. 
 
 long ago claimed the first-fruits, it brought a blessing 
 on the harvest, and so will it be with the preachers of 
 the Secession Church.' 
 
 In speaking of the influence of both the Erskines, 
 but especially of Ealph, we must not forget their 
 writings. When collected, they form many goodly 
 volumes ; but they were thrown off, for the most part, 
 in single sermons and pamphlets, published in Edin- 
 burgh, Glasgow, and other towns, and were scattered 
 over Scotland. One might find them in almost every 
 farmhouse and cottage where there was an interest 
 in religion. They can by no means rank with the 
 great Puritan theology of the previous century, but 
 they were suited to their time. They were highly 
 valued by the evangelical ministers in England, both 
 Episcopal and Nonconformist, crossed the sea to 
 America, and were translated into the tongues of 
 Wales and Holland. On a market-day in Eotterdam, 
 the farmers have often been heard inquiring at the 
 bookstalls for Erskcyna. Not least among these have 
 been the Gospel Sonnets of Ealph Erskine. They 
 went through an immense number of editions in this 
 country and America ; and in the homes of the pious 
 peasantry they took the place of the old minstrel 
 literature. Perhaps we should say that in many 
 hearts the two entered into a loving friendship, for 
 real chivalry and Christianity are not so wide apart, 
 and the love of country is never so dear as when 
 it is put under the care of the love of God. The
 
 THE ERSKINES. loi 
 
 sonnets are full of curious riddles and rhymes, and 
 have often, it must be confessed, more of sound 
 theology than high poetry. They will no doubt dis- 
 please \X\Q, friends of hroad mdture, and are constructed 
 for different organs than the refined senses of ' sweet- 
 ness and light.' Those who care little for the ointment, 
 but a great deal for the flies and the cleverness that 
 picks them out, will rejoice to find exercise for their 
 faculty. But there must be something of fragrance 
 in a book that would make a man like Andrew Fuller 
 say : ' One day, in particular, I took up Ealph Erskine's 
 Gospel Sonnets, and opening upon what he entitled 
 " A Gospel Catechism for young Christians, or Christ 
 all in all, and our complete Eedemption," I read, and 
 as I read I wept. Indeed, I was almost overcome 
 with weeping, so interesting did the doctrine of eternal 
 salvation appear to me ! ' And there must have been 
 fire in the heart that broke, while it mused, into verses 
 like these, from 
 
 Strife in Heaven. 
 
 ' Babes thither caught from womb and breast 
 Claim right to sing above the rest, 
 Because they've found the hapi:)y shore 
 They neither saw nor sought before.' 
 
 Or from 
 
 Heaven Desired by Saints on Earth. 
 
 ' Happy the company that's gone 
 From cross to crown, from thrall to throne ; 
 How loud they sing upon the shore 
 To which they sailed in heart before !
 
 102 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 Death from all death has set us free, 
 And will our gain for ever be ; 
 Death loosed the massy chain of woe, 
 To let the mournful captives go. 
 
 Death is to us a sweet repose, 
 The bud was oped to show the rose ; 
 The cage was broke to let us fly, 
 And build our happy nest on high.' 
 
 HavinG; thus brought the brothers tocrether into the 
 same Church and work, we might go on to give the 
 remainder of their history ; but we have touched on 
 what was really the great labour of their life, and 
 the ground why tliey must always have a place in 
 Scottish Church records. To enter fully into the rest 
 of their course would be to raise again questions that 
 have been long since laid, and in which time has 
 already separated the wheat from the chaff. Their 
 dispute with George Whitefield, because he would not 
 identify himself with their ecclesiastical position, is 
 well known, and we have no hesitation in saying that 
 he was more in the right than they were, and that, 
 if he preached the Gospel in Scotland, he could not 
 have acted otherwise than he did. The excuse for 
 them is, that they were heated with a conflict in 
 which he had not shared, and that they attached an 
 importance to the government and order of the Church 
 which were foreign to his way of thinking. It may 
 be that he thought too little of this, and that his 
 immense labours have left less result from the harvest 
 not being garnered into sheaves. He looked at Christ
 
 THE ERSKINES. 103 
 
 above all as a Saviour ; they regarded Him also as a 
 King who has rights, of which they were very jealous. 
 But, in any case, their spirit cannot be commended in 
 the way they dealt by him, and still less in the un- 
 charitable judgment they formed of the revivals at 
 Kilsyth and Cambuslang, If they had been free 
 from prejudice, they would have seen that the work 
 there was really their own, and that it needed only 
 an extension of it to make the Church of Scotland 
 what they desired, in its laws and discipline, as well 
 as in its life. 
 
 It would not be so easy to pronounce upon the 
 unhappy divisions that broke out among themselves 
 regarding what is called the 'Burgess oath.' The 
 fact that so many good men divided into two nearly 
 equal parts shows that it was a doubtful disputation. 
 The fault lay first of all in the stumbling-block which 
 the civil law put in the way of the religious conscience, 
 and then in the temper witli which they took it up — 
 that over -hasty zeal for the house of God which 
 devoured them, and which injured the house in the 
 struggle to purify it. It needs a wise hand to over- 
 turn the tables of the money-changers without hurting 
 the sacred vessels. If they were in some things 
 narrow and intolerant, it is only saying that they 
 were men who shared in the tone of their time, while, 
 in their main aim and spirit, they rose above it. That 
 they were charged with a mission to the Church, and 
 to Scotland, is seen in this, that, notwithstanding faults
 
 I04 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 they committed, their work went forward and bore 
 large fruit. AVe can recollect no great spiritual move- 
 ment which has not, after its first fresh burst of life, 
 had its period of trial — of trial, even by fire. But 
 if it be real, that is, if Christian faith be held fast, 
 it will come out tried like gold from the furnace, the 
 dross gone, the precious ore safe. 
 
 There is evidence that the views of both the 
 brothers widened and mellowed on controverted points 
 before they died. They never wavered in the prin- 
 ciples and positions they took up ; but, after the dust 
 of battle was laid, they spoke kindly of those with 
 whom they had differed. Ealph died on November 
 6, 1752, and lies buried at Dunfermline. Owing 
 to the nature of his illness, few of his dying words 
 are preserved. George "Whitefield, wlio must have 
 heard it from friends, gives us one, and it is pleasant 
 to have it throusjh such a channel. It is as if we 
 had a w^ord from Paul about Barnabas, after their 
 sharp contention. ' Thus,' lie says, in one of his 
 sermons on Isa. Ix. 19, wdiere he gives the last 
 expressions of several dying Christians, 'thus died 
 Mr. Ealph Erskine — his last words were "Victory, 
 victory, victory ! " ' Of Ebenezer's death we have a 
 more detailed account. 'Wlien he heard that his 
 brother Ealph was dead, he said, with great feeling, 
 ' And is Ealj^h gone ? He has twice got the start 
 of me ; he was first in Christ, and now he is first in 
 glory.' His last public discourse was a short one,
 
 THE ERSKINES. 105 
 
 going from his bed to the pulpit, as the people were 
 very urgent to see and hear him. His text was, ' I 
 know that my Eedeemer liveth.' His very last 
 sermon was preached from his bed to a company 
 in the room, when he baptized a child, and he chose 
 a text with which he had particularly wished to finish 
 his ministry, ' This God is our God for ever and ever ; 
 He will be our guide even unto death.' He lay on 
 the river's brink for a while, like one of Bunyan's 
 pilgrims, and conversed calmly with his family and 
 those about him, of the way he had come, and the 
 place he was going to, ' Though I die,' he said to his 
 children, ' the Lord liveth, I have known more of 
 God since I came to this bed than through all my 
 life ; ' and to some friends conversing with him, ' I 
 know that when my soul forsakes this tabernacle of 
 clay it will fly as naturally to my Saviour's bosom as 
 the bird to its nest.' He was conscious nearly to the 
 moment of his death, shut his eyes, laid his hand under 
 his cheek, and went to sleep, June 2, 1754, having 
 nearly completed the seventy-fourth year of his age. 
 
 By his own desire, he was buried in the centre of 
 his church, opposite to the pulpit, where a stone 
 covered the spot. In consequence of a new church 
 having been built behind the site of the old one, his 
 grave is now in the open space in front, with a monu- 
 ment erected to his memory. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to add a word about the
 
 io6 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 characters of these two brothers. It is written in 
 their life and work. They had, as ah'eady said, 
 individual differences, but they had more in common ; 
 and what was common belonged to the highest part of 
 the nature, the moral and spiritual. They were 
 sincere to the inmost fibre of their conscience, and 
 fearless in following out their convictions. Had they 
 lived in the previous century, they would have been 
 preachers on the hills, or sufferers at the Grassmarket. 
 As it was, they stood up unshrinkingly against defec- 
 tion, and led on what must have seemed a forlorn 
 hope. They went out, not knowing whither they 
 went, with a faith in God's guidance that sent them 
 forward, though they might have had opportunity to 
 have returned. We do not forget, in this, men of the 
 same character who preceded and who followed them ; 
 but to them it fell prominently to build up a testimony 
 in the land for a pure Gospel and a freely-chosen 
 ministry. It was the wisdom, the sagacity, the zeal, 
 and the devotion of the fathers of tlie Secession that 
 originated the central body of the free Presbyterian 
 Church of the last century, of w^hich the Eeformed 
 Presbyterians were the one wing and the Eelief the 
 other. In the great temple of the Christian Church 
 which is rising, there are memorials which we may 
 cherish, without either idolatry or sectarianism ; and to 
 the Erskines belongs one of these. We do not worship 
 them, or call them master, but we may be inspired 
 by their example and spirit. We may confess, as we
 
 THE ERSKINES. 107 
 
 have already done, that the very keenness of their 
 conscience led them, at times, into intolerance ; and 
 Thomas Gillespie, of the Eelief Church, had a meeker 
 spirit and wider views of Church communion, wliile he 
 was not less evangelical. But they helloed to lay the 
 foundation of true Christian breadth in contending for 
 other principles. The first great succour to new views 
 of relijTfious freedom came from their demand for the 
 place of the Christian people in the Church. When 
 Ebenezer Erskine opposed a forced settlement at 
 Burntisland, the noble patron of the parish in\ited the 
 other members of the presbytery to dinner, but left 
 him out, with the words, ' Mr. Erskine, you are none 
 of us to-day.' ' Sir,' he replied, ' you do me great 
 honour ; it gives me the truest pleasure that in this 
 we are agreed ; for I scorn to be one of those who 
 dare to oppress the Christian people, and to rob them 
 of their just privileges.' It is this refusal to allow 
 either State or clergy to lord it over God's heritage 
 that has drawn forth whatever of power there is in the 
 Churches of Scotland, and that is to enlist more active 
 work and ready giving when the people feel that the 
 cause is their own. But the Erskines and their friends 
 did even more by the character of their preaching. 
 They valued freedom for the sake of truth, and the 
 great truth which lay close to their heart and was 
 always in their lips was the freeness, fulness, and 
 absolute sufficiency of Christ as a Sa\dour to all and 
 every one who will receive Him. "We cannot open any
 
 io8 THE ERSKINES. 
 
 one of their sermons without seeing that this was the 
 life of their own soul, and the spring of all their work. 
 Such men as Hervey, Toplady, Andrew Fuller, Dr. 
 John Erskine, Dr. Andrew Thomson of St. George's, 
 are a few of those who acknowledge their obligations 
 to them. It was this that made their teaching so 
 thoroughly evangelistic, and their work a missionary 
 one, first to Scotland, then to England and Ireland, the 
 Colonies, and the world. Before they died, the seeds 
 of their work at home had been carried beyond the 
 seas, and if there be anything of the mission spirit in 
 their successors, it is owing to the large view taken of 
 the Gospel message by the fathers of the Church. 
 The emblem of the Church of Scotland is ' The bush 
 burning but not consumed.' It is not as setting it 
 aside, but, we trust, as supplementing it, that the 
 United Presbyterian Church has adopted ' The dove 
 with the olive leaf ; ' and, when the scattered children of 
 the family are brought together into one Church again, 
 the names of the Erskines, and the impulse they gave 
 to Christian work, will find their acknowledged place.
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF GLASGOW.^ 
 
 To possess a history is that which distinguishes man 
 from the lower creatures around him. They present 
 the same appearance from age to age, unchanging in 
 their instincts and habits, except in so far as they 
 have been modified from contact with man ; and, 
 therefore, the history of one generation of irrational 
 animals is the history of every other. But in the 
 human race there is progressive change, and it is the 
 part of history both to record and accelerate it. It 
 shows us how far we have advanced beyond the past, 
 and it treasures up the experience of that past for 
 still further advance in the future. Without it, we 
 would constantly require to begin the march of im- 
 provement anew, and society would be moving in a 
 narrow, ever-returning circle, instead of in one straight 
 and forward line. It is therefore the duty of every 
 man to make himself acquainted with history. The 
 Eoman orator and philosopher Cicero has said that ' for 
 a man to be ignorant of what happened before his birth 
 is to be always a child.' He who studies carefully 
 
 ' Lecture delivered iii the City Hall, Glasgow, 1852.
 
 1 1 o EARL Y HI ST OR V OF GLASG O W. 
 
 and wisely the records of the past incorporates the 
 wisdom of many previous generations with his own 
 experience, derives benefit from their errors and losses 
 without their follies and sufferings, and may accumu- 
 late within the limits of threescore years and ten 
 more than the knowledge of an antediluvian memory. 
 While this is true of history in general, that of our 
 own country has special claims upon us. That same 
 Cicero has said that ' none appeared to him learned 
 who were ignorant of the past affairs of their own 
 nation.' God's providence has given us peculiar 
 relations and duties to the land of our birth, and we 
 shall understand them better, and discharge them more 
 faithfully, when we have looked into its past annals, 
 and learned from them accurately to discern its present 
 position and its future prospects. In the history of 
 Scotland we have one from which we have no reason 
 to turn our eyes, or to blush while we read it. There 
 may be blots on some of the pages that even the most 
 partial might wish they could wipe out, but these do 
 not mar its general character ; and there is perhaps no 
 country that can show more ardent patriotism in its 
 struggles for national independence, more devotion in 
 sufferinu' for the cause of God's truth and man's 
 liberty, or, to come to later times, a more rapid 
 advance in industrial arts and social prosperity, and, 
 considering its population, a greater number of names 
 distinguished in science, in poetry, in philosophy, and 
 in active benevolence — men who by their labours
 
 EARL Y HISTOR Y OF GLASGO W. 1 1 1 
 
 have enlarged the domain of truth and augmented the 
 materials of liuman happiness and progress. Our 
 country is one not favoured in climate, or soil, or 
 position. It was shut out by the ancient Eoman from 
 that empire which he proudly termed the ivorkl. It 
 is inconsiderable in the number of its inhabitants as 
 compared with many others, yet has it made for itself 
 a name that is known throughout the globe, — a name 
 which the superior wealth and power of England have 
 not been able to obliterate, and which we trust will 
 long continue, as significant of sterling truth and 
 honesty, of manly independence and persevering 
 industry, of love to men, founded on the fear of God. 
 If we would discharge our duty to our country, we 
 must look even at the blots on its historical page, that 
 we may efface them if possible by a changed course ; 
 and we must contemplate its fair fame and great 
 examples, that w^e may be stimulated not to prove 
 ourselves unworthy of it. 
 
 It is our purpose to present to you some views of 
 the history of one of the chief towns of our native 
 country, — of what is now, indeed, the chief town, the 
 real if not the nominal metropolis, of Scotland. Such 
 a survey should be interesting to us as Scotsmen, because 
 the history of Glasgow will present to a great extent 
 the history of Scotland, and we shall attempt to look 
 at the subject in this wider point of view, tracing the 
 relations of the city where we live to the country at 
 large, and seeking as much as possible broad giim;^ses
 
 1 1 2 EARL Y HISTOR Y OF GLASGO W. 
 
 of the different periods as we pass through them. We 
 shall have in this way a transverse section of our 
 country's history that may give us some conception of 
 the whole, and that conception perhaps may he all 
 the clearer from our selecting one central spot whence 
 we may take it. The survey should have interest to 
 us as citizens of Glasgow, her adopted, if not her 
 native-bom children. It is true we have not the 
 monumental ruins of mighty cities of the past to fill 
 us with awe and wonder — we have neither Pan- 
 theon nor Parthenon, sculptured halls of Nineveh nor 
 temples of Palmyra — 
 
 ' Columns strewn 
 On the waste sands, and statues fallen and cleft, 
 Heaped like a host in battle overthrown,' 
 
 It may seem a vast descent to come to this city of 
 factories, and warehouses, and streets of hewn stone,, 
 in straight and regular array ; hut we have this to 
 compensate for all — the town is our own. This gives 
 it an interest nearer than either Thebes or Babylon, 
 The men who trod this soil before us, and who lie 
 buried beneath it, were our predecessors, our ancestors ;. 
 and we should be desirous to know what kind of men 
 they were, even though their hands did not build 
 j)yramids or rear hanging-gardens. It is, moreover, 
 still a city of living men and women, where we may 
 do good with the lessons we bring from its past, and 
 strive to make it better and wiser and greater in
 
 EARL V HI ST OR Y OF GLA SGOW. 113 
 
 coming time. Certain I am that, if our short retro- 
 spect fails to suggest reasons for continued energy and 
 industry, if it does not make us more thankful for the 
 present and hopeful for the future, it will not he 
 because the history of Glasgow is not fitted to teach 
 them. 
 
 In the short retrospect we take, we shall not pursue 
 a continuous course, chronicling events as they oc- 
 curred. This would be impossible in the limited 
 bounds of a lecture or two, and it would, besides, fail 
 to bring before you so distinctly the onward course of 
 progress in the history of the city. We shall, there- 
 fore, attempt rather to dwell on particular epochs in 
 order, and to sketch, as distinctly as we can, the 
 appearance of the place and the circumstances and 
 habits of the people at each period. "VVe may thus 
 obtain a series of bird's-eye views around us, from the 
 prominent summits of history. The views from these 
 must be at first wider and more general, having refer- 
 ence rather to Glasgow's locality than to the city 
 itself; but as we proceed down the stream of time we 
 shall have an opportunity of making these surveys 
 more distinct and circumstantial. 
 
 I. — Peimitive Period. 
 
 The first period may be termed the primitive ; and, 
 as a starting-point for it, we may ask you to accom- 
 pany us to one of those ancient boats that have been 
 
 H
 
 1 1 4 EARL V HISTOR Y OF GLASGOW. 
 
 found on the site of our city, and which may be seen 
 either in the Hunterian Museum or the room of 
 Stirling's Library. They are canoes of the most 
 primitive form, hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, 
 and bearing in some cases the traces of the fire that 
 had aided the workman in his operation, and in one 
 instance the marks of the stone cdt or axe with which, it 
 may be, the boat was formed out of one of the primitive 
 oaks of the Caledonian Forest. That in the Hunterian 
 Museum is 19f feet long, 3| feet wide at the stern, 
 and 30 inches deep. They have been found in almost 
 all parts of the city, and at varying depths. The 
 first recorded was discovered in 1780, by some work- 
 men, as they were digging tlie foundation of old St. 
 Enoch's Church. It was found at the depth of 
 twenty-five feet from the surface. Another, in 1781, 
 near the City Cross, in digging the foundation of the 
 Tontine, which was erected at that time. A third 
 was found, not a hundred yards from the same spot, 
 in making the sewer for London Street, and, curiously 
 enough, it lay, prow uppermost, in a position nearly 
 vertical, as if it had foundered in that very place in a 
 storm. Since then others have been found, to the 
 number of seventeen or eighteen, on the north and 
 south sides of the river, at Springfield and Clydehaugh, 
 in Stockwell, and one as far as the slope of Drygate 
 Street, immediately behind the Prison. How many 
 more may yet be buried beneath the surface who can 
 tell ? These discoveries suggest curious inquiries.
 
 EARL V HISTOR V OF GLASGO W. 115 
 
 They seem to show this, that at a period which we 
 caunot set at less than 2500 or 3000 years ago, in 
 all probability more, this river of Clyde had navies 
 of a kind, hewn from the forests that clothed our hills, 
 without the aid of a tool of iron. What a contrast 
 between the little canoe with its stone hatchet, and 
 those stately vessels that are now preparing to make 
 the voyage of the world, ribbed with iron from our 
 own soil, and riveted by ponderous hammers ! The 
 fact that so many of these boats have been found in 
 this locality would suggest the conclusion that there 
 must have been here, even at that remote period, ' a 
 haven of ships.' If so, Glasgow yields in antiquity 
 to no city of the empire. It is true that history gives 
 no record of this ; but for the simple reason that history 
 there was none. But these boats themselves contain 
 the record ; and the numbers of them found beneath 
 our feet show that there must have been a cluster of 
 primitive dwellings in the vicinity. It may be that, 
 as the river is the source of Glasgow's greatness, in 
 the river also we may find the earliest trace of Glas- 
 gow's existence. It is true, moreover, of almost all 
 great cities, either of ancient or modern times, that 
 they are planted above the homesteads of earlier in- 
 habitants. Man's tendency is to tread in the steps of 
 those who have gone before ; and it is most probaljle 
 that, since there were inhabitants at this early period, 
 they were to be found where history, emerging from 
 the cloud of age, shows us Glasgow first existent.
 
 1 16 EARL Y HISTOR Y OF GLASGO W. 
 
 The face of land and water must have been very 
 different then from now. The way in which these 
 boats were found, and the soil of sand and mud 
 beneath, prove that the Clyde overflowed the greater 
 part of the site on which modern Glasgow stands. 
 We wonder to hear individuals, who are our contem- 
 poraries, tell of the floods of the Bridgegate; but could 
 some hardy rower, from one of these primitive boats, 
 narrate his story, he would speak of the tide and 
 stream combined, as overflowing all that we call the 
 South Side, with Argyle Street, Trongate, Gallowgate, 
 and all their branching wynds and streets, and rippling 
 a<Tainst the high bank that rises from George Street to 
 the heights of Eottenrow and Blythswood Square. 
 The Clyde in those days would be here what it now 
 is at Dumbarton, a little firth in which boats might 
 founder, and where they are preserved in the alluvial 
 soil brought down by the river, that they may give us 
 these glimpses of the past. Where houses now stand 
 in thousands, and business circulates in ceaseless 
 streams, the canoe once paddled, and the denizens of 
 the deep sported at will. Beyond the flood -mark 
 there would be the thick, woody forests of noble oak, 
 as the Eomans found them, and as our morasses 
 show imbedded in their midst ; and in these gloomy 
 recesses the wild boar, the lion, and the wolf must 
 have been coeval with man. In some opening glade, 
 it may be, near what is the most ancient and the 
 highest part of the city (our venerable cathedral
 
 EARL V HISTOR Y OF GLASGO W. uy 
 
 church), stood the few straggling huts to which the 
 owners of these frail boats retired from the toils of 
 fishing and the chase, or the hazards of warfare with a 
 neighbouring tribe. It is difficult to conceive of scenes 
 so strange, on this very soil, yet so far do these dumb 
 memorials testify. 
 
 It would be interesting to discuss somewhat fully 
 of what race and lineage these men were, and what 
 their condition and general circumstances might be. 
 The antiquarians of our country have done not a little 
 in this field of inquiry, but much more remains to be 
 done. The great source of information is the relics 
 that are from time to time exhumed from beneath our 
 feet ; and it should be the endeavour of all intelligent 
 men to discourage the spirit of destroying these, which 
 too often prevails, in thoughtless ignorance or wanton 
 mischief. Some small and apparently unimportant 
 memorial may be the key to a department of interest- 
 ing knowledge. For the most recent results we may 
 refer to Wilson's Frehistoric Annals of Scotland, a 
 work of great research and interest. 
 
 To what race the primitive inhabitants of this 
 country belonged is not very clear. At the time of 
 the Eoman invasion, a thousand years later than the 
 period we are considering, the mass of the population 
 of the British Islands was Celtic, divided into two great 
 branches — the one the Cimbric Celts or Cymri, the 
 ancestors of the present Welsh ; the other the Gaelic 
 Celts or Gaels, of the same lineage with our Scottish
 
 1 1 8 EARL Y HISTOR V OF GLASGO W. 
 
 Highlanders and the native Irish. Besides these, 
 there was, in the time of the Eomans, a fringe of 
 different races along the sea- coast, of Belgic or Teutonic 
 origin, the precursors of those who came afterwards so 
 abundantly under the names of Anglo-Saxons and 
 Northmen, the ancestors of the present English and 
 Lowland Scottish. But, before either Saxon or Celt, 
 there are traces of a previous race, probably the first 
 wave of that tide of emigration that has come westward 
 from the plains of Shinar, the birthland of the human 
 family. It is only from the different conformation of 
 the cranium, with the customs of sepulture, and other 
 remains, that antiquarians have come to this supposi- 
 tion. This race, which may have been the race of 
 primitive boat-builders on the Clyde, would seem to 
 have resembled more the Tartar tribes ; but all vestige 
 of their language and separate features has disappeared, 
 having been absorbed in the successive waves of popu- 
 lation that broke over them. It cannot be doubted, 
 however, that they have contributed their part to those 
 features that form the composite character of the 
 population of the British Isles. 
 
 It would be still more interesting to consider the 
 condition of these aborigines, to whatsoever race they 
 belonged. Regarding this, much more certain and 
 definite information could be gleaned. That they 
 must have had some knowledge of the arts, however 
 small, is clear from this, that they could only reach 
 Britain by sea, and they must therefore have under-
 
 EARL V HISTOR V OF GLASGO W. 119 
 
 stood tlie construction and navigation of a boat. 
 But the condition of the South Sea Islanders, when 
 discovered by Captain Cook, would show that with 
 this knowledge there might be a very low grade of 
 social life. The relics of these early boat-builders 
 all attest this. The original state of man is not that 
 of a savage ; and these tribes had come from the 
 cradle of humanity in the East, but they had lost 
 civilization in tlieir long march over continents, 
 through forests, in conflict with wild beasts and 
 with each other. They must have lost their know- 
 ledge of the metals, for they were reduced to the 
 hammer and hatchet, the spear and arrow-head of 
 stone. "With these, fashioned by wonderful ingenuity, 
 they met the most formidable creatures of earth and 
 ocean. The whale itself has been found, by indu- 
 bitable evidence, slain by the flint-headed spear of 
 the primitive Caledonian. Their dwellings were in 
 summer the bothy or hut, erected on the foundation 
 of circular stones, which may be found by the 
 wanderer, as we have seen them, among the Cheviot 
 Hills ; and in winter they had their subterranean 
 burrows or dens called weems, some of which have 
 been found in moorland districts, with the bones of 
 the wild boar and bear still lying amid the ashes of 
 the wood-fire that had prepared the rude repast. In 
 this form men lived, and men that were our pre- 
 decessors, it may be our ancestors, on this very 
 soil. They were living men and women ; they had
 
 1 20 EARL y HISTOR V OF GLASGO W. 
 
 their hopes and fears, their struggles and triumphs, 
 their joys and sorrows, in their own day. It was a 
 true, living past ; let us not doubt it, and let us not 
 attempt to despise it. They did their part bravely, 
 energetically, perseveringly, with their hammer of stone 
 and tree canoe. They lived in spite of hardships 
 and dangers, and handed down some progress to those 
 who followed them. The first step they made was 
 perhaps necessary to every step of ours. Had w^e 
 not possessed their experience, we might have been 
 commencing at their level. The man who gave a 
 new and more convenient form to the hatchet, or first 
 fastened the tiller, as it may sometimes be seen, to 
 the little boat, was preparing the way for James 
 Watt and Henry Bell. Let us be grateful, not dis- 
 dainful. 
 
 Of the religion of these aboriginal dwellers we 
 have least knowledge of all. That they had a religion 
 we doubt not. In no age or country has any race of 
 men been discovered without it. But they had most 
 certainly lost the primitive, patriarchal faith, which 
 man had first of all, when he stood nearer to his 
 Maker. They had lost, perhaps, also the most 
 elevated form of idolatry — Sabaism or fire-worship, 
 of which Druidism, that prevailed afterwards, was a 
 branch. They had sunk, in all likehhood, to the 
 Fetichism or charm-worship that prevails at this day 
 on the coast of Africa. That they had not surrendered 
 their hope of a life beyond death may be argued from
 
 EARL Y HISrOR V OF GLASG OW. 121 
 
 the manner in which they buried their dead, with the 
 instruments of service and ornaments near to them, 
 that they might possess them still in the spirit-land. 
 Such words as those that Bryant puts into the mouth 
 of the American-Indian maid, as she mourned her 
 dead, may have suited the ancient Caledonian : 
 
 ' 'Twas I the 'broidei-ed mocsin made 
 That shod thee for that distant land, 
 
 'Twas I thy bow and arrows laid 
 Beside thy still cold hand ; 
 
 Thy bow in many a battle bent, 
 
 Thine arrows never vainly sent ! ' 
 
 It was yet far distant from that period when life 
 and immortality were to be brought to light by the 
 Gospel. In their sepulchres close around us there 
 are memorials that tell us of their imaginings regarding 
 the future, to them dark and dismal. On the summit 
 of the Cathkin hills, above Eutherglen, immense 
 tumuli and piles of stones existed, containing the 
 burial-places and urns of the primitive inhabitants ; 
 in particular, on a hill called Queen Mary's Law and 
 Knocklegoil Hill. It is to be deeply regretted that 
 these, with their curious chambers, have been destroyed, 
 from hundreds of cartloads having been removed to 
 build walls in the neighbourhood. We should preserve 
 the mounds and circles of the past, to let the future 
 see what it has been, if for no more than to be 
 milestones of progress on the great highway of nations 
 to mark their march ; and we should have some regard
 
 1 2 2 EARL Y HISTOR V OF GLASGO W, 
 
 for the ashes of the dead, even though thousands of 
 years have rolled over their sepulchres. 
 
 ' A noble race ! but tliey are gone, 
 
 "With their old forests, wide and deep ; 
 And we have built our homes upon 
 
 Fields where their generations sleep. 
 Their fountains slake our thirst at noon, 
 
 Upon their fields our harvest waves ; 
 Our lovers woo beneath their moon : 
 
 Ah, let us spare at least their graves I ' ^ 
 
 II. — PtOMAN Period. 
 
 We come now to a different period. These ancient 
 boats may have been sailing on the Clyde when Saul 
 reigned over Israel, and when Nineveh, ' that great city,' 
 stood in its splendour. We descend more than a 
 thousand years, and we find around Glasgow marks of 
 new occupants of the soil. Near the site where Glasgow 
 now stands have been found stones that tell of a 
 strange people from those who had hitherto been seen 
 within the limits of our island ; and a little way to the 
 north of Glasgow the traces of a wall, from Dunglas 
 by Kilpatrick and Castlecary, running to tlie Eastern 
 Sea, tell the story more distinctly. Altars and votive 
 tablets and legionary inscriptions have all been up- 
 turned from the soil in the immediate vicinity of 
 Glasgow, and the largest collection of them in Scotland 
 is to be found in our own Hunterian Museum. It is 
 the Eoman that has entered. That wonderful power 
 
 ^ Bryant.
 
 EARL V HISTOR V OF GLASGO W. 1 2 3 
 
 had risen from small beginnings to the empire of the 
 world. From the remote East they had extended 
 their sway to the furthest West. They had conquered 
 Spain, penetrated Germany, subjugated France or Gaul, 
 and, finding that aid came to that country from the 
 opposite shores of Britain, they resolved to make their 
 conquest secure by invading Britain also. It was in the 
 year before Christ 55 that Julius Csesar first set foot 
 on the shore of Kent, but it was not till 135 years later, 
 A.D. 80, that Agricola visited these northern regions. 
 On the Grampian slopes the Roman sword came into 
 collision with the Caledonian spear, and the discipline 
 of Eome prevailed over the rude valour of our ancestors. 
 We can console ourselves with the reflection of 
 Cowper, — 
 
 'The Eoman taught thy stubborn knee to bend, 
 But twice a Roman could not bend thee now.' 
 
 Yet the Caledonians, tliough defeated, were not 
 subdued, and Agricola, unable to conquer the northern 
 portion of the island, or recalled before he had time to 
 do so, drew a line of forts from the Clyde to the 
 Forth, as the boundary of the empire, and as a defence 
 against the fierce tribes beyond. Many a terrible 
 encounter doubtless took place along this line, — the 
 Romans defending, the Caledonians attacking, — and a 
 warfare was prevalent, resembling very much that 
 which has been lately w^aged in Caffreland between 
 the Briton and the African. Sixty years after the
 
 1 24 EARL Y HISTOR ] OF GLASGO IV. 
 
 time of Agricola, a.d. 140, the Eoman soldiers 
 strengthened the line of forts by a wall that must 
 have required great labour, running from the Clyde to 
 the Forth, parallel with those works of a later age 
 that bespeak so different a period — the Forth and 
 Clyde Canal, and the Edinburgh and Glasgow Eailway. 
 In the excavations for these very works, Eoman tablets 
 have been dug up, containing sometimes the dedica- 
 tion of a part of the wall to their favourite Emperor 
 Antoninus, then reigning, sometimes an inscription to 
 the memory of a wife or daughter of a Eoman colonist 
 who had withered and died under our rough northern 
 blasts. Nowhere does the wonderful energy of Eome 
 appear greater than on these very confines of her 
 mighty empire. Let us think of what Britain must 
 have been to one from the sunny sky and balmy air 
 of Italy, covered with alternate swamp and forest, 
 and * deformed,' as they themselves express it, ' with 
 mists and rainy dews ; ' and when we consider the 
 works with which they covered our island, military 
 and civil, we shall see in them a higher testimony to 
 stern Eoman grandeur than in the ruins of the 
 Colosseum or the amphitheatre. 
 
 What Glasgow was then, it is very hard to say. 
 The stones of the Eomans, like the boats of the 
 aborigines, tell us something, but in records the name 
 does not yet appear. We may suppose it likely that 
 the primitive huts had survived Eoman invasion, or 
 had risen again under shelter of the protecting wall ;
 
 EARL V HISTOR Y OF GLASGO W. 125 
 
 though the case of their inhabitants must have been 
 a very hard one, their sympathies going forth to their 
 countrymen beyond the wall, while they were made to 
 feel that with their oppressors there was power. It 
 is probable that the dwellers in the Glasgow of that 
 day were, like our own frontier Caffres, trusted by 
 neither party, and plundered by both. This at least 
 is certain and interesting, that the spot on which we 
 now live was for many years the extreme limit of the 
 Eoman Empire, and consequently of the then known 
 and acknowledged world. The wall was close at 
 hand, beyond which the Eomans knew nothing but 
 barbarism. We may imagine despatches going to the 
 mistress of the world, telling of the obstinate defence 
 of the Caledonian enemy, in some Waterhloof of the 
 Campsie or Kilpatrick hills — it may be the noted 
 Campsie Glen or Peel Glen, where British camps are 
 still to be found ; and Glasgow, if it appeared at all, 
 standing much as now do Fort Hare or Fort Arm- 
 strong, a little stronghold in the hands of harassed 
 soldiers, surrounded by a watchful and implacable foe. 
 Many a sigh may have gone from the banks of the 
 Clyde to the banks of the Tiber ; and many a hair- 
 breadth escape and fierce encounter that took place on 
 the banks of the Kelvin or the Cart may have been 
 related in homes by the side of the Arno or the Po. 
 
 A question of importance connected with this sub- 
 ject is the state of progress in which the Eomans 
 found our ancestors on this spot. The common idea
 
 1 26 EARL Y HISTOR Y OF GLASGO W. 
 
 is, that they discovered them in the very lowest grade 
 of social life, and that the first spark of improvement 
 was struck by the Eoman invasion. We cannot doubt 
 that the Romans accelerated improvement, especially 
 in the southern part of the island, but it is a great 
 mistake to suppose that they first commenced it. The 
 account that the Eoman writers give us of the 
 inhabitants, brief though it be, shows that they 
 had made marked progress from the condition 
 indicated by the boats beneath the soil of Glasgow. 
 The stone period had given place to the period of 
 copper and bronze, the first metals that were used 
 in working, and this again in its turn to the period 
 of iron. This was one of the most important steps of 
 progress, and it had been reached before the foot of 
 a Roman soldier touched British ground, for the sword 
 of the legionary clashed, in the very first onset, 
 with the claymore and iron shield bosses of the 
 Caledonian. "Who invented the working of iron, or 
 introduced it to Britain, cannot be known. The 
 name of Yoelund or Wayland, the smith, is found 
 still among the nations of the north ; and in a 
 valley in Berkshire the spot is pointed out where 
 the famous man wrought who found again what had 
 been found ages before by Tubal Cain. The different 
 legends show at least the importance attached to the 
 invention. Gold had been in use even before iron, 
 and from its presence in tumuli and sepulchres it 
 must have existed in considerable abundance. It is
 
 EARL V HISTOR V OF GLASGO W. 127 
 
 in reality the most widely - diffused of metals, the 
 most readily wrought, and at the same time the soonest 
 exhausted, as it is not found far from the surface. 
 In its native state, it existed in many places in the 
 British Islands. So late as 1790, more than 800 ounces 
 were collected by diggers in the county of Wicklow 
 in Ireland. With this progress in metals, there must 
 have been a corresponding progress in the arts of life. 
 The occupations of the fisher and hunter had given 
 way in great part to that of the pastoral state. There 
 was large wealth, as the Eomans tell us, in flocks and 
 herds. The hollowed-tree canoe had been followed 
 by the barque in which trade was carried on between 
 Gaul and Britain, Scotland and Ireland. The horse 
 and the dog had been domesticated, for we find the 
 bones of both buried beside those of their master. 
 Chariots had been constructed, from which the Cale- 
 donians as well as the southern Britons fought, and 
 the construction of these, both in the iron and wood 
 work, must have required considerable skill. Large 
 bodies of men were brought together to oppose the 
 Eoman legions, and the combination and mainten- 
 ance of these required calculation and foresight. The 
 religion, too, if we may judge from the mode of 
 sepulture and other indications, had undergone a 
 change. Druidism had been imported from the 
 distant East, probably by the Phoenician trader. The 
 host of heaven, with Baal their lord, were worshipped 
 in our high places, and tradition has pointed out a
 
 1 2 S EARL Y HISTOR Y OF GLASGO W. 
 
 site on the Castleliill of Glasgow where the Druid 
 temple is said to have stood and the sacred grove to 
 have been planted. All these changes had taken 
 place before the Eomans arrived. But while they did 
 not originate active life among us, they quickened it. 
 They taught our ancestors, rude in comparison with 
 themselves, new wants, and these produced new efforts. 
 They imported fresh seeds of art and civilization, 
 which, though they had to encounter many a storm, 
 and were covered for a while by the broken wreck of 
 the empire itself, yet grew up afterwards in goodly 
 shoots. Above all, we have to look to the Eoman 
 period for the first entrance of Christianity. Britain 
 possessed the Gospel ere these soldiers of Italy left 
 our shores. In Scotland itself there are tombs that 
 tell of the early entrance of the faith, where Christian 
 usage in the very mode of burial is seen struggling 
 with heathen customs. Near Alloa, on a little hill, 
 stands one stone that, with its simple cross above, 
 without a date and without a name, and its antique 
 cist below, shows that there lies one early Briton who 
 had heard the name of Christ. The wings of the 
 Roman eagle carried Gospel seeds in their flight, and 
 devout Corneliuses were doubtless found even here. 
 That word upon the cross, Jesus of Nazareth, was 
 written in Latin, to predict triumphs through that 
 languaQ-e ; a centurion beneath its shadow confessed 
 Him to be the Son of God, and the words of that 
 fettered prisoner in Rome, the great apostle of the
 
 EARL Y HISTOR V OF GLASGO IV. 1 29 
 
 Gentiles, captive for the Gospel's sake, were finding 
 their way from his prison, along the far-stretching 
 roads of Eoman dominion. The nation that had gone 
 forth to subdue and enyoke the kingdoms of the 
 world was being employed by God to give them the 
 truth that was to free and elevate them. ' Out of 
 the devourer came forth meat, and out of the strong 
 came forth sweetness.' 
 
 III. — The Church of Kentigeen. 
 
 Full GOO years before the first stone of our present 
 venerable cathedral was laid, a Christian church was 
 standing on that height beneath which are now the 
 dwellings of 360,000 men.-^ This church, indeed, 
 must have been of the most primitive kind. There 
 is good reason to believe that there was not a single 
 stone in the structure. It was built of wood (cut 
 oak, as Bede calls it), and wattled twigs, according to 
 the custom of the age ; and in the plaited tracery 
 that necessarily resulted from the materials some have 
 seen the origin of the stately Gothic of the Middle 
 Ages. Beside this simple edifice on the height above 
 the Molendinar there was not even a round tower, as 
 is found at Brechin and Abernethy, and in conjunction 
 with many of the early churches of Ireland, built 
 partly for the purpose of a belfry, and partly as a 
 defence for the sacred vessels and the clergy against 
 
 '^ The population of Glasi^ow in 1881 was 541,150. 
 
 i
 
 I30 EARL V //IS TOR V OF GLASGO W. 
 
 the piratical hordes of heathen Danes and Northmen. 
 The little church of St. Kentigern, for this it was, 
 had either more faith in the breasts of its ministers, 
 or, what is more likely, less wealth in its ecclesiastical 
 furniture to tempt the cupidity of the roving sea 
 kings. Let us hope that it belonged to that class of 
 churches of which an ancient father says that the 
 vessels may be wooden, but the ministers golden, and 
 not to that other kind of which he complains that the 
 vessels were of gold, but the ministers of wood. 
 Humble as it may have been, this erection was a 
 house of Christian worship, and seems to have had 
 some really Christian men connected with it, and it 
 demands our attention as a licrht shininQ- in a dark 
 place. Besides, this little church, built about 1300 
 years ago, is the authentic, commencement of what we 
 now call Glasgow, and its founder and father must 
 not be overlooked in a city that to this day boasts 
 itself of the name of St. Munfjo. 
 
 Before coming, however, to St. Kentigern and his 
 doings for Glasgow, we may glance backward along 
 the thread of our story. The assaults of the northern 
 barbarians on Italy and Eome drew the legions more 
 and more to the centre of the empire, if possible to 
 ward off the fatal blows that were being aimed at 
 the heart. The defensive efforts proved all in vain. 
 Eome succumbed to the sword of the Gothic 
 conquerors who came pouring from the woods of 
 Germany, and the fall of Eome broke her vast
 
 EARL Y HISTOR Y OF GLASGO W. \xi 
 
 J' 
 
 dominions in pieces. Tlie girdling wall of imperial 
 power was shattered, the various kingdoms that had 
 been held together by it in unnatural union sprang 
 asunder, and rushing through the open barriers came 
 the hungry wolves of the north, that had long been 
 with difficulty kept at bay by frontier towers and 
 military colonies. It seemed as if the fire of civiliza- 
 tion and Christianity itself which Eome had kindled 
 on her hearth were about to be extinguished ; but in 
 the plan of Providence it proved only to be fresh fuel 
 heaped on it, through which the fire has come breaking 
 brighter and higher tlian ever — like a phoenix rising 
 from its own ashes. It is out of this rude northern 
 material, fused in the heat of Eonian civilization, and 
 moulded more or less by the spirit of Christianity, 
 that our most valued modern institutions have come 
 to us. In this period of struggle and transition, let 
 us turn our view to our own country — to what is now 
 our home, and cast our eyes over the elements of 
 population found in it. We shall see that these were 
 of the most diverse kind, and that, distant thourrh 
 they were from the centre of imperial power, they 
 could not fail to be affected by the change that over- 
 took it. The Eomans finally left Britain a.d. 426, 
 having had a footing in it for almost 500 years. 
 Nearly up to that time they had maintained their 
 hold of the south of Scotland up to the Antonine 
 wall, between the Forth and Clyde, including the 
 district in which we now are. When they left, Scot-
 
 132 EARL V HISTOR Y OF GLASGO W. 
 
 land, or what we now term Scotland (for it had not 
 then the name), was divided among four different 
 peoples. First of all, chiefly within the wall, were 
 the Britons, the same race that the Eomans first found 
 here, and of the same lineage with the modern Welsh, 
 belonging to the Cimbric branch of the great Celtic 
 family. They had for their chief city Alcluid or 
 Dumbarton, and held all the south-west of Scotland, 
 including the counties of Lanark, Eenfrew, Ayr, 
 Dumfries, and Galloway. They were called, from the 
 strength of their power lying in this very district, 
 the Strathclyde Britons, It may seem somewhat 
 strange to think of the Welsh language being spoken, 
 at a period not very remote, as the universal tongue of 
 this district ; yet so it was. There are traces of it in 
 the proper names of our neighbourhood. The Clyde 
 has its twin-brotlier still in Wales, Clwydd ; Lanark 
 has the distinct Welsh Llan ; Dumbarton is Diim- 
 hriton, ' the hill of the Britons ; ' Cumbrae has its 
 origin from Cumhri ; and Glasgow itself is ' the grey or 
 dark hollow,' from the deep glen of the Molendinar, 
 above which the primitive little church that gave 
 origin to the city was planted. 
 
 Traditions of this primitive race may still be found 
 surviving in the mountainous districts at the sources 
 of the Clyde and Tweed, fragments of their ancient 
 legends of Merlin the enchanter, and of the famous 
 giant - slaying hero, whose exploits, from being the 
 entertainment of princes and chieftains, have descended
 
 EA RL V HISTOR V OF GLASG IV. 1 33 
 
 to be the delight of boyhood in our time. A con- 
 siderable portion of the substratum of the population 
 in all this reGrion must be from the old British stem. 
 
 North of the wall, and westward, was the kingdom 
 of the Dalriad Scots, occupying the present Argyle- 
 shire, and spreading into Inverness and over the 
 Hebrides. They appear first in a.d. 503 with historical 
 certainty, and with an Irish origin, though antiquarians 
 are marvellously perplexed as to their more remote 
 birthland, some assigning them to Spain, some to 
 Scandinavia, and some to Scotland itself, whence they 
 suppose they had emigrated at an earlier period to 
 Ireland. Whatever their primary origin, they came 
 first on the stage of Caledonian history as a race of 
 hardy, enterprising adventurers, speaking the Gaelic 
 branch of the Celtic language, and their name of Scots, 
 or wanderers, as it is said to signify, has extended itself 
 to entire North Britain. 
 
 To the east of the Scots was the Pictish kingdom, 
 extending from the Firth of Forth northward through 
 Fife, Angus, and Aberdeen, and stretching from the 
 seaboard inward, till it met the rough outline of those 
 mountains that were becoming already the home of 
 the Scottish clans. Of what race these Picts were, 
 whether Celtic or Gothic, has long formed the vexed 
 question of Scottish history, and has perplexed anti- 
 c|uarians as much as the pliilosopher's stone did 
 alchemists, or the quadrature of the circle the ancient 
 geometers. The weight of opinion now inclines to the
 
 1 34 EARL V HJSTOR Y OF GLASG O IF. 
 
 view that these Picts were a Celtic race, receiving, as 
 the Christian era advanced, large admixtures of the 
 Scandinavian element from the roving tribes of Danes 
 and Norwegians. Abernethy formed long the capital 
 of this ancient race, and their hands raised the round 
 towers and engraved tlie curious standing-stones that 
 form a peculiar feature in the antiquities of the north- 
 east of Scotland. 
 
 South of the Forth, and spreading themselves over 
 the most fertile counties bordering on England, Eox- 
 burgh, Berwick, and the Lothians, appeared a race of 
 strangers with the blue eyes and fair hair of the great 
 Gothic family. They were the Anglo-Saxons of the 
 Northumbrian kingdom, and they were beginning to 
 spread themselves westward and northward until they 
 impressed their character and language upon the entire 
 Lowland population of Scotland. They were the last- 
 ingredient in the constituent elements of our island 
 population, and, like the iron deposit pouring itself 
 over the shifting sand, they were to give it the rock- 
 like compactness and strength which it afterwards 
 acquired. 
 
 Such was the aspect of Scotland when Glasgow 
 first saw historical light about 1300 years ago. Of 
 the four principalities that then divided it, that of the 
 Strathclyde Britons must, for obvious reasons, have 
 been at the time further advanced in civilization. 
 They had been most in contact with the Eomans, and 
 had gained some acquaintance with their arts of life.
 
 EARL \ HISTOR Y OF GLASGO W. 135 
 
 They escaped for a seasun the devastating warfare that 
 wasted the eastern coast from the eruption of fierce 
 Jutes and Angles ; and, as long as the Scots and Picts 
 were engaged in their mutual struggle for supremacy, 
 they had little leisure to assail the Britons of the 
 west. Here, then, if anywhere in Scotland, we may 
 expect some of the first sparhs of Christian light to 
 be struck and cherished. Early ecclesiastical history 
 narrates that about a.d. 380 Isinias or Ninian, better 
 known in Scotland by his name of Eingan, the son of 
 a Welsh prince of Cumberland, visited Eome, and, 
 having been instructed there, returned as a Christian 
 missionary to preach the Gospel to the heathen tribes 
 of North Britain. It is to be remembered that Piome 
 had not, in those days, made the arrogant claims which 
 she afterwards obtruded on the Christian Church, nor 
 had she in her teaching departed so far from the faith 
 once delivered to the saints. Arriving in Britain, he 
 tarried not in Cumberland, but crossed the Solway, 
 and reared the first Christian church known in the 
 history of Scotland upon the headland of "Whithorn in 
 Galloway, which Bede tells us was built in a manner 
 then unusual among the Britons, for it was constructed of 
 hewn stone. Of that primitive edifice no remains now 
 exist. Ninian died a.d. 432, but he left disciples who 
 laboured with great zeal and fervour, and who seem to 
 have been successful in spreading the knowledge of 
 Christian truth over a great part of Scotland and 
 the north of England. Among these disciples is to
 
 136 EARL y UISTOR V OF GLASGO W. 
 
 be reckoned St. Patrick, who was a Briton of the 
 Strathclyde district, and who was sent over to Ireland 
 in the year after Ninian's death. The names of not a 
 few others are still preserved — Eegulus or Eule, 
 Adrian, Woloc, Kiaran, Columba the founder of the 
 Culdees of lona, and Kentigern, whose name stands 
 now associated with that of Glasgow. It is with this 
 last that w^e are more immediately concerned at 
 present, and we give the outlines of his life, as they 
 have been handed to us by the ecclesiastical writers 
 of a succeeding age. He is said to have been the 
 son of Thametes or Thane w, daughter of Lotte, king 
 of the Picts, and to have been born about the }'ear 
 516. The name of his mother, St. Thanew, was given 
 to a small chapel long afterwards built on the west 
 side of Glasgow, which by a curious change passed 
 into the name of St. Enoch's, a saint whose claims 
 were both better known and more surely attested. 
 The education of Kentigern was entrusted to Serf, the 
 apostle of the Orkneys, a man whose name has come 
 dow^n with a character for great Christian zeal, in 
 labourino; on what must then have been the utmost 
 verge of the habitable world. The date of the founda- 
 tion of a church in Glasgow by Kentigern cannot be 
 certainly fixed, but it would seem to have been about 
 A.D. 560. By all accounts, it was built upon the same 
 site as the present cathedral church, of cut oak and 
 wattled twigs. The Molendinar had not then obtained 
 its name of Latin, if we may not call it classic, origin
 
 EA RL V HISTOR V OF GLASG OW. 137 
 
 — the mill-lmrn, as lending its waters to grind the 
 bishop's grain. Yet must the Molendinar have been 
 then, what it continued long afterwards, a clear and 
 sparkling stream, winding through its dark hollow 
 clothed witli the old Druid oaks, rejoicing in its spring 
 primroses and summer wild roses, and glittering down 
 into a little haven on the Clyde, as later pictures of 
 the city well may show. Near the middle of the 
 hollow that has given Glasgow its name, tradition long 
 pointed out the cell and bed wdiere Kentigern prayed 
 and reposed, and it continues still to show, not far 
 distant, his last place of rest amid the deep shadows 
 of the venerable crypt, within whose solemn, awe- 
 inspiring aisles its founders have sought, whether truly 
 or not we do not inquire, to include the charm of 
 hallowed association in St. Mungo's tomb. We pass 
 over here the miracles and labours which monkish 
 legends have attributed to St. Kentigern, which have 
 this reprehensible- feature, that in many minds they 
 cloud his simple virtues and true Christian sj)irit. 
 With the defects and errors of that age adhering to 
 him, we would wish to esteem him a man who laboured 
 zealously, and not unsuccessfully, to diffuse Christian 
 knowledge and introduce Christian practice in a region 
 that was then dark and Ijeniulited. It was the com- 
 mencement of Glasgow ; and, now that we have the 
 light more widely spread, and are better assured of its 
 purity in seeing it issue directly from an open Bible, 
 it becomes us to turn to our origin and learn from it
 
 138 EARL V HISTOR Y OF GLASGO IV. 
 
 tliat Glasgoiv is to flourish hy the jyrcachiyir/ of the Ward. 
 Here, meanwhile, we pause. In the period that 
 follows the progress is more rapid and decisive, but 
 looking back even from this point we can see that 
 there has been advance. The huts are still there on 
 the height, simple and primitive in their aspect, and the 
 sound of hammer and forge has not begun yet to 
 awaken the echoes of the Molendinar. But here and 
 there the thick woods have been cleared by the arm 
 of the Pioman legionary, and by the iron axe which 
 the native Briton has himself learned to wield. Cattle 
 are straying in the glades, and the green spots of corn 
 are looking out here and there on the vale of the 
 Clyde. Our own noble river no more washes the 
 high bank, but retires in anticipation of the city that 
 is to descend from the hill above and occupy the wide 
 plain. And there, as the spring of progress and the 
 pledge of it, the little church has risen, humble and 
 unpretending, but a star of hope to all coming time, 
 and destined to be the forerunner of a hundred Chris- 
 tian temples, set apart to the service of a pure Gospel 
 and a living God. 
 
 We must conclude here our survey of the past, and 
 indulge the hope that the exercise of thought has not 
 been altogether in vain. It is something to have the 
 horizon of our understanding widened, and to have 
 felt an interest in persons and events different and 
 distant from the everyday circle within which we are 
 too apt to seclude ourselves. There is both truth and
 
 EARL V HISTOR V OF GLA SGOW. 139 
 
 beauty in the reflection of the great moralist of tlie 
 last century (Dr. Johnson) — ' Whatever withdraws us 
 from the power of our senses ; whatever makes the 
 past, the distant, or the future predominate over the 
 present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. 
 Far from me and from my friends be such frigid 
 j^hilosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved 
 over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, 
 bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied 
 whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain 
 of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer 
 among the ruins of lona.' There is a token of man's 
 liigh dignity and destiny in this, that we can send our 
 minds backward along the stream of time, and breast 
 its stroncr current till we reach the source. This 
 power belongs to thoughts that can ' wander through 
 eternity,' and that give in their exercise a dim pre- 
 sentiment of an immortality that stretches still before 
 us. 
 
 ' Yet, for this vision of the Past, 
 This glance ujjon its darkness cast, 
 My spirit bows in gratitude 
 Before the Giver of all good ; 
 "Who fashioned so the human juind 
 That from the waste of Time Lehiiul 
 A simple stone or mound of earth 
 Can summon the departed forth, 
 And in their primal freshness show 
 The biu'ied forms of long ago. 
 As if a portion of that Thought 
 By wluch the Eternal will is Avrought,
 
 I 40 EARLY HISTOR V OF GLASGO W. 
 
 Whose impulse fills anew with breath 
 The frozen solitude of Death, 
 To mortal mind were sometimes lent 
 To mortal musings sometimes sent, 
 To whisper — even when it seems 
 But Memory's phantasy of dreams — 
 Through the Mind's waste of woe and sin, 
 Of an immortal origin I ' ^ 
 
 From the survey we have taken, we may be convinced 
 that there is progress in the history of the world. 
 The geologist, as he examines the strata of the earth, 
 finds them rising one above the other, carrying in their 
 bosom successive stages of development that become 
 constantly fuller and higher till man appears and 
 crowns the whole. In the history of man there may 
 be traced a similar series of changes, in which each 
 age is an advance upon the preceding. There are 
 strata in the annals of the human race, with their 
 curious records of the past, and with progress inscribed 
 upon tliem all. There is this mighty difference, 
 however, that in the field of the geologist the progress 
 takes place by the constant interposition of a hand 
 from without — every new phase is a new creation ; in 
 the field of human history the progress is from an 
 inherent power that operates within, a power which 
 God himself has given to man, 
 
 Eeason itself teaches us that we have now reached 
 a new and higher order of being ; one bound no more 
 by the rigid rules that confine the instinct of the irra- 
 
 1 Whittier.
 
 EARL V HISTOR Y OF GLASGO W. 141 
 
 tional animals to the same unchanging round, but cap- 
 able of indefinite and endless progress. All animated 
 nature, besides, from season to season changelessly 
 fulfils the unerring impulse imprinted on it by the 
 great Creator. The bee builds the same hexagonal 
 cell to the murmur of the same song as that hummed 
 by it 3000 years ago upon these heights around. The 
 nest which is shaken down by this year's storms will 
 be built again, a perfect copy of that which was found 
 in our primeval forests, when as yet the painted 
 Briton wandered unconstrained in their recesses. 
 Man alone, bright with reason and language, climbs 
 the summit of knowledge from the depths of ignorance, 
 and adds to the accumulated treasure from age to age. 
 Let us contemplate the triumphs of ingenuity and 
 industry that are rising above the site of these 
 primitive boats of the Clyde ; let us contrast the forms 
 of our social life with that which must then have existed, 
 and we shall learn gratitude. The induction of 
 history at every step repeats the words of the wise 
 man, ' Say not thou, What is the cause that the former 
 days were better than these ? for thou dost not 
 inquire wisely concerning this,' Never was there an 
 age in the past in which the elements of happiness 
 were brought more within the reach of every individual 
 of the community. And, while thankful, let us also be 
 hopeful. The march has not been rapid. It has 
 been often uneasy, it has been sometimes unequal, but, 
 on the whole, and looked at in lengthened vistas, it
 
 142 EARL V HISTOR V OF GLASGO W. 
 
 has been still onward. And now we have surer 
 pledges of progress than ever ; the Bible and the 
 printing-press — the last guaranteeing the diffusion of 
 the first — will never let society recede. Ancient forms 
 of civilization have been covered up to be explored 
 again in our day. We are opening to the sunlight 
 the deserted palaces of Ninevitish kings, but the 
 Gospel, which casts its full, broad illumination over 
 the masses and the millions, secures us against such 
 relapses as these. That Gospel itself is rising with a 
 purer and steadier flame, and those men who seek to 
 cloud it, and rear again the altars of a deserted 
 superstition, are surely attempting a vain work. The 
 past itself, which they profess to worship, rises up to 
 rebuke them. It beckons to no return ; it points with 
 every hand forward and upward. There, in the future, 
 lies the home of humanity and fully-developed truth, 
 and not behind us. The wheels of the Gospel, 
 carrying the world's happiness with it, may not, 
 cannot be turned back. ' Its going forth is prepared 
 as the morning.' As sure as the day dawns, and the 
 sun rises higher and higher still in the sky, so surely 
 must the cause of God and man be in the ascendant 
 scale. Forward, then, let us press. Let us approve 
 ourselves lovers of truth, lovers of freedom and of 
 all good men. We must show ourselves resolute for 
 the right and the true, while we show ourselves tolerant 
 of all who are sincerely seeking it. We must unfurl 
 the banner of a pure and large-hearted Gospel, and
 
 EARL V HISTOR V OF GLASGO W. 143 
 
 manifest its influence in our lives by labouring and 
 suffering for the good of men. Then we shall find 
 that there is something yet in store for our country 
 and the world better than aught they have seen, and 
 in our own city we shall aid in making the future as 
 far surpass the present as this present itself rises al.)ove 
 the meanest and most distant past.
 
 A DAY IN THE UPPER WARD OF 
 CLYDESDALE. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I have just received your note with a 
 request for an article for the October number of the 
 Young Men's Christian Mar/azine, and, on thinking of 
 what might be most suitable, it has occurred to me 
 that what is freshest to my own mind may be best 
 for your readers, and so I shall give an account of a 
 visit I paid the other day to the little town of Douglas, 
 not far from your own great city, and of two things 
 tliat specially interested me there. I must first, 
 however, tell how I reached Douglas, and what I saw 
 on the way. It can be visited most directly from 
 Glasgow by the railway to Lanark, and the branch 
 from there to ]\Iuirkirk and Ayr. I came upon it, 
 however, from the opposite quarter. My residence 
 has been for a few days at Abington, a small \dllage 
 on the Clyde, and a station on the Caledonian Eailway. 
 Abino-ton is a model of cleanliness, comfort, and 
 general good conduct, where the people retain much 
 of the old Scottish character of a church-going, and, 
 as I trust. God-fearing kind, with a spirit of inde-
 
 UPPER WARD OF CLYDESDALE. 145 
 
 pendence that respects the rights of others, while it 
 knows its own, — a very different thing from the 
 jealous, boisterous self-assertion tliat sometimes passes 
 for manliness. I was glad to see on this visit that 
 Sir Edward Colebrooke has been adding to the number 
 of the cottages, or rather houses, for their superior 
 accommodation and appearance take them out of the 
 class of the old cottage. It is pleasant to see some- 
 thing of this process going on, for, much as we may 
 think of Glasgow, its wonderful expansion and intel- 
 ligent energy, we need a balance in the country 
 districts if we are to preserve national health, both 
 physical and moral. We want small towns, villages, 
 crofts, for calming the pulse. The city may be the 
 heart of the nation, but there is such a thine: as 
 enlargement of the heart, and that is a dangerous 
 disease. The landlords then are wise wlio try to 
 reverse the march of depopulation which has made 
 so many Highland and Lowland glens grassy solitudes, 
 and has added 'field to field that they may dwell 
 alone,' instead of making ' families like a flock.' There 
 is, of course, wisdom required as to ways and means, 
 but the peopling of the country districts should be 
 kept in view by proprietors for social and moral 
 reasons, which means, in the end, economical and 
 political ones. It will tend to the equilibrium of 
 society and the good of us all, and so we hope Sir 
 Edward Colebrooke's example will be largely followed. 
 But to my story. 
 
 K
 
 146 A DAY IN THE 
 
 The road from Abington to Douglas is, for the 
 greater part, the old coach highway from Carlisle to 
 Glasgow. It used to resound often to the * clanging 
 horn,' iDut now, left aside by the railway, it is more 
 familiar with ' the whistling of plovers, and the bleat- 
 ing of sheep.' It quits the main valley of the Clyde, 
 passes one of its tributaries — Duneaton Water (the 
 water of the hill of fire), and then stretches, like a 
 white ribband, over the brown moorlands of Crawford- 
 john. Those who feel an interest in how it strikes a 
 stranger should read a book published a few years 
 since — the Joiirmd of Bora Wordsicorth, the sister of the 
 poet, who came here, with her brother and Coleridge, 
 to explore Scotland, which was then, to them, an 
 unknown region. It was a curious piece of almost 
 Quixotic adventure, with their own simple-minded 
 pony, which took the place of Sancho, and with some- 
 thing attached to it which was neither cart nor 
 carriage, an object of as great wonder to the natives 
 as any of them could be to the travellers. They came 
 in this fashion from Cumberland, up Nithsdale, through 
 one of the grand defiles that lead to Wanlockhead and 
 Leadhills, and then over the ridge of Glengonnar — the 
 stream of gold — to pursue this road to Lanark and 
 Glasgow. We are particular about their route, because 
 the genial editor. Principal Shairp, has mistaken it 
 from not knowing the country, and sends them round 
 by Elvanfoot and Crawford. The charm of the 
 journal lies in the quiet insight of the strangers into
 
 UPPER WARD OF CL YD BSD ALE. 147 
 
 the heart of the scenery and the people, and, almost 
 as much, in their happy ignorance of all they were to 
 see, which fills them with a constant surprise. Black's 
 Picturesqitc Tourist's Guide had not been born, and 
 they wandered into Scotland like Adam and Eve into 
 the world, when it was all before them where to choose, 
 and nobody to tell tlieni what to admire. One draw- 
 back they certainly had, that they seem to have had 
 as little knowledge of past associations as if they were 
 exploring Africa, and as if AYallace, and Bruce, and 
 the Covenanters had been among ' the brave men who 
 lived before Agamemnon,' But "Wordsworth got it 
 somehow in this tour, and it came out afterwards, with 
 fresh dew on it, in his Scottish sonnets. In our 
 journey we had one advantage over tliem in the best 
 of guides, Mr. Logan, the Free Church minister of 
 Abington, wlio knows every nook that touches the 
 story of Cavalier or Covenanter. It was a bare wavy 
 upland of moor and moorland farms for nules on 
 miles, and a wavy circle of great hills folded round it, 
 with glens running away at every ' lurk,' and all the 
 hills and glens fuller of histories than of people. They 
 had been the battle-ground of eighteen hundred years, 
 since Agricola entered them by the pass of the little 
 Clyde, till Claverhouse sent his dragoons through their 
 mosses, and made them, in the words of Eenwick, 
 ' all flowered with martyrs.' There was the Arbory 
 hill, with its threefold ring of fence peering over the 
 top, within which the old Danmonii, of Britisli stock,
 
 148 A DAY IN THE 
 
 watched their enemies — Eomans, were they, or Saxons, 
 or Danes, for these valleys have had all in turn ? 
 There was the ancient kirk of Crawford, with Con- 
 stantine, a Culdee saint, at its foundation, and not far 
 off, concealed by the bend of the Clyde, the ruins of 
 Crawford Castle, where ' wight Wallace ' performed 
 one of his feats of arms, himself by name and birth a 
 son of the primitive race, not de Vaux, as some would 
 have it, but Waleis. Sweeping round by the Lowthers, 
 their sides glowing in sunshine and heather of the 
 deepest purple, were the massive mountains that 
 enclose Dalveen and the Enterkin, the Menock and 
 the Crawick, the first three the wildest, the last one 
 of the most beautiful passes in the south of Scotland. 
 On the extreme boundary, like an outflanking buttress, 
 was Cairntable, on whose skirts the Douglas boasted 
 he could keep himself against English Henry and all 
 his host ; and, nearer and higher, Tinto, with the mist 
 slowly rolling uj) under the sunlight, as if it promised 
 to show us the far-famed ' kist ' and the ' caup ' in it. 
 Eor a lesson in the romance of landscape and of his- 
 tory, I do not know any place in the three kingdoms 
 where one could learn more than on this bit of road, 
 and he is no true Scotsman who would not feel his 
 heart rise at the reading of it. Within the circle of 
 the hills there are many things worthy of notice, were 
 there time. At a little distance the primitive village 
 of Crawfordjohn lay on its ' knowe,' like Jerusalem 
 ' set round about with mountains,' but not ' compactly
 
 UPPER WARD OF CLYDESDALE. 149 
 
 built together.' It looks like a cluster of Loulders 
 from a past epoch, or the town of Kendal, of which 
 Gray the poet has said, ' It must have been built on 
 the plan of partners in a dance posturing to one 
 another in all directions, and petrified in the act.' 
 Nevertheless, Crawfordjohn has a good repute for 
 worthy people, and it has curious stories of the old 
 times, of I'rince Charlie's Highlandmen as they passed 
 in the '45, and of Covenanting celebrations. The lie- 
 formed Presbyterians, better known as the Cameronians, 
 seem to have chosen this district for their renewals of 
 the Solemn League after the Revolution. At Auchen- 
 saugh in 1712, the year of the imposition of patronage, 
 a declaration of principles was issued which had his- 
 torical siirnificance in that time - honoured Church. 
 
 O 
 
 There, or at Crawfordjohn, I forget which, the meetings 
 and sermons continued three days, till provender 
 failed, and the occasion got the name of ' preach- 
 hunger.' But it is time to get on our way. 
 
 Some miles over the moor brought us to a little glen, 
 bare at first, but beautifully green, and then widening 
 and filling with wood, — birch and rowan and oak, — till 
 it led us into Douglasdale. It was like the entrance 
 to it, warm with plentiful trees, and rich also with 
 yellow fields among them, and the peewit gave us over 
 to the corncraik. From the look of it we could believe 
 what we were told, that the vale of Douglas is a fort- 
 night before the country round it. For the name, the 
 legend of ' Sholto Dhuglas,' — ' See tlie dark, grey
 
 ISO A DAY IN THE 
 
 man,' — must, I fear, be given up, and we must have 
 recourse to the colour ' dark grey ' or ' dark green,' 
 found in the genius of the place. It may have been 
 the water, or if it was on an autumn day like ours 
 that the first Celt looked on it, the foliage of oak and 
 ash deepening into the forecast of fall, and the blue- 
 green Scotch firs glooming more heavily in the sun- 
 shine over their red trunks, would bring the word 
 Dhu-glas, dark-green, to his lips. On the way up to 
 the town, the ' Castle Perilous,' or the place where it 
 stood, is seen through the woods. Only a fragment 
 of the original fortress remains near the modern 
 mansion, and it is hard to say what made it a pride 
 and a terror. It has no frowning rock or lofty mound, 
 and we must set down its strength to the moats and 
 marshes which old Scottish keeps coveted, or still more 
 to the hearts of the race that manned the walls. But 
 we have to do to-day not with the castle but the town. 
 It is a queer irregular place, with its High Street 
 in the lowest part, winding narrow and sometimes 
 narrower among houses of all shapes and sizes, some 
 with signs of old dignity, and some of plain modern 
 monotony. In the middle of the town, on a swelHng 
 knoll which looks down on Douglas Water and a fair 
 green holm, is the first thing we have come to see, the 
 old Church of St. Bride, by whom the mighty Lords 
 of Douglas were wont to swear when they meant 
 never to go back. It was once a stately edifice, but 
 little more is left than the chancel, restored by the late
 
 UPPER WARD OF CLYDESDALE. 151 
 
 Countess with a pious care for the graves aud monu- 
 ments of her ancestors. The remains of many of the 
 long line repose below, and the monuments of some fill 
 niches in the chapel. Chief among them is that of the 
 good Sir James, whose story is known to every Scottish 
 schoolboy, and whom we always rank next to Wallace 
 and Bruce in the heroic times of the national history. 
 He lies there in dark stone, considerably maimed, but 
 still conspicuous in the act of drawing his sword with 
 the right hand, while the left holds the scabbard. A 
 man of giant strength he was, skilled in all the accom- 
 plishments of his time as a gallant and gentle knight, 
 with a dauntless heart and stedfast soul to match, 
 dashed in word and deed with a grim playfulness. 
 This last feature comes out in his compeers, Bruce 
 and Wallace, as we read the old chronicles, — the dry 
 humour that survives in many a Scot to this day, though 
 Sydney Smith had not the eye to see it, and English- 
 men are only beginning to find it out through Dean 
 Eamsay. But the first quality in Sir James was 
 moral, invincible loyalty to a cause that must often 
 have seemed a lost one, but which was the cause of 
 his country, for the oppressed against the aggressor. 
 All we see of him is in keeping with our first glimpse 
 at Erickstane, when in his youthful enthusiasm he 
 threw himself before the uncrowned Bruce and owned 
 him king at the hazard of land and life, down to the 
 time when, far away, he cast among the thickest of the 
 Saracens the heart he had often followed, — ' Lead on,
 
 152 A DAY IN THE 
 
 as thou wert wont to do,' — and followed it to die. 
 Nor must we forget that fine touch of a nohle nature 
 on the eve of Bannockburn, when, having gained leave 
 to help Eandolph in his pressing peril, he held back 
 wdien he saw victory, least he should steal a flower 
 from his friend's chaplet, ' The times then were great, 
 and the men,' to adapt a phrase of Eichter's, and we 
 cannot doubt that these things found their way into 
 the country's heart deep down, and long after came 
 u}) in other shapes. 
 
 The next spot in Douglas belongs to a subsequent 
 time and a different struggle. "We had heard, in an 
 incidental way, that the house was still standing in 
 which the head of Eichard Cameron was kept for a 
 night when the troops were carrying it, along with 
 the prisoners taken at Airsmoss, to Edinburgh. We 
 found the traditional house, with a face over the door 
 enclosed in a dull yellow border, intended for the sun 
 and explained by the sign, the ' Sun Inn.' It is a 
 quiet, respectable house, and we were kindly shown 
 through the rooms connected with the incident. On 
 the ground floor is a cellar which is said to have been 
 the town prison, and the thick walls, the heavy vaulted 
 roof, and the iron grating on the original window 
 attest the truth of the tradition. Directly above is the 
 room associated with Cameron's name, and known in 
 the town as the ' stone-room,' the only room in an 
 upper story paved with stone, and thus fitted for 
 securing prisoners in a firmer grasp. "While the head
 
 UPPER WARD OF CLYDESDALE. 153 
 
 and hands of Cameron were kept above, the prison 
 chamber below seems to have held Hackstoim of 
 Eathillet, reserved for the scaffold which he afterwards 
 mounted in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh. On the 
 wall of the house behind, joined to the prison, but 
 apparently at one time a separate tenement, is tlie 
 date 1621, with the initials I. H. — A. C, the builder 
 and his wife, long forgotten. Wodrow in his History 
 gives a letter of Hackstoun's in which he tells that, 
 when he was at Douglas, Janet Clellan was kind to 
 him, and brought a surgeon who stanched his wounds. 
 The name Clellan belongs also to the brave and good 
 soldier from this district who fell in the last fight of 
 the Eevolution time. Might the A. C. on the old house 
 be a member of the friendly family ? On leaving the 
 place and passing down the High Street, we saw an old 
 man considerably above fourscore, sitting before the 
 door of his house and enjoying the cool of the day. 
 On speaking with him, we found, curiously enough, 
 that he had been born and brought up in the house we 
 had just left, and had heard from his father the story 
 of ' the stone-room.' This carried us fully more than 
 half-way across the interval, and to a time when all 
 the events were very much in the thoughts of the 
 people. It is a pity they should be forgotten, for we 
 need their memory in these days when principles hang 
 loose. The history of Airsmoss should be read over 
 again in this year of grace 1880. It is exactly 200 
 years ago, on the 22nd of last June, since a small
 
 154 A BAY IN THE 
 
 body of horsemen, early in the morning, rode from the 
 hills into the quiet town of Sanquhar, and there, at the 
 market cross, where an obelisk now stands, read the 
 famous declaration in which they renounced their 
 allegiance to the perjured profligate and tyrant, Charles 
 II. It was a desperate act forced on them by desperate 
 wrongs, and those who blame them should remember 
 that it was only the flash before the stroke of 1688, 
 of which we now enjoy the results. A month 
 after, on tlie 22nd of July, when a company of the 
 Covenanters was met at Airsmoss, not far from where 
 John Brown of Priesthill was afterwards shot by 
 Claverhouse, they were attacked by the dragoons. The 
 hill vapours were lying low, and ' the bridle reins rang 
 through the thin misty covering' before the wanderers 
 were aware. Cameron, who was among them, I>roke 
 into the memorable prayer, ' Lord spare the green and 
 take the ripe,' and, in the deadly struggle which 
 followed, he was killed, and Hackstoun and others 
 captured. The lingering and barbarous death inflicted 
 by the orders of the Council upon the prisoners, and 
 especially on Hackstoun, cannot be now put into type 
 with proper regard to feeling. The head and hands 
 of Cameron were taken to his father, then in prison in 
 Edinburgh for the same cause, and he was asked if he 
 knew them. His words are surely the most touching 
 of all the memories of that cruel time. ' I know, 
 I know them ! they are my son's, my dear son's ! it is 
 the Lord : good is the will of the Lord, who cannot
 
 UPPER WARD OF CLYDESDALE. 155 
 
 wrong me nor mine, but has made goodness and mercy 
 to follow lis all our days.' After which, by order of 
 the Council, his head was fixed upon the Netherbow 
 port, and his hands beside it, with the fingers upward 
 — a kind of preaching ' at the entry of the city, at the 
 coming in at the doors,' that told more for his cause, 
 and against the persecutors, than all the words he 
 could have spoken. 
 
 One cannot help weird, dreamy thoughts about that 
 old house at Douglas, on the night of Airsmoss, the 
 martyr's head in the room above, the wounded prisoner 
 in the dungeon below, Earlshall and his troopers proud 
 of their prize, and confident of their power to hold 
 Scotland down. But the good Sir James of 'the 
 bleeding heart ' and Cameron's gory head belong to the 
 same set of events in history, — instances of seeming 
 losses thrown by courage and faith forward as pledges 
 of victory, — only, the latter is higher and more sure. 
 We cannot help thinking that, had Sir James of Douglas 
 belonged to that later time, he would have been with 
 Argyle and Warriston and Baillie of Jerviswood — 
 certainly not with Claverhouse and Earlshall and Lag. 
 The great men of the war for national independence, 
 Wallace and Bruce, Douglas and Eandolpli, and Walter 
 Stewart, were the forerunners of the Reformers and of 
 the sons of the Covenant. They made room for them in 
 Scotland where they might 'grow and stand,' and they 
 bequeathed them their hatred of oppression and their 
 dauntless spirit. They show us how the kingdoms of
 
 156 A DAY IN THE 
 
 this world rise up, in another time, into the kingdom 
 of our God and his Christ, and how the laurels of 
 chivalry prepare for a nobler flower in the faith and 
 patience of the saints ; for the struggle of the Covenant 
 was the old battle in a more sacred cause which 
 ' raised the poor out of the dust and set them with 
 princes, even the princes of the people.' 
 
 If our Scottish nobility wish to prove themselves 
 worthy of their ancestry, they will go back over the 
 degenerate selfishness of the Stuart line, to those who 
 gained the reverence and affection of the nation by 
 showing tliat they shared its sympathies. It would 
 make the task of patriotism in coming times more 
 easy. It is pleasant to think, in this connection, that 
 the spirit of the good Sir James did, to some extent, 
 influence his successors ; though they did not identify 
 themselves with the oppressed, they used their power 
 to shield them. Douglas-dale was filled with Cove- 
 nanters who were comparatively safe. So much was 
 this felt that, when the jMarquis of Douglas threw in 
 his lot with the Government of the Eevolution, 800 
 men, the flower of the West country, placed them- 
 selves under his orders, and formed the famous 2Gth 
 or Cameronian regiment. Its first review took place 
 on the green field beside Douglas Water, under St. 
 Bride's Church — its first fight, at Dunkeld, when it 
 drove back the far superior force of Claverhouse, who 
 had just fallen in the pass of Killiecrankie. Who 
 can doubt that the memory of Eichard Cameron was
 
 UPPER WARD OF CLYDESDALE. 157 
 
 with these men when they fought, and with their 
 brave leader Cleland when he fell ? The Covenant 
 struggle was carried to its end chiefly by young men 
 who filled up the ranks of those who fell in great 
 numbers at the Eestoration, or shortly thereafter. 
 Of these, three have left their mark most distinctly, 
 Hugh M'Kail, Eichard Cameron, and James Eenwick. 
 M'Kail is known to us chiefly by his seraphic song 
 on the scaffold. Death silenced while it transfigured 
 him. But Cameron and Eenwick have left us some 
 of their living utterances ; they are evidently imper- 
 fectly reported, taken down in hasty snatches amid 
 flight and fight, by men who had often to lay down 
 the pen for the sword. But enough remains to let 
 us see that, while Eenwick followed as the milder 
 Elisha, under the Ahabs and Jezebels of the time, 
 Cameron was the Elijah, the lonely burning prophet 
 of our Scottish Cheriths and Horebs. The ]Doet has 
 caught it, when he speaks of ' the word by Cameron 
 thundered, and by Eenwick poured in gentle strain.' 
 An idea of Cameron's power may be gained from an 
 extract given by Dodds in his lectures on the Cove- 
 nanters, and an idea at the same time of the power 
 that carried these men through that long weary 
 wilderness march — the manna from the skies, the 
 water from the rock that followed them. Nothing 
 else, nothing less, could have done it. Eichard 
 Cameron is perhaps, taken all in all, the main figure 
 in that heroic period of the Scottish Church. The
 
 158 A DAY IN THE 
 
 most remarkable thing is that he died very young, 
 probably not more than thirty, for his exact age is 
 not known, and that the period of his active effort 
 covered only months, not years ; but in that short 
 burning life he transfused his spirit into the heart of 
 the people, and had his name borne long after as the 
 watchword of men willing to dare all and lose all for 
 conscience' sake. And so we could not but regard 
 with special interest ' the stone-room ' of the town of 
 Douglas. 
 
 The moral of our story sliall be brief and practical; 
 I am sure also it will be pleasant. It is that the 
 young men of Scotland should make themselves 
 acquainted with this period of the nation's history, 
 acquainted with it so as to drink it in. There are 
 many works that lie to hand — those of the two 
 M'Cries, father and son ; Pollok's Talcs, of the Cove- 
 nanters ; Simpson's Traditions ; Dodds' Lectures, with 
 which may be conjoined his Lays of the Covenant, 
 lately issued ; Miss Watson's Lives of Cameron, Carr/ill, 
 Peden, and Benwich ; for those who wish to go deeper, 
 the publications of the Wodrow Society ofi'er an 
 abundant store ; and for those who would understand 
 the richness of old Scottish theology there is the 
 admirable volume of Dr. Walker of Carnwath. The 
 next thing is that they should visit the scenes, not as 
 blind pilgrims of Loretto or Lourdes, but with an 
 intelligent love that will draw courage and faith from 
 these noble memories. Few cities have the heritage
 
 UPPER WARD OF CLYDESDALE. 159 
 
 of Glasgow on the Clyde — the lower windows of the 
 house looking down through the magnificent Firth 
 among lochs and Highland mountains and winding 
 shores, shut in by distant Arran — and the upper 
 chambers opening on visions of the ' valleys that run 
 among the hills,' filled with records of a past which 
 may give patriotic spirit and Christian nobility of soul 
 to all who have a heart to learn.
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS} 
 I. 
 
 Canada West, 
 LoNDOX, January 7, 1863. 
 
 My dear Friends, — I have now reached a point 
 that lies far west in the British province of Canada, 
 and I wish to give you some of my impressions of 
 this part of the world. I shall try to do it just as if 
 I were in the midst of you in conversation, — an easv. 
 off-hand talk, that may serve for my contribution to 
 your winter's stock of information and discussion. I 
 shall begin by sketching rapidly the course by which 
 I have come to this place. 
 
 In the early half of October, after rather a stormy 
 passage across the Atlantic in the s.s. ' St. Andrew,' 
 we sighted the coast of Newfoundland, near the Straits 
 of Belleisle, and shortly afterwards entered the straits. 
 From this point to Quebec the distance was still 750 
 miles. The first view of the New World was bleak 
 enough. Newfoundland on the left seemed made up 
 
 > Written to the Young Men's Literaiy Association, SyJuey Place 
 Cliurcli, Glassrow.
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 1 6 1 
 
 of low barren hills, surrounding numberless little bays 
 and creeks, and on the right Labrador appeared even 
 more uninviting, the shore fringed witli cliff and ice, 
 and the background stunted brushwood. There is, 
 however, wealth in the seas around, the l!^ewfoundland 
 cod and Labrador herring being exported in great 
 quantities ; and in the interior of Newfoundland mines 
 are wrought to a considerable extent, chiefly of copper. 
 On the right hand, after entering the straits, we passed 
 the island of Anticosti, nearly half as long as Scotland, 
 but inhabited by little else than foxes and bears. The 
 soil and climate are most unpropitious, and only a few 
 families are found there, employed in superintending 
 the lighthouses and the stores for shipwrecked 
 mariners. The coast is a dangerous one, and two 
 wrecks lying on shore were visible as we passed. It 
 seems strange that the climate here should be so 
 inclement, a severe winter lasting seven or eight 
 months in the year, when the latitude is south of 
 Ireland. It arises, I believe, from the absence of the 
 Gulf Stream, which carries warmth to the European 
 shores, and also from the configuration of the North 
 American continent towards the pole, which causes 
 greater quantities of ice and snow to remain in it during 
 the summer. The course in sailing up the St. Lawrence 
 is south-west, which gradually brings the voyager into 
 a more genial air. Opposite Anticosti, Newfoundland 
 trends away to the south, and the Ckilf of St. Lawrence 
 becomes here a great inland sea, where one may be out
 
 1 6 2 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 
 
 of sight of land. New Brunswick, Cape Breton, and 
 Nova Scotia would be reached by sailing directly 
 south, but none of these were visible, except the 
 summits of some hiLrh mountains that were said to be 
 in New Brunswick. The mouth of the St. Lawrence 
 pro]3er is then reached, with the Canadian shore on 
 both sides, though the water is still salt, and it is 
 impossible to see across from land to land. The 
 northern shore is thinly peopled ; the southern, along 
 which our course lay, is more populous. The popula- 
 tion is located almost entirely on the bank of the 
 river, and is well-nigh exclusively Canadian French. 
 Old-fashioned houses in the French Norman style 
 succeed each other more and more closely, till they 
 take the form of a continuous village, all fronting the 
 water, with a long strip of cleared ground running 
 back from each of them into the forest, which here 
 slopes away upward till it loses itself on the sides of 
 the distant chain of the St. Ann's mountains. These 
 people are half farmers and half fishermen, and lead a 
 hard, industrious, contented life, having little tendency 
 to progress, and small desire to press westward like 
 the English - speaking race. By and by the land 
 is seen on both sides, but the north is still in great 
 part unbroken wood. It will probably be the last 
 portion of Canada to be fully filled up, and is at 
 present valuable chiefly from its timber, and from 
 mines of very excellent iron and other minerals that 
 are being wrought in some places. Before approach-
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 1 6 
 
 J 
 
 ing Quebec, the population becomes denser on both 
 sides of the river, though still confined chiefly to the 
 banks. The water of the river is now quite fresh, and 
 some beautiful islands stud its surface. The folia"e of 
 the changing autumn, which I was just in time to see, 
 was peculiarly beautiful. The colours were vivid and 
 varied beyond anything I have seen in Europe, from 
 the dark purple and deep fiery red to the most deli- 
 cate yellow. A great chain of hills on the north side, 
 clothed with forest, presented an appearance that 
 would seem to a British eye utterly overcharged and 
 unnatural if transferred to canvas. The approach to 
 Quebec is exceedingly fine, and the impression is not 
 diminislied by the various views from points around 
 the city. Very few places in tlie Old AVorld will 
 compare with it for position. The river, narrow above, 
 that is, comparatively narrow (about a mile), and 
 flowing between high precipitous banks, here widens 
 out into a beautiful bay many miles in circuit, broken 
 by projecting headlands and wooded islands, with 
 winding channels and smaller bays, in one of which 
 the famed Montmorenci Fall thunders into the St. 
 Lawrence from a height of 280 feet, while a noble 
 chain of mountains sweeps round, and bounds the 
 view to the north. Quebec stands at the foot, and 
 climbs up the side of a bold cape that runs out on the 
 bay. On the summit, called Cape Diamond, is the 
 citadel of Quebec, the Gibraltar of the Xew World. 
 It was taken by AVolfe in 1759, he and the equally
 
 i64 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 gallant Montcalm falling in the battle on the heights 
 of Abraham behind the citadel. Its conquest decided 
 the supremacy for the time being of British power in 
 North America. One may see the spot where Wolfe 
 fell, the narrow cove by which he scaled the cliffs and 
 surprised the French, the reach in the river down 
 which he drifted with muffled oars, while he repeated 
 to his officers Gray's Majy, and said he would rather 
 be the author of that poem than the conqueror of 
 Quebec. A monument erected to Wolfe and Mont- 
 calm jointly now graces one of the highest points in 
 the city of Quebec, and unites tlie memories of two 
 high-spirited and patriotic men. The city of Quebec, 
 which has a population of above 50,000,^ possesses few 
 things that are attractive except its site. The upper 
 town has some good streets, but the lower town is 
 narrow, filthy, and in some parts ill-conditioned and 
 wretched, regarding it by the measure of anything 
 found in European cities. The population is more 
 than two-thirds French Canadian and lioman Catholic. 
 From Quebec my course was by the river St. Lawrence 
 to Montreal, a distance of about 180 miles. The 
 voyage was performed chiefly during the night, but 
 what I saw of the banks resembled the country below 
 Quebec. There was abundance of wood, not the old 
 primeval forest, but an after-growth of diminished size, 
 that fringed the river and ran away back into the 
 interior, broken by clearings and lines of houses that 
 
 ^ 62,446 in 1881, but now dtdiiiiiig.
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 1 65 
 
 looked to tliG river as the great liiglnvay. The names 
 of the places and the appearance of the settlements 
 showed that the great mass of the people was still 
 Canadian French. Montreal is the largest town in 
 Canada, having about 110,000 inhabitants,^ and the 
 promise of a rapid increase from its advantageous 
 position. It is built chietiy on a plain bordering the 
 St. Lawrence, and has a line of quays accessible to the 
 largest vessels, with a handsome frontage of stately 
 warehouses. Tlie streets of the commercial part of the 
 city are broad and business-like, and have public struc- 
 tures interspersed that would do credit to any city. 
 They reminded me a good deal of Union Street, Aber- 
 deen, the blue limestone, which is the chief material, 
 having a considerable resemblance to the granite. The 
 picturesque feature in Montreal, however, is what is 
 called ' the mountain,' a fine wooded hill that rises 
 immediately Ijehind it, and which has bestowed its 
 name on the city, ' Mount Eoyal,' abbreviated into 
 Montreal. It forms a beautiful backu'round from 
 every side, and its lower slopes are being covered with 
 streets of villa-like residences, that display much taste 
 and prove the growing wealth of the place. The view 
 from the upper part of the mountain, without being so 
 striking as that from the citadel of Quebec, is yet ex- 
 ceedingly pleasing, and has a breadth about it that rises 
 to the impressive. The city witli its spires and towers 
 lies below, and the noble stream of the St. Lawrence, 
 1 140,747 in 1881 ; said to bo now 160,000.
 
 1 66 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 a mile in width, sweeps past its wharves, and is spanned 
 a little way up by that wonder of modern engineering, 
 the Victoria tubular bridge. A great plain extends 
 beyond, covered with villages and farm - houses, and 
 varied by two or three projecting hills that seem to be 
 the foreshoots of the mountains of A^ermont in the 
 States, plainly discernible on the verge of the horizon. 
 On the other side of ' the mountain,' half-way up its 
 slope, and looking over the isle of Montreal (for the 
 city really stands on an island) is the public cemetery. 
 A finer position for a ' city of the dead ' cannot be 
 conceived, especially when, as I saw it, the primitive 
 forest out of which it is cut was glowing in every 
 colour under the touches of the dying year. I saw a 
 good deal of the religious life of IMontreal, and of its 
 philanthropic institutions, but on this I shall not 
 enlarge, as I purpose afterwards saying somewhat of it 
 separately. I shall only say at present that it seemed 
 to me marked by a spirit of progressive energy, 
 and that the different bodies of Protestant Chris- 
 tians appeared to co-operate with much catholicity 
 Eomanism in this part of Canada is still predominant 
 in numbers, though not in influence, and it was a sub- 
 ject of common remark that the spirit of French was dif- 
 ferent from that of Irish Eomanism, much more tolerant 
 and open to inquiry. The French Canadians and Irish, 
 though agreeing in religion, disagree in almost every- 
 thing else, and their union at the poll is simply a political 
 one, arranged by the priesthood for party purposes.
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 1 6 7 
 
 Trom Montreal I proceeded to Ottawa, a long day's 
 journey, partly by rail and partly by steamboat/ The 
 rail is adopted where the river navigation is impeded 
 by rapids. One of these rapids, near the place where 
 the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers join is a pictur- 
 esque point, and has obtained some classic fame through 
 the poet Moore, whose cottage is pointed out on the 
 banks. The sail up the Ottawa has been compared to 
 that on the Ehine, but I could discover no resemblance, 
 except that inlioth cases there was a river with banks. 
 The Ottawa is indeed a noble stream, and would be a 
 river of first-rate magnitude in any European country, 
 but its banks are in general low and monotonous. 
 The wood, too, invariably disappoints one who has 
 heard of the mighty forests of the West. It is more 
 brushwood than forest, low, thick, and unvarying, 
 except where it is broken by some village or farm- 
 house, the whole appurtenances of which, including 
 walls, furniture, stables, and fences, are only part of 
 the forest in another form. The original wood, you 
 are told, has all disappeared under the lumberer's axe, 
 and to see it as it was in all its giant grandeur, you 
 must travel back where that pioneer of civilization is 
 still plying his hardy task. A few trees I did see 
 that for size might have belonged to the olden race, 
 but they gave unmistakeable signs, as poor Swift said 
 of himself, that they were dying at top. It is a 
 curious fact that trees left alone or in small clumps 
 
 ^ Three railwnys now connect them ; distance, SA hours.
 
 1 6 8 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 
 
 from the old forest soon begin to droop as if they 
 missed their companions, and stand ere long blasted 
 trunks. They grow well enough, however, when 
 planted. The reason seems to be, that the old forest 
 trees sheltered each other from the blast, and when 
 they lose their fellows cannot change their mode of 
 life to their new circumstances. But planted alone 
 from the beginning, they are exercised early by the 
 wind on every side, and strike down their roots accord- 
 ingly. A law of vegetable life this, which has its 
 correspondence in the human, and also its moral if I 
 had time to draw it. On the whole, as you may infer, 
 the landscape of Canada is not distinguished by much 
 ■variety, and probably never can be to so great an 
 extent as in our own country. It wants the great 
 constituent elements of mountain and sea, for even its 
 enormous lakes are a poor equivalent for this last, 
 being simply great w^ater - tracks for the freight of 
 timber and bread-stuffs, and competing with the sea in 
 little else tlian the power of producing wrecks and 
 nausea, for which they have a name beyond any 
 similar extent of liquid element. This, however, by 
 the way, and it may be added that we are perhaps 
 dealing unfairly in comparing a country that is still 
 much in a state of nature \vith one where the hand of 
 man has for generations been giving the artistic 
 touches that bring out beauty and variety from what 
 seems most bare and common. Man can never in 
 nature create the grand, but he can the beautiful.
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 169 
 
 Yet in Canada as it now is, there are points that stand 
 out marked by the hand of Nature. Quebec is one of 
 these and the finest of all, Montreal is another, and 
 Ottawa city is a third. You are probably aware that 
 this last has been fixed on by the Queen as the site of 
 the capital of the now united province of Canada. 
 Quebec, Montreal, Kingston, and Toronto put in their 
 claims, and the contest was peculiarly keen between 
 Upper and Lower Canada, as the position of the capital 
 would involve at least the temporary predominance of 
 the English or French element. The Queen, to whom 
 the question was referred as being too difficult and 
 delicate for provincial solution, preferred Ottawa, to 
 the displeasure of course of every one of the other 
 candidates, and to the general surprise of Canada. 
 Ottawa has but lately emerged into notice from the 
 obscure name of Bytown ; it is the smallest of all the 
 competitors, having only 15,000 inhabitants,^ and is 
 far removed from the great thoroughfare of traffic in 
 the valley of the St. Lawrence. The reasons that 
 seem to have influenced the Queen's counsellors are 
 these : all the other candidates were decidedly either 
 in LTpper or Lower Canada, but Ottawa is on the 
 boundary of both provinces, the river Ottawa form- 
 ing a marked division between the French and 
 English populations. It was therefore a compromise 
 by an arbiter, where the disputants, if left to them- 
 selves, might have pushed the case to a disruption. 
 
 ' 27,412 in 1881.
 
 I70 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 In case of war, moreover, Ottawa is farthest removed 
 from the frontier of the United States, and is suscep- 
 tible of being strongly fortified. Although in a jDarfc 
 of the country that has not yet been fully opened up, 
 it has a great extent of the very best land around it, 
 and needs only some stimulus to become a thriving 
 and populous centre. All these considerations seem 
 to have entered into the decision of the Home Govern- 
 ment, and though it occasioned at first surprise, and a 
 good deal of dissatisfaction in Canada, it has secured 
 acquiescence in the bulk of the community. It is 
 true that, though the public works have commenced, and 
 are far advanced to completion, there are parties who 
 still wisli it to be regarded as an open question, and 
 agitate for some other point ; but the safety of Ottawa 
 lies in this, that there is no other point on which all 
 parties can so well agree. I think, then, we may 
 regard Ottawa as the future capital of the Canadas, 
 and it is matter of congratulation that the site is one 
 well worthy of the dignity. The river has a breadth 
 and volume that make it the equal of the Ehine, and 
 here if not elsewhere the banks remind one of the hills 
 of Bingen. They rise perpendicularly to the height of 
 some 300 feet, and on the highest point is ascending 
 tlie Parliament House of what will yet be a prosperous 
 and powerful commonwealth. I have seldom been 
 more struck with any views than those that extend 
 around this structure. You can look sheer down into 
 the river, which is here strong and deep, and of a
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 1 7 1 
 
 colour intensely green. Immediately above, its course 
 is broken by a series of rapids and cataracts, of which 
 the Chaudiere, or Caldron Fall, is the chief. Tor 
 height, of course, it cannot l)e compared with Niagara, 
 but it has features of its own, that prevent one from 
 speaking of it as inferior. Some terrible convulsion of 
 nature has occurred here in past ages, and broken the 
 bed of the river into a wild confusion of precipitous 
 leaps, rapid slides, transverse barriers, narrow, parallel 
 channels, and subterranean caverns, through which the 
 water finds its way with an infinite number of rushes 
 and leaps, appearing and disappearing in manners the 
 most unexpected, perplexing the beholder and even the 
 careful inquirer as to the way in which the different 
 streams reunite themselves, where one that enters a 
 cavern re-emerges, and where one that comes boiling 
 up has its point of departure. There are endless bits 
 of scenery and little mysteries to one wdio has time to 
 wander here, and from the Parliament Hill the dash 
 and rising smoke of the whole are distinctly visible. 
 In its downward course, the river forms some fine little 
 bays, as if it wished to repose itself after the turmoil 
 of the Chaudiere Fall. These are walled in by the 
 same precipitous lines of cliff, not so steep, however, 
 but that brushwood and some adventurous trees can 
 clincf to their sides. One of these small bays is close 
 below the Parliament Hill, and makes it into a kind of 
 promontory ; another farther down is the scene of a 
 fall called the Ptideau or Curtain, where the Piideau
 
 1 7 2 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 
 
 river precipitates itself into tlie Ottawa. Across the 
 river is tlie province of Lower Canada, which rises in 
 rolling folds to a wooded and mountainous country 
 called the Gatineau, and is traversed by a river of the 
 same name, the boast of this part of Canada for its 
 scenery, and joining the Ottawa about a mile below the 
 city. Toward the west and south, the Parliament Hill 
 commands a view of a wide and fertile plain, part of 
 Upper Canada, stretching away for mile upon mile, 
 till lost in the blue distance. It is monotonous 
 enough, as aforesaid, to travel over, but, seen in its 
 expanse, it is grandly impressive, and when the forest 
 is cleared, and smiling villages and farm-houses dot its 
 surface, it will gleam out also into the beautiful. As 
 for the Parliament buildings themselves, they are far 
 on the way to completion, and when finished will form, 
 it is believed, the finest pile on the American continent. 
 They occupy three sides of a square, open at the 
 angles and on the fourth side. They are in the Gothic 
 style, of fine stone, part Ijlue limestone from the neigh- 
 bourhood, part a red stone from Ohio, and present an 
 appearance exceedingly tasteful and imposing. The 
 only fault I could find was that one of the sides 
 of the quadrangle did not quite correspond in size 
 with the other, and that there was not sufficient 
 space preserved between the whole structure and the 
 advancing streets of the city, which will in the end 
 mar the general effect. Other faults, however, of a 
 different kind are found by the inhabitants of Canada.
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 173 
 
 The erection was commenced by the last provincial 
 government upon certain estimates that seemed mode- 
 rate. These estimates, as frequently happens, have 
 l;een far exceeded, I believe doubled, and the expendi- 
 ture must be much c^reater before the buildinojs can be 
 ready for use. The present Ministry, which came in 
 on the ground of retrenchment, has appointed a com- 
 mission to inquire into this and other matters. 
 
 The city of Ottawa, like the country of which it is 
 capital, is to be judged more by its future than its 
 present. There are many inhabitants in it older than 
 its first house, and I have conversed with a good old 
 lady who lived two months on the site of the Parliament 
 House, in a hut with a barrel for a chinniey. All was 
 then unbroken forest, and she had to wait these two 
 months till a road could be cut to her husband's 
 concession twenty miles off. Even now, the jDrimitive 
 pine groves and cedar thickets can be seen close at 
 hand, seals are seen disporting themselves in the river, 
 and a fox who commits nightly depredations on the 
 poultry has his headquarters beneath the Parliament 
 House, and defies dislodgment. The town is already 
 stretching out around, occupying at least three times the 
 space that would be allotted to the inhabitants in the 
 old country. P>road rectangular lines of streets run 
 far out into the country, many of them marked by 
 two or three houses, some by none, but all appearing 
 duly completed in the map. A good arrangement this, 
 so far as light and air are concerned, when the sun is
 
 174 ■ CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 in the sky, but rather inconvenient when night comes 
 into the question, and rain or thaw sets in. Lighting 
 and paving then are felt to be at a sad discount, or, if 
 attempted on a comfortable scale, the pockets of the 
 tax-payers feel the burden. It is doubtless this 
 circumstance that makes the local taxes in American 
 towns a more serious item than the contributions to 
 the general revenue. Other things in Ottawa have 
 commenced on a large scale. The hotels are metro- 
 politan in size and appearance, and several daily papers 
 waG;e fierce warfare with each other. In rerard, how- 
 ever, to these matters, hotels and newspapers, Ottawa 
 is not distinguished from Canadian towns of the same 
 size. A stranger cannot understand how such large 
 hotels can be supported in small towns, with no great 
 influx of visitors, and yet they seem to get along and 
 prosper. The system of boarding, instead of living in 
 their own houses, seems to be that which supports 
 many of them, although in Canada this does not pre- 
 vail to anything like the same extent as in the States. 
 As to the daily papers, not much that is eulogistic 
 can be said. They are meagre in general news, and 
 pervaded by a bitter spirit of personal attack, that 
 is happily disappearing from the old country. Yet 
 here, it must be added, there are many honourable 
 exceptions, and nothing corresponding to the rowdyism 
 of the Xew York journals can be found in Canada. 
 
 In Ottawa and its neighbourhood 1 remained some 
 time, and returned to the valley of the St. Lawrence
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 1 7 5 
 
 at Prescott. The season was too far advanced for any- 
 regular steamers plying on the river, so that I missed 
 the celebrated scenery of the Thousand Isles at the 
 entrance of Lake Ontario. I had an opportunity of 
 seeing only the commencement of it at the pretty little 
 town of Brockville, wliere I remained a day or two, 
 and then continued my journey by the Grand Trunk 
 to Toronto. It lasted from two in the afternoon till 
 twelve at midnight, and presented little variety — tracts 
 of woods, separated by intervals of clearing, and 
 occasionally towns that seemed thriving and progressive. 
 Of Kingston and its bay I only saw enough to make 
 me desirous to have seen more. This town and Port 
 Hope were the only places on the shores of Lake 
 Ontario that ofiered to my eye anything of the pic- 
 turesque. The shores of this lake — and the same may 
 be said of Lake Erie — are flat and monotonous, and 
 afford no points of comi^arison with our lake scenery 
 in Scotland. I am told that on Lake Huron and Lake 
 Superior it is otherwise. Toronto, where I remained 
 a week, is the chief city of Upper Canada, with a 
 population of 45,000.^ It slopes gently upwards from 
 the shore of Lake Ontario, and has a number of 
 handsome, well-built streets, resembling much those 
 that might be met with in a good provincial English 
 town. Besides some elegant churches belonging to 
 different denominations, there are two structures that 
 stand out pre-eminent — Osgoode Hall, the centre of 
 ^ 86,415 in 1881, now over 100,000.
 
 176 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 the legal profession in Upper Canada, and the Uni- 
 versity of Toronto. They are in very different styles, 
 but either of them would be an ornament to any 
 European capital. I have seen few things to surpass 
 the University in position, architectural taste, and 
 general arrangements. I had an opportunity also of 
 examining the course and examination papers, and can 
 testify as far as my judgment goes to its breadth and 
 thoroughness. Such a system, if faithfully carried out, 
 cannot fail to raise up men who will be an honour to 
 their country and profession, and take rank with the 
 alumni of any seats of learning in the New "World or 
 the Old. Besides the University of Toronto, there are 
 various other institutions of a similar character in 
 Canada, some on a general basis, others under the 
 superintendence of denominations. Of the first, the 
 ]\I'Gill College at Montreal deserves honourable 
 mention, under the principalshij) of a very accom- 
 plished man. Dr. Dawson.^ The Wesleyans have a 
 college at Cobourg, the Episcopalians the Trinity 
 College at Toronto, and there are theological halls for 
 training the ministry of the different churches, tlie 
 Church of Scotland having one at Kingston, and the 
 Canada Presbyterian Church (Free and United) Knox's 
 College at Toronto. The Eoman Catholics have also 
 their separate colleges, both for general and clerical 
 education, in Upper and Lower Canada. Altogether, 
 
 ^ Now Sir ■William Dawson. lie was Pj'ewideut of tlie British 
 Association in 1886.
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 177 
 
 the public mind in Canada is directed very much to 
 the question of education, and the common scliool 
 system has attempted to solve the grand difficulty of 
 the religious element, that continues so to baffle our 
 European statesmen. It cannot be said that this has 
 been done with success. In Lower Canada, which 
 has its own school system, the Protestants complain 
 that the Eomanists treat them in the most intolerant 
 manner, and they begin to demand the voluntary 
 system rather than the present one of State support. 
 In Upper Canada a contest is at present going on 
 between those who wish to maintain the common 
 system and a strong party who urge the appropriation 
 of denominational grants. To this last party belong 
 all the Eoman Catholics and a portion of the Epis- 
 copalians and Wesleyans, The Eoman Catholics have 
 indeed already succeeded in introducing the wedge of 
 denominationalism in their own behalf into the system 
 of Upper Canada, and labour incessantly to widen the 
 rent, in which they are aided by the self-seeking of 
 other sects. The appetite for public funds would 
 seem to be as strong here as it is at home, and the 
 wisdom of Government lies in circumscribing the room 
 for its gratification. It would conduce as much to 
 public peace as to public economy. However this 
 contest as to the school system may terminate, there 
 is good reason to believe that the educational wants 
 of Canada will be attended to. The people in the 
 
 Upper Province are, as a whole, alive to the value of 
 
 M
 
 1 7 8 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 
 
 at least the common elemmits of learning, and in the 
 Lower Province, almost any system would be an 
 improvement on the present one, which is entirely in 
 the hands of the priesthood, and used for the promotion 
 of its interests. On the whole question of the educa- 
 tional and spiritual state of Canada I hope to write 
 more at length, only saying here that, in the midst of 
 all contests and drawbacks, there are signs of progress 
 and hopes of more. 
 
 From Toronto I took railway to Niagara Falls, and 
 remained in the neighbourhood about a fortnight, 
 visiting that great wonder-work of God several times, 
 and each time being more impressed by it. I sliall 
 not here attempt to give those impressions. It would 
 require a long letter for this alone, and then it would 
 be done imperfectly. This part of Canada was the 
 scene of some of the chief military operations in the 
 American war of 1812-14, and also of the skirmishing 
 in the insurrection of 1837, in which American sym- 
 pathizers took a part. As the effect of this, the 
 Canadian sentiment is there ultra-loyal, and I found 
 the descendants of old German Pennsylvanians, who 
 have not yet learned to look at the first American 
 Eevolution as anything but a rebellion, and who trace 
 all the present troubles of the States to their insur- 
 rection against the authority of poor old George III. 
 Here and in other places I found the descendants of 
 a class of settlers called the U. E. (United Empire) 
 Loyalists, who in considerable numbers removed to
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 1 7 9 
 
 Canada when the States gained their independence, 
 and who had grants of land bestowed on them as the 
 reward of their loyalty. They deserved it well, for 
 they had endured much, and had been treated with 
 great harshness by the States, The unrelenting severity 
 of confiscation and banishment with which these men 
 were persecuted is one of the stains upon that great 
 struggle for liberty. Their descendants, as may be 
 supposed, make connection with the mother-country 
 and loyalty to the British Crown their boast and 
 principle. This feeling is shared, if not with equal 
 intensity, yet in all sincerity, by the overwhelming 
 mass of the Canadian people. It seems strange to 
 witness the blindness of the American newspapers, and 
 even of some of their statesmen, to this fact, and to 
 hear them speak as if it needed but a simple invitation 
 to bring the Canadians at once into the Union. Alons 
 with the feeling of British loyalty, there is also growing 
 up a sentiment of nationality which would vigorously 
 resist absorption into the American republic. So far 
 as I can judge of general opinion, an attempt to con- 
 strain this would lead to a war as sanguinary as that 
 which now rages in the South. Some may regret that 
 distinct nationalities should thus spring up, but it 
 seems the design of Providence, and will probably 
 conduce more in the end to the interests of liberty and 
 human progress. Let us only hope that, in the case 
 of Canada, distinction from their neighbours may be 
 no more embittered by the recollection of war, and
 
 I So CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 that it may take its own shape among the nations of 
 the New World by a peaceful and useful race of 
 emulation. 
 
 From Niagara I returned by rail to Hamilton, at 
 the head of Lake Ontario, where I remained a day or 
 two, and then came on to London, whence I write this 
 letter. Hamilton and London are both of them like 
 smaller editions of Toronto, diminishing in size as they 
 proceed westward, Hamilton having a population of 
 about 20,000, and London of about 13,000.^ This 
 last is a Avell-built, thriving town, that has suffered 
 somewhat from late disarrangements of trade, but 
 promises to rise again rapidly with the flowing tide. 
 It is much more metropolitan than a town of the same 
 size would be at home, having handsome banks and 
 extensive warehouses, with the usual allowance of big 
 hotels and daily papers. It is the only considerable 
 town of Canada that does not stand upon a navigable 
 river or lake, but it has tlie advantage of being con- 
 nected with several lines of railroad, and is the centre 
 of a large agricultural district, the finest land in the 
 country. It is on the great land highway to the 
 Western States of the Union, and not far from the 
 famed oil-springs. If these last hold out, they will 
 help the prosperity of London, although meanwhile 
 the refining establishments do very little to maintain 
 the good odour of the place. But here as at home 
 scent must give way to centage. A town like this 
 ' 35,961 and 19,746 respectively in 1881.
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 1 8 1 
 
 furnishes a good opportunity for comparison with those 
 at home in social morals. So far as I can form an 
 idea, it is fully up to our average, probably above it. 
 It has its quota of ' drunk and disorderly,' but they do 
 not seem so sunk in abject misery. Destitution and 
 rags do not obtrude themselves, and I believe do not 
 exist but in a very limited degree. The facilities of 
 remunerative labour of course account for this, and the 
 brief existence of the town, which has not allowed the 
 residuum of a fallen class, too often hereditary, to form 
 itself. Whetlier they may prevent the growth of that 
 which we are labouring hard to correct, remains to be 
 seen. If one can speak of any class here as the 
 degraded, it would be the poor blacks, though I should 
 be sorry to apply that term to them. They are 
 numerous, more than in other parts of Canada ; they 
 are poor, and by many they are not kindly treated. 
 With the disadvantages under which they labour, it 
 is not wonderful if we find a portion of them distin- 
 guished by little industry or morality, but not perhaps 
 so much as whites would be in their circumstances. 
 The general accusation of sauciness is brought against 
 them, but, so far as my experience goes, civility will 
 always elicit the proper response from them. If 
 insolence appears, it is only as an attempt to assert the 
 rights of manhood which may be denied to them. At 
 present there is a proposal in this town by the School 
 Trustees to exclude them from the common schools, 
 and to supply them with the means of separate edu-
 
 i82 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 cation. It is done on the ground of their low moral 
 character and social habits, which, it is said, affect the 
 other children. The proposal has met with strong 
 opposition on the part of the coloured people them- 
 selves, and is condemned in other parts of Canada, 
 where it is very unusual, if not altogether unknown. 
 I do hope it may be repelled, and that the American 
 prejudice against colour will not find an entrance here. 
 The poor negro has enough to contend against without 
 this. It is right enough that there should be protection 
 for the schools from the contamination of immorality 
 and filth, but let this be sought by the separation only 
 of the individuals affected, and not by the exclusion 
 of classes to gratify an odious and unchristian aristo- 
 cracy of colour. The schools provided for the coloured 
 population cannot offer the same education as those 
 for the whites, and thus a portion of the community 
 will be deprived of the opportunity of rising, and 
 doomed to a modified bondage.^ 
 
 The church accommodation seems fully up to the 
 population. There is one large Eoman Catholic 
 church, two Episcopalian, three I'resbyterian, one 
 Congregationalist, one Baptist, one Wesleyan, one 
 Episcopal Methodist (a distinction imported from the 
 States), one New Connexion Methodist. Besides 
 these, there are several smaller bodies of Bible Chris- 
 tians and other varieties, and two churches where the 
 
 ^ There is no jiart of Canada in which the coloured children are 
 excluded from either the public schools or the universities.
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 183 
 
 coloured population worship by themselves. These 
 last, however, may, if they choose, worship in the other 
 churches, and occasionally I have seen them so doing. 
 The churches, you will see, are ample vl lumber, and 
 they are generally large in size. There is, however, a 
 considerable part of the population not church-going. 
 
 Here, meanwhile, I must conclude this letter, 
 hoping to give on another occasion a more general 
 view of the country. 
 
 11. 
 
 Having given in my last letter a sketch of my 
 journey through Canada as far as London, C.W., I 
 proceed in this to give some notices of the country, 
 natural, social, and political. 
 
 It was John Cabot, a Venetian in the service of 
 England, who first visited this part of the coast of 
 America in 1497. He touched the exterior only at 
 Newfoundland and Labrador, and Canada proper was 
 not discovered till 1535, by a frenchman, Jacfjues 
 Cartier, who penetrated as far as Montreal, then an 
 Indian settlement bearing the name of Hochelaga. 
 The French proceeded to settle the country, at first 
 slowly, but afterwards with more energy, impeded by 
 wars with the Indians, and with the English settle- 
 ments farther south. At that time the French people 
 were distinguished by a spirit of colonial enterprise 
 which now seems to have forsaken them. They dis- 
 covered the great lakes, traced the course of the
 
 1 84 CANADIAN LETTERS 
 
 Ottawa, St. Lawrence, and Mississippi, opened up an 
 extensive commerce, and seemed ready to assume 
 superiority in the whole continent of North America 
 from Quebec round to New Orleans. The intolerant 
 principles of French monarchy both in Church and 
 State checked this growth ; Jesuit control withered it ; 
 and slowly and steadily the French power in the New 
 World declined. The capture of Quebec in 1759 by 
 Wolfe was the last blow to it, and established British 
 supremacy. The French, however, have made their 
 mark in Lower Canada, and the proper amalgamation 
 of the race they have left here with fellow-citizens 
 who differ from them in language and religion will 
 be the chief difficulty of Canadian statesmen. The 
 politics of the present and future turn upon this 
 point. After the conquest of Canada, the British 
 Government treated the French Canadians with great 
 justice and liberality, and this conduct prevented 
 them from joining in the revolt of the other American 
 Colonies in 1775. When invited to send delegates 
 to the Philadelphia Congress they refused, and when 
 the Americans invaded the country they met them 
 with active resistance. It is a curious circumstance 
 that well-nigh the only part which remained faithful 
 to the mother-country was that which was alien in 
 race and religion. After the close of the American 
 war in 1783 a number of United Empire Loyalists, 
 whose property had been confiscated in the States, 
 received grants of lands in Canada, and, as they
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 185 
 
 settled chiefly in the western part, the colony was 
 divided into the two governments of Lower and Upper 
 Canada, the first being principally French, the last 
 English. Canada continued slowly to increase till the 
 war of 1812, when it was calculated that Lower 
 Canada contained 200,000, and Upper Canada 
 80,000. The Americans commenced that war with 
 the avowed intention of speedily conquering and 
 annexing the country. The spirit of the Canadian 
 people, however, was thoroughly roused, and their 
 militia, aided by the regular troops, defeated the 
 invaders in almost every action, and drove them from 
 the soil. The events of history thus far have con- 
 tributed to form for Canada a national existence 
 distinct from that of the States. As Canada increased 
 in population it began to agitate for greater powers 
 of self-government. Unhappily the Ministry at home 
 did not soon enough recognize this, and an appeal to 
 arms took place in 1837 by an ultra section in both 
 Lower and Upper Canada, aided by some American 
 sympathizers. It was, however, speedily put down by 
 the united efforts of the loyal, and all the demands of 
 the Canadian people were complied with in 1840, 
 when a legislative union of the two provinces took 
 j)lace. This was the beginning of that Liberal 
 Colonial policy on the part of the Home Govern- 
 ment, which will avert in future any such unhappy 
 war as that for American independence, and which is 
 building up under the shadow of the British Empire
 
 1 86 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 free and attached commonwealths all over the globe. 
 The result in Canada has been that a government has 
 been established for the united colony, with a 
 Ministry responsible to the people. The Constitution 
 resembles that of the home -country, with what would 
 be called a character of Advanced Liberalism. There 
 are two Houses of Parliament, an Upper and a Lower, 
 but l3oth elective. The franchise is not universal, 
 but such as to place it within the reach of any man 
 of common industry and intelligence. There is no 
 established church, and all sects are on an equahty. 
 Self-government in the municipal form exists in the 
 towns and also in the counties. The laws for the 
 transfer and sale of lands, for executing mortgages 
 and wills, are exceedingly simple, and might with 
 sreat advantage be carried across the Atlantic. The 
 connection with the mother-country is maintained by 
 the presence of a Governor-General, who represents 
 the Queen, and whose assent is necessary to the 
 passing of new laws. His salary is the only burden 
 of an imperial kind borne by Canada. The troops 
 that protect the country, and the arms furnished to it, 
 are at the expense of the home-country, while Canada 
 raises its revenue by taxing British produce at the 
 same rate as that of any other nation. The effect of 
 all this is that the Canadians are well contented with 
 their government, as they have every reason to be. 
 It secures safety, freedom, and economy (when com- 
 pared with other countries), and if they were not loyal
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 1 8 7 
 
 and peaceful they would be the most unreasonable of 
 nations. Yet unreason often distinguishes nations, 
 and therefore we must accord the Canadians the 
 credit of recognizing their privileges, and of being 
 thoroughly well-affected to the mother-country, while 
 they feel a growing pride in their own land, and its 
 rapidly increasing resources. 
 
 Let me now come to a view of the resources as 
 seen in the extent and character of the United Pro- 
 vince. Canada is nearly 1300 miles in length, and 
 averages some 200 in breadth. Its area is 357,822 
 square miles, the proportion of which to our own 
 country can be estimated, when it is remembered that 
 the area of Scotland is about 32,000 square miles. 
 It should be remembered, besides, that the whole 
 British possessions in North America comprise 
 2,897,560 square miles, and that there is indefinable 
 room, therefore, for the expansion of Canada to the 
 West whenever it may be thought desirable.^ At 
 present Canada may be said to lie entirely in the 
 valley of tlie St. Lawrence, and along the lakes formed 
 by it. This magnificent river, including these lakes, 
 is 3000 miles in length, and, witli the help of two or 
 three short canals, is navigable through its whole 
 extent for first-class vessels. Its great drawback is 
 that during the winter months, from November till 
 
 1 The whole of British North America (3,'170,392 square miles, with 
 4,324,810 inhabitants in 1881) is now embraced in the Dominion of 
 Canada. U^jper and Lower Canada are the present provinces of 
 Ontario and Quebec.
 
 1 88 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 the end of April, its mouth is closed by ice, and 
 Canada is thus entirely cut off from direct communica- 
 tion with the ocean during a great part of the year. 
 The climate of Canada, as may be supposed, varies in 
 different parts. The Lower Province has a more 
 severe and steady winter, and also greater heat in 
 summer — the Upper Province having its climate 
 tempered by the large inland lakes. On the whole, 
 the climate is colder than that of Europe in the same 
 parallels, and the winter greatly more severe. The 
 thermometer falls sometimes to 40° below zero, while 
 in summer it rises on some days to above 100°, a 
 very great extreme, and yet not unfavourable to health. 
 The air is almost invariably clear, and free from mist 
 or fog. The sky is bright as that of Italy, and tlie 
 stars shine with peculiar brilliancy. The dryness of 
 the atmosphere makes the cold of winter much less 
 felt than could be supposed, and this season is 
 esteemed by many the most pleasant in the year. Up 
 to within a few days of this date (the middle of 
 January), winter had scarcely made its appearance, 
 and every one was lamenting the long delay. Without 
 the snow, transit is difficult, the health of the people 
 languishes, influenzas and slow fevers spring up from 
 the decaying vegetation, and social life stagnates. A 
 heavy fall of snow has taken place with a sharp frost 
 of 26° below freezing, and everything appears to have 
 received a quickening impulse. The farmers are 
 bringing in their wheat and other produce on sleighs
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 1 89 
 
 that glide on the snow as smoothly as a carriage an a 
 rail, and indeed much more smoothly than most. The 
 streets are alive with cutters (so the small drivins 
 sleigh is called), making a merry jingling with their 
 bells, which are necessary to give warning of their 
 otherwise noiseless movements, and are skimming 
 hither and thither like so many swallows on the 
 wing. The horses enjoy the sport as much as the 
 drivers, and can scarcely be restrained, so full are they 
 of life and spirit. The dogs can never be satisfied 
 enough with rolling in the snow, and snuffing and 
 eating it, and seem the liappiest dogs alive. Visits 
 are paid on all sides, long-deferred parties are made 
 up, and everybody goes about congratulating every- 
 body else on the happy change, and hoping it may 
 continue. The substitution of a good, smooth, hard 
 road for endless, bottomless mud is one cause of the 
 thankfulness, the bracing frost that carries off malaria 
 and bad humours is another, and more than all is the 
 immense quantity of oxygen thrown into the atmo- 
 sphere, which revivifies the whole animal frame, and 
 makes the step light and the heart happy. The 
 winter in Canada is certainly not what we deem of 
 winter, and we must not judge its five months' dura- 
 tion by our murky fogs and slushy thaws. The 
 winter day, besides, is considerably longer than ours, 
 owing to the southerly latitude, and is made longer 
 still by the reflection from the snow. Probably, how- 
 ever, in an economic point of view, its long winter
 
 190 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 is against the interests of Canada. It stops much 
 out-door labour, checks the plough and harrow, and 
 compresses the work of the farmer into such a narrow 
 space, that one operation can scarcely be completed 
 till another is crying out for instant notice. Spring 
 comes in with a sudden rush like the Solway tide, and 
 summer flowers out into instantaneous blossom. The 
 rapid transitions of nature form one of the features of 
 the climate of Canada. The sun rises and sets more 
 suddenly than with us, and in a like manner enters upon 
 and quits his work of the year, so that there is little 
 ' gloamin',' a smaller amount of the insensible bud- 
 dings of April and long-drawn greenness of May, and 
 autumn tints, though more vivid, are shorter-lived. 
 If I might refer to it here, human life partakes of the 
 law. Tlie child shoots up more quickly into the man 
 and woman than at home. The month of May seems 
 blotted out of the consciousness of humanity, — a loss, 
 this, greater, it seems to me, in the human than in the 
 vegetable world, as it effaces one of the most pleasur- 
 able, as well as one of the most profitable periods of 
 life, the period that has the keenest sense of joy, and 
 that receives the seeds of finest culture. Yet here, 
 perhaps, the ages may contain some compensation, of 
 which we do not at present dream. These climatic 
 differences in Canada bring a difference in the out- 
 ward face of things. The bird and flower life in its 
 prominent features is not the same, and we look round 
 in vain for the most familiar things of sight and
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 1 9 1 
 
 sound that are enshrined in the honsehold poetry of 
 the old land. One cannot say with poor Mary in 
 her prison, — 
 
 ' Now laverocks wake the merry morn, 
 
 Aloft on dewy wing ; 
 The merle in his noontide bower 
 Makes woodland echoes ring.' 
 
 *&• 
 
 The lark and thrush are unknown, save in cages, 
 and, for all the woods of Canada, it cannot hoast a 
 sinale cuckoo. The fond recollections of the home 
 country have fixed the well-known names on some 
 inhabitants of the adopted land, but how changed ! 
 There is a blackbird, but a corpulent, ungraceful, 
 tuneless fowl ; and there is a redbreast, twice the size 
 of the original, but he wants the song, and he flies 
 from winter. The poor Babes in the Wood want their 
 undertaker, and the ballad as a consequence cannot 
 live. As might be expected from the close friendship 
 between the bird and the flower, our Old-World 
 favourites of the field do not open their eyes on this 
 hemisphere. The daisy, of course, cannot exist without 
 the morning song of the lark, Wordsworth's common- 
 place man would find no ' yellow primrose ' to be a 
 stumbling-block to him, there is no broom upon the 
 lea, and the ' furzy prickle ' of Tennyson never ' fires 
 the dells.' Even the hardy heather cannot brave the 
 stern winter, and is only seen occasionally in a flower- 
 pot, looking inglorious enough, under the fostering 
 care of some patriotic Scotsman, who guards it as
 
 192 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 a precious morsel against the festival of St. Andrew's 
 Day. To some, this entire separation from the most 
 cherished associations of home would be a sore de- 
 privation, and perhaps it is so felt, but it brings with 
 it a chastened tenderness. It is pleasant to hear the 
 parents trying to give their children some ideaTol the 
 daisy and the lark, that they may enjoy the better 
 the poetry and the story of old Scotland, and the 
 descendants begin to see the land of their fathers 
 through a lustrous haze like that which to us rests on 
 the hills of the olive and the palm. Canada, however, 
 has its own substitutes, though they have not yet 
 been visited by the light of song. Some flowers of 
 rare beauty there arc, though their season is more 
 brief than with us, owing to the summer's heat ; and 
 many of the birds are marked by a tropical brilliancy 
 of plumage. I am sorry that I have to speak of 
 them more as I saw them in the museums of Montreal 
 and Toronto than in their native forests, but when 
 life is poured into the humming-birds that seemed like 
 fragments of rainbows, and into the finely - tinted 
 oriole, I could see that the future poet of Canada 
 will not want his illustrations, drawn from the nature 
 around him. There is promise of his coming already, 
 and then doubtless his eye and ear will discover 
 siffhts and sounds that will make the land beautiful 
 and dear as any upon earth. Canada is not Scotland, 
 and it would be foolish to wish that it were, but it 
 has features of its own, and they are neither mean
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 193 
 
 nor unlovely. Before closing these rather desultory 
 remarks on the climate of Canada, I should say that 
 it has one season peculiar to itself, or rather to North 
 America, the Indian summer. This period occurs 
 generally in October, and lasts from two to three 
 weeks. It is mild, slightly hazy, and spoken of l)y 
 all the long residents as specially delightful. I have 
 said by the long residents, because some seasons it is 
 scarcely discernible, and such happened to be the one 
 that I passed in this part of the world. A few days 
 of doubtful glimmer were the only approach to it. 
 This curious phenomenon used to be absurdly enough 
 attributed to the Indians burning the woods, hence 
 its name ; but the exact cause of it has not yet been 
 ascertained. 
 
 The climate leads naturally to the soil and its 
 productions. It is customary in tlicse scientific days 
 to begin this by a geological table, which I shall 
 avoid, and touch only the more practical part by 
 saying that the strata of Canada are all beneath the 
 coal measures, so that this most useful mineral can 
 never be found there. Whether it existed and has 
 been denuded, or whether it was never formed, this 
 is certain, that coal does not and cannot exist in 
 Canada. It is found to the east of it, in Xova Scotia, 
 and to the south and west of it, and by means of 
 railway and steamer it now enters Canada in large 
 quantities. For a long season, too, if not for ever, 
 Canada will have in its wood some compensation.
 
 194 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 Each farmer for this very reason leaves a portion of 
 his land in the forest state, that he may have fuel at 
 liancl. In defect of coal, Canada abounds in other 
 minerals. The finest iron is to be found in the Lower 
 Province. Lead, copper, and zinc are found abundantly 
 on the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Superior. 
 Silver and gold are native minerals, though they have 
 not yet been discovered so plentifully as in Nova 
 Scotia. Agate, jasper, and the most beautiful marbles 
 exist in great quantity. Petroleum or mineral oil 
 has been extensively found lately, and has taken an 
 important place as an article of commerce. Fears 
 are, however, entertained that the supply may not be 
 lasting. I may remark that it is not clear whether 
 the origin of this oil is mineral or vegetable, but 
 certainly coal-oil is a misnomer. The time will come 
 when the wealth of Canada in these different directions 
 will be developed ; at present the main industry of 
 its inhabitants is turned to more palpable sources. 
 Besides fishing, which occupies a good many in the 
 Lower Province, the main elements of its labour lie 
 in lumbering and agriculture. Lumbering, which is 
 the term appKed to cutting and rough - hewing the 
 trees, employs many thousands of hardy labourers. 
 In the forests of the Saguenay, the Ottawa, and other 
 branches of the St. Lawrence, these men are plying 
 the axe and navigating their rafts down the rivers, 
 acting as the pioneers of the farmer, and often turning 
 round and converting their own axe into the plough.
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 1 9 5 
 
 Some of the most thriving men in Canada have risen 
 from this employment. Many more are indirectly 
 dependent on it, and mechanical ingenuity in beautiful 
 applications is seen in the saw-mills, lath, window, 
 and door-frame manufactories of Ottawa and other 
 towns. Immense quantities of oak, pine, walnut, 
 maple, and other timbers are continually floating 
 down to Montreal and Quebec, to cross the ocean, 
 chiefly to Great Britain. 
 
 As regards the agricultural resources of Canada, it 
 may be said that the soil, like the climate, gradually 
 improves as it proceeds westward. Lower Canada 
 would please most the lover of the picturesque, with 
 its ranges of mountains, its pine-embosomed lakes, and 
 resounding cataracts ; but Upper Canada would delight 
 the eye of the farmer. While excellent land is to be 
 found in the neighbourhood of Montreal and Ottawa, 
 it is to the western region, specially to the peninsula 
 between Lake Huron and Lake Erie, that the agri- 
 culturist by a sure instinct has been pressing, and 
 now the settled districts are climbing up the side of 
 Lake Huron, and looking with a wistful eye beyond 
 Lake Superior to the far Eed Eiver. That Canada is 
 a good land for the farmer, and that the soil in many 
 parts is equal to any in the States, I have never 
 heard questioned. The part of Western Canada to 
 which I have more especially referred is probably 
 superior to any found in the States under the same 
 latitude. The only objections I have ever heard
 
 1 9 6 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 
 
 made are to the restrictions with which the sale of 
 land is hampered. It has in many cases got into the 
 hands of speculators, who maintain it at an undue 
 premium, but means are being taken to abate this 
 evil and to open up fresh lands. A large quantity 
 of most excellent soil has lately been made available 
 in the Manitoulin Islands in Lake Huron, by a treaty 
 entered into with the Indians. The best proof of 
 the thriving condition of the farming interest in 
 Canada is found by a short residence in any of the 
 hospitable farmhouses that stud the country. There 
 is a profusion existing in the use of bread, animal 
 food, poultry, preserves, wliich in the old country 
 would be deemed extravagance. It may be thought 
 that this very profusion argues the want of a good 
 market for the produce, and to some extent there is 
 truth in this, but to a greater extent it arises from 
 that style of good living that has become almost 
 universal in the land. The Canadian farmer has a 
 market that is constantly improving, and that is at 
 this moment better than that of most of the Western 
 States, owing to his proximity to the lakes and the 
 St. Lawrence. I can imagine few more comfortably- 
 placed men than a right - minded farmer who has 
 settled down on Canadian soil, with his lanc^ cleared 
 from wood and pecuniary encumbrance. I can speak 
 from experience, having spent some time with such 
 an one. Beef, mutton, and pork his own farmyard 
 supplies him with in all abundance. Turkeys and
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 197 
 
 poultry of every kind seem to have a peculiar habit 
 of thriving, for their number is legion. Bread of tlie 
 finest is baked in his own house, from his own flour, 
 and it never appears without its friend the butter-pot. 
 Apples, plums, and cherries from his orchard come up 
 in open form, and in all sorts of disguises. Corn- 
 cakes, maize-puddings, and other products of Yankee 
 ingenuity, sent across the border, come in as inter- 
 ludes. The farmer is hard enough wrought in 
 summer, but in winter he has his time for recreation, 
 friendly intercourse, and reading. For this last there 
 is good opportunity in the plentiful issues of standard 
 books in Canada and the States, and it is a feature 
 of the country that there are few houses in which 
 comfort is at all found that have not their own little 
 library and their weekly, if not daily, newspaper. 
 "What the hazy Arcadia sung by the pastoral poets 
 may have been, it is hard to say, but, in any case, it 
 was less rational and pleasurable than the home of 
 an honest Canadian farmer, above all when Christian 
 principle enters it, as I hope it does in not a few 
 cases ; and, when the evening shutters are closed, and 
 the wind is heard swaying the pines without, and 
 the log crackles in the clear frost in the fireplace, in 
 addition to the general warmth of the diffusive stove, 
 I think that Cowper's picture of a happy winter 
 evening is realized. 
 
 Wheat is the great staple of the Canadian soil, but 
 the Upper Province is more adapted to it than the
 
 igS CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 Lower. The heat of the summer gives an opportunity 
 for cultivating many of the crops and fruits that 
 belong to the southern countries of Europe, such as 
 maize and buckwheat, the grape and peach. The 
 fruit of which Canada, however, is entitled most to 
 boast is its apple, which attains here a size and 
 flavour not surpassed in any country. 
 
 There is room in Canada to almost any extent for 
 farmers and farm-labourers, who are willing to submit 
 to some hardship at first, and to rough labour in the 
 wood and field for the sake of growing independence 
 and comfort in coming years. For those engaged in 
 mercantile life the room is by no means so large, and 
 can only increase as the cities extend to meet the 
 wants of the rural population. For mechanics and 
 handicraftsmen tliere is more room than for the last- 
 mentioned, especially if they can adapt themselves 
 to new exigencies. What is wanted in this country 
 is not a man who is a mere part of a machine, but 
 one who can stand and walk and work alone. Capital 
 also would be a great benefit to the country if lent 
 out at a moderate rate of interest, ten and twelve per 
 cent, being a very common rate paid by farmers on 
 the security of their own lands.^ As to the literary 
 professions, Canada is making very creditable efforts 
 to raise them for itself. Its universities and colleges 
 are sending out lawyers, doctors, teachers, and ministers 
 of all the leading denominations. Still, in a country 
 ^ Six per cent, is a high rate for investments now.
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 199 
 
 where material industry presents more than usual 
 inducements, the different professions are more likely 
 to want candidates, and I believe that not a little of 
 the superfluous mind of the old country might find 
 space for exercise here. Of the want of Christian 
 ministers I hope to say more again, and shall only 
 remark now that a minister, if at all acceptable and 
 industrious, will not fail to find his sphere and fitting 
 support in Canada. He must, however, be a man 
 who, like the farmer, must often be ready to rough 
 it, to preach at first in very plain edifices, and sleep 
 in homely lodgings ; a man of common sense, wdio can 
 make allowance for a new country ; a man of a con- 
 tented temper, not over-fond of ease and dainties ; 
 and, above all, one who has his heart in his Master's 
 work.^ Canada could yet take many such to keep 
 abreast of the advancing tide of its population, and 
 though I am free to confess that in many places there 
 is a very inadequate idea of ministerial support, yet 
 there is progress being made in this as in other things, 
 and the Gospel will call forth its response here as 
 elsewhere, and prove the labourer to be worthy of his 
 hire. It is to be considered that a sound state of 
 public sentiment in political and still more in religious 
 matters is of slow growth, that the people of Canada 
 are drawn, not only from all parts of the British 
 Empire, but from all parts of Europe, and that most 
 of them have been accustomed to the State Church 
 
 ^ In the Presbyterian Church the miuinuun stipend is now £150.
 
 200 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 principle, which incapacitates them for a length of 
 time for the support and management of their own 
 religious ordinances. Let us be considerate and hope- 
 ful, and, instead of wondering that there are instances 
 of coldness and parsimoniousness in the churches of 
 Canada, we shall be surprised that there are not more. 
 I am now brought naturally to say something on 
 the population of Canada and its component elements, 
 as this question bears very much upon the present 
 state of parties in it, and on its future prospects. 
 In 1783 it was estimated that it contained 130,000 
 inhabitants, 10,000 of these being United Empire 
 Loyalists, the rest Canadian French. There are now 
 nearly as many in the city of Montreal alone. In 
 1812 Lower Canada contained 200,000, and Upper 
 Canada 80,000. In 1851 Upper Canada contained 
 952,004, Lower Canada 890,201. In 1861 Upper 
 Canada contained 1,396,091, Lower Canada 1,110,664, 
 — total population two millions and a half.^ The popu- 
 lation of Lower Canada, which consists chiefly of the 
 French element, has thus been gradually falling 
 behind in the race, and there is every prospect that 
 it will continue to do so, as the stream of emigration 
 passes it on to the Western province. It must be 
 admitted, however, that the last census showed a 
 greater increase of the French population than had 
 been expected. As to religion, the population by 
 
 1 For Ontario and Quebec the numbers in 1881 were 1,923,228 and 
 1,359,027,— total, 3,282,255.
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 2 o i 
 
 last census, 1861, may be divided as follows: — 
 Eoman Catholics, 1,200,863 ; Protestants, 1,305,890,^ 
 so that they are not far from being equally balanced, 
 the great proportion of the Eoman Catholics being 
 found, of course, in the Lower Province, though the 
 Irish give a considerable admixture of the same 
 persuasion in the Upper Province. The Protestants, 
 again, are divided as follows : — Episcopalians, 374,887 ; 
 Methodists, 372,154; Presbyterians, 346,991; Bap- 
 tists, 69,310; Congregationalists, 1 4, 2 8 4 ; other 
 denominations of all kinds, 128,264. It will be 
 observed here that the Episcopalians, Methodists, 
 and Presbyterians are nearly equal. The two last 
 have probably a greater number of real adherents 
 than the Episcopalians, as the non - church - going 
 class in the country generally writes itself down 
 Church of England. The Methodists are divided 
 into a considerable number of sects, the Presby- 
 terians into two — the party adhering to the Church 
 of Scotland and the Canada Presbyterian Church, the 
 last composed of the Eree Church and United 
 Presbyterians. 
 
 The politics of Canada take their shape and colour 
 very much from the divisions of race and religion 
 above enumerated, and must long continue to be 
 influenced by them. The business of Parliament is 
 
 1 For the two provinces the census of 1881 gives — Roman Catliolics, 
 1,491,557 ; Protestants, 1,728,477 (Methodists, 630,724 ; Presby- 
 terians, 468,036; Episcopalians, 435,336 ; Baptists, 115,533; other 
 denominations, 78,848).
 
 2 02 CA NADIAN LE TTERS. 
 
 conducted in both languages, and every Ministry must 
 try carefully to balance itself upon members drawn 
 equally from the French and English element. At 
 present, the Lower Province, notwithstanding its 
 inferiority in population, sends by the constitution as 
 many members to the legislature as the Upper Pro- 
 vince, and by its power of voting as a unit, through 
 the influence of the Ptoman Catholic clergy, it manages 
 generally to carry its own measures. The Canadians 
 of the West complain that though they are a majority 
 of the population, and raise two-thirds of the revenue, 
 their interests are continually sacrificed, and the 
 public money squandered on objects that do not con- 
 cern them. The money that should open up postal 
 communication with the Eed Eiver Settlement, and 
 that should give Canadians an entrance to the 
 agriculture and commerce of a great country west- 
 ward, is now being spent in schemes of Eoman 
 Catholic colonization in the Lower Province, and in 
 making roads to begging settlements of Trappist 
 monks. They complain, moreover, that the Eoman 
 Catholics have possessed themselves of the national 
 education of the Lower Province so as to make it 
 thoroughly sectarian and intolerant, and that, by the 
 aid of High Church Episcopalians and others, they 
 arc striving to break down the national system in the 
 Upper Province and make it the spoil of plundering 
 sects. They urge that the present constitution gives 
 the unprogressive and bigoted part of the nation the
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 203 
 
 power of hanging like a drag upon all movements 
 toward improvement, because that improvement would 
 interfere with their own selfish interests. For this 
 reason, their watchword at present is ' representation 
 by population;' that is, such a change in the constitu- 
 tion as would give the Upper Province a number of 
 members proportioned to its inhabitants. Tlic Lower 
 Province — at least the French Canadian part of it — 
 complains again that the French language and race are 
 unduly depressed, and have not the share in Govern- 
 ment situations which proportionally belongs to them. 
 In regard to representation, they say that the principle 
 of equality in membership was adopted when Lower 
 Canada had a larger population than the Upper Pro- 
 vince, and it is unfair to alter it now. It was this 
 question of race and religion that gave such import- 
 ance to the settlement of the seat of government, and 
 it is causing at present a keen debate on a fragment 
 of the same question. Before Ottawa was fixed on as 
 the capital, the custom was for Parliament to meet 
 four years alternately in Quebec and Toronto. The 
 four years in Quebec are just expiring, and, as the 
 buildings in Ottawa cannot be ready for two or three 
 years to come, the discussion is as to where Parliament 
 shall meet meanwhile. The press of Lower Canada 
 contends that it is a waste of public money to remove 
 all the governmental apparatus from Quebec for so 
 short an interval ; and the press of the Upper Province 
 rings with the injustice of such an objection, and insists
 
 204 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 on its share of influence, however brief may be the 
 time. It is evident that this is the great internal 
 difficulty of Canada. Every nation must have its 
 own, that none may become too arrogant. Eussia 
 has its serfdom, Italy its popedom, Germany its im- 
 practicable princedom, France its smouldering fires of 
 revolution, Britain had old and now it has young 
 Ireland, the States have slavery and disunion, and 
 Canada has its antagonistic races and religions. How 
 the question may be solved it is hard to conjecture ; 
 prophecy was always difficult, and it is harder now 
 than ever, the turns are so rapid and so strange. 
 Wlio would have said, three years ago, that tlie great 
 American Union would have in so short a time 
 stained its map with so many battlefields, and that a 
 decree would issue from the President declaring 
 slavery null in so many slave States ? Politics march 
 with the giant steps of mechanical science. One 
 thing seems to me more clear than I formerly saw it 
 to be, that some connection with the mothei'-country 
 is most important, if not indispensable to Canada for 
 a length of time. Without it, there would be no 
 moderating element in its politics, and Canada would 
 break in sunder at the Ottawa. The influence from 
 Britain, though not controlling in any way the 
 Canadian freedom of action, has a happy effect in 
 tempering animosities, and in coming in as an im- 
 partial arbiter with admitted authority. This has 
 been felt already in the settlement of the seat of
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 205 
 
 Government directly, and its indirect operation is of 
 even more importance. The presence of the Governor- 
 General, as the representative of the Queen and the 
 head of the Executive, saves Canada from the periodical 
 convulsions of a presidential election, that have done 
 so much to demoralize the politics of the neighbouring 
 republic, and to create the animosity that has culmin- 
 ated in civil war. A change of Ministers whenever 
 popular opinion demands it is more conducive to good 
 feeling and order, not to speak of freedom, than a 
 battle every four years for a policy that may go on 
 rigidly in the line of the victorious party, whatever 
 alterations may meanwhile take place before that 
 President can be constitutionally unseated. In the 
 British Constitution we have the great advantage of a 
 fixed point, in the Sovereign belonging to no party in 
 the State, while the popular feeling can make itself 
 felt at any time in a change of the Ministry. The 
 President of the United States, on the other hand, is 
 chosen by a party, and must continue to act for his 
 term of office in the line of its policy, else he is 
 unfaithful to those who elected him. Whatever 
 changes may occur in the popular mind during the 
 four years of his presidency, he cannot be displaced 
 save by a revolution. It resembles a vessel that 
 would have its helm tied to one point of the compass 
 for a certain fixed number of days, and that cannot 
 change it whatever wind may blow. The danger of 
 the system is illustrated at this very crisis. The
 
 2 o6 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 
 
 present President ^ was put in to represent the Eepub- 
 lican party, and is in the midst of his term of office. 
 Meanwhile the Democratic party has recruited its 
 forces, and gained the recent elections in all the great 
 central States, yet it cannot control the presidential 
 action. If it were strong enough, and not very 
 scrupulous, the effect would be the overthrow of the 
 President by violence. The tendency of the whole 
 system of presidential elections is to provoke a spirit 
 of animosity, which has been for years becoming more 
 intense, and is rendered doubly so by the fact that, 
 when a new party comes into office, all the adherents 
 of the previous party are turned out of their situations 
 down to postmasters and tide-waiters. From this we 
 are happily free in Britain, and Canada partakes of 
 the advantage through the connection with the mother- 
 country. There are some wTiters who have compared 
 Canada disadvantageously with the States from the 
 greater amount of energy and progress manifested in 
 the latter. They compare the growth of towns on the 
 States frontier with that of those along the Canadian 
 line, and, finding it on the whole inferior, they cha- 
 racterize the Canadians as lethargic, and account for it 
 by their want of entire self-government. The most 
 recent of these writers is TroUope, the author of A 
 Visit to America during last year. But the want of 
 entire self-government (if we can so speak of it, where 
 the self-government is as perfect as in the States 
 
 1 Abraham Lincoln.
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 207 
 
 itself) has not prevented Australia and New Zealand 
 from making a progress that is unprecedented. Why 
 should a similar connection with the mother-country 
 retard Canada ? Moreover, it is unfair to compare 
 the frontier towns of a country like the States, which 
 has a far larger population, with those of Canada, 
 comparatively sparsely peopled. The frontier towns 
 are like doors to a liouse, and will correspond to the 
 23opulation that uses them for ingress and egress. 
 The cities can only be in proportion to the people 
 behind them in the rural districts. But take the 
 cities of Canada, and let allowance be made for the 
 difference in the general population, and in soil, 
 climate, and other circumstances, and it will be seen 
 that their progress equals, if it does not exceed, that 
 of the States contiguous to them. That the con- 
 nection with the mother-country is any drawback 
 to their material progress is not the opinion of 
 the Canadians themselves. If the connection with 
 Britain is necessary as a balancing power within 
 Canada, it is not less so to secure its independence 
 without. There are two separate dangers. The one 
 is that, if British sovereignty were withdrawn, tlie 
 French Canadians would be ready to establish a con- 
 nection with France, with which they have the strong 
 bond of race and religion. They would thus interpose 
 between the Upper Canadians and the sea, and cut 
 them off from the natural alliance which must connect 
 them more and more with their brethren of the Lower
 
 2o8 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 Provinces in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Even 
 as it is, and comparing as they may their own freedom 
 with the despotism that reigns in France, the pre- 
 dilection of nationality is ever and again breaking out. 
 While British connection continues, it is harmless; but 
 let it cease, and there might be either an alliance with 
 France, or such a threat of it as would enable them 
 constantly to perplex and concuss the British portion 
 of the population. This certainly would be a great 
 misfortune in every point of view, both for the 
 material interests of the country and for the progress 
 of civil and religious liberty. This last is, here as in 
 Europe, bound up with the predominance of British 
 over French ideas. The other danger to the inde- 
 pendence of Canada lies in the proximity of the 
 United States, with the proved disposition of its demo- 
 cracy to extend the limits of its dominion. Whatever 
 may be the result of the present war, the States would 
 be much too powerful for Canada to resist alone, and, 
 whether we have a restored or a curtailed Union, the 
 expressed mind of the people of the North has been 
 for the incorporation of Canada. One grand North 
 American empire seems a favourite idea with a 
 portion of the American statesmen, and floats as a 
 darling dream before the mind of the mass of the 
 people. It is the direct result of the Monroe doc- 
 trine, the heart of which is the sovereignty of the 
 United States on this continent. That this dream, if 
 carried out, would be fraught with great evil to free-
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 209 
 
 dom and to the best interests of man in this part 
 of the world, I sincerely believe. Unbroken dominion, 
 either in the Old World or the New, as long as man 
 remains the being he is, must be disastrous in its 
 issue, whether it be lodged in a single despot or in a 
 democracy. When the ancient Eoman republic em- 
 braced the known world, it began rapidly to decline ; 
 and the balance of states in modern Europe, with all 
 the dangers of war which it brings, yet maintains a 
 healthy emulation in the national spirit of each, 
 and affords a refuge in one, when individual 
 liberty is assailed in another. If the United States 
 could establish their dominion over the entire 
 North American continent, it would ere lono- be 
 to the sore detriment of personal freedom among 
 themselves. Even as it is, the tendency of the 
 majority is to curtail the rights and free speech of a 
 minority that differs strongly from them, and there 
 v/ould 1je less limit to this than there now is, if Canada 
 were incorporated with the States. It is not long 
 since it was the only place on the Northern continent 
 where the hunted slave felt himself safe, and at pre- 
 sent it affords a shelter both to the rcfuo-ees of the 
 South and to the fugitives from the Northern military 
 conscription. It may be natural enough for a dominant 
 majority to fret at this check to the full rigour of its 
 measures, but it is for it to consider that the time may 
 not be long wlien a change of iiunibcr.s may make it 
 
 as thankful to have a neutral frontier near it. These 
 

 
 2 1 o CAA^A DIAN LEi TERS. 
 
 considerations receive greater force when we reflect 
 that, as dominion extends, there must be a correspond- 
 ing growth in centralizing power to give it cohesion. 
 We can see the consequences of a want of this in the 
 present crisis, and if in any way it were surmounted, 
 and a still wider empire aimed at, centralization, as it 
 has not yet been witnessed in the New World, would 
 be the natural consequence. As we have a regard, 
 then, to the best interests of the United States them- 
 selves, and to the growth of true freedom and civiliza- 
 tion in North America, we cannot desire that Canada 
 should be added to their already vast territory. For 
 Canada itself this is, of course, still less desirable. It 
 would be burdened with the share of a huge debt 
 which it did not help to contract, and would be cut off 
 indefinitely from the hope of adopting those principles 
 of free trade which would peculiarly promote its 
 prosperity, and which are growing in the estimation of 
 its most intelligent citizens. It would be dragged into 
 the turmoil of conflicts from which it instinctively 
 shrinks back, and be bound up in political associations 
 with which it has no sympathy. Canada has already 
 its own national recollections, and is besiinninfr to 
 manifest its own distinct national life, a life which 
 many more than Canadians believe to be both poli- 
 tically and socially more healthy than that of the 
 States, as it is certainly more closely allied to the tone 
 of thinking that prevails in the mother-country. It 
 is for Wvi profit and happiness of Canada that this life
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 2 1 1 
 
 should be allowed to develop itself freely and fully. 
 "We may then expect from it its own distinct and 
 not unworthy contribution to the varied forms of 
 modern civilization. That the preservation of a sepa- 
 rate national existence is the wish of the Canadian 
 people themselves cannot at all be doubted. They 
 have exerted themselves at various periods of their 
 history to repel invasions from the States. In 1837, 
 when they had just causes for dissatisfaction, it was a 
 very small minority that favoured the idea of annexa- 
 tion to the American Union ; and the mass of the 
 people, while desiring reform, remained firm in tlieir 
 allegiance to the British Crown. The causes of dis- 
 content and the results have long since disappeared, 
 and the attachment to connection with the mother- 
 country is not only sincere, but deep, and in many 
 cases enthusiastic. No one can help coming to this 
 conclusion who consults the utterances of its public 
 men, the language of its press, or tlie sentiments of the 
 people as heard in common intercourse. The liberal 
 contribution made in all parts of Canada to the distress 
 in Lancashire, and the spirit that accompanied it, show 
 how the heart of all classes beats to the interests of 
 the common empire. A great misconception existed 
 at home, a year ago, when the Canadian Assembly 
 threw out the IMilitia Bill of the late Ministry. The 
 case is now, however, better understood, for that vote 
 did not turn upon the question of national defence, 
 but on the manner in which the late Ministry sought
 
 2 1 2 CANADIAN LETTERS. 
 
 to carry it out — a manner reckoned by the majority 
 of the country unwarrantably extravagant. The 
 Canadians are willing to the utmost to assist in their 
 own defence, and their desire to do so is shown by the 
 fact that the enrolled and active volunteers are in a 
 considerably greater proportion to the population than 
 in Great Britain. There is a school of politicians that 
 has arisen lately in England, represented by Mr. 
 Goldwin Smith,^ who hold it to be for the advantage 
 of Britain herself to withdraw from all connection with 
 Canada, and leave it to settle its own future arrajige- 
 inents, internal and external, without the shadow of 
 imperial authority or aid. A good deal may be said 
 in favour of this, from the British point of view, and 
 perhaps it is the reaction from the policy of a bygone 
 age that placed undue importance on the possession of 
 colonies, and strained the bond of connection until it 
 broke. We should be sorry, however, to see the ques- 
 tion placed on the ground merely of the material 
 interests of the mother-country. There are other and 
 wider obligations than those that can be measured by 
 revenue and commercial profits. Great Britain has 
 sent forth her children to this colony on the under- 
 standing that they would still be under the broad regis 
 of imperial protection and law, and while they are 
 wishful to keep their part of the engagement, she must 
 be true to hers. Men have struggled and fought and 
 
 '■ ]\ir. GoKlwiu Sndtli standa almost u'.oiic 5 very few iu Canada 
 sympathize with him.
 
 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 2 1 3 
 
 made sacrifices of every kind to remain British subjects 
 here, property has been invested under the guarantee 
 of her dominion, and such claims cannot be hghtly 
 cast aside. A great country, moreover, owes something 
 not only to itself, but to the world. Tliere are surely 
 some designs towards humanity at large, in Providence 
 having given to Britain tlie position she has among 
 the nations, and having bestowed upon her a con- 
 stitution that has so long stood the test of time, and 
 tliat unites so many elements of freedom and stability, 
 of regard to the past, and elastic power of expansion. 
 If we owe sympathy and aid to a country like Italy, 
 struggling to reach our footing, do we not owe some- 
 thing more to a country like Canada, sprung to a great 
 extent from ourselves, and desirous to consolidate those 
 principles it has learned, or rather inherited from us ? 
 The true greatness and glory of Britain is to plant and 
 foster such communities, and this heritage will remain 
 to her when her own commercial predominance may 
 long have passed away. Such views may be termed 
 ideal, but they have constantly been those that have 
 filled the hearts of nations when they have been in the 
 highest flush of progress. They have felt that there 
 was a Providence and a world-wide aim in their his- 
 tory, and have sought in their own way, though that 
 way might be mistaken, to carry it out. Let us aim 
 at it in a generous spirit, and for the highest ends, — the 
 progress of civil and religious liberty, and the reign of 
 righteousness and peace among the families of men.
 
 2 1 4 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 
 
 We shall find in this our own lasting profit as a nation, 
 though we may not directly see it or seek it. Our own 
 freedom and peace shall be more established by grow- 
 ing liberty and friendly alliances around, and our com- 
 merce shall find opening fields all over the world, not 
 by the advantages it claims, but by those which it 
 offers. It is with nations as with individuals ; they 
 prosper best eventually when they act on the largest 
 and most generous rule. Let a nation lose sight of 
 what is called the ideal, and fix its eye only on its own 
 material interests, and we may then fairly conclude 
 tliat it has lost the chief spring of progress, and is 
 verging to its decline. It is the often maligned ideal 
 in the heart of either a man or a people that preserves 
 from utter corruption, and that makes material progress 
 lasting and beneficial. Notwithstanding the views of 
 the utilitarian school, however, we believe that the 
 mass of the British people w^ll maintain the connection 
 with the colonies, so long as the colonies wish to 
 remain connected with the mother-country, and that 
 the utmost efforts of imperial power would be put 
 forth for their protection, as much as for that of the 
 centre of the Empire itself. This, of course, involves 
 reciprocal duties, and a willingness on the part of the 
 colonies to do their utmost in self-defence, in which we 
 believe they will not be found wanting. It would 
 require too much space to speculate here on the 
 possible future of Canada. It is the question of race 
 that is at present the most perplexing element. The
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 2 1 5 
 
 English-speaking population of the U^jpor rrovince 
 demands that it be no longer confined to the same 
 number of members in the legislature as the Lower 
 Province, and complains that all its efforts at progress 
 are thwarted by the jealousy of the French Canadians. 
 The French Canadians contend for the equality of repre- 
 sentation from the two Provinces as settled l)y the 
 terms of Union, and watch every movement that might 
 increase the preponderance of the Upper Province. 
 This preponderance, however, is constantly growing, 
 from the fact that the Upper Province is superior in 
 soil and climate, and draws to itself the stream of 
 emigration. Its own limits are now well-nigh occupied, 
 bat beyond it to the north-west lies a vast region with 
 almost boundless resources, that might easily be made 
 available for settlers, and that would naturally carry 
 on its communication with Europe through the great 
 highway of the lakes and the St. Lawrence. This 
 region lies beyond Lake Superior in the great valleys 
 of the Eed Piver and tlie Saskatchewan, reaching 
 onward towards British Columbia. Though lying in a 
 hio-lier latitude than Canada, it is said to be milder in 
 its climate, possessed of a fertile soil, of rich minerals, 
 including coal, iron, gold, and silver, and penetrated 
 by rivers that would form a water-way for its inhabi- 
 tants toward either the Atlantic or the I'acific. A 
 recent survey affirms that there is room here for 
 twelve States, each as large as Ohio, and for a popula- 
 tion of decades of millions. Along this line, too, lies
 
 2 1 6 CANADIAN LE TTERS. 
 
 the best route for a great railway across the Xorth 
 American continent, as the Eocky Mountains can be 
 crossed here more easily than at any other part of the 
 chain. The Americans have their eye already on this 
 territory, with the hope of turning its produce down 
 the valley of the Mississippi, and it would be much to 
 be regretted if they were suffered to forestall the 
 Canadians, to whom the soil and the commerce 
 naturally belong. The heart of the Upper Province is 
 set upon opening up this vast and rich North-west 
 Territory, and probably it would be more wise to con- 
 centrate its energies upon this object, than to divide them 
 by a struggle at the same time for increased representa- 
 tion. The growth of population that must follow will 
 bring the reform in representation by its own weight, 
 and it will then be so clearly a matter of justice and 
 necessity, that it will not leave in the minds of the 
 French population the grudge of wounded pride. 
 There may follow then the union of all the British 
 Provinces of IsTorth America into one great confedera- 
 tion, which may either retain the bond of connection 
 with the parent country, or gracefully drop it by 
 mutual consent, to continue as firmly attached by the 
 ties of a common history and kindred institutions. 
 That the valley of the St. Lawrence is destined to 
 become the home of a great nation seems already 
 indicated by nature and Providence, and the cradles 
 of nations yet unnamed can be seen opening beyond it. 
 To watch over the formation of these, and protect and
 
 CANADIAN LETTERS. 2 1 7 
 
 foster their growth, is one of the greatest works that 
 can be assigned to any people, and to be successful in 
 it must be one of the highest glories. It is a work 
 assigned to Britain. Let us hope that she may do it 
 so unselfishly and so wisely as to win the lasting grati- 
 tude of these rising commonwealths, and win for 
 lierself the title of ' Mother of Free and Christian 
 Nations.' 
 
 Note. — The union desiderated in the close of the 
 foregoing letter has since been accomplished by ' The 
 British North American Act, 1867,' which provided 
 for the confederation of the whole of British North 
 America, under the name of the Dominion of Canada. 
 The provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and 
 New Brunswick were united on July 1 , 1867; Mani- 
 toba followed in 1870, British Columbia in 1871, and 
 Prince Edward Island in 1872. The Canadian Pacific 
 Eailway, taking the route Dr. Ker refers to, has now 
 been completed from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
 entirely through British territory. In the projection 
 and execution of this vast undertaking (extending with 
 its connections to fully 5000 miles) Scotsmen have 
 taken a very prominent part, — especially Sir George 
 Stephen, Bart., the president of the company, and Sir 
 Donald Smith, one of the leading directors.
 
 BEMIXISCEXCES OF THE BEV. THOMAS 
 GUTHRIE, B.I)} 
 
 It is no easy thing to put on paper the incidents, and 
 still less the impressions, that come back to me when 
 I think of Dr. Guthrie. Any one who has heard 
 him speak on a great public question, and thereafter 
 perused the report of his speech, the most full and 
 faithful, will understand my difficulty. The play of 
 the features, the tones of the voice, so sudden in their 
 changes, and yet felt to be so sincere, because so 
 sympathetic with the subject, the jmuses and the 
 speaking look that filled them, the whole life that 
 broke through the siieech and made vou forijet the 
 words, and think only of the man and the subject, 
 these were lost beyond recovery. The endeavour to 
 put them in type was like trying to photograph the 
 Hit and colour of the northern light. It is in a way 
 harder to give any complete view of what he was in 
 personal intercourse ; for while there were the same 
 cp^alities that appeared in his public speaking, there 
 
 1 AVritten for llie Aulohiorjrapliy and Memoir of Thomas Guthrie, 
 D.D., 1S74.
 
 THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 219 
 
 was even more of breadth and variety. Indeed, Dr. 
 Guthrie's speeches owed their great power to this, that 
 they were a part of himself. ]\Iost men, even great 
 speakers, construct compositions into wliich they put 
 their thoughts, and perhaps their feehng, and then 
 send them forth as a cannon delivers its ball. But 
 he went with it himself altogether, somewhat as the 
 ancient battering-ram did its work, with his soul and 
 body, voice and eye propelled on his aim. This will 
 make it always a difficulty for those who liave not 
 heard him to comprehend the power of his speaking 
 to move an audience with quick changes from indigna- 
 tion to pity, and to make April weather of tears and 
 sunshine play over the sea of upturned faces. 
 
 I came in contact with Dr. Guthrie during the last 
 years of his life very frequently ; more, indeed, than 
 when he was in the vigour of his life and action, and 
 more in private than in public. He was as erect as 
 ever ; he never lost the pine-like uprightness, with its 
 lithe bend that always came back to the perpendicular, 
 and though the black hair had changed to lyart grey, 
 the eye that looked from beneath it was as keen and 
 soft, either for honest wrath or open humour, as ever. 
 The disease that took him away had begun to lay its 
 arrest upon him, and yet very gently — stopping him 
 at the foot of a hill, but allowing him a good deal of 
 'tether,' as he would call it, on the level. In liis 
 spirits it did not seem to affect him at all, only that 
 it disposed him more to reminiscence and description
 
 220 REMINISCENCES OF 
 
 of where he had been and what he had seen, which, 
 perhaps, made him even more attractive as a com- 
 panion than he could have been when the natural free 
 beat of his heart answered prompt and strong to his 
 resolute will ; and it was observed by his friends that 
 the advance of years gave growing comeliness and 
 dignity to face and form, and made him more a sub- 
 ject of curious question to the few in Scotland who 
 had not before seen him, and of pleasant recognition 
 to the crowds who often had. In its way the inner 
 man kept pace with the outer, so that I think those 
 wdio knew him last in private knew him also best. 
 
 Of the times I have seen him, both at home and 
 abroad, there are two that specially recur to me : 
 the one at Mossfennan, in Peeblesshire, in mid-winter, 
 where a happy circle met for a week in the hospitable 
 house ' below the Logan Lea,' at whose ' yett ' many 
 a visitor has ' lichtit doon,' as did the king, of whom 
 the old ballad sings. The Tweed was grumbling down 
 to Drummelzier under shackles of ice, and the great 
 dome-like hills were covered from cope to rim with 
 the purest new-fallen snow. It was a sight of new 
 delight every morning to look upon them. I recollect 
 the comparisons made with the cupola of St. Peter's, 
 where we had met not long before ; and the satisfaction 
 he took in contrasting the men and women of Tweed- 
 dale, intelligent, independent, and God-fearing, with the 
 subjects of Pio Nono, who was then in power, as we had 
 seen them, begging with his badge around the Vatican.
 
 THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 221 
 
 He was vigorous for work, and preached with all 
 his old fire in the clmrch of his son-in-law, Mr. "Welsh, 
 whose guests we were. At Mossfennan the time 
 passed like a summer's day. When not occupied 
 with reading or correspondence, Dr. Guthrie was the 
 centre and soul of the conversation. He seemed to 
 he able to watch its course even while ensatied with 
 his work, turned aside to confirm or correct some 
 observation, to give some anecdote or recollection, and 
 resumed his train as if absorbed in it. I remember 
 specially the long evenings when we gathered round 
 the blazing fire^-the wood log flanked with coal, and, 
 as in Cowper's picture of comfort, ' the hissing urn ' 
 and ' wheeled-round sofa.' He kept himself free and 
 disengaged for these seasons, and, to the hour when he 
 retired, threw into the conversation an unflagging life 
 that was wonderful. The stores of his reading, but 
 particularly of his personal observation and experience, 
 were poured out in exhaustless flow, with shrewd 
 remarks on human nature, vivid pictures of landscapes, 
 or comments on Bible scenes and passages. Anec- 
 dotes, generally from his own knowledge, formed a 
 prominent part, and were accompanied by a rapid and 
 vivid sketch of the actors, so that the narrative was 
 a set of ]:)ortraits. It would be a mistake, however, 
 to think that he engrossed the conversation on these 
 occasions. Whether it came from the instinctive 
 nature that was in him, or from some set purpose, 
 he made it his object to draw out contributions from
 
 222 REMINISCENCES OF 
 
 all in the circle. The interest he showed in whatever 
 any one had to tell was unaffectedly genuine, and one 
 could see how he accumulated the stores of illustration 
 and anecdote that he poured forth, gathering them, 
 however, not to tell them again, but for the love of 
 them. Often, when an anecdote struck him as good, 
 he would ask the owner of it to repeat it for the sake 
 of some new-comer, and he enjoyed it as much in the 
 rehearsal as at first. I have always remarked that 
 this inclination to draw out others to advantage, and 
 to encore their contributions, is a sure token of a 
 kindly and unselfish nature. 
 
 Another thing that struck me about him was his 
 tendency in the midst of a theme that was exciting 
 his feeling too strongly — some indignant outbreak 
 against injustice or meanness — to give it a ludicrous 
 touch that dissolved it in humour. One felt it to be 
 not levity but depth, the recoil from what is too 
 painful to think of, when thinking can serve no good. 
 It seems to be a principle that humour is given us as 
 a sort of lujfcr to make the hard collisions of life 
 more endurable, and that those need it most who 
 have the heaviest freight of feelinfr. Some "reat 
 earnest natures want it, but the tear and wear tells 
 more heavily on them. One thing, however, was not 
 discernible in his humour : he had no power of 
 mimicry. His narratives were of the epic kind, given 
 with his own face and voice, without any perceptible 
 attempt at dramatic impersonation. I suspect he
 
 THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 223 
 
 had naturally a deficiency in this direction of imitation, 
 but probably also he had set himself against the 
 cultivation of it. He had an instinctive sense of the 
 m quid nimis in every way, and though he did not at 
 all say of laughter, 'It is mad,' he seemed to be 
 putting the question to mirth, ' What doeth it ? ' 
 One felt that there was a limit and a solid base to all 
 the exuberance of his humour, not laid down in any 
 dogmatical or formal way, but maintained naturally 
 by the rest of his character, always sincere, earnest, 
 and Christian. 
 
 There is a story told of William Guthrie, author 
 of the Christian's Great Interest, that on one occasion 
 he had been entertaining a company with mirth- 
 provoking anecdotes, and, being called on afterwards 
 to pray, he poured out liis heart with such deep-felt 
 fervour to God that all were melted. When they 
 rose from their knees, Durham of Glasgow, a ' urave, 
 solid man,' as he is described, took liim by the hand 
 and said, ' Willie, you are a happy man ; if I had 
 laughed as much as you did a while ago, I could 
 not have prayed for four-and-twenty hours.' The 
 characteristics of the old Covenanter of Fenwick 
 reappeared in his namesake. There may have been 
 Durhams too in his company, though I never heard 
 of them. Presbyterian Scotland has not so many 
 men colourless in their gravity as some think ; yet I 
 am sure that after the family prayer they would have 
 risen with the same confession in their heart.
 
 2 24 REMINISCENCES OF 
 
 But I recall Dr. Guthrie in connection with another 
 locality, where he found each summer an escape from 
 the hurry of life, and, what is worse, its forced 
 artificialities : an opportunity for being entirely one's 
 self, without fear of having the coat and conduct 
 criticized simply for their plainness, — to withdraw 
 for the holes in them is another matter. It was a 
 simple country house in the highlands of Angus, 
 which he held by a kind of feudal tenure — akin to 
 that expressed in the motto of the Clerks of Penicuik 
 — ' Free for a Blast.' Once a year at least, Lord 
 Dalhousie looked for a sermon from him in the 
 Glen, — a condition he carefully kept, with a large 
 excess of measure. 
 
 During our stay at Mossfennan, it was arranged 
 that we should pay him a visit at Lochlee in the 
 coming summer, and accordingly in July 1871, when 
 the days were long enough to let the sun look down 
 into the deepest corrics of the Grampians, we set 
 ourselves to carry it out. I was one of a party with 
 his sou-in-law Mr. Welsh, and his daughter Mrs. 
 Welsh, and it was from them I came to learn some 
 particulars of the way in wliich he both rested and 
 worked, particulars on which he himself would not 
 have entered. He was waiting for us with a hearty 
 welcome at the Brechin Eailway Station, having come 
 down the twenty-four miles to meet us, and take us 
 up Glenesk in his waggonette. 
 
 Having remained all night in the house of hi^3 son
 
 THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 225 
 
 James, a banker in Brechin, we drove up to Lochlee 
 on the following day. About seven miles out of 
 .Brechin, we struck the river North Esk, soon after 
 passing Edzell, whose castle, the ancient home of the 
 Lords Lindsay, is imposing even in ruins. ]\Iy first 
 view of the river from Gannochy Bridge I can never 
 forget. Dr. Guthrie caused the conveyance to halt as 
 we reached the centre of the noble arch which spans 
 the foaming stream seventy feet below, and as I gazed 
 first up the stream and then down, I felt that his 
 enthusiasm was amply justified. The river chafes in 
 its narrowed channel, with here a rush and there a 
 leap, twisting and wrestling among the rocks — brown, 
 yellow, black, and white by turns. Fine old woods of 
 oak come sloping down and bend wonderingly over 
 the chasm as if on tiptoe, while beyond them rise on 
 either hand the mountains that form the gateway to 
 Glenesk. Some ten miles higher up, we passed a bare 
 hillside called ' The Eowan,' thickly covered with stone 
 cairns, more frequent towards the valley, and scattered 
 singly towards the height. It was the site of some 
 great and seemingly decisive battle in those times 
 from which Iiistory cannot lift the veil. Strange to 
 look on this spot, now so lone and silent, and think of 
 the currents of heady fight that must have swept 
 across it, whether of Scot with Pict, or both witli 
 Dane ! Dr. Guthrie's imagination kindled at the 
 scene, and he indicated what he thoucrht turnintr- 
 points in the struggle. It forms a vivid illustration
 
 2 26 REMINISCENCES OF 
 
 in one of his works, of the importance of maintaining 
 the key of the position. ^ 
 
 For miles our road lay along the birch -fringed 
 banks of the Esk, whose waters are formed, as I found 
 on reaching the u]3per part of the glen, by the con- 
 fluence of two streams, named respectively the ' Mark ' 
 and the ' Lee.' The latter emerges from a w41d glen 
 on the left, after flowing through the lonely Loch Lee, 
 on whose margin stood the house for which we were 
 bound. This sheet of water, a mile in length, might 
 not have struck one much elsewhere, but here it gave 
 softness to the mountains, and drew dignity from them. 
 A kind of bluish-grey colour seemed to float over it, 
 and proved how true to nature was the eye of the old 
 Celt, for Loch Luath is the ' blue-grey loch.' Before 
 it opened on our view, we passed the grey peel tower 
 of Invermark Castle ; and, close by, the tasteful 
 shooting - lodge of Lord Dalhousie, where Queen 
 A^ictoria has twice passed a night. At the upper end 
 of the lake, a white solitary dwelling could be 
 discerned under the ledge of the mountain: it was 
 Inchgrundle, Dr. Guthrie's Highland home — no house 
 beyond for many long miles of moor and hill. As we 
 went on, our road unwound itself to the right, cut out 
 of the mountain, whose toppling rocks rise high over- 
 head, while the water breaks on the beach many feet 
 below ; custom and care brought our conveyance at 
 length safely to the door. 
 
 1 Christ and the Inheritance nf the Saintx. p. 315.
 
 THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D 227 
 
 Any one who has been in the habit of liearing Dr. 
 Guthrie, or who has read his books, must know that 
 there were two voices above others in nature he liad 
 listened to and learned. Wordsworth calls them the 
 voices of liberty, — the one of the sea, the other of the 
 mountains. At Arbirlot he learned the first ; at 
 Lochlee the second. Standing before the door of that 
 Highland home next morning, I looked around. 
 Opposite, across the little loch, was a great mountain, 
 on the ridge of which the red deer could be often seen 
 feeding against the wind, as their custom is, and a 
 whole world of wild l^eauty was spread out in crag 
 and wood and waterfall. Looking up tlie glen, the 
 boldest feature is Craig Maskeldie, rising over the 
 valley to the height of 1200 feet, an almost sheer 
 precipice, the Erne Crag beyond, while, between them, 
 the river at one leap descends a lofty ledge of rock in 
 a snow-white cascade, filling both eye and ear. Half 
 way up the hill behind the house lies a tarn or moun- 
 tain loch, encircled by a rocky wall tliat shoots high 
 above it many hundred feet, a kind of Cyclops' eye 
 glaring up under terrific brows, a weird and fearsome 
 spot at nightfall. We visited these and other spots, 
 Dr. Guthrie accompanying us to the foot of the liill, 
 telling us what to look out for, and questioning us 
 minutely on our return. He knew every feature and 
 mood, and inquired after their looks with the fondness 
 of an old friend. The little objects about him had 
 been caught, set in the memory of his heart, and came
 
 2 28 REMINISCENCES OF 
 
 up when working in the town or writing from abroad. 
 A splintered rock, with an adder he had seen lurking 
 below it, became the emblem of man's ruined nature, 
 with the poison and the sting beneath. A single tree 
 that crowns the top of a rock amid the wreck of a 
 fallen mountain shows where grace can rear its 
 trophies. Tlie reeds by the loch- side bending to the 
 sudden breeze call up the stir of the heart under the 
 mysterious Spirit's breath. The wild ducks starting 
 from the rushy covert, and in a moment ^out of reach, 
 are the riches that fly away on wings. The walls of 
 a deserted shieling at the foot of Craig Maskeldie give 
 a glimpse of patriarchal life gone by, and take up the 
 lament for the exile. The little ruined church seen 
 at the lower end of the lake is a symbol of the deserted 
 shrine of the soul on which ' Ichabod ' may be written. 
 A fitting memorial of him, and one of the finest books 
 of illustration for that part of Scotland, would be a 
 collection of these word-pictures, pointing to higher 
 meanings, and assisted to the eye by truthful sketches. 
 One day we made an excursion by the lake to the 
 old church at its end, — for Inchgrundle, like Venice, 
 had always choice of a road, by land or water. On 
 the occasion of our excursion he took his rod with 
 him, being very anxious that I should catch one of 
 the ' char,' for which the lake is noted. My attempts 
 were unsuccessful, but he soon drew one out himself, 
 and entered on the history and edible qualities of the 
 fish. The monks had, as he believed, introduced it as
 
 THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 229 
 
 a delicacy for the sake of the fast-days, little thinking, 
 added he, that they were providing food and recreation 
 for a Presbyterian minister ! 
 
 We landed at the old church, so close to the lake's 
 margin that the dash of the waves must have sounded 
 in chorus to the singing of the Psalms, and explored 
 under his guidance the small roofless ruin, whose site 
 carries us back to the times of the Culdees. For 
 there, according to tradition, stood the Church of St. 
 Drostan, the nephew of Columba (a common name 
 also in the royal Pictish line), and the same name is 
 still preserved in the farm of ' Droustie ' in the 
 neighbourhood. Close by the ruined church is the 
 deserted schoolhouse (the church and school having 
 been transferred farther down the glen). This humble 
 dwelling was the home, a hundred years ago, of 
 Alexander Eoss, the Allan Eamsay of the North, who 
 wrote The Rock and the Wee PicUe Tovj, and was 
 the author of Hclenore, or The Fortunate Shepherdess. 
 The latter work is very much an unknown one now, 
 even to Scotsmen ; it is a pity, for it contains 
 descriptions of scenery and life which betray the eye 
 and heart of a true poet, and traces of customs and 
 traditions not to be found elsewhere. His house must 
 have been the smallest in which even a poet ever 
 lived, the largest of the two little rooms being only 
 ten feet square ; and yet, looking up and down tlie 
 valley, nowhere else could one imagine a better 
 application of the ' parva domus, magna quics.'
 
 230 REMINISCENCES OF 
 
 On the day of our visit, however, there was a stir 
 about it, such as must have given Alexander Eoss 
 some of his pastoral pictures. The work of sheep- 
 shearing was going on busily behind the old church- 
 yard. On these occasions the shepherds from all the 
 country round are accustomed to help one another, so 
 that we had representatives from far and near. I 
 was struck by the way in which Dr. Guthrie passed 
 from the memories of the deserted church to the 
 humanities of the present ; yet it was the same element 
 in both which interested him. He had not much 
 fancy for mere stone and lime antiquarianism ; but . 
 he touched ground when he came to the human. He 
 was on terms of thorough acquaintanceship with his 
 neighbours. He seemed to know every face we saw 
 and the names of all the absent, and the shaking of 
 hands reminded me of the welcome given by the 
 people to tlie minister at a Scottish ordination. There 
 was on his part an absence of anything like the 
 patronizing air, and on theirs, a mixture of manly 
 independence and respect. One was introduced to 
 me as ' the mathematician,' and another as ' the poet.' 
 He had discovered their tastes and qualities, and set 
 himself to draw them out with a playful humour that 
 never hurt their honest feeling, and that left a bright- 
 ness on their faces at parting. 
 
 He was engaged at the time of my visit with his 
 Autobiography, though the information about it was 
 given me in confidence, as he knew not how it might
 
 THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 
 
 231 
 
 turn out. Every one will now regret that he did not 
 begin it sooner, — and those most, who have heard 
 his narrative of the men and times tliat have gone to 
 carry forward the Presbyterianism of Scotland to a 
 new period, which will take rank with its famous 
 epochs. In our conversations, the affairs of tlio 
 Church often came upon board; and the heroic peri(jd 
 of the Free Church, its Wallace and Bruce epoch, 
 was dealt with in fond and bright recollection, 
 contrasted with the disunions and recriminations 
 which at that time were vexing the Union Ques- 
 tion. But he spoke kindly of those from wliom 
 he differed widely, and hopefully, too, of a solution 
 sooner than many expected. ' I cannot help liking 
 him, for all that is come and gone,' he said of one 
 of the leading anti-unionists : ' he is a fine fellow at 
 bottom.' 
 
 His leisure times through the day were spent in 
 curious studies of plants and animals, with quaint 
 Christian emblems drawn from them, and regrets that 
 the conventionalities of the pulpit would not always 
 permit of their use there. As the evening deepened, 
 so did his discourse ; and one could see by what a 
 profound well of religious feeling his life had been 
 freshened in his work for his fellow-men. In tlie 
 household prayer his heart was open, and the fulness 
 of his affection for the members of his family, scattered 
 now over the world, for the brotherhood of faith, and 
 for all men, was poured out in his own strong and
 
 232 REMINISCENCES OF 
 
 fervid words. ^ It is not of this, however, that I have 
 to speak so much as of the familiar traits about him 
 that one can refer to with less delicacy, but that are 
 very helpful in individualizing him. I observed that 
 in his prayers on these occasions he had a certain 
 rhythm in his voice, and that the foot often kept an 
 audible accompaniment, evidently without his being 
 conscious of it. I think it is characteristic of his 
 speeches and sermons also when in a certain mood. 
 I believe he never wrote a line of poetry in his life, 
 and yet the bees of Hybla seem to have been humming 
 in the air without finding where to settle down. I 
 do not know that we have any reason to regret it, for 
 the poet-orator does his work no less than the poet 
 proper. When we had psalms or hymns sung through 
 the day we had the accompaniment of a liarmonium, 
 but the instrument was silenced at family praise. I 
 asked the reason, and found that it was an offering to 
 
 ' 'At family worship,' writes Mrs. Mayo ('Edward Garrett,' one 
 of his collaborateurs in the Sunday Magazine), ' the household was 
 joined, not only by the permanent occupants of the lonely farm, and 
 by any gillie who might be in the vicinity, but also by the tramps 
 who might be earning a few days' shelter by a little field work. For 
 these waifs the Doctor had ev^er a kindly word and inquiry, and a 
 special clause in the prayer. It was touching to see the dull faces 
 brighten, and the shuffling forms draw up, as, on their second appear- 
 ance, they found that their names and any special circumstance about 
 them was duly remembered. ... I love to think of the Lochlee 
 evening " worship " — the chapter, the prayer, the psalm — with just 
 his dearest about him, and those few weather-beaten shepherd folk, 
 shut in by the awful mountain silence, oidy broken once and again bj'' 
 the bay of a hound or the shrill pathos of some Avandering gillie's 
 bagpipe.*
 
 THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 233 
 
 charity. The housemaid, an attached member of the 
 family, belonged to that staunch and worthy section 
 of the Christian Church, the Original Secession, and 
 she had a strong dislike to instrumental music in the 
 service of God. He could not bear that her edifica- 
 tion should be marred, and, though his face was turned 
 forward in these things, he had a kindly feeling for 
 that sturdy Scottish period when the old woman, as 
 he said, declared that ' she would have naething sung 
 but Dawvid's Psalms, ay, and Dawvid's tunes to them ! ' 
 For obvious reasons, the references in his memoir 
 to his family relationships must be slight; therefore 
 a visitor may touch this subject as relatives cannot. 
 He was blessed of God as few are by the absence of 
 severe trial, and by the rich gifts of household affec- 
 tion. He lost only one child (I believe, in early 
 infancy), and all the others, six sons and four 
 daughters, grew up to man's and woman's estate, 
 without ever causing his heart a pang, or his eye a 
 tear. Though some were separated far from the home 
 hearth, a place was always kept for them there, as 
 fresh as when they left it ; their letters came to it as 
 a centre to be sent round the circle, and their father's 
 letters — when from home — were often printed to be 
 made common family property. -^ Next to the love 
 
 1 Some of these were bound up in a volume with this inscription : — 
 ' To my two sons, Thomas Guthrie, near Buenos Ayres, and Alexander 
 Guthrie, in San Francisco, these letters are dedicated with the prayers 
 and very affectionate regards of their father, Thomas Guthrie. ' ' The. 
 Angel tvhich redeemed me from all evil blens the huls ■' " '
 
 234 REMINISCENCES OF 
 
 of God, his spirit was sustained in his last days by 
 the love of his children. While the united firmness 
 and affection with which he dealt with them had 
 much to do with this, it was not the whole. Only 
 those who looked more nearly knew how much both 
 they and he were indebted to the wife who still 
 survives him, and how slie did her part in her sphere 
 no less fitly than he in his. Kelated by ancestry 
 and kinship to ministers on all sides, she had the 
 experience and sympathies of her place. In one 
 thing she balanced and supplemented his nature — with 
 clear judgment, deep feeling, and a native sense of 
 becomingness on all occasions, she had a quiet, even 
 temperament that calmed his impulsiveness, and gave 
 him that soothing which to an imaginative nature 
 is strength. He might have flown as high without 
 her, but he could not have kept so long on the wing. 
 Latterly — as birds flutter homeward at nightfall — 
 this became more manifest, and though he could 
 traverse the world in his vigour alone, in his later 
 years he could only journey and be well in her 
 company. 
 
 Dr. Guthrie used to spend his Sabbath intervals 
 readiuGj and sittin!J before the door with the loch 
 and hill in front, not making passages for sermons, 
 but drinking in the spirit of things about him, and 
 reviving his own nature. He never himself gave a 
 hint of any of the illustrations he had made use of, 
 and when he spoke of the scenery it was with the
 
 THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 235 
 
 feeling and words of the moment, not as seen through 
 the eyes of his own parables. He had — more than 
 most men — the power of laying down his burden of 
 prophecy, and enjoying wliat was before him ; and 
 this made him no doubt all the stronger when he 
 took it up again. It is the old story of the giant, 
 who got power from his mother earth, or the deeper 
 Christian truth of the child's heart within the man 
 that makes him more manly in God's kingdom. In 
 the forenoon of the day, we worshipped with the Kev. 
 A. M'llwraith and his congregation in the little Free 
 Church at Tarfside : and, in tlic evening, he insisted 
 on my taking the sermon, instead of himself, in the 
 hall of Lord Dalhousie's Lodge. Our service that 
 night was a kind of Alliance meeting. The Eev. 
 Walter Low, an Established Church minister, led us 
 in our singing, the Eev. W. Welsh, a Free Church- 
 man, in our prayers, and the sermon was by a United 
 Presbyterian. As we stole homeward in the gloaming, 
 under the shadows of the hills, iJr. Cuthrie spoke of 
 it in his sanguine way as an earnest of peace after 
 wars still waging, and of the hope we might liave of 
 progress, when we had met so cjuietly in Christian 
 worship, close beside the keep of the Tiger Earl, who 
 was, centuries ago, the terror of the north. 
 
 The more I saw of Dr. Gutlirie, my feeling deepened 
 that he was the same man in private as he appeared 
 in public, and that his work was the outcome of his 
 life. He had the same two poles to his nature —
 
 236 REMINISCENCES OF 
 
 indignation and pity ; indignation that rose against 
 the enemies of justice and freedom, and pity, not only 
 for all human kind, but for the broken reflections of 
 it in dumb suffering life as well. And playing 
 between these poles was a lambent humour that 
 helped to make pity more soft and wrath more keen. 
 Besides the one Book, there were two he was always 
 reading — nature, and human nature ; not with other 
 men's glasses, neither telescope nor microscope, but 
 with his own natural eyesight, opened by a genuine, 
 loving interest. Of the two, I should say he preferred 
 human nature. He loved not nature less, but man 
 the more. His way of looking at a landscape was 
 the opposite of Claude Lorraine's, with whom scenery 
 is everything, and men in the foreground only lay 
 figures. And yet his love of nature was very deep 
 and genuine, as any man could see. He carried it in 
 his heart to the city, and hung up its pictures in his 
 mind's eye to keep himself and his hearers natural 
 and fresh amid the din and dust. His study of God's 
 Word was of a similar kind, — through his own vision 
 and heart. He carried the man and the Christian to 
 it, more than the historical or doctrinal critic. Deep 
 down in his nature were fixed what are called in 
 Scotland ' the doctrines of grace ; ' and with these, as 
 a part of himself, he handled the Word of God. I 
 recollect hearing him relate a critique on his Gospel in 
 Ezehiel in some Unitarian journal. ' Dr. Guthrie,' 
 the writer said, ' seems to believe that Ezekiel signed
 
 THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 237 
 
 the Westminster Confession of Taith.' ' A very fair 
 ]iit that ! ' he remarked, laughing. It was fair, and 
 yet not quite fair ; for I do not believe that, in liis 
 exposition at any time, the Confession of Faith was a 
 measuring rule in his mind ; but he had within him 
 a conviction of a renewed humanity which he carried 
 to the Bible, as he carried a natural humanity to the 
 hills and woods, and he heard them speak accordingly. 
 He was by no means ignorant of the critical historical 
 school, but theirs was not the method which suited 
 him. His mind moved, not in the logical, but the 
 analogical plane, and swept forward, not in tlie rigid 
 iron line of the railway excavation, liut with the 
 curves of a river tliat follows the solicitation of the 
 ground. And so, too, his sermons were constructed. 
 They had not exhaustive divisions enclosing subjects, 
 as hedges do fields, but outlines, such as clouds have, 
 that grow up by electricity and air ; or such as the 
 breadths of fern and heather and woodland had on 
 the hillside opposite his door, where colour melted 
 into colour, with here a tall crag pointing skyward, 
 and there an indignant torrent leaping headlong to 
 come glittering out again among flowers and sun- 
 shine. Some tell us that analogy is a dangerous 
 guide, and that metaphors prove nothing ; but where 
 they rest on the unity between God's world and 
 man's nature they are arguments as well as illustra- 
 tions. 
 
 Every man of warm, sensitive feeling grows into
 
 23S THE REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D. 
 
 his surroundings as nature puts a tree — say a silver- 
 barked birch or a red-stemmed mountain-fir — just on 
 the bank or point of rock where the painter's pencil 
 loves to find it. The kernel is sown there by some 
 curious law of adaptation, and it draws congenial 
 nourishment from soil and sky to become a sort of 
 index finger to the landscape, or an eye through 
 which its expression looks out upon us. When the 
 visitor to that sequestered spot stands by the ruined 
 church of St. Drostan, and one of the kindly natives 
 of the Glen points to the simple house that looks 
 down on the soft blue-grey loch, and up to the sweep 
 of the great dark hills, he will feel there is a fitness 
 in the bond which the place must always have with 
 the clear - eyed, warm - hearted, large - souled Thomas 
 Guthrie.
 
 THE REV. W. B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 
 
 LucERXE, July 3, 1SS6. 
 
 My dear Dr. Calderwood, — You have requested me 
 to give some words for the Magazine, in mcmoriam of 
 Dr. William B. Robertson, and, though feeling unfit in 
 many ways, it is not in my power to refuse. The 
 notice of his death must have been received by many 
 in the United Presbyterian Church, and far beyond it, 
 not merely with regret, but with the sense of a deep 
 personal bereavement. In speaking of him, my object 
 is not to sketch his life, or estimate his powers and 
 character. This will be done, I hope, by some one at 
 full length, and with such memorials of him as will 
 extend to a wider circle the admiration and affection 
 he excited in life among those who came into contact 
 with him. ]\Iy wish is simply to relieve my own 
 heart by expressing imperfectly what is shared by 
 many besides, but which has fallen on me perhaps 
 more painfully, because the news reached me un- 
 expectedly and at a distance. Let this be an excuse 
 for whatever is broken and incomplete in anything I 
 have to say. The first feeling among those who knew
 
 240 THE REV. IV. B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 
 
 him will be, most of all, the sorrow that we are to see 
 his face no more. There was a wonderful fascination 
 about him in private fellowship which made even a 
 casual evening with him a thing to be remembered and 
 cherished. And when the circle was one of friends, of 
 old friends, there was an opening of the heart with a 
 joyful and generous warmth, which told how fresh and 
 strong the love of his youth was still in him. To the 
 last he never began to grow old. His mind had the 
 rich, rare sparkle which made common things un- 
 common, and set the old in new and varied lights — a 
 sparkle that had much more than wit and fancy in it, 
 though these were present in profusion, but that had 
 the higher vein of imagination which sees into inner 
 likenesses and far-off' but true analogies. With the 
 natural recoil wliich belongs to such minds, and which 
 was very marked in him, there would come the transi- 
 tion from the clear, dry intelligence to the moist, 
 many-coloured play of humour, which reminded one, 
 in its quick touclies and turns, of the skimming flight 
 and sudden dip of the swallow from air to water. His 
 pictures of incidents, not so much read as witnessed by 
 him ; his quaint anecdotes, not of the kind that come 
 down like heirlooms, but the product of his own 
 experiences ; the unflagging flow of spirit with which 
 he passed from theme to theme ; and all with that 
 expressive eye and those finely sympathetic features, 
 with that clear, rich voice which varied with the sub- 
 ject from the low whisper to the deep, full bass, made
 
 THE REV. W. B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 241 
 
 his friends apply to him the title the Germans fondly 
 gave to Jean Paul Eichter, — dcr Einzige, — ' the man 
 apart and by himself.' With Jean Paul, indeed, he 
 had many things in common, not merely in sympathy 
 but in vision ; and when we have heard him rehearsing 
 the wonderful dream of the seer, Dass kein Gott set, ' a 
 universe without a God,' with touches here and there 
 which cast light into its depths, we felt that the same 
 ethereal substance entered into the mould of both. In 
 this, too, we should say there was resemblance ; the 
 humour was at the farthest remove from bitterness, 
 and the sportiveness was not only free from irreverence, 
 but led by an easy change of mood to what was best 
 and highest — the dip of the wing, as at Bethesda, had 
 healing and life. 
 
 We have the feeling that in what we say we may 
 be charged with exaggeration and the partiality of 
 friendship ; and this is an additional regret wdiich will 
 be shared by all his friends, that, believing our estimate 
 of him to be just, we can point the outside world to so 
 little in proof of it. Dr. Eobertson has left almost 
 nothing behind by which those of the present genera- 
 tion, who have not known or heard him, can hold him 
 in remembrance. Some exquisite little lyrics, which 
 have appeared in periodicals, or passed from hand to 
 hand among his friends, and have been by them caught 
 and treasured, give some glimpses of his gifts. But 
 they are only glimpses ; they are too few, and want the 
 soar and sweep, the ease and affluence, the march ;uul 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE REV. W. B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 
 
 energy, which belonged to the prose poems of the 
 preacher and lecturer, and which made him stand out 
 confessedly a man of genius. Here he broke away 
 from the fetters of rhyme, though not of rhythm, and 
 rose and moved, or rested in mid-air, and let his 
 thoughts fall as free as the notes of any lark, and 
 seemingly as unpremeditated. Again and again he 
 was pressed by his friends to put some of these 
 utterances into permanent shape, l>ut in vain. He 
 escaped the pressure by some alert turn that put him 
 out of reach ; or, when seriously urged, he promised 
 consideration in a future time that never came. His 
 numerous engagements when he was in full vigour, and 
 the precarious fluctuation of health when he came to 
 have leisure, may have been some of the reasons. But 
 besides this, there was his mental j)eculiarity. High 
 as his powers were, and as he could not help feeling 
 them to be, he had a corresponding ideal, and he 
 may have feared to come short of it. He knew the 
 difference between winged words that passed from the 
 heart to the heart with the warmth and colour of 
 sympathetic feeling and the impression of the cold 
 leaden types which so often change ' the glory into 
 grey.' What he brought forth was the result of 
 earnest thought and intense feeling in private ; but he 
 was one of those who, in the presence of his fellow- 
 men, is drawn out of, and above, his quiet meditative 
 self. His nature was strongly social and human, and 
 thoughts came forth in speech which could not be
 
 THE REV. Ji: B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 243 
 
 found in any of his note-books. He was an im- 
 jprovisatorc as well as a student, and the difficulty he 
 would feel would be to recall and reproduce these 
 breathing thoughts as they were spoken. He had a 
 great craving for sympathy, but little care for fame, 
 and was satisfied with the approval and love of his 
 friends. Hence the failure in resolve to face the 
 labour of shaping what must come before the reading 
 world. In this respect he resembled another man of 
 genius, — Amiel of Geneva, — whose Journal of an 
 Inner Life, found after his death, has consoled his 
 friends for what he disappointed them of while he was 
 with them. We may have no such posthumous gift 
 from Dr. Eobertson, but we are persuaded there must 
 be enough of his thoughts still surviving, with the 
 wing of imagination bearing them up, and the glow of 
 feeling beneath, to give the world something which it 
 ' would not willingly let die.' 
 
 The regret for the hidden treasure which seems 
 meanwhile to be buried with him, or (shall we say ?) too 
 entirely carried away to that world where nothing good 
 is lost, leads us to think of his past — of the promise he 
 gave in early morning, and the many experiences that 
 made him what his friends knew him to be in his ripe 
 afternoon. It is now full forty years since we first 
 knew him in the Divinity Hall. We recollect him 
 as if it were yesterday, the graceful figure and 'fine 
 features, through which poetic light shone transparent, 
 the buoyant step, as if concealed wings were ready to
 
 2 44 THE REV. W. B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 
 
 lift him from the ground, and the youthfuhiess of look 
 and motion that accompanied him far through life, 
 while the Apollo-like locks shook, not in any affecta- 
 tion, but in the exuberance of spirit. There were 
 fellow-students who have done honourable work since 
 in the Church, with varied gifts, but he had a place all 
 his own, an ethereality of imagination and originality 
 of thought, which made his discourse waited for as an 
 event. There is a generous freedom from envy in 
 these matters among students, an intellectual socialism 
 which makes all things common. I remember yet two 
 of the texts on which he preached, that rise before me 
 as if illuminated : ' Pray without ceasing,' in which he 
 compared the spirit of prayer in its ebb and flow to 
 the breathing in the living frame as it rises and falls, 
 the beat of the heart-blood as it comes and goes, wax- 
 ing and waning, but when it stops the man is dead. 
 Another was a characteristic discourse, as it was called, 
 prescribed by Dr. Mitchell on the text, ' This is that 
 King Ahaz.' He drew the picture of a man moving in 
 the dusk along a burial path till a grave stops his foot- 
 steps. He stoops to examine it, and gropes out the 
 epitaph. It is the tomb and character of the wicked 
 king of Judah ; and then he proceeded to sketch his 
 deeds and his doom, till there crept over us a feeling 
 of eerie avjcsomeness. 
 
 Visits to Germany were not so common then as they 
 have since become among theological students. He 
 was one of the first, if not indeed the very first, in our
 
 THE REV. W. B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 245 
 
 Church at least, who took that course, and ^Yhile he 
 passed through what is considered a dangerous ordeal 
 unscathed, or rather confirmed, in his faith, he brought 
 back a knowledge of the language and literature, added 
 to the theology and philosophy, which he kept uj) to 
 the last. On his return he was settled in Irvine, and, 
 though repeatedly called from it, he refused to break 
 the tie. It was a congenial home, among an intelligent 
 and devoted people, and with an indulgence, on which 
 he did not trespass too much, to exercise freedom in 
 preaching -visits to different parts of the Church. 
 During these years, his name, in the great cities or the 
 village meeting-houses, was a gathering word which 
 brought crowded audiences together, and kept them 
 suspended on his lips, unmindful how the hours went 
 by. He was not in general a brief preacher, for he 
 foraot himself in his theme, and his audience was 
 subject to the same oblivion, till the clock made its 
 round, and half-way into the next circle. It would 
 be difficult to give an idea of his enchaining power to 
 those who have not heard him. In a single discourse 
 the most varied faculties were appealed to — the under- 
 standing, the fancy, the imagination, the heart, and 
 the spirit, with sudden and quick appeals to the 
 conscience, as the discourse moved on. The prevailing 
 quality in his sermons was the imagination, clear, 
 beautiful, elevated, with the poet's vision and faculty ; 
 but it was an imagination that streamed down in rays 
 of reason, and thrilled and warmed the heart as it
 
 246 THE REV. W. B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 
 
 moved above it. The matter was vivified by a 
 remarkable dramatic gift which enabled him, as he saw 
 the things himself, to make others see and feel them. 
 He was not bound always to order, — that is, to mere 
 logical order, — though in tliis lie varied. We have 
 heard some sermons with the exact symmetry of a 
 Grrecian temple, others like the Gothic, where pillar 
 and statue and window and climbing arch rose, not 
 in confusion, but with a law of freedom, and side-aisles 
 and long retreats brought back the step always to the 
 central nave. Many of these sermons I can recollect, 
 either from having heard them in public, or from 
 havin!^ their lineaments rehearsed in the free inter- 
 change of thoughts about texts, which is one of the 
 most delightful parts of ministerial friendship. The 
 texts of some of them show the character of the 
 preacher. One I remember, on ' The rainbow round 
 about the throne like unto an emerald,' where the 
 glory of Christ was described shining out in its different 
 manifestations with the prevailing hue of redemption. 
 Another was on ' They saw God and did eat and drink,' 
 in which the plan was : Some eat and drink, — indulge 
 in the joy of life, — but they do not see God; others 
 see God, but they do not eat and drink, — life is to 
 them joyless ; but the Christian should see God, and 
 eat and drink. One, that rose to a beatific vision 
 which the hearers could never forget, was on ' To me 
 to live is Christ, and to die is gain.' 
 
 After years of work at Irvine, his health broke down
 
 THE REV. IV. B. ROBERTSON., D.D. 247 
 
 from a severe attack of inflammation, and he had a 
 struggle for life, through whicli, under God, he was 
 carried by the skill of the surgeon, the watchful care 
 of sisters, and his own high courage. But it left 
 permanent effects on his physical powers, though the 
 mental not only remained unabated, but seemed to 
 grow, — to grow in the best sense in depth and mellow- 
 ness and experience. "When so far recovered, he was 
 recommended to take up residence for a time in Italy, 
 and for about two years his headquarters were in 
 Florence. There were Christian friends there with 
 whom he formed close associations, and he interested 
 himself in the evangelical work which has a centre 
 in that city. One side of his character, which had 
 been prominent all through, found here full scope. 
 He made himself familiar with the Italian language 
 and literature, and there was not a spot in the city of 
 Giotto and Ghiberti, of jMichael Angelo and Dante, 
 that was not known to him like a household memorial. 
 A walk tlirough its haunts with him — I speak from 
 having enjoyed it — opened up the sepulchres of the 
 dead, and made the great artists walk forth to interpret 
 their own works. There were two men that specially 
 attracted him, Savonarola and Fra Angelico, the 
 religious reformer and the religious painter ; and to 
 find him wandering in the cloisters of San JMarco, and 
 have him as the exponent of the history and treasures 
 connected witli these two names, was a hope that was 
 handed from visitor to visitor. He had the idea that
 
 248 THE REV. W. B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 
 
 the final conversion of Italy to the Gospel of Christ 
 must take note of these two men, and, avoiding their 
 errors and supplementing their defects, must lead along 
 the lines to which they pointed. He made a minute 
 study of the history of Savonarola, consulting hitherto 
 unedited documents with the hope of writing his life, 
 and Fra Angelico suggested to him a treatise on the 
 relations of art to religion, of which, we fear, there are 
 only some initial lectures. He returned from Italy 
 improved in health, but still unable to undertake the 
 constant work of the ministry. He preached, hovrever, 
 at intervals with all his accustomed power and attrac- 
 tiveness. He became more widely known, especially in 
 England; and at Cambridge, where a station was 
 opened that Presbyterian students might enjoy their 
 own Church services, and where he preached repeatedly 
 for considerable periods, the gatherings of graduates 
 and professors showed that there is a way of presenting 
 the Gospel which makes it felt alike by the descendants 
 of the old Scottish Seceders and by English University 
 literates. During this time his chief residence was in 
 an old mansion some miles from Edinburgh, which he 
 had fitted up in his own peculiar taste, and to which 
 he had transferred his books bearing on his favourite 
 studies, some of them curious and rare, and his si-)olia 
 opina of art gathered in his wanderings. Hither, 
 with his old social tastes, he invited, or rather carried, 
 his friends, and made of it for days, and too much 
 also for nifrhts, a Tusculum for varied argument and
 
 THE REV. W. B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 249 
 
 discourse on ' the true, the beautiful, and the good.' 
 His heart was always young within him, and his choice 
 delight was to surround himself with a company of 
 the young, to seek to form their taste in art and music 
 and literature, and to solve the difficulties that press 
 on the present generation in the field of religious truth. 
 The bright memory of him, with its shadow of regret, 
 that will last tlirough long coming years, would be a 
 fitting monument if he had left no other. The last 
 winter, which tried so many, was sore on him, though 
 he bore up bravely. In the spring he sought the 
 milder air of Bridge of Allan, and there, after alter- 
 nations of hope and fear on the part of his friends, on 
 a Sabbath afternoon shortly after Midsummer day, he 
 fell asleep. He lies among his kindred, at St. Ninian's, 
 near to his birthplace and to the church where he sat 
 as a boy, to the communion of which his heart clung 
 closely from principle and affection all through life. 
 
 I can only, before closing these scattered recollec- 
 tions, express again the wish that there may be some 
 possibility of the world getting to know at least a portion 
 of what his friends knew to be in him. And yet the 
 greatest thing a man sometimes leaves is not a book, 
 but a personality. The greatest book in the world is 
 so great because of the Personality that is in it, and 
 thus, in their degree, with all others. If we had to 
 choose between a mere book without a living personality 
 in it and a living personality without a book, we 
 should prefer the last. It may disappear for a time
 
 2 50 THE REV. IV. B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 
 
 in other lives, but it has done its work, and it will live 
 and come to light in its results, on a day when the 
 sun shall no more go down. In his gifts, and the 
 use he made of them, he did much to commend the 
 Gospel of Christ. In his residence at Florence he was 
 doing more specially what he did from his earliest 
 years, — showing how an enthusiasm for literature and 
 music and art can be conjoined with a love for the 
 cross of Clirist in its purity and simplicity, — a love 
 which he was careful never to conceal. Who can tell 
 the effect of this on many susceptible minds, specially 
 among the young, in such a time as ours ? As a 
 preacher, he not only influenced hearers of every class 
 in a manner peculiarly his own, but became a creative 
 and formative jjower among the youthful ministry 
 through the ideal he gave of the beauty and majesty 
 of the Gospel of Christ. Hearts were fired to begin 
 the proclamation of the message, and to rise to loftier 
 conceptions of its dignity and far-reaching import ; and 
 yet they were never suffered to forget the apostolic 
 glory, that it is ' the power of God to the salvation of 
 every one that believeth.' The angel's flight and the 
 winged words never soared above, or were severed 
 from, the everlasting Gospel. We may thank God for 
 the help which many young ministers received in an 
 age when the central truth is ready to be clouded, if 
 not obliterated, by the rolling in of vapours from the 
 circumferences of art and literature, through one who 
 was an acknowledged master in these departments, but
 
 THE REV. W. B. ROBERTSON, D.D. 251 
 
 who held fast to the simplicity of the Gospel, and who 
 employed it to cast new beauty on all surrounding 
 things, without which, indeed, they are dim, empty 
 shadows. In the midst of his widest flights of 
 imagination and thought, he had close to his heart the 
 simple, grand old faith in which his fathers had lived 
 and died. I feel as if I liad said very little of that 
 with which my own heart is filled, but this last includes 
 more than all that is omitted — rest, revival, restoration, 
 better than we knew him at his brightest. There w\as 
 a fulness of life, a quickening powder about him, shining 
 out in his very loolc, which makes one feel, as Charles 
 Lamb says of a friend, the difficulty of thinking of 
 ' the wormy bed and him together,' a feeling which 
 will not let the heart speak a final farewell. 
 
 ' Gone before 
 To that unknown and silent shore, 
 Shall we not meet as heretofore 
 
 Some summer morning, 
 When from thy cheerful eyes a ray 
 liath struck a bliss upon the day, 
 A bliss that would not go away, 
 
 A sweet forewarning ? ' 
 
 But we have something better, through Him who is 
 the Eesurrection and the Life, who can raise presenti- 
 ments into assurance, and the highest visions of the 
 imagination into the realities that heart cannot con- 
 ceive. He has said, ' Thou shalt see greater things 
 than these,' and ' Because I live, ye shall live also.' — 
 Yours most truly, Joiix Ker.
 
 Mor.RISOX AND GIBB, 
 PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.
 
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